Minor versus major...
Not preaching to the choir here because maybe all of you know this way better than me. A neat thought about major and minor for those who haven't considered this, and my apologies for getting the thread off course... but since you done brought it up...
Most of us Yankees were imprinted since birth on the 12 tone scale. That's what is acceptable to our nervous system. Some other cultures are imprinted on a 24 tone scale between the octave and can hear or tolerate finer division of sounds that are sweet. Us westerners see them as out of tune noise.
Some other cultures imprinted on a 5 or 6 tone octave division in times more past. The adult would listen to a minor scale and ask what the hell you are doing. Can't even tune your instrument.
Musical perception of the scales seems to be a mix of our genetic capacity and what we were subjected to before we lost original fluidity. Carved in stone for the most part somewhere early in the life experience.
Beat frequency plays a big part in our genetic limitation. Means that if two or more notes are combined the interference creates a "beat frequency". Like a flanging notch or something like that.
If on an almost subliminal level, if we can detect the beat frequency interference, then the sound is more dark and atonal. Something not right. Brain is focusing on the fundamental notes but also registering the more buried beat frequency, telling us how comfortable we should be with the combination.
Play a fifth interval, a fourth interval and all is good. Get down to a minor third and thing start to send up flags. Closer the interval, slower the beat frequency and we get more guarded. Play a second or half tone together and it has crossed our genetic cultural limit to accept. We hear dissonance. Not because of the fundamentals, but the beat frequency.
Cool thing about this is that if you play a chord with 5th spacing, but don't include the third or minor third, the mind of the observer will fill in as per his/her state of mind. If happy and upbeat, the individual will by socialization add a major third to the tonic and hear happy sounds. Someone bummed out or in a bad mood may listen to the same 1-5 wav and mentally insert a minor third from the tonic and hear a sad minor. If you could put the brains of the happy and sad guy together, there would be ugly clash.
Used to rely on this with a guitar. Example an E chord without major or minor sex.
Low E open.
A string second fret
D string second fret
G string fourth fret
B and E open.
Pure androgeny open to the mind to interpret. Keyboard bangers can do chords with just firsts and fifths and get the same mirage.
Hey Skald, sorry to take this excellent topic off course.
John