Here’s something spooky. I gave you this passage from John Carpenter, the Halloween theme, and I asked you to identify the quality. The overwhelming majority of you identified this as minor. And there’s good reason for that — it feels minor. But there is no third in this structure. And while you could just as easily argue that a minor third is implied, I could easily replace it with a major third.
This would be a melodic major scale if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s a major tetrachord on the bottom and an upper minor tetrachord on the top. Or maybe the harmonic major. Either way, I don’t think the minor 6 makes this any more minor than a minor 7th would.
Does it feel minor? Well of course it does — to the tune of 70%. But music theory isn’t about a right or wrong answer. It’s a question, a discussion. Don’t treat music theory like a noun. Think of it as a verb — it’s a thing you do, kind of like trick or treat.
