@thegesualdosix: Answer below 👇 It’s not always a straightforward question, especially in Renaissance music. We often talk about major and minor as though they’re emotional opposites, but really they’re just different ways of organising pitch, shaped by the placement of their thirds. In harmony, the fifth is crucial for stabilising the sound. The position of the third within this fifth dictates whether it is major or minor. A higher third is major and a lower one is minor. In C major, for instance, we have our fifth (C and G). If we introduce an E-natural, that would make it a major chord. Change it to an E-flat, a half-step lower, and it becomes minor. In this opening from Frye’s “Ave Regina’, we start with an open fifth, so it is neither major nor minor. Only once the voices begin to move does the tonality start to reveal itself as major. In the final chord Alasdair sings the major third, making it major 😊