Why are minor chords scary?

Ethan, a chord is three or more different notes played simultaneously, and depending on the relationships between the notes involved, the chord is called "major" or "minor" (or a plethora of other more technical terms).

-- A minor chord in root position does indeed contain more overtone "clashes" than a major chord in root position. Indeed, the minor third doesn't show up in the overtone series of a particular note until you get way, way, WAY up there -- whereas the three notes of a major chord tend to reinforce each other's partials. (The overtone series, starting on C, is C - c - g - c' - e' - g' - b-flat' - c'' - d'' - e'' - f#''- etc.)

-- It takes slightly more effort to sing the first three notes of a major scale than a minor scale, and the major third is a larger interval, so you're arguably likely to accent the third a bit more when going C-E than when going C-Eb. Larger intervals are sometimes associated with more happy/propulsive"straightforward" music (think of the opening themes to Star Trek, Star Wars, and so forth, all of which use large intervals), whereas smaller intervals sometimes tend to reflect more expressive intent in music (Mozart's 40th Symphony, "How Insensitive") or, sometimes, a sense of menace or foreboding ("Jaws" theme). Obvious counterexample for the former: the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde.

-- Minor scales are often asymmetrical in practice: for instance, in A minor, the seventh note (G) is often sharped so that the dominant triad is major (E - G# - B), and to accentuate the leading tone relationship between the seventh and the tonic. (For those of you who can read notes, try imagining the opening line of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor with a C natural instead of a C sharp: A-G-A, G-F-E-D-C-D. It completely changes the character of the line, and robs it of a good deal of its tension.) This asymmetry is a source of chromaticism and harmonic tension, i.e. dissonance, which is in turn associated with the things you named.

As for whether that last association is learned or inherent, I can't say; you'd have to ask a psychoacoustician or somesuch. My guess is that it's some of each.

The easiest way of turning it into a minor chord is by moving the second note down one half tone.

Easiest way to visualize it is by looking at a piano keyboard. The black keys are the half tones in the scale of C. The places where two white keys are next to each other without a black key inbetween are also half tones.

Since I get the feeling you're putting us on, that's as far as I'm going to bother to go with this.

As for scary, microtonality can be very scary to a brain wired by experience to hear only Western tonality as proper. When I heard Wendy Carlos' Beauty in the Beast album for the first time, I thought my synapses were melting.

damm I made the coffee strong this morning.

i heard a minor chord n i screamed

For example in ragas that represent the night aren't the scales closer to minor scales than major

A raga is not a mere scale, nor us it a mode. Ragas are precise melody forms.

Your favorite misread ilx thread titles, except this time you read that right.

equal temperament is the sin of melodic music. just intonation is just so much freer, if we're talking melodies. Of course in Arabic, Turkish and Indian music there is not really such a thing as harmonic counterpoint, but that means melodic phrasings can be much more expressive. hardcore soul music, both joyous and melancholy simultaneously.

A raga is not a mere scale, nor us it a mode. Ragas are precise melody forms.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 30 June 2021 23:30 (yesterday)

Correct. Makam are also melody forms.