Originally posted by chris mood
145 minor sounds modal to me because there is nothing within the progression that gravitates towards the tonic.

I think it can go either way. No other scale has the pull towards a tonic like the major scale, not even the minor scale. All other scales are sort of ambiguous when it comes to relating to the tonic, the major scale has the most natural sound when relating to the tonic and when it goes there it sounds perfect. When you ask a question if this progression is minor sounding or modal? I think it all depends on the melody that is played over these chords. If the melody is focused around the root's minor pentatonic notes, it will definitely sound minor. Not one note in the min pent with this chord progression is near much tension. But another way to look at it is Phyrgian (minor BTW), 1 and 4 as minor chords occur naturally in a phyrgian scale, and naturally 5 is phrygain anyways or you can think of it cycling up a 5th, either way is correct. If your thinking in terms of Santana song, it's definitely gonna be phyrgain just because it's the mode mostly used in spanish music. Change the 5 to a dominant and use the spanish phyrgian scale.

Here's an interesting one, the Beatles used this progression in the song She's Leaving Home, which is in major, but at first utilizes a minor 5 chord

3/4 E..|B-..|F#-..|A..|C#-..|...|F#7..|B7..etc

Good one. Very cool cause I've tried moving from Vm to IIm without convincing myself, but then again I haven't yet came to the thought of trying a substitute of the IV chord before reaching that chord. F#- being the sub for A major, or relative minor. Sweet! :)