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Author Topic: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale  (Read 22049 times)

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Chris Ryall

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #20 on: September 24, 2010, 05:19:51 PM »

It's an evolutional throwback to the early days of very flakey browser support for cascading style. Basically your settings have overruled the style.css link and 'class='invisible' has not been recognised.  Guess it's time to take this paragraph out of all my pages. This feedback is excellent. Thanks
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Andrew Wigglesworth

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #21 on: September 24, 2010, 06:17:22 PM »

"CSS     
'' Style sheet control has failed. Pages on this site should still be readable, but layout may be spoiled. Your browser may
be out of date, or style sheets disabled !!"

Andrew, I got that error message in Opera, but only after I had chosen the "user's style" option, overriding the "author's style". I did this because the page wasn't very inviting to read as it first loaded. When I unchecked that option, the message disappeared. Maybe your browser is doing something similar?

It's OK, I know exactly what's happening. My prefered browser doesn't use CSS at all, and as Chris says, the message is hidden by the website's style sheet.

Simon

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #22 on: September 25, 2010, 10:16:29 AM »

My prefered browser doesn't use CSS at all
Lynx?   ;)
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waltzman

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #23 on: September 25, 2010, 03:02:08 PM »

Between the modes and the computer talk this thread may deserve the 'most inscrutable' award.  >:E   
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Chris Ryall

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #24 on: September 25, 2010, 03:27:15 PM »

Browser stuff is nowt to do with me - as the page is standards compliant I hadn't really expected problems there.

It's defo too long now and needs splitting into digestible chunks.  I've managed to get a bit of my O level Latin on to it, which looks OK. But you wouldn't believe the English errors some found!
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Steve C.

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #25 on: September 25, 2010, 07:40:46 PM »

Really really good stuff.  Especially enlightening were the ideas of what chords can work with with scales.  Steve Jones' suggestion of example tunes would be icing on the cake.
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Anahata

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2010, 09:53:58 AM »

isn't totm March 2010 aeolian?
It is.
And (not in ToTM) a well known example of Dorian is What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor.
She Moved Through The Fair and Old Joe Clarke are Mixolydian.

...which sort of leads me to my main view on modes, which is they are fancy names for stuff that we're actually quite familiar with. The terms are sometimes useful as a shorthand for describing a tunes or what key it's in, but learning their names doesn't suddenly unlock a treasure chest of things you previously weren't able to play.

I'm not knocking Chris's work at all: it would be good if were were all familiar with them so people didn't approximate by saying a tune was in E minor when they meant Dorian or Aeolian, or ask why "this tune in A" has a key signature of only two sharps.

Incidentally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode#Modern may be useful.
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Chris Ryall

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #27 on: September 26, 2010, 10:23:51 AM »

ABC notation is very soundly based on modal principles - sensibly so as Chris W is a bagpiper.

  From the present sourceforge.net  'standard' http://abcnotation.com/abc2mtex/abc.txt

K - key; the key signature should be  specified  with  a  capital letter  which  may  be  followed by  a  # or b for sharp or flat respectively. In addition,  different  scales  or  modes  can  be specified  and,  for  example,  K:F  lydian,  K:C, K:C major, K:C ionian, K:G mixolydian, K:D dorian, K:A minor, K:Am, K:A aeolian,K:E  phrygian  and  K:B locrian would all produce a staff with no sharps or flats.  The spaces can be left out,  capitalisation  is ignored for the modes and in fact only the first three letters of each mode are parsed so that, for example, K:F# mixolydian is the same  as  K:F#Mix or even K:F#MIX.  There are two additional keys specifically for notating highland bagpipe  tunes;  K:HP  doesn't put  a  key  signature  on the music, as is common with many tune books of this music, while K:Hp marks the stave with F  sharp,  C sharp  and  G natural.  Both force all the beams and staffs to go downwards.

The next paragraph also caught my eye - you can now set a 'global accidental'  I guess an E harmonic minor tune might be specified as "K:E aeolian ^D"   :P

I more or less  concur with Anahata's critique - that little page I've done has got a bit anal about modes and got too far away from our music. But modes are there in its bones.  We keep discussing why this Em tune likes a C chord, that one fights it, and why the B push chord is major -  they are intrinsically different E minors as he says.

"Fancy names for the familiar" - fair comment. I don't think your Bulgarian peasant has any concept he's in mode 3 - it's just the scale you play music on locally.  But then we collect his tune and wonder why it likes Em and Fmajor chords ...

They got it off MJ (Searle), but it can be found in Paul Burgess's book "The Coleford Jig" as "Old Heddon of Forley" -- try playing London Pride/Idbury Hill first in Em, then Old Heddon in A (minor-ish).

[edit] Nice example of mode change IMHO. Idbury is one of the archetypical dorian minor tunes IMHO.  Then to my ear (try the MP3) Old Heddon stays firmly on the D row but re-bases to an A tonic - mode 5 = mixolydian.  Supposed to be a major mode, but I always feel it to be on the verge on minorness. I'm sympathetic with the comment above, though there's no Cnat I can hear.  (btw Does this make phrygian Moor-ish)?
« Last Edit: September 26, 2010, 12:31:21 PM by Chris Ryall »
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Howard Jones

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #28 on: September 27, 2010, 12:22:23 PM »

What I think would be helpful would be to spell out the sequence of whole tone and semitone intervals for each of the modes.  No doubt this is immediately apparent to those who can interpret the dots, but it's not obvious to the rest of us (well, to me anyway).

I've a few questions about chords with modes.  Firstly, you seem to be saying that you can build chords in modal scales using the same principles as with the conventional major and minor scales - have I understood correctly?  For example, a "major" chord is built using the tonic, third and fifth notes of the major scale - is the equivalent chord for a modal scale built in the same way, using 1-3-5 from that scale?

The way you describe this seems to be based on flattening notes from a major scale, rather than thinking within the modal scale itself.  For example, when describing the Phrygian mode you refer to Eb as a "minor third", but in C Phrygian it's simply the third note of the scale.  I realise these are just different ways of describing the same thing - your approach seems to view the modal scale as a variation to the standard major scale, whereas mine is a more  'seat of the pants' approach which views the mode in isolation.  To my way of thinking, in the Phrygian mode of C a "minor" ie a flattened third would be a D.

Secondly, does the I-IV-V "three chord trick" (and other chord sequences for that matter) also work with chords built on modal scales?

Stiamh

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #29 on: September 27, 2010, 01:58:11 PM »

Secondly, does the I-IV-V "three chord trick" (and other chord sequences for that matter) also work with chords built on modal scales?

A very interesting question. In many cases, our ears would find the three-chord trick perfectly acceptable in modal tunes.

But is this because our ears are so totally attuned to conventional harmony?

I have often pondered this with regard to tunes with gapped scales. For example, take a G tune with no Cs. Shenandoah, or Donnybrook Fair, or any number of other tunes. None of us I suspect would object to the use of a C-major chord to accompany such tunes. In fact there are spots in these tunes where we would all probably insist that C was the correct chord to harmonize against a strong E in the tune, rather than Em or other alternatives.

This doesn't make any sense at all - except when we understand that we are imposing the modern harmonies we are all used to on an older melodic structure. I suspect the same is true of our unthinking use of conventional harmony on most of the modes.

A long time ago - early 1970s - Martin Carthy explained to my brother that he only used the notes of the tune in his guitar accompaniments. I wonder whether he still follows this practice, or whether anyone else in the folk world does.

Anahata

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #30 on: September 27, 2010, 03:12:08 PM »

To my way of thinking, in the Phrygian mode of C a "minor" ie a flattened third would be a D.
I think you've just bent the terminology to breaking point  :o

Quote
Secondly, does the I-IV-V "three chord trick" (and other chord sequences for that matter) also work with chords built on modal scales?
No, they tend not to.
A lot of Dorian mode tunes have a I-VII "two chord trick", for example. (think down a tone rather than up a seventh)
Aeolian mode tunes can be accompanied by I-IV and V but, as Wikipedia has it: "nearly every minor mode composition of the common practice period [i.e. 1600 - 1900 approx] has some accidentals on the sixth and seventh scale degrees to facilitate the cadences of western music".
In other words they stop being pure Aeolian and become more "classical minor" to make the chords work.
E.g. E-Am or E7-Am makes a stronger final cadence than Em-Am.

Some other modes are very hard to fit chords to, at least not by any simple formula.
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Howard Jones

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #31 on: September 27, 2010, 05:00:19 PM »

To my way of thinking, in the Phrygian mode of C a "minor" ie a flattened third would be a D.
I think you've just bent the terminology to breaking point  :o

I suppose that was my implied question - which terminology should you use?  If you're talking Phrygian, so to speak, then the third note of the C scale is Eb - so why describe it by reference to a completely different mode (the Ionian) as a flattened/minor third?

To put it another way, take a chord containing the notes C, Eb and Gb.  In conventional terms, this is described as C diminished, since it contains a flattened (minor) third and a flattened (diminished) 5th.  In modal terms, it is the simple 1-3-5 triad in the Locrian mode.

I suppose I think this way because I haven't had the benefit of a musical education  (:).  Take a tune like "The Kitchen Girl", where the first part is rooted in A but with G natural instead of G# (A mixolydian) - when I play this I can hear the modal scale and play the notes from that scale. I'm never tempted to play G# "because it's in A so it must be G#" . I naturally think about a modal tune in modal terms (although I probably couldn't identify the name of the mode on the fly) so I'm not tempted to force it into the straightjacket of a major scale with flattened notes.

Andrew Wigglesworth

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #32 on: September 27, 2010, 05:06:58 PM »

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #33 on: September 27, 2010, 06:16:09 PM »

To my way of thinking, in the Phrygian mode of C a "minor" ie a flattened third would be a D.
Depends on what you mean by third. The third note of phrygian C is an E-flat, and the interval from C to E-flat is a minor third in any scale or mode. It's a third because it goes from some kind of C to some kind of E, and it's minor since it's three half-note steps from C to E-flat. If you flatten this again you don't get a D but an E double flat (enharmonic equivalent, but a different spelling). I guess it's better not to think of a flattened third but of the third of the scale, which in this case is a minor third. It's only flattened if you compare it to something non-flattened.
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Chris Ryall

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #34 on: September 27, 2010, 06:18:24 PM »

A long time ago - early 1970s - Martin Carthy explained to my brother that he only used the notes of the tune in his guitar accompaniments. I wonder whether he still follows this practice, or whether anyone else in the folk world does.

This is the modal harmony approach - very much part of the 'English style' also used by Mike Raven and Nic Jones, and copied by countless others. In a modal approach you only get those seven notes. There is one true dominant - the V chord - and this takes you back to tonic. However 'sus' chords were much used and I often use the F#m when in E dorian or B aolian to (I hope) the same effect.

The standard before the 60's was 'tonal' eg changing Am to and A7 when on the G row to move the tonal centre into D. I associate 3-chord tricking with Skiffle and I think the Beatles in particular moved us on from that - which is one reason their music fits well on our diatonic instument.

Agree entirely with Anahata re 2-chording for modes 2 and 3. The aeolian (6) can take quite a few chords though. As for gapped scales such as minor pentatonic - well their intermediate tone/halftone intervals are undefined so you've carte blanche wrt both chords and any impro/arrangment. That's not to say that pentatonics aren't rather beautiful in their own right?

Following the 'need some tunes' comments I'm presently reworking some old favourites to play them entirely using only D scale notes. That puts Schottische a Bethanie firmly into Bm  - and serves me right!  :-\

NB - Modal Jazz isn't the same thing, except in its absence of dominant beyond the V chord. Coltrane was happy to chorus over an open Dm chord with open Ebm as the 'bridge'. Not really melodeon friendly, though you can get close if your box'll cope with B, and then C minor  8)
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Stiamh

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #35 on: September 27, 2010, 07:13:42 PM »

A long time ago - early 1970s - Martin Carthy explained to my brother that he only used the notes of the tune in his guitar accompaniments. I wonder whether he still follows this practice, or whether anyone else in the folk world does.

This is the modal harmony approach - very much part of the 'English style' also used by Mike Raven and Nic Jones, and copied by countless others. In a modal approach you only get those seven notes.

I should have mentioned that this was in the context of a conversation about tunes with a pentatonic or otherwise gapped scale. Where you wouldn't have seven notes, but six or five. In other words in those days at least MC would not, for example, put a C major chord behind Shenandoah or Donnybrook Fair or other C-less tunes. Unlike just about anybody accompanying dance music these days, at least Irish dance music. A similar issue arises happens when you have a thirdless tune - how many accompanists will play thirdless chords? Presumably only a subset of the few who have noticed that the tune is thirdless, and a smallish subset at that.

It's true that a gazillion Dorian-mode dance melodies appear to be based around a two-chord trick - alternating I and VII chords - but I'd suggest that no modern accompanist will stick to those two, on pain of having a melodeon thrown at them.

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #36 on: September 27, 2010, 10:36:33 PM »

Surely most single row boxes are based round the two chord trick? or am I missing something? ???

Steve
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Chris Ryall

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #37 on: September 28, 2010, 06:00:25 AM »

It's true that a gazillion Dorian-mode dance melodies appear to be based around a two-chord trick - alternating I and VII chords - but I'd suggest that no modern accompanist will stick to those two, on pain of having a melodeon thrown at them.

Aha, brazen wit there  ;D am still ROFL  Well, I tried one of these chords (think it was Bm6) in the hard Irish session in Whitby a few years ago and got very dark looks. Seemed they wanted to play in unison as per the mythical Chieftains. As someone who hears chords in head behind melody lines I get a bit bored on Em and D all the time, but I stick it out as I generally don't know the tune too well. It was interesting to go Galway later that year, where they do achieve a richer chord palate

Surely most single row boxes are based round the two chord trick? or am I missing something? ??? Steve

I'd say 'yes'. But you'd need to look for it.   :D
« Last Edit: September 28, 2010, 06:37:24 AM by Chris Ryall »
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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #38 on: September 28, 2010, 07:41:39 AM »

Surely most single row boxes are based round the two chord trick? or am I missing something? ???
Any one-row player worth their salt would also be constructing all manner of chords in the RH whilst keeping the melody going at the same time.
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Simon

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Re: The 'modes' of the diatonic scale
« Reply #39 on: September 28, 2010, 08:01:04 AM »

Any one-row player worth their salt would also be constructing all manner of chords in the RH
There's not that many chords you can do on the RH of a one-row. On the push only one even, or am I missing something now?
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