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Of Modes And Key Signatures


Daddy Long Les

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"Aeolian, if you use the normal "Ye Jacobites by Name" tune for it." (Sorry, can't work out how the Quote function works!)

 

Or Dorian. The tune I'm familiar with doesn't use the sixth note of the scale so it's indeterminate. Really there ought to be different names for hexatonic modes. Then there are pentatonic modes ... [Pentatonic scales use only five of the seven notes, every interval being a whole tone or three semi-tones; e.g. Star of the County Down.]

 

Back to the original topic, though, it seems to me a shame for children to be taught only the classical major and minor scales and to be left in ignorance of the rich musical heritage which is surely theirs. I guess my view is that it's fine not to teach them any theory (just learn by ear as their ancestors did), but if you teach them some theory at least introduce them to the idea that there are more than just two types of scale.

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"Aeolian, if you use the normal "Ye Jacobites by Name" tune for it." (Sorry, can't work out how the Quote function works!)

 

Or Dorian. The tune I'm familiar with doesn't use the sixth note of the scale so it's indeterminate. Really there ought to be different names for hexatonic modes. Then there are pentatonic modes ... [Pentatonic scales use only five of the seven notes, every interval being a whole tone or three semi-tones; e.g. Star of the County Down.]

 

Back to the original topic, though, it seems to me a shame for children to be taught only the classical major and minor scales and to be left in ignorance of the rich musical heritage which is surely theirs. I guess my view is that it's fine not to teach them any theory (just learn by ear as their ancestors did), but if you teach them some theory at least introduce them to the idea that there are more than just two types of scale.

Oh if only I had children in my classes who would be receptive to this - maybe 40 years ago when I first started when the children were very different. Dare I say it - this was a time before X Boxes, home computers and iPads. These things are great in their place of course but I miss the days when my class was filled with lively, inquisitive children! Edited by Daddy Long Les
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There's lots of information here that is only sort of correct. Not really wrong, but perhaps insufficient.

 

While you can often decide the mode from the notes used and the final note that is not always easy. Pentatonic and hexatonic tunes can sometimes be placed in a mode by the harmonies implied. Many people, including Jack Campin (hi Jack) prefer to see those tunes as being in separate categories. Jack's fine discussion of modes in Scottish music is exhaustive and well worth the effort to absorb,

 

I see no reason to limit students to major and minor. Modes are all over jazz or classical music and have been used in pop music to by folks like the Beatles. And, of course traditional music is filled with them. Why limit the students' experiences?

 

ABC is, to my way of thinking not greatly limited. Yes it is probably insufficient or cumbersome for scoring large scale works, but the standard for ABC continues to develop and expand to deal with perceived limitations. I would be interested to hear what limitations folks find, though that should properly be discussed in a separate thread.

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The problem with modes is this: they are taught by comparison with the major scale and the piano keyboard.

 

Modes are easy: just play the white notes, and each starting note is a different mode. The major scale is jsut one sort of mode.

 

However, the whole way that we write music is based on natural notes (the C major scale) and the sharps and flats that convert the music to a different key or mode.

 

This is like learning a foreign language by comparing it with our own. "Tha animal is a cow and the French word for cow is vache" is a two stage learning process, whereas the French child only has to learn: "that animal is a vache." In the same way "G major is all the notes of C major, but with the F sharpened" is more complicated than "this is what G major sounds like."

 

Take that a step further and describe one of the less common modes in terms of modifications to the major scale and it's no wonder it sounds complicated.

 

It is not that one mode is inherently more complicated than another, but that our notation and instruments are biased towards a certain way of playing.

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The problem with modes is this: they are taught by comparison with the major scale and the piano keyboard.

 

Modes are easy: just play the white notes, and each starting note is a different mode. The major scale is jsut one sort of mode.

 

However, the whole way that we write music is based on natural notes (the C major scale) and the sharps and flats that convert the music to a different key or mode.

 

This is like learning a foreign language by comparing it with our own. "Tha animal is a cow and the French word for cow is vache" is a two stage learning process, whereas the French child only has to learn: "that animal is a vache." In the same way "G major is all the notes of C major, but with the F sharpened" is more complicated than "this is what G major sounds like."

 

Take that a step further and describe one of the less common modes in terms of modifications to the major scale and it's no wonder it sounds complicated.

 

It is not that one mode is inherently more complicated than another, but that our notation and instruments are biased towards a certain way of playing.

I really like the way that you have explained this.

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I don't think "modes" are difficult for children - unless you try to explain them theoretically. You could equally well impede a child's progress in learning to ride a bicycle by giving him or her the physics of the process up front! :P

 

As a small child - admittedly growing up in Ireland - I sang what I heard, and what I heard included "The Ballynure Ballad" (Dorian mode, as I now know) and "She Moved through the Fair" (Mixolydian mode), in addition to all the "classical" major and minor tunes that came to me via "Children's Hour" on the radio.

 

It was only when I started playing chords on a banjo that I found difficulty with Dorian or Mixolydian Irish jigs - but someone told me to "just use these chords" and it was easy. Probably it was D Dorian, and the two chords I needed were D minor and C major. Even easier than the I-IV-V three-chord trick in major-key tunes!

 

The approach to the modes differs depending on whether you're a singer or an instrumentalist, but that's just theory. If you grow up in a culture that teaches you to sing "modal" tunes, you can later play or accompany them instrumentally with the help of a few, eminently practical rules of thumb, which any more experienced fellow-musician can give you.

 

As to subsequently notating tunes like "The Ballynure Ballad," my tendency would be to remember that what the classical musicians call the "key signature" is in fact the "scale signature" - the presence or absence of sharps or flats indicates the notes to be used. So D Dorian, for instance, would be written with no sharps or flats - and surely a classical, sight-reading musician should be able to deal with that!

 

Cheers,

John

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There's a good non-technical description of modes in A.L.Lloyd's 'Folk Song in England'.

 

 

Lloyd's book is highly recommended and the section on modes is certainly interesting and helpful. However, he does rather get his knickers in a twist at one point, claiming a tune is Phrygian when it really isn't. I can't remember which tune it is, as I don't own the book and haven't read it for about 40 years.

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"The Trees They Do Grow High", probably. It's Aeolian, ending on the dominant. Vaughan Williams repeated the same mistake.

Phrygian (aside from Locrian for which I couldn't name a single example) is the one mode for which I do have seriuos trouble coming up with an example. The only one I think *may* be Phrygian would be Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust. Am I correct? Does anyone have other ("better") examples?

 

Thanks!

Edited by RAc
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The Scottish jig The Dhu Hill. Look in my modes tutorial. There are very few in Western tradition.

 

I've just been dusting off a Lebanese Arabic song, Fairouz's Nassam 'alayna al-Hawa, which is Phrygian (or rather kurd nawa, a more precise description but the same scale).

 

https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/15952

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr6dTtZ00So

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/nassam-aleyna-el-hawa-%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%85-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D9%88%D8%A7-breeze-or-love-upon-us.html

http://oudak.free.fr/?download=Nassam%203alayna%20El%20Hawa.jpg

 

It's one of the most popular Arabic songs, really catchy, rhythmically straightforward, and (at least the way I've learned it) purely diatonic. It should work fine on any concertina.

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Some Spanish flamenco sounds Phrygian.

Yes--good point. And so, for that matter, does a lot of music that draws inspiration from flamenco. Now that I think of it, Miles Davis used the Phrygian mode a good bit on "Sketches of Spain," and also I think on "Kind of Blue."

 

Bob Michel

Near Philly

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This book on Azeri folk music

 

http://real.mtak.hu/9769/

 

has a section titled "Tunes Moving on Locrian Chords" with 100 pages of examples, meticulously categorized in a typically Hungarian way. My knowledge of Azeri music is mostly urban dance music, and I'd never heard anything locrian-sounding in that, but Sipos appears to know what he's talking about. You might get lucky and find a squeezebox-friendly locrian lezginka from the garmon repertoire.

 

The "blues scale" has a flattened fifth which is the distinctive thing about Locrian. Dunno how many real examples there are of it, outside academic jazz and exercises in guitar tutor books.

 

What the flamenco scene calls "phrygian" is what Arabic and Turkish musicians call "hijaz" - the third is major, unlike the phrygian mode of Renaissance music theory. Klezmer "freygish" is similar, except for having a sharpened sixth below the tonic (low B natural if you're centred on D).

Edited by Jack Campin
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Modes are easy: just play the white notes, and each starting note is a different mode. The major scale is jsut one sort of mode.

 

This is correct in as far as it goes but surely modes could start on any of the twelve notes in an octave and would then be a mixture of black and white notes on a keyboard?

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