source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 22:40:07 +0200 Subject: Re: JI modes From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) >Daniel Wolf wrote: >>Even if you intend to limit the definition of the church modes to their >>treatment under species counterpoint, then you must account for the fact >>that composing in various modes has been a continuous and central part of >>musical training in the western classical tradition. > Gordon Collins replied: >By the 18th century, the theorists had caught up with the composers in >accepting the consolidation of several modes into the major and minor keys. >I don't see how you can claim that the church modes continued to be >"central" to that music. One does not see references to a "Chopin Etude in >the Dorian Mode", for instance. Some people do refer to the major >and minor keys as "modes", but that is misleading. > I have to agree with Dan, who, after all, said that "church" modes continued to be central to music _education_. But even so, diatonic modes other than major or minor return most obviously to art music in France in the late nineteenth century, as in pieces by Chabrier, Debussy, Satie, Faure, and in the twentieth century by many composers, including Ravel, Bartok, Copland, Vaughan Williams and so on. And as Dan points out, many European folk songs are in diatonic modes other than major or minor. I don't see why refering to major and minor as modes is misleading. In my definition of modes in the European tradition, they include at least the following defining characteristics: 1) A tuning system, though it may be somewhat flexible as long as the general pattern of intervals (below) remains recognizable. 2) A subset of pitches from that tuning system, or, put another way, a pattern of intervals. (In the European tradition this means the diatonic set.) 3) A tonal center within that subset. Given that there are seven pitches in the diatonic set, there are thus seven possible diatonic modes, of which major and minor are only two. I don't see how they are different than the other diatonic modes. (Well, the existence of multiple "minor scales" is a rather arbitrary theoretical construction that has more to do with harmony and counterpoint than modes per se. I don't think the altered scale degrees fundamentally change the impression of diatonicism -- see below.) In other non-European (or earlier European) traditions, there are theoretical pitch constructions that roughly correspond to "mode," but they often involve further defining characteristics. Thus, you can either jettison the term "mode" (as many do), or augment the definition with some of these other defining characteristics: 4) A range. 5) Characteristic melodic motives. 6) Characteristic methods of ornamentation ("ornamentation" here defined broadly). 7) A further hierarchy of pitches or other categorization of pitch functionality. 8) Extramusical associations. As long as we're on the subject: Some modes have what I would call "auxiliary tones" (though they are not usually part of what defines a mode as I see it). I think of them as tones that lie outside of the pitch set that are used more or less as occasional passing tones or temporary substitutes for notes in the pitch set for various musical reasons (such as the sharpened leading tone in minor). I sometimes compare the pitch sets of various modes using a shorthand notation: Number of pitches in the tuning system/number of pitches in the subset/number of commonly used auxiliary tones. (Note: I should qualify the below numbers with the statement that the distinction between auxiliary tones and other pitch inflections is not always clear, that when a pitch is within or outside of the pitch set is likewise sometimes a subjective judgment, and that the use of modes depends, of course, on the music itself, so understand that these are generalizations.) Thus traditional diatonic modes are: 12/7/0 Minor with sometimes a raised seventh or sixth scale degree: 12/7/2 Pelog patet: 7/5/1 Slendro patet (most of the time): 5/5/0 Chinese pentatonic modes (according to some theoretical sources): 12/5/2 Defining raga this way gets tricky, depending if you think of a 12 or 22 pitch tuning system and which tones are "auxiliary." (In the North Indian tradition, Bhatkande has already made these judgments for us.) Here's my take on Hindustani raga des: 12/7/1 Bill ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^ ^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^ ^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^ ^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 21 May 1997 22:47 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07163; Wed, 21 May 1997 22:47:28 +0200 Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 22:47:28 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07156 Received: (qmail 6931 invoked from network); 21 May 1997 20:47:24 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 21 May 1997 20:47:24 -0000 Message-Id: <009B49C0F192833F.296B@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu