source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 21:05:41 +0200 Subject: modes From: PErlich Bill Alves wrote, >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. They are very different. The tritone (the only exception in the classification of generic interval sizes according to 5-limit consonance) is disjoint from the tonic triad in only these modes. Thus the tonic triad of either mode is more stable against the scale than any other triad. The tritone resolves to two notes of the tonic triad of these modes in contrary motion through both instances of the rarer step size (the half step) -- and the position of the rarer step sizes is what tells the listener "where we are" in the mode. So the cadence is a way of saying, "we've been traveling around for a while, but now that we know where we are, we're home!" If you want two tritones disjoint from the tonic triad, so that they can both resolve to it, you use the harmonic minor or harmonic major (major flat 6) modes, although one of the notes of one of the tritones will have to resolve by a whole step, albeit to a note that is being approached by half step from a note of the other tritone. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 22 May 1997 22:17 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07934; Thu, 22 May 1997 22:17:22 +0200 Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 22:17:22 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07932 Received: (qmail 7646 invoked from network); 22 May 1997 20:17:18 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 22 May 1997 20:17:18 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu