source file: mills2.txt
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 18:54:46 +0200

Subject: Re: modes

From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)

Sorry for the delayed response, but Gordon Collins wrote:

>Discussions tend to get thwarted by different usages of the word "mode".  For
>example, Bill Alves appears to view modes as little more than types of
>scales.  (They are very often described as such when an author is trying to
>be brief, perhaps the cause of the growing general impression that that's all
>there is to them.)

This is not true. I outlined my defining characteristics reasonably
clearly, I think. A scale is a representation of the pitches in a mode
arranged in ascending or descending order from tonic to tonic. (There are
also, of course, non-modal scales like the "chromatic scale" and
"whole-tone scale.")

As for whether a mode is "little more than" what can be representated by a
scale, that all depends on the time and place and what one supposes a scale
represents. As I said, in different times and places, the concept of mode
might also include a range, characteristic melodic motives, and so on.

I had earlier written:

>>Well, right now I have my synth tuned in a very interesting 11-limit
>>lattice, and when I play the white keys from C to C it certainly doesn't
>>sound like any kind of major scale I would recognize.
>
>What you've got there is not a major scale.  But a major scale is a major
>scale is a major scale whether a whole tone is  9/8,  10/9,  (5/4)^(1/2),
>2^(1/6),  or something in between.
>
>Or whether the scale is  1/1  9/8  44/35  4/3  3/2  176/105  66/35  2/1.

My point was to counter an earlier claim I had thought you made:

>The distinction between n-limit JI, x-comma meantone, well-temperament, and
>12TET is *totally irrelevant* to the definition of modes and scales!

with a counter-example. Of course it's not a major scale, because the
tuning system no longer makes it recognizably diatonic.

>Your idea of "recognizably diatonic" is interesting, and deserves
>quantification.  As in, "What is the ideal and how far from it can a scale be
>to be recognized as diatonic?"
>
Yes, it would be interesting to quantify such an effect (like Blackwood),
but I'm not a psychologist, so I'll have to leave it to someone else.

>But treating 3-limit JI and 12TET as variations within the same tuning
>system....  Well, I have the definite impression that most list contributors
>consider them to be fundamentally different.
>
As would I, but I never claimed that pythagorean and 12TET were
"variations" of the same tuning system. I think that subsets of both can
reasonably represent diatonic modes.

>The point is, those augmented sixth chord arcana are more important *to
>understanding the music* than are the details of the tuning.

I think that all depends on the music. I think the value of tuning
knowledge for the understanding of music is greatly underrated in general.
(As Lou Harrison says: You haven't heard a piece until you've heard it in
the tuning that the composer intended or expected.) An intimate knowledge
of augmented sixth chords is likewise pretty useless in the understanding
of Partch, Indian music, or medieval music (even in the Renaissance and
Baroque augmented sixth chords are not that important).

My snide reference was meant to be a jab at conventional college "music
theory" curricula, which are really common-practice harmony courses --
courses that thus concentrate nearly exclusively on one dimension of one
type of music. To those students who unquestionably accept 12TET as the
words of the Prophet, an understanding of tuning systems is, I think, just
as valuable as how to resolve a Neapolitan sixth chord, if not more so.

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) ^
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