Musical questions and answers thread

[Nick Armstrong]

Put over-simply:

If you play a scale on a piano from D to D (an octave higher) using only the white keys (ie no sharps/flats) you get the notes of a Dorian mode.
Do the same with a white-note scale from A to A, you get the Aeolian mode.
E - E is the Phrygian mode (Shostakovich was fond of this one)
F - F is the Lydian mode
G - G is the Mixolydian

The C major scale is also the Ionian mode.

B - B is the Lochrian, and, AFAIK, was never used before the 19th Century (presumably because it's the only one that doesn't have a perfect fifth from the "tonic").

.... the sound of a penny dropping here!!

(....but to what extent is your admirably clear explanation actually inaccurate due to over-simplification?)


.


PS which is the 'archaic' sounding one Howells uses a lot in his canticle settings...?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(....but to what extent is your admirably clear explanation actually inaccurate due to over-simplification?)

I missed out the "hyper-" and "hypo-"s!

Also it's a bit misleading to play them as scales as this wasn't how the Musicians of the time thought of them. Mozart (for example) is a composer whose training involved learning his major and minor scales as a kid, and this is very clear in the Music he composed - but pre-renaissance Musicians didn't imagine Music in this way: they "just" used the notes available in the various Modes as appropriate to the texts they were setting.

And then there are the post-tonal Modes (whloe-tone, octotonic, Messiaen's "modes of limited transposition" etc etc) too!

[vinteuil]

... to say nothing of the question of Temperament : your piano is probably in something approximating Equal Temperament, so playing these scales on the white notes as described by ferney will not actually give you what a 'purer' Modal scale wd provide.

[Nick Armstrong]

PS which is the 'archaic' sounding one Howells uses a lot in his canticle settings...?

....

"This exquisite Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis was written by Howells for St Paul's Cathedral. .... the modal ancestry of the music is never very far away. For example the opening is ostensibly in G minor, but the occasional use of an E natural in place of an E flat and the complete absence of F sharps gives a feeling of the Dorian mode (albeit transposed up a fourth). This sense of the music's Gregorian origins is further emphasised when, at the end of the opening few bars, the choir comes to rest on a unison D. This is the important Dominant of the mode on which the priest's intonation would have been sung. These tonal subtleties, together with the free use of time, serve to give the work its characteristic combination of ancient and modern, so typical of Howells' liturgical music."

© 1984 David White, musicsalesclassical.com

[hedgehog]

I would suggest however that what is really important about the modes is the arrangement of whole notes and semitones in the scale. Each is different and this is predominantly what gives each them their special colour. For example the falling minor 2nd onto the first note of the Phrygian mode was used as a cadence type figure to stress this mode. So in this sense the notion of a scale is actually very important.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would suggest however that what is really important about the modes is the arrangement of whole notes and semitones in the scale. Each is different and this is predominantly what gives each them their special colour. For example the falling minor 2nd onto the first note of the Phrygian mode was used as a cadence type figure to stress this mode. So in this sense the notion of a scale is actually very important.

Yes - given vinty's (tremendously important) point about temperament, the "colours" of the different Modes allow for a much richer "palette" than the different Major/minor scales. Stepwise motion is an essential feature, but the use of the Modes as (complete) scales isn't nearly as prominent as the "ribbons" of scales which are so much a feature of 17th - 19th Century Music.

[EdgeleyRob]

The forum that never fails.
Many thanks all for your replies and links.
I fear a lot of it is way over my head but I really appreciate that you have taken the time and trouble to explain.

[mercia]

...... so, as pabmusic says in #493, Bach's BWV 538 is, to all intents and purposes, in D minor. So why, do we think, did JSB omit a b flat from the key signature ? BWV 538 has only acquired the 'Dorian' nickname because of the omission (???)

[Pabmusic]

...... so, as pabmusic says in #493, Bach's BWV 538 is, to all intents and purposes, in D minor. So why, do we think, did JSB omit a b flat from the key signature ? BWV 538 has only acquired the 'Dorian' nickname because of the omission (???)

I don't know, but I can suggest...

Key signatures as such had not really become established by Bach's time. However, by the time the standard Breitkopf or Peters (or whomever's) texts appeared in the 19th century, some things had become 'fixed' - at least a little.

[mercia]

I don't know, but I can suggest...

Key signatures as such had not really become established by Bach's time. However, by the time the standard Breitkopf or Peters (or whomever's) texts appeared in the 19th century, some things had become 'fixed' - at least a little.

that's interesting - so others of Bach's works might not have acquired key signatures till (much) later ? ....but BWV 538 'escaped'.

[Pabmusic]

that's interesting - so others of Bach's works might not have acquired key signatures till (much) later ? ....but BWV 538 'escaped'.

Perhaps the 'key signature' convention just didn't seem important when he wrote it. There certainly are other examples of key signature-less pieces (can't think of any now of course).

[Roehre]

Perhaps the 'key signature' convention just didn't seem important when he wrote it. There certainly are other examples of key signature-less pieces (can't think of any now of course).

From wikipedia [and checked against the Grove and the MGG2 Sachteil]:

Baroque music written in minor keys often was written with a key signature with fewer flats than we now associate with their keys; for example, movements in C minor often had only two flats (because the A♭ would frequently have to be sharpened to A♮ in the ascending melodic minor scale, as would the B♭).

[Pabmusic]

From wikipedia [and checked against the Grove and the MGG2 Sachteil]:

Baroque music written in minor keys often was written with a key signature with fewer flats than we now associate with their keys; for example, movements in C minor often had only two flats (because the A♭ would frequently have to be sharpened to A♮ in the ascending melodic minor scale, as would the B♭).

Thank you, Roehre. The b-flat is more often sharpened (harmonic, and melodic minor ascending).

[EdgeleyRob]

From wikipedia [and checked against the Grove and the MGG2 Sachteil]:

Baroque music written in minor keys often was written with a key signature with fewer flats than we now associate with their keys; for example, movements in C minor often had only two flats (because the A♭ would frequently have to be sharpened to A♮ in the ascending melodic minor scale, as would the B♭).

Blimey,just when I thought I had key signatures sussed !

[Serial_Apologist]

Blimey,just when I thought I had key signatures sussed !

The thing that still puzzles me is: how did they manage to invent the modes before they had keyboards without the distribution of black and white keys that we know?