# Locrian Dance



## Mahlerian

This is the first serious composition I've posted publicly on TalkClassical, so here goes.

http://musescore.com/user/84716/scores/142788

It's a pseudo-moto perpetuo piece in the locrian mode, the most unstable of all of the modes. Its tonic triad is a diminished chord and its most natural seventh a half-diminished.

I apologize for the poor MIDI sound.


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## Aramis

What aesthetic is this supposed to fit in?

I can't say I feel any harmony between the parts, it's either octave or something weird - naither adventurous nor pleasing in the "old-fashioned" sense. Especially the parts where both hands play 8th notes, they reminds me of my earliest compositions filled with random intervals. It's either not very good or I'm not understanding the style. Bars 55-57 are simply cosmic to me. If I wouldn't know that it was written by someone with extensive knowledge on music theory, my guess would be that the author started composing couple of weeks before without such knowledge. So again, the question from the beginning, though it certainly won't help me understand if you will say that "there is B in the bass since tonic triad is a diminished chord and its most natural seventh a half-diminished" (I'm not mathematician).


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## Mahlerian

Aramis said:


> I can't say I feel any harmony between the parts, it's either octave or something weird - naither adventurous nor pleasing in the "old-fashioned" sense.


The writing is not usually contrapuntal in the way that word is normally understood, and the harmony that results is not intended to be tonal or chromatic. It's certainly not functional. Much of the time the lines are canonic duplications (or pseudo-duplications) of each other at an offset. This is intentional.

I understand that it's a very limited way to write, which is why it's a short piece.



Aramis said:


> What aesthetic is this supposed to fit in?


My own. Is there some need for me to compose to a pre-existing model?

But if you insist, it's a neo-modal piece (although severely limited compared to similar examples by great composers).


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## Aramis

Mahlerian said:


> My own. Is there some need for me to compose to a pre-existing model?


I don't neccessarily meant specification such as "the piece is written in style of X", it's not the only way to give a hint on how to approach the work. Well, I guess I don't connect with "neo-modal" technique, but keep on cutting out your diamonds, your dazzling diamonds, of whose mines you might have more perfect knowledge after this excercise - then it would be good enough.


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## PetrB

Aramis said:


> What aesthetic is this supposed to fit in?
> 
> I can't say I feel any harmony between the parts, it's either octave or something weird - naither adventurous nor pleasing in the "old-fashioned" sense.


"Pleasing in the "old-fashioned" sense is where, I think, you and a good many others will always differ. I get a feeling from most of your posted works you are desirous of aggressively re-instating the "old-fashioned" and that you have little truck with or find any pleasure in any music which operates in a different sphere. Ergo, I think you're missing the point by dint of your credo of adhering to "the old-fashioned."


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## Aramis

PetrB said:


> "Pleasing in the "old-fashioned" sense is where, I think, you and a good many others will always differ. I get a feeling from most of your posted works you are desirous of aggressively re-instating the "old-fashioned" and that you have little truck with or find any pleasure in any music which operates in a different sphere. Ergo, I think you're missing the point by dint of your credo of adhering to "the old-fashioned."


I think the problem is on your side, as it's another time when you respond to my criticism on someone's work by referring to my music and discretely saying "oh, come on, what would one of these backwarded composers know". Let me inform you that there is some music outside my comfort zone that I can understand and appreciate.

Here, by saying "pleasing in old-fashioned way", I meant harmony consisting of pitches that seem to create naturally appealing whole. If I don't feel this way, it doesn't mean it's only because the harmonic language is different from the one I'm using.


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## PetrB

Aramis said:


> I think the problem is on your side, as it's another time when you respond to my criticism on someone's work by referring to my music and discretely saying "oh, come on, what would one of these backwarded composers know". Let me inform you that there is some music outside my comfort zone that I can understand and appreciate.
> 
> Here, by saying "*pleasing in old-fashioned way*", I meant *harmony consisting of pitches that seem to create naturally appealing whole*. If I don't find it here, it's not because the harmonic language is simply different from the one I'm using.


Well, you have some personal notion of what are "*Harmony consisting of pitches that seem to create a naturally appealing whole*," and I think that is one very personal criterion which you would need the space of a book to explain -- let alone any acceptable rational explanation of what is "Natural" in the way of pitch selection -- but it is 'where you are coming from,' and those works outside your usual sphere which you understand and appreciate, if not to you, to someone else, also do not have "pitches which create a pleasing whole." It is a galaxies-wide generalization with no pith of specific meaning... i.e. that part, anyway, says little if anything.


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## Aramis

PetrB said:


> Well, you have some personal notion of what are "*Harmony consisting of pitches that seem to create a naturally appealing whole*,"


Surely I have personal notion about that and I don't think it's possible to write about music without using any unclear terms about which every person has such personal notions, certainly your posts in this sections I recall had plenty of them - so it's probably that you dislike my particular personal notion, not the presence of personal notions per se. I understand, thank you for expressing your disapproval.


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## Taggart

I liked it. Slightly jazzy, certainly a different feel to my usual sort of music. More like Brubeck - unsquare dance or similar - the way the top line runs over one and a half measures gives it an interesting pattern. I spent some time trying to work out how to dance to the beast, and then realised that the dance referred to the modal interplay.

I don't ask for harmony or (common practice) counterpoint merely that the lines should work together melodically and rhythmically- they do - so well done. :cheers:


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## PetrB

Aramis said:


> Surely I have personal notion about that and I don't think it's possible to write about music without using any unclear terms about which every person has such personal notions, certainly your posts in this sections I recall had plenty of them - so it's probably that you dislike my particular personal notion, not the presence of personal notions per se. I understand, thank you for expressing your disapproval.


You completely mistake what I pointed out: 
anyone's personal notion of what is harmonically pleasing is, uh, personal, ergo, entirely subjective. You might recall Aleazk's piano concerto thread in Today's Composers, where a member (a composer of sorts himself) completely commandeered that thread with multiple entries and volumes of column space to assert that the composer should instead be writing, basically, more with the aesthetic of he who commandeered that thread.

Through all of that particular ramble, that same contributor did not make one constructive comment or critique of the actual work presented, instead saying, essentially, that he preferred if Aleazk would write more like he did!

Your first comment here struck me as in a similar vein i.e., _"Nothing wrong with this if you simply revised the piece (and yourself) to write more to the aesthetic which I subjectively prefer."_

I agree with you about the octaves not sounding well (I think it would have been better with single pitches instead of octave doublings). On the second page starting with a repeat bar, measure 12 of that page, the last eighth note is an octave Db in the treble, doubled with a single Db in the Bass, the first notes of the next bar, both treble and bass, a Bb, the movement from one to the next parallel. Sure that is 'breaking a text-book "rule,"' but without consulting a textbook, that little juncture alone screamed out as sounding more than thin and weak to my ears.

The piece is also 'just' a theoretic study in writing in the Locrian mode, which is near impossible, or against most of our reflexes to not take to another key area, i.e. reflexively shifting the tonic and defeating the challenge of staying in the Locrian mode. Try it some time 

There, I fall back on the Stravinsky statement that the best comment on a piece of music is another piece of music -- in this case, preferably one of yours, perhaps an essay in the Locrian Mode


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## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> I agree with you about the octaves not sounding well (I think it would have been better with single pitches instead of octave doublings). On the second page starting with a repeat bar, measure 12 of that page, the last eighth note is an octave Db in the treble, doubled with a single Db in the Bass, the first notes of the next bar, both treble and bass, a Bb, the movement from one to the next parallel. Sure that is 'breaking a text-book "rule,"' but without consulting a textbook, that little juncture alone screamed out as sounding more than thin and weak to my ears.


I agree with this weakness, actually. I don't necessarily think I can correct it by re-writing the piece itself, but of course I understand now and then that it's a contrapuntal faux pas to have bass and treble move in "hidden" octaves. It undermines the independence of the parts, and independence is not necessarily what I was aiming for here*, but I understand it's a weakness in the writing.

*I spent most of my effort trying against all odds to stabilize the locrian mode without it drifting over to aeolian or even major.


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## Ingélou

I have just listened to it & I am going to post my 'personal response' (I don't do technics! ) first, and then go back and read the thread properly. There's nothing like having a naive nerd posting on your thread after a herd of learned music wallahs...

I relate to music largely in terms of thoughts, emotions and pictures (psst - don't tell SomeGuy). I see this music as the backdrop to a documentary about a flock of martins who are making their way back from Africa; as they get nearer and nearer to their goal, photos of the flock are interspersed with other summery signs - ice melting, buds bursting, voles scurrying. What I see in the music is persistence - the inevitability of the seasons - existential bravery - gaiety. 
Oh and I liked it too! 

Edit: I have read the thread now, and I tremble at my own intrepidity.


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## BurningDesire

Very interesting XD I actually wrote my own dance in this same mode last fall, though my pitch center was B. I think your piece is actually not bad Mahlerian  locrian is a tough mode to use because it is difficult to solidly establish it without constantly beating the listener over the head with that tritone relationship and heavily emphasizing the tonic. I think the piece might be better if it were a bit shorter, but you actually give a it a pretty good amount of direction, which is generally tougher to do in modal music. I get the feeling that you were going for something like an invention with this, but I really think it might work better with more fleshed out harmonies. As it is, the implied harmonies make sections very static sounding.


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## Pennypacker

There was never hope for this piece.  The Locrian mode - great for improvising, not so much for composition. It is a diatonic mode after all, and our ear will gladly shift to a more stable tonic given the opportunity. Also, I know how MuseScore's MIDI can effectively ruin even the most crafted work. It was an interesting attempt though.


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## Mahlerian

Pennypacker said:


> There was never hope for this piece.  The Locrian mode - great for improvising, not so much for composition. It is a diatonic mode after all, and our ear will gladly shift to a more stable tonic given the opportunity.


Well, the mode does shift over into B-flat aeolian and D-flat major, but my intent was to have it forced back just as abruptly. In my ear I succeeded at least in making it sound like the piece concludes. Phrasing also plays a role here. The phrases are mostly asymmetrical, but the return to five-bar phrases at key points helps to emphasize the return and coda.



Pennypacker said:


> Also, I know how MuseScore's MIDI can effectively ruin even the most crafted work.


The MIDI I get from the program itself is far better than the version heard in the above link, also, which has far less rich overtones.


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## BurningDesire

Pennypacker said:


> There was never hope for this piece.  The Locrian mode - great for improvising, not so much for composition. It is a diatonic mode after all, and our ear will gladly shift to a more stable tonic given the opportunity. Also, I know how MuseScore's MIDI can effectively ruin even the most crafted work. It was an interesting attempt though.


You speak as if improvisation is totally different from composition, when in fact it is just a subcategory of the latter. Lydian mode is difficult to use, but not impossible.


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## eilrahc

I heard some Bartok in there! Melodically, I think your lines are quite strong and carry interest throughout to the end. However, I do feel the overall flow of the piece tends to stagnate by the second half, perhaps due to the homogenous rhythm that you've chosen. 

When I work with harmonic or symmetric modes (anything that's harmonically homogenous/non-functional) I usually tend to rely on the rhythm of the musical gestures to keep things interesting. Since both your rhythms and your harmony are very consistent the overall feel of the piece becomes apparent pretty quickly. But maybe you were going for something that had a hypnotic effect to it?


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## Pennypacker

BurningDesire said:


> You speak as if improvisation is totally different from composition, when in fact it is just a subcategory of the latter. Lydian mode is difficult to use, but not impossible.


Is this a linguistic point you're making? Is it not clear from the context that by "composing" I meant "writing"? Of course, you can write an entire piece in one key or mode, but obviously that's not what Mahlerian tried to do. Therefore more difficult.


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## Mahlerian

I've updated the score to replace all of the terraced dynamics with actual crescendos, making it sound a _little_ less mechanical...

http://musescore.com/user/84716/scores/154435


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## BurningDesire

Okay, on re-listening I have a more specific complaint. So often in this piece you are constantly returning to that tonic unison, and to me it makes the piece very monotonous. There are several points in the piece where you start to take it in an interesting, startling new direction, only for that to be cut short by abruptly just going back to the tonic again. Its like a common practice tonal piece that just keeps constantly returning to a perfect authentic cadence at the end of every phrase, or even half-way through phrases. For a specific example, let's look at bars 26 and 27, and again at the repeat of that same material. Its so frustrating because you're introducing new harmonic colors, but they don't lead anywhere. Its not like you even take it to a new sonority or voicing in the tonic, its just those same octaves as always before. Again in bars 42 and 43. You have this interesting new harmonic material that is broken up by the forced return to that tonic. Its not so bad the second time through where it actually moves on to new things, but the first time it just kills the momentum that is being built up. I know that locrian is tough to establish so you really have to emphasize that tonic, but not to this excessive degree.


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## Mahlerian

BurningDesire said:


> Okay, on re-listening I have a more specific complaint. So often in this piece you are constantly returning to that tonic unison, and to me it makes the piece very monotonous. There are several points in the piece where you start to take it in an interesting, startling new direction, only for that to be cut short by abruptly just going back to the tonic again. Its like a common practice tonal piece that just keeps constantly returning to a perfect authentic cadence at the end of every phrase, or even half-way through phrases. For a specific example, let's look at bars 26 and 27, and again at the repeat of that same material. Its so frustrating because you're introducing new harmonic colors, but they don't lead anywhere. Its not like you even take it to a new sonority or voicing in the tonic, its just those same octaves as always before. Again in bars 42 and 43. You have this interesting new harmonic material that is broken up by the forced return to that tonic. Its not so bad the second time through where it actually moves on to new things, but the first time it just kills the momentum that is being built up. I know that locrian is tough to establish so you really have to emphasize that tonic, but not to this excessive degree.


In part, this is by design. The form is more or less modeled on sonata form in terms of introduction-exposition-departure-return. The "exposition" (bars 23-43) is meant to stable, so that the attempted departure towards D-flat major near the end is, at bar 43, shunted back onto C. At the same point in the "return" (bar 110), this attempt actually succeeds, and a region nearer to B-flat aeolian is momentarily established (sort of).


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## BurningDesire

Mahlerian said:


> In part, this is by design. The form is more or less modeled on sonata form in terms of introduction-exposition-departure-return. The "exposition" (bars 23-43) is meant to stable, so that the attempted departure towards D-flat major near the end is, at bar 43, shunted back onto C. At the same point in the "return" (bar 110), this attempt actually succeeds, and a region nearer to B-flat aeolian is momentarily established (sort of).


I understand, and really it is partly a matter of personal preference. Still I think it could be improved by using different sonorities off of your tonic, such as different octaves of C, or adding the minor third above or major sixth below. I think even that would help give some variety and greater direction.


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## Eviticus

Hi Mahlerian,

For some reason i cannot play your link. Has it been moved or do i have to register with musescore?

Incidentally, I know there are a lot of Mahlerians out there, but did you use to post on digital dream doors classical pages by any chance?


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## Mahlerian

Eviticus said:


> Hi Mahlerian,
> 
> For some reason i cannot play your link. Has it been moved or do i have to register with musescore?


It has been moved. I revised the score and removed the old one.
http://musescore.com/user/84716/scores/154435



Eviticus said:


> Incidentally, I know there are a lot of Mahlerians out there, but did you use to post on digital dream doors classical pages by any chance?


No...probably someone else. I am registered at another forum under this name (PM me if you want to know which one), but not that one.


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## lupinix

Its nice hearing something youve made. Locrian mode is difficult to write in and while listening locrian music it isn't rare for me to hear tonics everywhere except on the tone supposed to be, but I think youve done well, nice motives and also I actually like the harmonies and think they do sound natural. I'm curious of what was your idea/emotion/story when you wrote this?

Id listened to it yesterday already but decided to listen again because first impression isn't always the best. I still think it's a bit long compared to the musical material used, especially rhythmically. It isn't very odd the locrian mode starts getting irritating as everything sounds alike, but I think youve done well enough creating little variations and alterations and modulations etc. Also rhythmically I like how you start, there are some nice rhytmic things on the first page, but the problem everything sounds alike. I understand you want to keep the puls and meter very clear because its a dance, but I would personal have liked a little contrasting moment with a different rhythm (yet dancelike if you want). In terms of composite rhythm, apart from bars 3, 57, 68 (a moment i liked because it suprised me) and of course the ending, you seem never to have used values longer than a half note (and even that is rare) and totally no values smaller than a 8th note (of which there a really a lot), and to me it starts getting a bit irritating after two minutes or so. (but maybe you wanted to express irritation or something similar so thats why I asked)

Also I would like it better without the repeat of the second page. The second page and the first page are to much of the same already in my opinion and hearing it completely the same doesn't make it much more exciting, just more irritating to me. In stead of just repeating it literally you could also have written it down and used another register, dynamics, articulation (for instance the first time you play it in the middle register with a range of ff - mp staccato notes and the second time in a high register using pedal and a range of let say mp-ppp legato). Judging from your use of register and articulation and also a bit of rhythm and dynamics, it sounds much like minimal music, which is often modal too so maybe thats what you are after? except minimal music is often based on a simple and clear musical proces or development which i find frankly very hard to hear here. 

The third page though I like a lot, and the fourth page I like even better, it begins with something really exciting/tensive, halfway it falls back to material used on the first two pages but with nice twists, on the fifth page at the end is also a nice moment I like, and I find the sudden ending nice too. Only thing I wanted to say anything about is, when you want to write in a melodic/polyphonic texture, it is nice if all the lines sound really melodic. The leaps in melodies are as important as the steps but when you use more than 2 leaps after each other in the same direction with the same rhythm and same dynamics it sounds rather harmonic than naturally melodic, especially when the tones form triads or other tonal chords. 

I hope you don't take my commentary wrong or too hard, I think you've done well, I just hope the things I say help you being more aware of what you do and whether thats what you want or not. If i didn't like it I wouldnt have said so much, I hope it will help you get closer to your own musical needs and desires.


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## Mahlerian

lupinix said:


> I hope you don't take my commentary wrong or too hard, I think you've done well, I just hope the things I say help you being more aware of what you do and whether thats what you want or not. If i didn't like it I wouldnt have said so much, I hope it will help you get closer to your own musical needs and desires.


Not too hard at all! I appreciate the time you took to listen to the piece and comment, and I agree with much of what you said: the rhythmic sameness becomes...samey after a while and the part writing is an awkward mixture of homophonic and contrapuntal thinking.

I feel that part of the rhythmic problem would be mitigated by a live performance, because mechanical playback makes such problems far worse, but it is still an area that I need to work on.


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## lupinix

Mahlerian said:


> Not at all! I appreciate the time you took to listen to the piece and comment, and I agree with much of what you said: the rhythmic sameness becomes...samey after a while and the part writing is an awkward mixture of homophonic and contrapuntal thinking.
> 
> I feel that part of the rhythmic problem would be mitigated by a live performance, because mechanical playback makes such problems far worse, but it is still an area that I need to work on.


Yay, glad to be of help! And yeah, of course in a live performance it will sound a lot better, as with all music, it would be nice if it is performed by someone, because you learn so much of composition and notation just by listening to a performance of your own piece.


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## juergen

Mahlerian said:


> It's a pseudo-moto perpetuo piece in the locrian mode, the most unstable of all of the modes. Its tonic triad is a diminished chord


The terms tonic, dominant, subdominant, and so on, are inherently connected to the major/minor tonal systems. In any other tonal system, such as the church modes, these terms can not be applied. The triad on the first step of the locrian mode does not sound like a tonic, because it is not a tonic.


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## Mahlerian

juergen said:


> The terms tonic, dominant, subdominant, and so on, are inherently connected to the major/minor tonal systems. In any other tonal system, such as the church modes, these terms can not be applied. The triad on the first step of the locrian mode does not sound like a tonic, because it is not a tonic.


Okay then, the triad that can be built by stacking thirds on top of the note which is felt circumstantially as the key note of the mode used.

Is that pedantic enough?


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## juergen

Mahlerian said:


> Okay then, the triad that can be built by stacking thirds on top of the note which is felt circumstantially as the key note of the mode used.
> 
> Is that pedantic enough?


No. There is also no key note. Because there is no key. What you probably mean is called 'finalis'.

But you probably misunderstood what I wanted to say. The problem is not the use of the terms that belong to the major/minor tonal system. The problem is the thinking in these terms while trying to compose with scales that have nothing to do with those terms. At composing with modal scales there is no place for methods of the diatonic functional theory. Even thinking in triads is misplaced.


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## PetrB

juergen said:


> No. There is also no key note. Because there is no key. What you probably mean is called 'finalis'.


Does it get much smaller or unimportant?


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## Winterreisender

I enjoyed this composition. The tune is quite memorable, and at bar 33 it sounded as if it was going to break out into Bartok's "Allegro Barbaro."


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## Mahlerian

Winterreisender said:


> I enjoyed this composition. The tune is quite memorable, and at bar 33 it sounded as if it was going to break out into Bartok's "Allegro Barbaro."


Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Bartok was certainly one of my subconscious models. Very conscious that I was not writing tonally, I had to find substitutes for the stable relationship of fifth to tonic, just as (often) Bartok did.


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## Torkelburger

juergen said:


> The terms tonic, dominant, subdominant, and so on, are inherently connected to the major/minor tonal systems. In any other tonal system, such as the church modes, these terms can not be applied. The triad on the first step of the locrian mode does not sound like a tonic, because it is not a tonic.


This is false. Those terms are inherent to all diatonic scales, not just major or minor. Every key signature has seven diatonic scales available to it, and each first scale degree of each of those diatonic scales is called the tonic and can be heard as such.


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## lupinix

Torkelburger said:


> This is false. Those terms are inherent to all diatonic scales, not just major or minor. Every key signature has seven diatonic scales available to it, and each first scale degree of each of those diatonic scales is called the tonic and can be heard as such.


I agree on the tonic, even though in gregorian chant they call it "finalis" it still is a tonic. There's however not a real "tonic triad" and there also aren't things like subdominant or dominant which are harmonic and therefor tonal relations rather than melodic modal relations like the reciting tone which has maybe some similarity to the dominant but is really something different


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## Torkelburger

lupinix said:


> I agree on the tonic, even though in gregorian chant they call it "finalis" it still is a tonic. There's however not a real "tonic triad" and there also aren't things like subdominant or dominant which are harmonic and therefor tonal relations rather than melodic modal relations like the reciting tone which has maybe some similarity to the dominant but is really something different


There is most certainly a real tonic triad in modes. With all do respect, you do not seem very experienced with modal music at all. I have been playing and composing modal music for over 20 years. I have a degree from Berklee College of Music where I took four semesters of jazz harmony. I've had private jazz composition lessons with the best this world has to offer. There is most certainly subdominant and dominant in the modes. They are always the fourth degee and fifth degree of the mode and the corresponding triads. It is extremely common among jazz musicians to say something like "The dominant chord in mixolydian is minor."

Let me illustrate with my own compositions. This chart is written in the A aeolian mode (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). The key signature has no sharps and no flats. Every note is natural. Every single note played in the harmony, melody, and solos is diatonic to A aeolian (no chromatic notes, they have no sharps and no flats). The melody and solos utilizes A as the tonic. The diatonic triads in A aeolian are as follows:

a minor, b dim, C Major, d minor, e minor, F Major, G Major. Using Roman Numerals it is i, iidim, III, iv, v, VI, VII. Names are tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, subtonic. So again, we would say, "The tonic in mixolydian is major, while the tonic in aeolian is minor."

Anyway, here is the chord progression of the chart:

a minor (i), e minor (v), a minor (i), F Major (VI), G Major (VII)
a minor (i), e minor (v), a minor (i), F Major (VI), G Major (VII)
C Maj (III), d minor (iv), e minor (v), F Major (VI), G Major (VII)
a minor (i), e minor (v), a minor (i), F Major (VI), G Major (VII)
a minor (i), F Major (VI), G Major (VII), a minor (i)
d minor (iv), e minor (v), F Major (VI), G Major (VII) (back to top)

After listening to the song, listen to it a second time and play along on your piano. This is the best way to understand the flavor of the mode and understand why A is tonic and the A minor triad is the tonic triad. Notice that the end of every phrase utilizes a modal cadence characteristic of the mode (VI, VII, i). Play that cadence over and over to understand why A is tonic and the a minor triad is the tonic triad. Note how many progressions in the tune do not follow the cycle of fifths. Modal music is often composed with progressions moving in seconds and thirds. Also note that the music ends on the A minor triad at the end. It sounds final. It is the tonic.

Here is the link:


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## Torkelburger

Another example with one of my compositions:

This chart is in the mixolydian mode. This is a twelve bar blues but the chord progressions are modal, not blues. The first four bars are D mixolydian. The second four bars are G mixolydian. The next two bars utilize modal interchange (something I'm not going into at this point). The last two bars are D mixolydian again because D major (the tonic in D mixolydian) is the tonic triad and is heard as such.

The notes for D mixolydian come from the G Major key signature (one sharp). The mode is D, E, F#, G, A, B, C. The triads are D Major, e minor, F# dim, G Major, a minor, b minor, C Major. Or I, ii, iii dim, IV, v, vi, VII.

G mixolydian is the same, just transposed up a perfect fourth.

The chord progression is as follows:
D Major (I), a minor (v), D Major (I), a minor (v), D Major (I), a minor (v), D Major (I), a minor (v)
Then changes to G mixo:
G Major (I), d minor (v), G Major (I), d minor (v), G Major (I), d minor (v), G Major (I), d minor (v)
Modal interchange and substitute dominant:
F7, e minor, Eb7
Back to D mixolydian (clearly heard as tonic):
D Major (I), C Major (VII), D Major (I), C Major (VII).

Again, play along with the recording. See if you understand with your ears why D Major is the tonic and see if you could explain to someone who asks the question, "Why is the key signature G Major but the first and last chord a tonic D Major?"

link:


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## Torkelburger

Here's yet another example using one of my compositions. This time we are in D dorian.

The key signature for D dorian is no sharps and no flats. Every note is natural. The mode is D, E, F, G, A, B, C. The chords are d minor (i), e minor (ii), F Major, G Major, a minor, b dim, C Major.

The chord progression is:
d minor (i), G Major (IV), d minor (i), G Major (IV), d minor (i), G Major (IV), d minor (i), G Major (IV)
G Major (IV), a minor (v), G Major (IV), a minor (v), etc...

Nowhere in the entire chart does a C Major chord appear. Yet, the d minor triad clearly sounds tonic. The melody emphasizes this by utilizing d and even ending on the high d. Sounds final and tonic.


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## Torkelburger

More of my modal compositions:

Eb dorian and D dorian:





C Lydian:


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## Torkelburger

I apologize about derailing the thread with my own music. Anyway, I wanted to hear your piece again but my computer can't find the page this morning.

I do recall giving the piece a listen previously and thought it was good and enjoyable.


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## Mahlerian

Torkelburger said:


> I apologize about derailing the thread with my own music. Anyway, I wanted to hear your piece again but my computer can't find the page this morning.
> 
> I do recall giving the piece a listen previously and thought it was good and enjoyable.


It's here:
http://musescore.com/user/84716/scores/154435


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