# Tonality and modality



## jamesnnnnn

Tonality is using notes from particular scale, staying in key.
Modality is picking relationship between two notes used at the same time.
Am I correct on this?

I am reading this book, and there is topic about this two, but by reading I found it is like a composers sence of what he want to acomplish more than having some rules, for modality.
And if i did realized well, modal connection between notes in a scale is dominant likes subdominant, supertonic, tonic and leading tone 7th, they are like familly, and likes to be used to form harmony together, and others are another family which are okay to use for a chords, but they aren't so strong or dominating throught a track?
Did I get this on correct way?
And also if its correct this way, why minor chords use mediant to be formed with perfect 5th as dominant and root chord as tonic?

I know I am asking many questions, but well, I am self studying throught books as an hobbyst, and i need help of some educated guys.
Thanks, for everyone who's helping me,
James :tiphat:


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## millionrainbows

Generally (and non-academically) speaking, "tonality" is not just the common practice major/minor system. A 'tonality' can be created with any mode or scale, if we treat it as a scale and not as a melodic formula. Triads can be built on each step of a mode, and can be given "functions", just like in CP tonality. This is the true meaning of "harmonic tonality," where a scale or mode has a key note, and all its members are related to that note, which creates an hierarchy of tonality.


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## BabyGiraffe

Tonality usually refers to the organization of the pitches in a certain system like the old Byzantine modes, western major and minor scales, Arabic maqams, Indian ragas, Indonesian slendro and pelog scales, modern 12tone rows and pitch set collections.

But most of the time people talk about the diatonic scale (pitch class set 7-35) when they think about tonality. These type of pitch sets are usually symmetrical mirrors like the diatonic scale, the melodic minor and... the double harmonic scale.
It's usually a chain of consonant chords that loops. One of the scale degrees has a strong feeling of resolution - like C in C major.
There are also unexplored tonal scales in the other divisions of the octave like the 22et decatonic system.

http://www.tonalcentre.org/index.html
http://lumma.org/tuning/erlich/erlich-decatonic.pdf


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## Vox Gabrieli

I would never try to explain either in a single sentence. I don't feel as if it is doing our great musicians much justice.


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## millionrainbows

I'm fixing to try to tackle understanding the old church mode system. I found a good book on it. Talk about complicated! The Greek modes, and then Ptolemy, and the transposition of the modes, how they were misnamed…it's a very archaic story with many twists and turns. Wish me luck.


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## Bettina

For anyone who wants to learn more about modes, I recommend John Vincent's book The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music. It was published in 1951, so his definition of modern might not be quite the same as ours - but it's nevertheless a useful study, and it has some interesting chapters on the history of modal theory. The book can be downloaded for free at this link: 
https://archive.org/details/diatonicmodesinm00vinc


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## jegreenwood

Bettina said:


> For anyone who wants to learn more about modes, I recommend John Vincent's book The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music. It was published in 1951, so his definition of modern might not be quite the same as ours - but it's nevertheless a useful study, and it has some interesting chapters on the history of modal theory. The book can be downloaded for free at this link:
> https://archive.org/details/diatonicmodesinm00vinc


Done! And a bunch more letters


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## Vox Gabrieli

millionrainbows said:


> I'm fixing to try to tackle understanding the old church mode system. I found a good book on it. Talk about complicated! The Greek modes, and then Ptolemy, and the transposition of the modes, how they were misnamed…it's a very archaic story with many twists and turns. Wish me luck.


For a less historically ambiguous response, I reccomend Christopher Headington's _ History of Western Music_ ( Not to be confised with Donald J. Grout, _A History of Western Music_ ), it has a nice section on Greek, ecclestial, etc.

The Western world owes a huge debt to Greek and Roman music, with origins of scales, tetrachords, modes etc.

For some reason, I couldn't find the excerpt on Greek scales in Headington!

Edit: It was in an Aaron Copland book, _What to Listen For in Music_ Unfortunately, I've hit a dead end, the chapter goes on about octave spans, and the diatonic scale. Still actively seeking reccomendations!


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## Phil loves classical

Tonality is a broad term and includes modality. The common major and minor scales are only 2 of the possible modes. The placement of the semitones within each mode in the scale shifts, creating different sound environments.


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## millionrainbows

Phil loves classical said:


> Tonality is a broad term and includes modality. The common major and minor scales are only 2 of the possible modes. The placement of the semitones within each mode in the scale shifts, creating different sound environments.


That's the way I see it, but there are some academics here who say "modality" is strictly melodic and non-harmonic, so it can't be "tonal" as the maj/min scales are. They make a strict distinction between a scale and a mode.


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## Razumovskymas

Here's another question:

How did all these church-modes end up on the white keys of the piano?


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## BabyGiraffe

Razumovskymas said:


> Here's another question:
> 
> How did all these church-modes end up on the white keys of the piano?


Probably made for convenience. There are 6 chords that sound nice in this scale and all of its rotations, which is a lot!
If want more scales with 6 or more nice chords, you have to play something like this:


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## millionrainbows

Razumovskymas said:


> Here's another question:
> 
> How did all these church-modes end up on the white keys of the piano?


A white-note scale is a diatonic scale of 7 notes. Consider the left-over black notes, which form a pentatonic scale. This is true of all diatonic 7-note scales; they form a "complementary" pentatonic scale.

What is a diatonic scale? It could be considered a pentatonic with 2 added notes. Pentatonics, interestingly, are formed by "stacking" or projecting fifths from a starting note, as in F-C-G-D-A, respelled in one octave as F-G-A-C-D (the major pentatonic). By simply adding two more "projections", we get the notes E and B. Add those to the pent scale F-G-A-C-D and we get the entire "white note" collection: F-G-A-B-C-D-E.

A bigger question might be: why do we have to start on F to do all this if the main scale is C major? You got me. If it all stems from F, then some decision must have been made to choose C instead.


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## millionrainbows

WIK says:
In western music theory, a *diatonic scale* is a heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps, depending on their position in the scale. This pattern ensures that, in a diatonic scale spanning more than one octave, all the half steps are maximally separated from each other (i.e. separated by at least two whole steps).

Keep those half-steps separated! Also, WIK starts _its_ explanation _also_ on *F*. Isn't that curious?


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## Eschbeg

millionrainbows said:


> If it all stems from F, then some decision must have been made to choose C instead.


Historically, I believe it was actually D that was the "starting point." Mode 1 of the medieval mode system was the Dorian mode.

More accurately, it was the tetrachord D-E-F-G that was their theoretical starting point because those four pitches encapsulated the eight medieval modes:

- climbing up the diatonic scale starting on those pitches gives you the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian scales; i.e. modes 1-4, or the "authentic" modes
- taking the "authentic modes" and reorienting them so that their "tonics" (or "finals," if we're sticking with Medieval terminology) are in the middle, rather than the beginning and the end, gives you the Hypodorian, Hypophyrgian, Hypolydian, and Hypomixolydian scales; i.e. modes 7-8, or the "plagal" modes

[Here's Wikipedia's entry on the medieval mode system.]

The D-E-F-G tetrachord remained the standard until the theorist Hermannus Contractus, who made the following observation (I'm sure it felt more like a "discovery" to him): if you add a whole step to either end of the D-E-F-G tetrachord, producing C-D-E-F-G-A, then you get a better encapsulation of the eight modes:

- C-D-E-F gives you the beginning of the modes 6 and 7, as well as mode 5 if you include the B-flat that any medieval musician would have added in performance to avoid the tritone
- D-E-F-G gives you the beginnings of modes 1, 2, and 8
- E-F-G-A gives you the beginnings of modes 3 and 4

And since the last four notes of any of the modes will intervallically replicate the first four notes of one of the modes (i.e. the last four notes of the Mixolydian scale are the same as the first four notes of the Dorian scale), then the pitch pattern C-D-E-F-G-A really encapsulates _all_ of the modes in total.

That, it is my understanding, is why C became the "starting point" in Western music theory.


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## millionrainbows

Wow, good info! Also note, the Dorian mode is symmetrical.


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## EdwardBast

Eschbeg said:


> Historically, I believe it was actually D that was the "starting point." Mode 1 of the medieval mode system was the Dorian mode.
> 
> More accurately, it was the tetrachord D-E-F-G that was their theoretical starting point because those four pitches encapsulated the eight medieval modes:
> 
> - climbing up the diatonic scale starting on those pitches gives you the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian scales; i.e. modes 1-4, or the "authentic" modes
> - taking the "authentic modes" and reorienting them so that their "tonics" (or "finals," if we're sticking with Medieval terminology) are in the middle, rather than the beginning and the end, gives you the Hypodorian, Hypophyrgian, Hypolydian, and Hypomixolydian scales; i.e. modes 7-8, or the "plagal" modes
> 
> [Here's Wikipedia's entry on the medieval mode system.]
> 
> The D-E-F-G tetrachord remained the standard until the theorist Hermannus Contractus, who made the following observation (I'm sure it felt more like a "discovery" to him): if you add a whole step to either end of the D-E-F-G tetrachord, producing C-D-E-F-G-A, then you get a better encapsulation of the eight modes:
> 
> - C-D-E-F gives you the beginning of the modes 6 and 7, as well as mode 5 if you include the B-flat that any medieval musician would have added in performance to avoid the tritone
> - D-E-F-G gives you the beginnings of modes 1, 2, and 8
> - E-F-G-A gives you the beginnings of modes 3 and 4
> 
> And since the last four notes of any of the modes will intervallically replicate the first four notes of one of the modes (i.e. the last four notes of the Mixolydian scale are the same as the first four notes of the Dorian scale), then the pitch pattern C-D-E-F-G-A really encapsulates _all_ of the modes in total.
> 
> That, it is my understanding, is why C became the "starting point" in Western music theory.


Good information. Here is some further elaboration and explanation:

The names of the Church modes derive from the modes of Ancient Greece, which were described in precise terms. Unfortunately, Medieval theorists didn't realize that the interval structures of the Greek modes were listed from the central tone, down, not the central tone up! So even though the Greek modes use the same names as the later church modes, none of them are actually the same modes as their later counterparts. Oops. The Greek Phrygian, for example, actually corresponds to the Ionian (major scale) in the expanded Church mode system.

The eight-mode system Eschbeg describes above was expanded in 1547 to a twelve-mode system by Heinrich Glarean in his treatise, The Dodecachordon. The new modes were the Ionian and Hypoionian (built on C) and the Aeolian and Hypoaeolian (built on A.) You will notice that these modes correspond to the modern major and natural minor scales. The story of why these became the important modes in modern music is complicated.


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## Eschbeg

Razumovskymas said:


> How did all these church-modes end up on the white keys of the piano?


This is based on utterly no research on my part whatsoever, but my guess is that it has to do with the invention of the staff.

Since the very beginning, the staff is premised on the diatonic scale; i.e. even though the layout of lines and spaces look visually symmetrical, they are not intervalically symmetrical: assuming a treble clef*, nothing on the staff indicates that the interval between the bottom line and space above it (E-F) is different from the interval between the second line from the bottom and the space above it (G-A). You have to already know that the former is a half-step and the latter is a whole-step. Even though the diatonic scale is not the only possible sequence of whole steps and half steps, it is the sequence that the inventor of the staff chose to use, and in general the staff takes it for granted that people reading it have internalized the diatonic scale.

As mentioned above, the medieval modes are basically segments of the diatonic scale; all that varies from mode to mode is which note of the diatonic scale you're calling your starting point. So I'm guessing (haphazardly and recklessly) that the white keys of the keyboard were designed to correspond with the pitches of the staff; and since the pitches of the staff are the diatonic scale, and since the diatonic scale is the origin of the modes, it follows that the white keys of the keyboard align with the modes.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

(*Yes, yes… I know the treble clef was not a standard clef when the staff was invented. I use it here as an example for simplicity's sake.)


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## EdwardBast

Eschbeg said:


> This is based on utterly no research on my part whatsoever, but my guess is that it has to do with the invention of the staff.


This is based on research into 2,500 years of music theory: 

The Church modal system derives directly from the acoustic science and music theory of the Ancient Greeks. Medieval theorists read Greek music theory and tried to copy their modal system. Despite making critical errors (see my last post above), they nevertheless got the basic diatonic system and the musical intervals it entails correct. The staff only came about as a convenient way of notating what they got from the Greeks. That's your answer: They got it from the Greeks, who to a significant extent derived it from mathematical ratios. Church modal music is all "white key music" because Ancient Greek music, as medieval theorists misunderstood it, was also "white key music." (In fact, the Ancient Greeks also used chromatic and enharmonic tetrachords, the latter using quarter tones, but the medieval theorists didn't digest or use this information.)

The part below is speculative but probably right:



Eschbeg said:


> As mentioned above, the medieval modes are basically segments of the diatonic scale; all that varies from mode to mode is which note of the diatonic scale you're calling your starting point. So I'm guessing (haphazardly and recklessly) that the white keys of the keyboard were designed to correspond with the pitches of the staff; and since the pitches of the staff are the diatonic scale, and since the diatonic scale is the origin of the modes, it follows that the white keys of the keyboard align with the modes.
> 
> That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
> 
> (*Yes, yes… I know the treble clef was not a standard clef when the staff was invented. I use it here as an example for simplicity's sake.)


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## millionrainbows

Eschbeg said:


> This is based on utterly no research on my part whatsoever, but my guess is that it has to do with the invention of the staff.
> 
> Since the very beginning, the staff is premised on the diatonic scale; i.e. even though the layout of lines and spaces look visually symmetrical, they are not intervalically symmetrical: assuming a treble clef*, nothing on the staff indicates that the interval between the bottom line and space above it (E-F) is different from the interval between the second line from the bottom and the space above it (G-A). You have to already know that the former is a half-step and the latter is a whole-step. Even though the diatonic scale is not the only possible sequence of whole steps and half steps, it is the sequence that the inventor of the staff chose to use, and in general the staff takes it for granted that people reading it have internalized the diatonic scale.
> 
> As mentioned above, the medieval modes are basically segments of the diatonic scale; all that varies from mode to mode is which note of the diatonic scale you're calling your starting point. So I'm guessing (haphazardly and recklessly) that the white keys of the keyboard were designed to correspond with the pitches of the staff; and since the pitches of the staff are the diatonic scale, and since the diatonic scale is the origin of the modes, it follows that the white keys of the keyboard align with the modes.
> 
> That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
> 
> (*Yes, yes… I know the treble clef was not a standard clef when the staff was invented. I use it here as an example for simplicity's sake.)


That's a brilliant observation! I wonder why I never saw this. The half steps between E-F and B-C are invisible on the staff.

And Edwardbast's posts give the completed picture. This is the most succinct, clear explanation of the mode system I've seen yet, with no distractions from wannabe know-it alls, or academics, like in the past. I actually learned something.


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## Razumovskymas

Ok but did they need the black keys as wel back then? Sharps and flats?

It's all nice the story of the church modes but unless they needed those black keys also from the start it's as if they put them there just in case some nutcase in the future wanted to modulate or transpose.

I can't seem to get my head around the whole picture.


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## BabyGiraffe

Razumovskymas said:


> Ok but did they need the black keys as wel back then? Sharps and flats?
> 
> It's all nice the story of the church modes but unless they needed those black keys also from the start it's as if they put them there just in case some nutcase in the future wanted to modulate or transpose.
> 
> I can't seem to get my head around the whole picture.


Stacking fifths or fourths will give you *12 *keys before starting another cycle a comma higher or lower - these are called Pythagorean tunings. 
Pythagorean tunings were used during Renaissance and Medieval times. In some way this system is worse than 12et, because the m and M 3rds are worse than just intonation depending on whether you stack 4ths or 5ths and worse than 12et and meantone/well tempered.
It's a 3 limit system and you can extend the Pythagorean to 17 keys as used by the arabs and some italians in medieval times or 22 keys as used by the indians even now.
If you temper the comma from the 12 keys, you will get the modern tuning which allows chromatic progressions, but is generally worse for Baroque and Classical music (people were using almost pure thirds sacrificing the fifths during Baroque and Classical periods).
There is no reason to make a keyboard with 7 keys when you can make one with 12 in the same official tuning back then.
If people were using something more pure, we could have been playing now with 19 keys per octave, because this is the best option before 31 and is generally better than Pythagorean for Western music. 
Pythagoreans thought that the number 5 is bad, impure or something similar, so the pure m3 (6/5) and M3 (5/4) were not popular.


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## EdwardBast

Razumovskymas said:


> Ok but did they need the black keys as well back then? Sharps and flats?
> 
> It's all nice the story of the church modes but unless they needed those black keys also from the start it's as if they put them there just in case some nutcase in the future wanted to modulate or transpose.
> 
> I can't seem to get my head around the whole picture.


Don't worry if the explanation in the preceding post ^ ^ ^ is incomprehensible. Here is the historical explanation:

B-flat existed from very early on in medieval theory. It was essential to the existence of the hexachord system postulated by Guido D'Arezzo in the early 11thc when he was inventing staff notation. Other "accidentals" began to be used as _musica ficta_, meaning altered pitches that were meant to be sung but were not notated; Singers were just supposed to know when to use them. The most common place musica ficta was used was at cadences, when composers developed a taste for raised leading tones. So in Mixolydian mode F would often be sharped before it moved to G, the final of the mode. Likewise C# occurred as ficta in Dorian mode cadences. G# was used in transposed Dorian and later Aeolian mode. Another situation in which ficta was used was to avoid tritones (augmented 4ths or diminished 5ths). The strangeness that musica ficta wrought on vocal music reached extremes in Renaissance era music in works like Josquin's (or Pierre de la Rue's, depending on whose attribution you accept) _Absalon fili mi_. In this motet there is a modulation all the way to the key of D-flat(!) that would have been executed without any of the flats being notated. Gradually composers began to notate the sharps and flats formerly used as musica ficta.

So the five "black keys" came into use as musica ficta: Bb, Eb, F#, C#, and G# (or Ab) and were present on early keyboards and fretted instruments.


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## Razumovskymas

Thanks for the explanation! That's another piece in my puzzle.

I read about musica ficta and sharps or flats that weren't notated in "A History of Western Music" by Grout & Palisca. They're quite detailed about the music theory of that period (compared to their more general approach of later eras). I guess I'm gonna have to do some extra reading to really understand.


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## Eschbeg

A quick side note: _musica ficta_ came into frequent use in sacred music around the 14th century, so that is a convenient starting point for "accidentals"; but they were almost certainly in use in secular music long before that. The reason we usually cite _musica ficta_ as the beginnings is because that is when "accidentals" first begin to be theorized. Secular musicians never bothered with theory because secular music never needed to be validated by theory in the first place.

EDIT: Wikipedia tells me that the 14th century is also when keyboard instruments came into their own in the form of clavichords and harpsichords. There were pipe organs long before then, but Wiki says they frequently did not feature keyboards at all. So the timing seems about right: the era that saw the emergence of sharps and flats is also the era that saw the birth of the keyboard.


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## EdwardBast

Eschbeg said:


> A quick side note: _musica ficta_ came into frequent use in sacred music around the 14th century, so that is a convenient starting point for "accidentals"; but they were almost certainly in use in secular music long before that. The reason we usually cite _musica ficta_ as the beginnings is because that is when "accidentals" first begin to be theorized. *Secular musicians never bothered with theory because secular music never needed to be validated by theory in the first place*.
> 
> EDIT: Wikipedia tells me that the 14th century is also when keyboard instruments came into their own in the form of clavichords and harpsichords. There were pipe organs long before then, but Wiki says they frequently did not feature keyboards at all. So the timing seems about right: the era that saw the emergence of sharps and flats is also the era that saw the birth of the keyboard.


In the 14th century the greatest advances in rhythmic theory and the rhythmic notation of western art music, unsurpassed in complexity until the 20thc, were made by composers of secular chanson.

Musica ficta was in use in secular music in the 13th and 14thc.


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## Eschbeg

EdwardBast said:


> Musica ficta was in use in secular music in the 13th and 14thc.


I was about to write a post explaining that some secular repertoires like trecento madrigals had no need for terms like "musica ficta" since that term applies to notes existing outside the theoretical system of late medieval music, which was not the basis of trecento madrigals the way it was for sacred polyphony... but then I looked it up and saw that Jacopo da Balogna, one of the greatest of the trecento madrigalists, was a university-trained composer and author of a treatise on polyphony. So I stand corrected: music theory was not so irrelevant to secular repertoires.

My broader point was about _musica ficta_ specifically and how the invention of the term should not be confused with the invention of the phenomenon it describes. Since the term refers to "chromatic" notes existing outside the medieval gamut, it should be reserved only for music for which the medieval gamut was the default model. Notes existing outside the medieval gamut were there all along in secular (and sacred) music predating the formulation of the concept of _musica ficta_.


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