# Do You Hear Early Chant as being tone-centric?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

When I listen to Gregorian and earlier chant, sometimes it sounds like it's in a "key" or is centered around a tonic note; other times, sometimes at the end of the piece itself, it ends on a note that seems to imply that it is, or was, in a different key, usually a fifth or fourth away. Why is this?

Am I supposed to be hearing this music as being centered around a particular key pitch? That seems to be the natural tendency of my ear and brain. 

I realize that this chant I speak of is "pre-tonal" in that it existed in the Medieval era, before Baroque CP tonality developed. Yet, its usual one-line simplicity seems to strongly imply that it is centered around a key note.

Are we intended to hear chant this way? I also have a CD in which the chant is "supplemented" by an organ which puts it in a harmonic context. Is this version the "true" way the chant is to be heard, or was this an afterthought tacked-on by tonal thinkers?

Somebody give me a definitive explanation. Is chant "ambiguous" tonally, since it's melodic, or is it always implying a tonality?

What about tetrachords? Are they scales, or fixed-order structures? Can they be drawn from freely, like scales, or must they remain as a rigid order? They came from the Greeks, so are they just ways of dividing the octave?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> When I listen to Gregorian and earlier chant, sometimes it sounds like it's in a "key" or is centered around a tonic note; other times, sometimes at the end of the piece itself, it ends on a note that seems to imply that it is, or was, in a different key, usually a fifth or fourth away. Why is this?


It's because Gregorian chant isn't tonal music. It's modal. Specifically, it conforms, more or less, to the eight-mode system formalized by Guido d'Arezzo in his Mikrologus (ca. 1020). Despite coming to use the same names as some of the Greek modes, any relationship between the systems is tenuous. In the church mode system, modes were defined primarily by their final, for which there were four choices: D, E, F, or G. The modes come in pairs with an authentic and plagal form for each mode, the primary difference between the forms being range. The second most important pitch in each mode was the reciting tone, which often played an important role in the middle of phrases. The reciting tone could be a third, fourth, fifth, or sixth above the final, and so had nothing to do with modern notions of the dominant.



millionrainbows said:


> Am I supposed to be hearing this music as being centered around a particular key pitch? That seems to be the natural tendency of my ear and brain.


Yes, as long as you are using the word key in the generic sense of important. You should be hearing the music in relation to the final of the mode



millionrainbows said:


> I realize that this chant I speak of is "pre-tonal" in that it existed in the Medieval era, before Baroque CP tonality developed. Yet, its usual one-line simplicity seems to strongly imply that it is centered around a key note.
> 
> Are we intended to hear chant this way? I also have a CD in which the chant is "supplemented" by an organ which puts it in a harmonic context. Is this version the "true" way the chant is to be heard, or was this an afterthought tacked-on by tonal thinkers?


The organ accompaniment is probably not authentic.



millionrainbows said:


> Somebody give me a definitive explanation. Is chant "ambiguous" tonally, since it's melodic, or is it always implying a tonality?


The notion of tonality is anachronistic in this context. It doesn't apply. It is just difficult for modern listeners raised with tonal music to shed their learned prejudices - or, I suppose, given your belief system, to let go of the universe's natural order through the harmonic series ;-)



millionrainbows said:


> What about tetrachords? Are they scales, or fixed-order structures? Can they be drawn from freely, like scales, or must they remain as a rigid order? They came from the Greeks, so are they just ways of dividing the octave?


The tetrachord system applies to Greek modes. The church modes were conceived as a fifth (pentachord) plus a fourth (tetrachord), with the position of the semitone within the pentachord being the crucial factor.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> It's because Gregorian chant isn't tonal music. It's modal.


But I thought I qualified this when I said "...I realize that this chant I speak of is "pre-tonal" in that it existed in the Medieval era, before Baroque CP tonality developed. Yet, its usual one-line simplicity seems to strongly imply that it is centered around a key note."

We'd better clear-up a more flexible notion of tonality and modality before we move on.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> But I thought I qualified this when I said "...I realize that this chant I speak of is "pre-tonal" in that it existed in the Medieval era, before Baroque CP tonality developed. Yet, its usual one-line simplicity seems to strongly imply that it is centered around a key note."
> 
> We'd better clear-up a more flexible notion of tonality and modality before we move on.


Million, I found your opening post very puzzling given your interest in music theory. As Edward noted, medieval (and Renaissance) music is modal, not tonal. A couple of recommended books:

Thomas Christensen, ed., _The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). See especially:
*David E. Cohen, "Notes, Scales, and Modes in the Earlier Middle Ages," pp. 307-363
*Cristle Collins Judd, "Renaissance Modal Theory: Theoretical, Compositional, and Editorial Perspectives," pp. 364-406.

Also Mark Everist, ed., _The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Here see the essays:
Susan Boynton, "Plainsong," pp. 7-25.
Michael McGrade, "Enriching the Gregorian Heritage," pp. 26-45
Sarah Fuller, "Early Polyphony to circa 1200," pp. 46-66.
Dolores Pesce, "Theory and Notation," pp. 276-290.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Alypius said:


> Million, I found your opening post very puzzling given your interest in music theory. As Edward noted, medieval (and Renaissance) music is modal, not tonal. A couple of recommended books:


Now I'm more puzzled than ever. These answers don't explain anything.

"Modal" has a very specific academic definition as applied to chant. I'm not interested in traditional practices and procedures;

I'm asking a musical question, which challenges your ability to interpret and explain what you _actually hear.
_
Have we forgotten the title of this post? "Do you hear early chant as being tone-centric?"

The question is not "Is chant tonal" or "Is chant modal" in an academic sense; I already know it is not traditionally tonal in the strict sense of the term.

What I am asking is "How do *you *hear chant? Is it tone-centric? Does it seem to be centered around a certain note?"

If we are to be using terms like "modal" and "tonality" in a strict academic sense, then we need to arrive at a more general meaning of "tonality" which I intend as a *general* term meaning "tone-centric," unless that is unacceptable for academics here.

I've already expended quite a bit of energy on this point in another thread on this, along with a *more general definition of tonality from the Harvard Dictionary of Music, *so we need to agree generally on what I'm getting at by music being "tone-centric" and is a descriptor of how you hear it, rather than an academic term.

In other words, my goal is to see how early chant *actually sounds* to other people, and if it sounds as if it's centered around a particular tone, and sounds that way to the ear.

Perhaps an example would explain more.





For example, in this clip the first note sounds like the tone center. I also hear a flatted-seventh, and a flatted sixth, and a minor third, which I would normally call the Dorian mode.

Is there some academic reason that I am incorrect in hearing it this way?


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Now I'm more puzzled than ever. These answers don't explain anything.
> 
> "Modal" has a very specific academic definition as applied to chant. I'm not interested in traditional practices and procedures;
> 
> ...


I have listened to modal music most of my life. I hear modes as modes. Tonality is a historical creation. So too are modes -- only their history is older. I think historical facts matter. And the facts are that composers in the era didn't have your tonal-centered ears. They had modal-centered ones. These facts are not "academic." If you hear tonality, well, that implies more about what you bring to the music than what the people of that time did (and, for that matter, for people like me who are used to hearing modal music for what it is). I don't understand your a-historical (or anti-historical) position here. You enjoy music theory. Why don't you consider reading on the history of it?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

To get back to the OP's question: I hear Ambrosian chant as 'tonal' in the non-specific sense; Gregorian as something else (apparently modal, though I don't know the formulae).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Alypius said:


> I have listened to modal music most of my life. I hear modes as modes. Tonality is a historical creation. So too are modes -- only their history is older. I think historical facts matter. And the facts are that composers in the era didn't have your tonal-centered ears. They had modal-centered ones. These facts are not "academic." If you hear tonality, well, that implies more about what you bring to the music than what the people of that time did (and, for that matter, for people like me who are used to hearing modal music for what it is). I don't understand your a-historical (or anti-historical) position here. You enjoy music theory. Why don't you consider reading on the history of it?


I notice that you describe my hearing as "tonal" rather than "modal."
You still haven't explained the essential meaning of the term "modal", especially if you are using it to counter the notion of "tonal" hearing.

What precisely do you mean by 'modal?" What is a mode?

To me, the "modes" refer to the Church modes used in chant, if used academically.

But I also use the term "mode" to mean the modes of the major scale: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixoydian, Aolian, and Locrian. Therefore, I understand these "modes" to be scales, and behave like scales.

I understand a scale to be an "index" of notes, from which melodic structures are drawn, which has a "beginning" key note, to which the other scale degrees relate subordinately. D Dorian is centered on D, F Lydian is centered on F, etc.

Also, triads can be built on the scale degrees of a mode. Dorian would be i: DFA (minor triad), ii: EGB (minor), III: FAC (maj), etc.

In this sense, "modes" are scales, and imply a tonal center.

How do your "church modes" fail to do this, since you say they are not "tonal" meaning tone-centric?

Oh, yes, you forgot to define what you mean by tonal.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Yes, chant is tonal, in the general sense, because it centers around a key note.

*The Harvard Dictionary of Music* makes a distinction between the two meanings of

_*Tonality:* 1. Loyalty to a tonic, in the broadest sense of the word.

2. Also, the terms "tonality" and "modality" are mutually exclusive, the former referring to music written in a "key" (major or minor mode) and the latter to pieces written in, or showing the influence of, the church modes._

_This second usage is obviously not compatible with the broad definition of tonality above, which includes all tonal relationships, whether "tonal" or "modal."

If the explanation of mode as the constituent scale is accepted, (see Mode 1.), then tonality exists in different "modal" varieties, based, e.g., on the church modes, the major and minor modes, the pentatonic mode, the whole-tone mode, the diatonic mode (see Pandiatonicism) or, as in some modern music, the chromatic mode._

_Other uses of the term "tonality," e.g., in the sense of "tonal system" (almost synonymous with what has been termed modality above), or in the sense of major-and-minor tonality (as opposed to modality in the accepted meaning of the term), also have become firmly entrenched in current usage._

_*Mode:* A term used for two entirely different concepts, both rooted in medieval music, namely (1) one of scale formation, and (2) one of rhythm.
(1) Mode, in the widest sense of the word, denotes the selection of tones, arranged in a scale, that form the basic substance of a composition. 
(2) In a narrower sense, the term "mode" refers only to those scales that go back to medieval church modes._


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Afterthoughts:

Ahh, now that I can relax, secure in the fact that chant is tonal, here are some observations.

*Tonality has two dimensions, *and can be established in either of two ways, or both: the vertical and the horizontal.

The horizontal is *melodic.* Chant achieves its tonality by the use of modes, from which melodies are constructed which suggest the center tone (tonic, home note).

Thus, tonality can be achieved by melodic means alone.

The vertical is *harmonic,* and grew out of the congruence of lines, finally resulting in chords as separate entities, which were assigned functions. This includes root movement of chords.

So, to say "chant is not tonal" is misleading; it does establish tonality through the use of melody.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Yes and no.

All scales are one scale since all major and minor, scales whatever their key, share the identical arrangement of tones and semi-tones. This, together with the circle of fifths allows for harmony and modulation. A triad on the third or fourth always has the same arrangement of tones and semi-tones; no matter what the key it always has the same major or minor quality as the scale. A triad on the fifth is a little bit different as it can be major or minor depending on the type of minor scale and possibly the direction of travel.

All modes are different. Each mode has a different arrangement of tones and semi-tones. You can't talk about major or minor; you don't know, independent of the mode, the quality of a triad on *any *note of the mode. Harmony, as understood in common practice terms, is not there. That's why much medieval music used either doubling of voices at some interval or was properly polyphonic (*not *harmonic) using different melodies working together.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> All scales are one scale since all major and minor, scales whatever their key, share the identical arrangement of tones and semi-tones. This, together with the circle of fifths allows for harmony and modulation. A triad on the third or fourth always has the same arrangement of tones and semi-tones; no matter what the key it always has the same major or minor quality as the scale. A triad on the fifth is a little bit different as it can be major or minor depending on the type of minor scale and possibly the direction of travel.
> 
> All modes are different. Each mode has a different arrangement of tones and semi-tones. You can't talk about major or minor; you don't know, independent of the mode, the quality of a triad on *any *note of the mode. Harmony, as understood in common practice terms, is not there. That's why much medieval music used either doubling of voices at some interval or was properly polyphonic (*not *harmonic) using different melodies working together.


I have no idea what you are getting at. I look at it this way, learned from Ted Greene:

The Dorian mode is just a variant on a minor scale, except it has a flatted-sixth degree and a flatted seventh degree. No big deal in and of itself, but if you build triads on the degrees, i is minor (D-F-A) and IV is MAJOR (G-B-D). A noticeable difference from aeolian minor, in which i-iv-v are all minor. Thus, we get modern day progressions like Santana's "Evil Ways."

Even the chromatic scale can be used as a mode, if the underlying pulse is a drone or if the bass line implies a single central tone. This is heard all the time in Miles Davis.

I'm a musician and composer, and I want to use musical materials in a practical way that makes musical sense. I have no idea why some thinkers are so entrenched in tradition for tradition's sake. To me, if there is an obvious musical truth to a sound, I will go with my ears, rather than an edict or strict definition. What, for instance, is "modal hearing?"


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Just saying that church modes don't support vertical tonality only melodic.

Quite agree that modes are tone-centric.

If you are seriously interested in plain chant try Rev. P. Suitbertus Birkle, O.S.B _Method of the Solesmes Plain Chant_.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm a musician and composer, and I want to use musical materials in a practical way that makes musical sense. I have no idea why some thinkers are so entrenched in tradition for tradition's sake. To me, if there is an obvious musical truth to a sound, I will go with my ears, rather than an edict or strict definition. What, for instance, is "modal hearing?"


Trying to hear modal music on its own terms is no more tradition for tradition's sake than is taking the historical usage of English words into account when reading Chaucer or Shakespeare. People who want to hear chant as modal music want to get at the aesthetic essence of this music as it was created and understood on the supposition that it has irreplaceable aesthetic value in these terms. This is modal hearing. On the other hand, if you hear a cadence on the note E in a third-mode chant as arriving on the third degree of a major scale, then you are hearing the music anachronistically - and misapprehending the character of the mode. This kind of hearing is effectively illiterate in the same way that reading Shakespeare as if the words he used had the same meanings and connotations as in modern English would be. The difference, I suppose, is that our hypothetical reader of Shakespeare might be less likely to view her way of reading as "obvious literary truth."


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Trying to hear modal music on its own terms is no more tradition for tradition's sake than is taking the historical usage of English words into account when reading Chaucer or Shakespeare. People who want to hear chant as modal music want to get at the aesthetic essence of this music as it was created and understood on the supposition that it has irreplaceable aesthetic value in these terms. This is modal hearing. On the other hand, if you hear a cadence on the note E in a third-mode chant as arriving on the third degree of a major scale, then you are hearing the music anachronistically - and misapprehending the character of the mode. This kind of hearing is effectively illiterate in the same way that reading Shakespeare as if the words he used had the same meanings and connotations as in modern English would be. The difference, I suppose, is that our hypothetical reader of Shakespeare might be less likely to view her way of reading as "obvious literary truth."


Bingo. Give that man a cigar!


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Since I'm completely tone deaf (and, I suspect, modal deaf, too -- a model of modal deafness, no doubt), when I listen to Gregorian Chant, I listen only to the words. Everything _sung_ in Latin sounds the same to me ... but the words are sometimes different.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Hmm. Try this one - the words are the same but the tunes are different. This is is also one for million to try his tone sense on.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Trying to hear modal music on its own terms is no more tradition for tradition's sake than is taking the historical usage of English words into account when reading Chaucer or Shakespeare. People who want to hear chant as modal music want to get at the aesthetic essence of this music as it was created and understood on the supposition that it has irreplaceable aesthetic value in these terms. This is modal hearing. On the other hand, if you hear a cadence on the note E in a third-mode chant as arriving on the third degree of a major scale, then you are hearing the music anachronistically - and misapprehending the character of the mode. This kind of hearing is effectively illiterate in the same way that reading Shakespeare as if the words he used had the same meanings and connotations as in modern English would be. The difference, I suppose, is that our hypothetical reader of Shakespeare might be less likely to view her way of reading as "obvious literary truth."


I'm not sure how valid the analogy between literature and music is, and I definitely don't intend to attempt to impose my approach as the only correct one, but within the realm of literature, just for myself personally, I insist on taking both approaches.

But that understates my true feeling. I actually doubt that anyone can succeed at a purely historical interpretation of a work without having a great deal of awareness of their own biases and assumptions, or that they can get to a historical understanding of a work without finding out a lot about their own biases and assumptions. When someone declares that something meant such and such to its author, and therefore we must take it thus or be ignorant fools, I find that such and such turns out to fit very comfortably the personal opinion of the declarer. This isn't to say that there isn't any historical truth, but that it is much harder to get at than we usually think. Historiographical insights abound to teach us this lesson.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

science said:


> But that understates my true feeling. I actually doubt that anyone can succeed at a purely historical interpretation of a work without having a great deal of awareness of their own biases and assumptions, or that they can get to a historical understanding of a work without finding out a lot about their own biases and assumptions.


I know someone who actually learned how to convincingly improvise plainchants in the various modes (to test the assumption that the written examples we have today were an attempt to codify an oral improvised tradition), so I am perhaps more optimistic about the prospects. But even with imperfect success, I think there is value in the effort precisely because of what one learns about ones own predispositions. Makes for a broader sensibility.



science said:


> When someone declares that something meant such and such to its author, and therefore we must take it thus or be ignorant fools, I find that such and such turns out to fit very comfortably the personal opinion of the declarer. This isn't to say that there isn't any historical truth, but that it is much harder to get at than we usually think. Historiographical insights abound to teach us this lesson.


This criticism might be telling if the historical truth under discussion were arcane, controversial, or poorly understood. It isn't. We know the finals of the church modes and we know that those who codified the tradition heard these finals as tones of resolution where motion comes to rest. All I am suggesting is that one try to hear these final pitches in this way. It really isn't hard to do and it is certainly worth attempting before blithely imposing ones "obvious [anachronistic] musical truth" on several hundred years of western music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> I know someone who actually learned how to convincingly improvise plainchants in the various modes (to test the assumption that the written examples we have today were an attempt to codify an oral improvised tradition), so I am perhaps more optimistic about the prospects. But even with imperfect success, I think there is value in the effort precisely because of what one learns about ones own predispositions. Makes for a broader sensibility.
> 
> This criticism might be telling if the historical truth under discussion were arcane, controversial, or poorly understood. It isn't. We know the finals of the church modes and we know that those who codified the tradition heard these finals as tones of resolution where motion comes to rest. All I am suggesting is that one try to hear these final pitches in this way. It really isn't hard to do and it is certainly worth attempting before blithely imposing ones "obvious [anachronistic] musical truth" on several hundred years of western music.


I doubt we can ever succeed in hearing Gregorian Chant the way, say, Hildegard heard it; somewhere in the back of our minds we'll always carry our experiences with Bach, Wagner, Schoenberg, the Beatles, Herbie Hancock, Sonic Youth, whatever.

But as a lover of "early" music (and who occasionally enjoys music from non-Western cultures), I won't disagree with you at all about the worthiness of the goal.

I wonder whether you're so optimistic about our ability to understand literature as it was understood in the past. I think someone mentioned Chaucer. Do you think it's a relatively simple matter to shed the past six centuries and read him as John of Gaunt or William Langland might have?

To me, it's... hard to imagine that. My own personal experience changing religions informs me on things like this. When I'd studied Eastern Orthodox Christianity a few years, I thought I had it. I'd read quite a few works of theology and spirituality from a wide range of places and eras, I'd been to a lot of different churches, I'd been through the liturgical cycle several times.... But over and over, even after years of that, I would find that I was carrying implicit assumptions from my Evangelical/fundamentalist past with me. I think I certainly got better at reading Paul as a first-century Christian might have, or reading Maximus the Confessor as a seventh-century Greek monk might have.... But that was largely a process of discovering my own assumptions and slowly beginning to shed them. I can still hardly read Isaiah, John, or Romans as anything but a Western Christian, carrying Augustine and Calvin and Scofield with me, like it or not.

Some proverb declares that the past is a foreign country, and I find that foreign countries are inevitably more foreign than I experience at first. Even having lived in Korea for 12 years now, I still find myself surprised by things in their culture that I hadn't appreciated/internalized. Just recently I found myself stunned by the way they take a kind of classism for granted in a way that I couldn't easily have imagined.

It just happens over and over. As a big history buff (and a history teacher) I find that I am constantly surprised by the past being more different from the present than I'd have expected. I find it becomes much more interesting to me as it becomes more foreign, and that seems to be the case for many of my students too, but perhaps that would turn other people off.

All the same, for me there's a quasi-dialectical (in the Hegelian sense) phenomenon of studying the past: as you understand the past better, it becomes both more familiar and stranger. And so it happens that I'm very pessimistic about our ability to truly understand the past from its own perspective. We can't even understand the present very well! But the effort is very enriching.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

science said:


> I doubt we can ever succeed in hearing Gregorian Chant the way, say, Hildegard heard it; somewhere in the back of our minds we'll always carry our experiences with Bach, Wagner, Schoenberg, the Beatles, Herbie Hancock, Sonic Youth, whatever.
> 
> But as a lover of "early" music (and who occasionally enjoys music from non-Western cultures), I won't disagree with you at all about the worthiness of the goal.
> 
> ...


science, I think your reflections on your own experience are helpful, but they have perhaps raised the bar too high. Let me see if I can articulate my sense of it. First, Edward's reflections came as an excellent counter-argument to one who are argued that the modes are simply quasi-tonal or disguised tonality, that he didn't need to know anything about the history of medieval music (and its own theories about modes), that the study of its intellectual history was irrelevant to his own pure hearing and his own theories about tonality. And Edward skillfully argued that such a position was utterly naive.

I too am a professional historian. I appreciate your sense that we continually discover the past as a foreign country and that the more one studies the stranger it often is. But that presupposes that one actually knows something about it! Your experience of the strangeness or foreignness of Korea is not mine -- I can't speak a word of Korean and, while I have friends who are natives of Korea, I have little serious appreciation of its culture and history. Just because you continue to find Korea foreign doesn't mean that you don't know lots and lots and lots about it about which I have no clue. In fact, I would gladly come to you as a guide to shepherd me through the hard transition of that foreigness. Your very experience can provide a bridge for others -- just as your experience of studying history provides a bridge for your students.

Let me return to the topic of medieval music: We know a lot about it, its actual works, its composers, its movements, its music theory. And for the last 50-60 years, we have two, maybe three, generations of performers who have professionally immersed themselves in historical musicological studies so as to "hear" medieval music with something approximating hearing with medieval ears. (I think here of the recordings that you and I regularly listen to--from David Munrow, Paul Hillier, Manfred Cordes, etc.). No, we can't hear music exactly as Hildegard heard it because our listening experience is too broad. And we come to it as a sort of "second language". I have listened to medieval music for 45 years and have performed it (as an amateur) for nearly that long. I also grew up listening to Gregorian chant, hearing it performed when I was a kid. I have studied various theoretical works of the period. I don't appreciate them the way a professional musicologist (like Edward) does, nor like a professional performer (like Paul Hillier) does, but I do hear modal music as modal and not as tonal. I would argue that in musical terms, I'm multi-lingual: I can hear many jazz idioms for what they are, many more recent tonal classical idioms for what they are, many contemporary musics for what they are. I am not equally fluent in all of those, but I can hear them each in their own terms to some degree. Medieval music (and its theory) may be a foreign language -- but it can be learned. It may not be a native language, but one can approximate it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Alypius said:


> science, I think your reflections on your own experience are helpful, but they have perhaps raised the bar too high. Let me see if I can articulate my sense of it. First, Edward's reflections came as an excellent counter-argument to one who are argued that the modes are simply quasi-tonal or disguised tonality, that he didn't need to know anything about history of medieval music, that its study of its intellectual history was irrelevant to his own pure hearing. And Edward skillfully argued the utter naivete of that.
> 
> I too am a professional historian. I appreciate your sense that we continually discover the past as a foreign country and that the more one studies the stranger it often is. But that presupposes that one actually knows something about it! Your experience of the strangeness or foreignness of Korea is not mine -- I can't speak a word of Korean and, while I have friends who are natives of Korea, I have little serious appreciation of its culture and history. Just because you continue to find Korea foreign doesn't mean that you don't know lots and lots and lots about it about which I have no clue. In fact, I would gladly come to you as a guide to shepherd me through the hard transition of that foreigness. Your very experience can provide a bridge for others -- just as your experience of studying history provides a bridge for your students.
> 
> Let me return to the topic of medieval music: We know a lot about it, its actual works, its composers, its movements, its music theory. And for the last 50-60 years, we have two, maybe three, generations of performers who have professionally immersed themselves in historical musicological studies so as to "hear" medieval music with something approximating hearing with medieval ears. (I think here of the recordings that you and I regularly listen to--from David Munrow, Paul Hillier, Manfred Cordes, etc.). No, we can't hear music exactly as Hildegard heard it because our listening experience is too broad. And we come to it as a sort of "second language". I have listened to medieval music for 45 years and have performed it (as an amateur) for nearly that long. I also grew up listening to Gregorian chant, hearing it performed when I was a kid. I have studied various theoretical works of the period. I don't appreciate them the way a professional musicologist (like Edward) does, nor like a professional performer (like Paul Hillier) does, but I do hear modal music as modal and not as tonal. I would argue that in musical terms, I'm multi-lingual: I can hear many jazz idioms for what they are, many more recent tonal classical idioms for what they are, many contemporary musics for what they are. I am not equally fluent in all of those, but I can hear them each in their own terms to some degree. Medieval music (and its theory) may be a foreign language -- but it can be learned. It may not be a native language, but one can approximate it.


Mostly I want to point out that I'm a history teacher, not a historian, and I know the difference! I am to a historian what a sports journalist is to an athlete. But I take a lot of pride in my work. I hope my students feel that history is a thing historians do rather than an objective report about the past that can be perfectly codified for textbooks and tests; and I hope besides learning a bit of what they ought to know to join the world of educated adults, they experience a little of the excitement of discovering the past, a little of the joy of exploring that foreign country.

But to get back to the subject, I don't dispute your account of your experience at all, especially the analogy to multilingualism which is a very thoughtful, probably very helpful one. What I value most in it is the awareness that getting into that other culture takes work and involves some mind-bending surprises. I haven't found the offending post yet, so I can't be sure what its author intended, but I think that we're all in near agreement on the importance of not underestimating the "otherness" of the past, trying to appreciate it increasingly on its own terms and decreasingly on ours; and, however sanguine we are about our ability to eventually understand a language we begin learning as adults, we agree that a lot of progress can be made in that direction.

BTW, I don't mean my comments to imply that I think historically informed performance is the only correct performance practice! I agree that it is _the most important_ way - and unquestionably so! - but not the _only_ way. I actually value very much hearing, say, Bach as someone in the 1940s might have. I want to relate to those people as much as I do to Bach's people.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Just saying that church modes don't support vertical tonality only melodic.
> 
> Quite agree that modes are tone-centric.
> 
> If you are seriously interested in plain chant try Rev. P. Suitbertus Birkle, O.S.B _Method of the Solesmes Plain Chant_.


At last! Thank you Taggart! Confirmation is often times a rare thing on this forum. But wait! I hear the rumblings of dissent in the distance...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> At last! Thank you Taggart! Confirmation is often times a rare thing on this forum. But wait! I hear the rumblings of dissent in the distance...


Nope. That's just my current digestive trouble.

I've posted 3 Kyries in different modes for you to try.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Trying to hear modal music on its own terms is no more tradition for tradition's sake than is taking the historical usage of English words into account when reading Chaucer or Shakespeare. People who want to hear chant as modal music want to get at the aesthetic essence of this music as it was created and understood on the supposition that it has irreplaceable aesthetic value in these terms. This is modal hearing. On the other hand, if you hear a cadence on the note E in a third-mode chant as arriving on the third degree of a major scale, then you are hearing the music anachronistically - and misapprehending the character of the mode. This kind of hearing is effectively illiterate in the same way that reading Shakespeare as if the words he used had the same meanings and connotations as in modern English would be. The difference, I suppose, is that our hypothetical reader of Shakespeare might be less likely to view her way of reading as "obvious literary truth."


I think there is an "obvious musical truth" being overlooked by you, and also Taggart, when he said "there is no major and minor in modal chant."
Even though back then a mode such as Dorian, with a minor third, was not called "minor," I think it has the same effect on the modern ear as it did back then; the minor third sounds "sadder" and more solemn, thus its use more frequently in the Crucifixion, rather than the Resurrection, which favored a more "up" major third mode. Tone-deaf people who have read too much literature might miss this.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Bingo. Give that man a cigar!


Yes! A cheap Nicaraguan, not a Cuban.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> At last! Thank you Taggart! Confirmation is often times a rare thing on this forum. But wait! I hear the rumblings of dissent in the distance...


Million, before you feel so confirmed, you might actually want to work through that little treatise that Taggert attached. When you do, I don't think you'll find your predispositions so comfortably confirmed. You might consider the fact that while it is a classic treatise, it is designed for late 19th-/early 20th-century monks who actually performed chant on a daily basis -- because the author had a very particular historical agenda about chant, namely, a whole set of late 19th-century aspirations about religious reform. And you might also consider that our understanding of medieval modes has been considerably enriched in the 100 years of serious research since that little treatise was published -- thus the books that I recommended earlier.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Since I'm completely tone deaf (and, I suspect, modal deaf, too -- a model of modal deafness, no doubt), when I listen to Gregorian Chant, I listen only to the words. Everything _sung_ in Latin sounds the same to me ... but the words are sometimes different.


You're not tone deaf, you've just read too much Shakespeare.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Hmm. Try this one - the words are the same but the tunes are different. This is is also one for million to try his tone sense on.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

science said:


> I doubt we can ever succeed in hearing Gregorian Chant the way, say, Hildegard heard it; somewhere in the back of our minds we'll always carry our experiences with Bach, Wagner, Schoenberg, the Beatles, Herbie Hancock, Sonic Youth, whatever.





Alypius said:


> science, I think your reflections on your own experience are helpful, but they have perhaps raised the bar too high. Let me see if I can articulate my sense of it. First, Edward's reflections came as an excellent counter-argument to one who are argued that the modes are simply quasi-tonal or disguised tonality, that he didn't need to know anything about the history of medieval music (and its own theories about modes), that the study of its intellectual history was irrelevant to his own pure hearing and his own theories about tonality. And Edward skillfully argued that such a position was utterly naive.
> 
> No, we can't hear music exactly as Hildegard heard it because our listening experience is too broad. And we come to it as a sort of "second language". I have listened to medieval music for 45 years and have performed it (as an amateur) for nearly that long. I also grew up listening to Gregorian chant, hearing it performed when I was a kid. I have studied various theoretical works of the period. I don't appreciate them the way a professional musicologist (like Edward) does, nor like a professional performer (like Paul Hillier) does, but I do hear modal music as modal and not as tonal. .


I've made various cuts in the (excellent) posts to pick out the bits I'm interested in.

I grew up singing plain chant at school. Our current church uses a lot of plain chant and recitation to tone. It is screechingly obvious when you get a modal recitation followed by a modern harmonised version of an _Amen _or whatever. They jar in all sorts of odd ways. You don't need to think about CP tonality to hear the clash. So modal and tonal music *are *different.

Equally, when you hear the same texts sung to different modes e.g. a Requiem in VI compared to the Missa de Angelis in VIII you are aware of _different tonal centres_ and that, as far as I can see, is what Million was going on about. I don't think that's naive just a different aural approach to the music. He's not saying they're tonal in the CP sense merely that they have a defined tonal centre.

In the same way, anybody who attempts to accompany folk tune will be well aware of the different harmonic structures demanded by a modal tune compared to a tune based on a scale. The same applies to any sort of gapped scale.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Hmm. Try this one - the words are the same but the tunes are different. This is is also one for million to try his tone sense on.







Wow, that one is a surprise! I thought it was a fragment of a major-sounding mode, but at the very end, they go to a flat-seventh and down to a new tonic! That makes it, ultimately, minor-sounding. It changes the meaning of the first part, if you listen to it a second time: what you thought was "tonic" is actually the minor third!
Are these monks jacking with us? Creating false expectations, just like all composers do?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Hmm. Try this one - the words are the same but the tunes are different. This is is also one for million to try his tone sense on.


This is tricky, and subtle. it sounds like the Dorian mode at first, because they keep accenting the five-to-flat sixth degrees; but when the top octave is reached, they go down to the flat seventh (expected in Dorian), but then hit a natural, un-flatted sixth, as in aolean (natural) minor!

What gives? This is exactly the sort of thing that mystifies, and intrigues me, about chant.

Can you explain this use of both natural and flatted sixth? Is this two modes "butted up" against each other?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm thinking that "minor/major' came from the way chant uses the modes. In the Crucifixion, the lower, sadder minor third is used, but in the Resurrection, a happier, more hopeful major third lifts us up. What thinkest thou, o noble Taggart?


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

nitpick: millionrainbows, you've said several times throughout the thread that Dorian has a flatted sixth. It doesn't. It has a raised sixth. This is because theorists say that Dorian is a "minor mode" because it's tonic triad is minor. In the natural minor scale, a sixth degree is lowered, but in Dorian, this does not happen (that's WHY it is Dorian...it is IDENTICAL to the natural minor scale except its sixth degree is a half-step higher), therefore, it is called a "raised" sixth.

A minor scale with a flatted seventh, flatted sixth, and flatted third that you keep referring to/defining as Dorian is the natural minor (Aeolian mode).
/end nitpick


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Taggart said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> All scales are one scale since all major and minor, scales whatever their key, share the identical arrangement of tones and semi-tones. This, together with the circle of fifths allows for harmony and modulation. A triad on the third or fourth always has the same arrangement of tones and semi-tones; no matter what the key it always has the same major or minor quality as the scale. A triad on the fifth is a little bit different as it can be major or minor depending on the type of minor scale and possibly the direction of travel.
> 
> All modes are different. Each mode has a different arrangement of tones and semi-tones. You can't talk about major or minor; you don't know, independent of the mode, the quality of a triad on *any *note of the mode. Harmony, as understood in common practice terms, is not there. That's why much medieval music used either doubling of voices at some interval or was properly polyphonic (*not *harmonic) using different melodies working together.


This is nonsense you literally made up on the fly to mask your gross misunderstanding of modes. Apparently, you don't realize that all modes also, whatever the key, would also share an identical arrangement of tones and semi-tones. From your first paragraph above you think "scales" are only afforded such qualities as if there is some magical, mystical separation between a "scale" and a "mode".

Re-read your first paragraph, replacing the word "scale" with the word "mode" and you'll realize how ridiculous your second paragraph is.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Taggart said:


> Just saying that church modes don't support vertical tonality only melodic.
> 
> Quite agree that modes are tone-centric.
> 
> If you are seriously interested in plain chant try Rev. P. Suitbertus Birkle, O.S.B _Method of the Solesmes Plain Chant_.


Oh, not again. This is false. Modes support harmony and melody just like any other major or minor diatonic scale.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Try the dots MR - http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/34/13371a2beadbfb7fdf863bb0d84b11.pdf - in modern form. There's also this on proper chant.

Trouble with chant is that there's a fair amount of melisma which can make it difficult to get the exact notes which is why the dots help.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

I've been asked via PM by a lurker to (politely) elaborate on my post #35. I hope this helps:


> All scales are one scale since all major and minor, scales whatever their key, share the identical arrangement of tones and semi-tones.


This is correct. What he means by this is no matter what key signature you are in, a major scale will always consist of the intervals (ascending order from the root) Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step (WWHWWWH) and a (natural) minor scale will always consist of the intervals (ascending order from the root) Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step (WHWWHWW).


> A triad on the third or fourth always has the same arrangement of tones and semi-tones; no matter what the key it always has the same major or minor quality as the scale.


This is also correct. What he means by this is that if you build a triad on the third scale degree of ANY major scale it will always have the same arrangement of tones (major or minor quality). For example, a triad built on the third degree of ANY major scale will ALWAYS produce a minor triad. A triad built on the fourth degree of ANY major scale will ALWAYS produce a major triad, etc.


> A triad on the fifth is a little bit different as it can be major or minor depending on the type of minor scale and possibly the direction of travel.


This is correct. Here he is referring to the two additional minor scales used in classical music (harmonic minor, and melodic minor).


> All modes are different.


This is false. In fact, they are PRECISELY the same.


> Each mode has a different arrangement of tones and semi-tones.


False. Each mode has EXACTLY THE SAME arrangement of tones and semi-tones in each and every key, just like the major and minor scales do (as one would expect of ANY DIATONIC SCALE). Example: Dorian in the key of C's arrangement of tones and semi-tones is as follows: Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Whole step, Half Step, Whole step (WHWWWHW). Dorian in the key of F's arrangement of tones and semi-tones is also WHWWWHW. And it's the same in all keys.


> You can't talk about major or minor; you don't know, independent of the mode, the quality of a triad on any note of the mode.


False again. The quality of the triad built on the second degree of Dorian in the key of C is minor (e minor triad). The quality of the triad built on the second degree of the Dorian mode in the key of D is minor (F# minor).


> Harmony, as understood in common practice terms, is not there.


False. It most certainly is there.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> False. Each mode has EXACTLY THE SAME arrangement of tones and semi-tones in each and every key, just like the major and minor scales do (as one would expect of ANY DIATONIC SCALE). Example: Dorian in the key of C's arrangement of tones and semi-tones is as follows: Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Whole step, Half Step, Whole step (WHWWWHW). Dorian in the key of F's arrangement of tones and semi-tones is also WHWWWHW. And it's the same in all keys.


I was talking about modes in general.

So Dorian starting on D has the notes D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D and the interval pattern T-s-T-T-T-s-T.

Phrygian on the other hand, starting on E has the notes E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E and the interval pattern s-T-T-T-s-T-T

Hence the problem of "harmonising" since each mode has its own unique pattern. I apologise for not making this clear.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Taggart said:


> I was talking about modes in general.
> 
> So Dorian starting on D has the notes D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D and the interval pattern T-s-T-T-T-s-T.
> 
> ...


But then why not the same comparison between major and minor? You can't have it both ways. I could just as easily say:

So Major starting on D has the notes D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D and the interval pattern T-T-s-T-T-T-s.

Minor on the other hand, starting on E has the notes E-F#-G-A-B-C-D-E and the interval pattern T-s-T-T-s-T-T.

Hence the problem of "harmonising" since each scale has its own unique pattern.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Taggart, you are confusing yourself. You are trying to uphold some sort of false barrier between a scale (which you want to associate with the major/minor system) and a mode (which you want to put in some sort of liminal space of sorts).

It's quite simple. Modes ARE scales. Each and every key has seven diatonic scales/modes available to it. Plain and simple. We gave them arbitrary names, and named two of them twice.
1. Ionian (Major)
2. Dorian
3. Phrygian
4. Lydian
5. Mixolydian
6. Aeolian (Natural Minor)
7. Locrian

There's no magic property that a major scale has that a dorian scale lacks and vice versa.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

So, wait a minute.... I just want to confirm that everyone here is in agreement that "mode" meant the same thing in the 13th century that it meant in the 19th?

I am a bit surprised by that and want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding anything. Until now, everything I'd read (this is a fine example) seemed to suggest that there were differences between Medieval modes and modern modes.

Let's take something like:



> The eight church modes, or Gregorian modes, can be divided into four pairs, where each pair shares the "final" note and the four notes above the final, but have different ambituses, or ranges. If the "scale" is completed by adding three higher notes, the mode is termed authentic, if the scale is completed by adding three lower notes, it is called plagal.... Otherwise explained: if the melody moves mostly above the final, with an occasional cadence to the sub-final, the mode is authentic. Plagal modes shift range and also explore the fourth below the final as well as the fifth above. In both cases, the strict ambitus of the mode is one octave.


I get the sense that this plagal/authentic thing was important once upon a time and isn't anymore. I'm not sure that "the final" is a concept that has much meaning to a modern listener. That is, now that we're accustomed to music stretching across several octaves, do we actually feel something like "the melodies move mostly above the final" in some modes?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

science said:


> So, wait a minute.... I just want to confirm that everyone here is in agreement that "mode" meant the same thing in the 13th century that it meant in the 19th?
> 
> I am a bit surprised by that and want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding anything. Until now, everything I'd read (this is a fine example) seemed to suggest that there were differences between Medieval modes and modern modes.
> 
> ...


No, everyone is not in agreement. The church mode system has little in common with the modern conception Torkelburger has been discussing. In the medieval church system there is only one Dorian Mode. It is called Mode I and it begins on D with a reciting tone on A. The Hypodorian Mode has the same notes, a different ambitus, and F as a reciting tone.

The ranges and position of the pentachord and tetrachord were observed more or less, but one must remember that the modal classifications were imposed on a preexisting oral tradition and not all chants unambiguously fit the prescribed types. Moreover, and as Millions seems to be discovering in his listening, some examples of plainchant change mode one or more times.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> Taggart, you are confusing yourself. You are trying to uphold some sort of false barrier between a scale (which you want to associate with the major/minor system) and a mode (which you want to put in some sort of liminal space of sorts).
> 
> It's quite simple. Modes ARE scales. Each and every key has seven diatonic scales/modes available to it. Plain and simple. We gave them arbitrary names, and named two of them twice.
> 1. Ionian (Major)
> ...


Taggart, like the others contributing to this thread, has been discussing the medieval modal system or Church modes, the only system relevant to the discussion as framed in the OP. The system you are on about is another thing entirely and, as a modern invention, not relevant to this thread. The Church modes do have features that major and minor modes lack. Moreover, no system of modes before the jazzers got ahold of them used anything called the Locrian mode or indeed any mode built on B or B-flat. Modes with C and A as final were first proposed by Glareanus in his Dodekachordon (1552), in part to explain observed practice, such as Obrecht's tendency to use what looked like a diatonic mode on C. They too are therefore not relevant to a discussion of plainchant.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> When I listen to Gregorian and earlier chant, sometimes it sounds like it's in a "key" or is centered around a tonic note; other times, sometimes at the end of the piece itself, it ends on a note that seems to imply that it is, or was, in a different key, usually a fifth or fourth away. Why is this?
> 
> Am I supposed to be hearing this music as being centered around a particular key pitch? That seems to be the natural tendency of my ear and brain.
> 
> ...


Modes aren't tonally ambiguous, the tonics in modes simply shift in a different manner and they are utilized by early composers in a manner dissimilar to "tonal" composers.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

science said:


> I'm not sure how valid the analogy between literature and music is, and I definitely don't intend to attempt to impose my approach as the only correct one, but within the realm of literature, just for myself personally, I insist on taking both approaches.
> 
> But that understates my true feeling. I actually doubt that anyone can succeed at a purely historical interpretation of a work without having a great deal of awareness of their own biases and assumptions, or that they can get to a historical understanding of a work without finding out a lot about their own biases and assumptions. When someone declares that something meant such and such to its author, and therefore we must take it thus or be ignorant fools, I find that such and such turns out to fit very comfortably the personal opinion of the declarer. This isn't to say that there isn't any historical truth, but that it is much harder to get at than we usually think. Historiographical insights abound to teach us this lesson.


I think what you're saying here applies more to performance practice than basic stuff like taggart, edward, and others have been getting at. There is a wealth of literature contemporary to these ideas, taggart even had a fine reference for million. No offense but you seem to have a hyperbolic view of bias sometimes.

And when did "we must take it thus or be ignorant fools" figure into anything anyone had said? I don't see that anywhere.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Torkelburger said:


> This is correct. What he means by this is no matter what key signature you are in, a major scale will always consist of the intervals (ascending order from the root) Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step (WWHWWWH) and a (natural) minor scale will always consist of the intervals (ascending order from the root) Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step (WHWWHWW).


Of course depending on what you're looking at in early music (leaving chant out of the picture for a second), we step into a wonderful new world of different intervals. Not all intervals were created equal before the advent of equal temperament.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Lukecash12 said:


> Of course depending on what you're looking at in early music (leaving chant out of the picture for a second), we step into a wonderful new world of different intervals. Not all intervals were created equal before the advent of equal temperament.


This is true, of course, but I think Taggart was referring to the fact that, while modern day major and minor scales are freely transposable to any starting note and have the same distribution of intervals as any other major or minor scale, the old modes would have different intervals depending on their final notes, and were not transposable in this way (though wide tuning differences would have existed).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Lukecash12 said:


> I think what you're saying here applies more to performance practice than basic stuff like taggart, edward, and others have been getting at. There is a wealth of literature contemporary to these ideas, taggart even had a fine reference for million. No offense but you seem to have a hyperbolic view of bias sometimes.
> 
> And when did "we must take it thus or be ignorant fools" figure into anything anyone had said? I don't see that anywhere.


"We must take it thus or be ignorant fools" is an attitude that people can convey, not something that anyone actually said. Attitudes matter.

As for bias - no offense taken! - but I think anyone who takes it less seriously than I do is... to indulge in a bit of polite euphemism... rather too optimistic.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> This is true, of course, but I think Taggart was referring to the fact that, while modern day major and minor scales are freely transposable to any starting note and have the same distribution of intervals as any other major or minor scale, the old modes would have different intervals depending on their final notes, and were not transposable in this way (though wide tuning differences would have existed).


Please illustrate these claims in detail.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> Please illustrate these claims in detail.


No detail required. The Dorian and Hypodorian modes in medieval times only had the final D. This was part of their essential definitions. They weren't transposed. The Phrygian and Hypophrygian modes only had the final E, and since they used the same set of pitches as the Dorian and Hypodorian, they necessarily had different interval structures. You can extrapolate to the other modes I am sure. That's all there is to it.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> In the medieval church system there is only one Dorian Mode.


I have not said otherwise.


> It is called Mode I and it begins on D with a reciting tone on A.


The name is irrelevant to its properties/features. Beginning on D and reciting on A does not contradict what I said either.


> The Hypodorian Mode has the same notes, a different ambitus, and F as a reciting tone.


Yes, the same notes, same features, same properties, same half-step/whole step configuration, therefore not contradicting anything I said. Reciting tone doesn't contradict anything I said either. If your claim is that the reciting tone or final tone makes it non-transposable, than I don't see why the same criticism would also not also apply to a major or minor scale in transposition.


> The ranges and position of the pentachord and tetrachord were observed more or less, but one must remember that the modal classifications were imposed on a preexisting oral tradition and not all chants unambiguously fit the prescribed types. Moreover, and as Millions seems to be discovering in his listening, some examples of plainchant change mode one or more times.


The fact that the tradition preceeded the theory (as is the case with the majority of subject matter in the history of music) and that interchange occurred between modes (which has nothing to do with what I was talking about) does not negate the properties/features the modes have when analyzed.


> Taggart, like the others contributing to this thread, has been discussing the medieval modal system or Church modes, the only system relevant to the discussion as framed in the OP.


No, I replied to "All modes" and "modes in general".


> The system you are on about is another thing entirely and, as a modern invention, not relevant to this thread.


As long as you're discussing scales with whole-step and half-step configurations that match what are widely known as "modes", then you're wrong. 


> The Church modes do have features that major and minor modes lack.


The one and only way that statement could be true would be for two modes of the same name be placed side by side and they contain different whole step half step configurations. A different name is not a feature. Someone's affinity to use the mode a certain way (an affinity to use a final note or a reciting tone) is not a feature of the mode. Someone only using a mode on D and never using any other mode for the rest of their life is not a feature of a mode.


> Moreover, no system of modes before the jazzers got ahold of them used anything called the Locrian mode or indeed any mode built on B or B-flat.


Red-herring. No system of modes needed to get ahold of the Locrian mode ages ago in order for what I said about the properties of modes in comparison with major and minor scales to be true. Further, your statement is demonstrably false:
Bartok Mikrokosmos Vol I No 10
Bartok Mikrokosmos Vol II p.28
Carlos Chavez Preludes for Piano pp. 5, 16
Claude Debussy, Jeux
Claude Debussy, Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, p. 11
Klaus Egge Symphony No. 1, p. 6
Paul Hindemith Ludus Tonalis p. 4
Goffredo Petrassi Magnificat p. 76
Jean Sibelius Symphony No. 4 p. 37
Serge Rachmaninov Prelude in B minor


> Modes with C and A as final were first proposed by Glareanus in his Dodekachordon (1552), in part to explain observed practice, such as Obrecht's tendency to use what looked like a diatonic mode on C. They too are therefore not relevant to a discussion of plainchant.


Another red-herring. I replied to "all modes" and "modes in general" and discussing their "tone and semi-tone" configurations, none of which you addressed.


> No detail required. The Dorian and Hypodorian modes in medieval times only had the final D. This was part of their essential definitions. They weren't transposed. The Phrygian and Hypophrygian modes only had the final E, and since they used the same set of pitches as the Dorian, they necessarily had different interval structures. You can extrapolate to the other modes I am sure. That's all there is to it.


Then there is no reason to say the harmony is not there or that you can't talk about major or minor as in the original post I replied to. And I can also extrapolate to major and minor as well, which dismisses the original comparison once again. You guys seem to be asserting a hypothesis for why plainchant was polyphonic and not harmonic and are fishing around for an explanation that modes (whatever their usage) have no harmonic implication. I find this hypothesis completely baseless. You are trying to convolute the issue with historical usages that have no bearing on the *properties* of modes. You have no basis for your hypothesis.
Your explanation involves using the major and minor scale as a control group because you believe it shows that they are scales which inherently imply harmony just because of some magical whole-step half-step configuration and can therefore be transposed, yet deny the experimental group any consistent whole-step half-step configuration a priori simply because they were never used in transposition.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger, all of what you have written is beside the point. The medieval Church modes are a very specific historical phenomenon that has little connection to later conceptions of modes. Chant was not polyphonic, it was monophonic, hence no harmony. Certainly the church modes could have been transposed — if there was anywhere to transpose them to! However, there wasn't. Things like C-sharps and E-flats didn't exist. This is just the way it was. This thread is about music using this system of modes. I don't know how to explain this any more clearly.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Torkelburger, all of what you have written is beside the point. The medieval Church modes are a very specific historical phenomenon that has little connection to later conceptions of modes. Chant was not polyphonic, it was monophonic, hence no harmony.


It's not beside the point when it's in direct reply to post #11. Yes, I should have typed monophonic (Taggart wrote "polyphonic" in post 11 and I copied it when I was making sure I hit all my talking points). As long as we are left with the statement--chant was monophonic, hence no harmony--I'm totally fine, not some faulty hypothesis where the experimental group is subject to unfair criticism that is not applied to the control group when it could and should be and false blanket statements are made about "all modes" "in general".


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> It's not beside the point when it's in direct reply to post #11. Yes, I should have typed monophonic (Taggart wrote "polyphonic" in post 11 and I copied it when I was making sure I hit all my talking points). As long as we are left with the statement--chant was monophonic, hence no harmony--I'm totally fine, not some faulty hypothesis where the experimental group is subject to unfair criticism that is not applied to the control group when it could and should be and false blanket statements are made about "all modes" "in general".


The commentary in post #11 has to be understood in the context of this thread, that is, in a discussion of the Church modes. In that context, it means all of the Church modes, not every mode ever spawned from ancient Greece to Miles Davis. There was medieval polyphony, but harmony in any modern sense really doesn't enter into it, and certainly not triadic harmony. Okay, I think we are all on the same page now?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> nitpick: millionrainbows, you've said several times throughout the thread that Dorian has a flatted sixth. It doesn't. It has a raised sixth. This is because theorists say that Dorian is a "minor mode" because it's tonic triad is minor. In the natural minor scale, a sixth degree is lowered, but in Dorian, this does not happen (that's WHY it is Dorian...it is IDENTICAL to the natural minor scale except its sixth degree is a half-step higher), therefore, it is called a "raised" sixth.
> 
> A minor scale with a flatted seventh, flatted sixth, and flatted third that you keep referring to/defining as Dorian is the natural minor (Aeolian mode).
> /end nitpick


Oh, I meant "raised sixth." That makes the IV chord major, as I said. My mistake. I do know what a Dorian scale is, though. Believe me?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

CORRECTION:



millionrainbows said:


> This is tricky, and subtle. it sounds like the Aolean mode at first, because they keep accenting the five-to-flat sixth degrees; but when the top octave is reached, they go down to the flat seventh, and then hit a raised sixth, as in Dorian minor!
> 
> What gives? This is exactly the sort of thing that mystifies, and intrigues me, about chant.
> 
> Can you explain this use of both natural and flatted sixth? Is this two modes "butted up" against each other?


Thanks to EdwardBast for pointing it out.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> The commentary in post #11 has to be understood in the context of this thread, that is, in a discussion of the Church modes. In that context, it means all of the Church modes, not every mode ever spawned from ancient Greece to Miles Davis. There was medieval polyphony, but harmony in any modern sense really doesn't enter into it, and certainly not triadic harmony. Okay, I think we are all on the same page now?


Yes, as long as we agree that we are sort of faced with the somewhat tautological realization that plainchant was monophonic, hence no harmony.
Otherwise, if you want to go back to post #11 and argue that the reason you feel "harmony wasn't there" or "you can't talk about major or minor" in church modes is because of the properties inherent in church modes that aren't inherent in modern major and minor scales, then you and I will probably be continuing.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, I meant "raised sixth." That makes the IV chord major, as I said. My mistake. I do know what a Dorian scale is, though. Believe me?


Yes. I figured that may have been it (just an oversight).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> I know someone who actually learned how to convincingly improvise plainchants in the various modes (to test the assumption that the written examples we have today were an attempt to codify an oral improvised tradition), so I am perhaps more optimistic about the prospects. But even with imperfect success, I think there is value in the effort precisely because of what one learns about ones own predispositions. Makes for a broader sensibility.
> 
> This criticism might be telling if the historical truth under discussion were arcane, controversial, or poorly understood. It isn't. We know the finals of the church modes and we know that those who codified the tradition heard these finals as tones of resolution where motion comes to rest. All I am suggesting is that one try to hear these final pitches in this way. It really isn't hard to do and it is certainly worth attempting before blithely imposing ones "obvious [anachronistic] musical truth" on several hundred years of western music.


That's fine by me; the "final" doesn't affect what I have said about modes being essentially tone-centric.

I remember reading about the use of "finals," and as I recall it had to do with starting and finishing a mode "in the middle" of the original mode, so this doesn't necessarily change the tone-centricity of the mode itself.

Plus, hearing the "final" as "a tone of resolution where motion comes to rest" doesn't negate a tone center; the music simply rests at that point.

And to say we *should* hear the final as a tonic would be a contradiction, wouldn't it?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> This is nonsense you literally made up on the fly to mask your gross misunderstanding of modes. Apparently, you don't realize that all modes also, whatever the key, would also share an identical arrangement of tones and semi-tones. From your first paragraph above you think "scales" are only afforded such qualities as if there is some magical, mystical separation between a "scale" and a "mode".
> 
> Re-read your first paragraph, replacing the word "scale" with the word "mode" and you'll realize how ridiculous your second paragraph is.


Oh, so that's why I had no idea what he was talking about. But I was too nice to want to say anything, because I appreciate Taggart's positive attitude. I've made a blunder here as well, when I mistakenly confused the raised and lowered sixths of the Aolean and Dorian modes. May God forgive me. Amen.

But blunders are good: they draw people into the discussion. Sometimes I even do that on purpose, just to see if anyone is listening to these monologues I launch into.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> Originally Posted by *Taggart*
> 
> Just saying that church modes don't support vertical tonality only melodic.
> 
> ...





Torkelburger said:


> Oh, not again. This is false. Modes support harmony and melody just like any other major or minor diatonic scale.


I must disagree with you, in the context of early chant. I think you may be in a different context, like John Coltrane' use of modes.
Let's all think carefully about what we post, and make sure we read all the preceding context, and try to come across as more polite. I'd really like to explore this issue, and not see the thread get shut down.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Let's all think carefully about what we post....


That is one of _the_ most hysterically funny - ironic things I've ever read in the context of a thread on this forum, like, ever.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I must disagree with you, in the context of early chant. I think you may be in a different context, like John Coltrane' use of modes.
> Let's all think carefully about what we post, and make sure we read all the preceding context, and try to come across as more polite. I'd really like to explore this issue, and not see the thread get shut down.


No, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask your side to show your work. Please explain the specific inherent property of the "Church Mode I" as you guys put it (Dorian Church Mode) that forces it to not be used harmonically when tried. I mean, is it your position that is why these musicians could not no matter how hard they tried put harmonies to their melodies? There is a specific inherent property that will simply not allow them to do so? Here's the kicker--Please refrain from appealing to these historical musicians' musical whims, fetishes, habits, traits, tastes, and usages as properties of the actual church mode in your answer. Thanks.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Torkelburger, all of what you have written is beside the point. The medieval Church modes are a very specific historical phenomenon that has little connection to later conceptions of modes. *Chant was not polyphonic, it was monophonic, hence no harmony.* Certainly the church modes could have been transposed - if there was anywhere to transpose them to! However, there wasn't. Things like C-sharps and E-flats didn't exist. This is just the way it was. This thread is about music using this system of modes. I don't know how to explain this any more clearly.


I think EdwardBast is being too academic, and Torkelburger is being the opposite.

As I said earlier, chant achieves its "tonality" (in the sense of 'loyalty to a tonic') by purely melodic means, not by harmony. This agrees with what EdwardBast is saying, but it could be misleading: "no harmony" does not mean "no central tonic."

CP tonality achieves it tonality 2 ways: melodically (by using scales as unordered sets with a tonic) and by conceiving of chords as separate entities rather than the congruence of separate lines, and assigning them a function (this is harmony).

Thus, chant is tone-centric, but not based on harmony. Chant is not "CP tonal" in the narrow sense, but is "tonal" in a tone-centric sense.

Plus, the procedures of chant (starting in the middle of a mode, using a "final," combining modes) are procedures which, from a listening standpoint, may not reinforce a sense of tonality, but might make it ambiguous.

But, with Torkelburger,_ I support his overall less-traditional approach, _and I think chant must be looked at as _more related_ to CP tonality which followed, and less as an archaic set of procedures which must be revered as a sacred tradition.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

(From post #11)


> You can't talk about major or minor; you don't know, independent of the mode, the quality of a triad on any note of the mode. Harmony, as understood in common practice terms, is not there.


Wondering if anyone who agrees with this could explain the above. As in the church mode context, you actually would always know the quality of the triad on any note since all church modes are non-transposable. No sharps, no flats ever. All naturals always. If modal interchange occurred, the values would not change. Minors stays minor. Majors stay major. Functions change, but that is not under debate and is also not a problem for the harmonist. You could always talk about major or minor and you would know, dependent or independent of the mode, the quality of any triad would be.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

In any major scale, the triads on I, IV and V are major and the others are minor. In any minor scale, the triads on I IV and V are minor and the others are major.

In church modes, in mode I (effectively the natural minor scale) the triads on I and V are minor, that on IV is major (no B flat), the triads on III and VII are major too, thr triad on II is minor. In mode III, the triads on I IV and V are minor, those on II, III and VI are major but the one on VII is minor. In mode V the triads on I and V are major, that on IV is minor, the triad on II is major and all the others are minor.

Hence the point that in church modes, you can't talk about major or minor in CP terms and the standard I, IV, V harmonies don't work because they don't work in the same way as triads in a normal scale. 

The other point is that because church modes run within a fairly small compass - typically the Do clef is positioned so that the complete melody will fit on the staff - using a final and a tenor or reciting tone then the accompaniment needs to reflect that. The tenor or reciting tone is usually seen as the melodic centre so any chord pattern will reflect that with (almost) a drone effect with occasional movement towards the final as the melody moves away from the tenor.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Hence the point that in church modes, you can't talk about major or minor in CP terms and the standard I, IV, V harmonies don't work because they don't work in the same way as triads in a normal scale.


Ah, this is where the misunderstanding is. This is dead wrong. Even in a church mode. The standard I, IV, and V harmonies do, in fact, work. The I chord in Church Dorian is minor works just fine. The IV chord in Church Dorian is major and also works just fine. The V chord is minor and also works just absolutely fine harmonically. You are making the categorical mistake that because it doesn't match the harmony of a major scale then it won't work. You think that the V chord must be major in order to serve a proper dominant function. You do not understand modal tonality. That is a categorical fallacy. (Disclaimer: This post was written within the Church Mode context).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> No, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask your side to show your work. *Please explain the specific inherent property of the "Church Mode I" as you guys put it (Dorian Church Mode) that forces it to not be used harmonically when tried.*


Musically, you are correct, a mode is a scale and can be used harmonically; but CP tonality had not yet been developed during this medieval period of chant. This was monophonic music. There was no harmony.

Of course,* inherently,* as scales, modes have harmonic uses, if you build triads on them, but this is not how chant used them.



Torkelburger said:


> I mean, is it your position that is why these musicians could not no matter how hard they tried put harmonies to their melodies?


No. They didn't harmonize because harmonic tonality had not yet developed.



Torkelburger said:


> ...is (there) a specific inherent property that will simply not allow them to do so? Here's the kicker--Please refrain from appealing to these historical musicians' musical whims, fetishes, habits, traits, tastes, and usages as properties of the actual church mode in your answer. Thanks.


I never did that; in fact, my goal is to find out if chant is "tonal" in the general sense of "loyalty to a tonic," in other words, "tone centric."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> Ah, this is where the misunderstanding is. This is dead wrong. Even in a church mode. The standard I, IV, and V harmonies do, in fact, work. The I chord in Church Dorian is minor works just fine. *The IV chord in Church Dorian is major and also works just fine.* The V chord is minor and also works just absolutely fine harmonically. *You are making the categorical mistake that because it doesn't match the harmony of a major scale then it won't work.* You think that the V chord must be major in order to serve a proper dominant function. You do not understand modal tonality. That is a categorical fallacy. (Disclaimer: This post was written within the Church Mode context).


_But the strict, academic definition of tonality means the use of the major and minor scales only._

This threw me off, too, as I come from a "free-thinking-practical-application-hit-the-ground-running-let's-make-music-NOW" background, not a church choir.

In Dorian, the major IV chord works for Santana in "Evil Ways" but is verboten in a strict CP tonality context.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> (Quoting somebody else I think) _But the strict, academic definition of tonality means the use of the major and minor scales only._


OMG, in the Missa and the late quartets Ludwig went all atonal on us!


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Musically, you are correct, a mode is a scale and can be used harmonically; but CP tonality had not yet been developed during this medieval period of chant.


Correct. Thus, post #11 is still nonsense.


> This was monophonic music. There was no harmony.


Yes, Ed and I already agree as such. You are correct. Thus, post #11 is still nonsense.


> Of course, inherently, as scales, modes have harmonic uses, if you build triads on them, but this is not how chant used them.


Correct. Thus, post #11 is still nonsense. My point was that they *could* have (as I took it that Taggart's point was that no matter how hard you try, no human can).


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> _But the strict, academic definition of tonality means the use of the major and minor scales only._
> 
> This threw me off, too, as I come from a "free-thinking-practical-application-hit-the-ground-running-let's-make-music-NOW" background, not a church choir.
> 
> In Dorian, the major IV chord works for Santana in "Evil Ways" but is verboten in a strict CP tonality context.


I don't believe you. Give me a citation please for these claims. I want quotes, complete and clear definition of terms, with details and illustrations (as much as copyright allows).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> I don't believe you. Give me a citation please for these claims. I want quotes, complete and clear definition of terms, with details and illustrations (as much as copyright allows).


Go to the Harvard Dictionary of Music (the red book). That's where I looked up the terms "tonality" (both meanings) and "mode" (both meanings). See my recent blogs.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> OMG, in the Missa and the late quartets Ludwig went all atonal on us!


Ugh.

Why do people think that "atonal" is the opposite of tonal, or that anything that is not tonal is somehow "atonal"?


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Go to the Harvard Dictionary of Music (the red book). That's where I looked up the terms "tonality" (both meanings) and "mode" (both meanings). See my recent blogs.


I see. What you mean by CP is traditional harmony (Common Practice). Not modal harmony. Yes, that is right. But you are making the same categorical mistake. You want "CP" to work with modal harmony. You notice it won't, so you dismiss modal harmony. No. Modal harmony goes with modal melody. That's what a human being would use to harmonize church modes and it would work. It's not just "Evil Ways". It works on literally thousands of pieces and songs, including harmonizing chants. Sorry.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

For example, in dorian, including if one were to go about harmonizing Church Dorian, the flat seventh triad (C Major) is usually the cadential chord resolving to the tonic (D minor) instead of A Major (or A7). It is not labeled "dominant" but that label would not refer to its function, it would only mean "the triad built on the fifth degree of the mode".

Aeolian (while not an original church mode, but according to Ed was first written about in 1522), has its own Aeolian cadence. Flat six to Flat Seven to One. F major, to G major, to A minor. NOT four to five to one (NOT d minor to E Major (E7) to a minor).

Also, modal chord progressions more often than not follow cycles of thirds and seconds, NOT the cycle of fifths (even if you were to harmonize church modes).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> I see. What you mean by CP is traditional harmony (baroque counterpoint). Not modal harmony. Yes, that is right.


Ok, agreed on that point.



Torkelburger said:


> But you are making the same categorical mistake. You want "CP" to work with modal harmony. You notice it won't, so you dismiss modal harmony.


No; in fact, last night I listened to John Coltrane "Live at Birdland" on ABC Impulse. I love modal harmony. But I realize that modal harmony is a modern concept.



Torkelburger said:


> No. Modal harmony goes with modal melody. That's what a human being would use to *harmonize church modes* and it would work.


That's correct, but this discussion started out to be about early monophonic, pre-tonality, pre-harmony chant, and whether it was "tonal" in the sense of being tone-centric, which it is.

But nobody here wants to harmonize chant, certainly not I. My goal is to understand it on its own terms, however weird and archaic those terms are.



Torkelburger said:


> It's not just "Evil Ways". It works on literally thousands of pieces and songs, including harmonizing chants. Sorry.


I never said modes would not work as scales. That was EdwardBast, and he seems to have disappeared, or ran screaming away from this thread. :lol:

And I am of the mind that "harmonizing chants" is a ridiculous idea that would ruin their monophonic simplicity. I bought a chant CD that had organ on it, and it ruined it.

I love modal jazz, folk music, etc., as well as Lou Harrison's oriental-sounding modal works, Hovhaness, Bloch, etc.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Ugh.
> 
> Why do people think that "atonal" is the opposite of tonal, or that anything that is not tonal is somehow "atonal"?


In English, the prefixes "a-" and "an-" both have the primary meaning "not". I checked!

Anyway, maybe that's why.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> No; in fact, last night I listened to John Coltrane "Live at Birdland" on ABC Impulse. I love modal harmony. But I realize that modal harmony is a modern concept.


You misunderstood me. I meant that you are making the same categorical mistake as Taggart when he says "the standard I, IV, V harmonies don't work because they don't work in the same way as triads in a normal scale". Meaning, it *seems* (like him) you think the V chord should always be major NO MATTER THE SCALE, because THAT'S WHAT IT IS IN A MAJOR SCALE. My point was that, when the scale changes, the harmony changes with it accordingly (but instead of learning about how it works, people just want to compare apples (the new scale) to oranges (the old harmony) and see "it doesn't" fit so they dismiss the new scale because it is new (hey, the old one worked fine!).



> That's correct, but this discussion started out to be about early monophonic, pre-tonality, pre-harmony chant, and whether it was "tonal" in the sense of being tone-centric, which it is.
> 
> But nobody here wants to harmonize chant, certainly not I. My goal is to understand it on its own terms, however weird and archaic those terms are.


Cool, I got no beef with you then. My problem is with post #11, which isn't so coy. That poster, not I, brought up triads and harmony in a (church) modal context that I found grossly incorrect and replied to. Again, I did not bring it up.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> In English, the prefixes "a-" and "an-" both have the primary meaning "not". I checked!
> 
> Anyway, maybe that's why.


Well, that just shows once again how stupid the term is, because none of the music labeled "atonal" is defined by being "not tonal", and there is plenty of music that is "not tonal" that is also not considered "atonal" (like pre-tonal music).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, that just shows once again how stupid the term is, because none of the music labeled "atonal" is defined by being "not tonal", and there is plenty of music that is "not tonal" that is also not considered "atonal" (like pre-tonal music).


Don't forget that the term "tonal" has more than one meaning as well. That gives the term "atonal" a circular stupidity, which goes on forever. Also, the term "tonality" can denote a system, as well as a perception of a tone center.

The Harvard Dictionary says that "almost all music is tonal." Meaning, of course, tonal in the broader sense of "loyalty to a tonic."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Don't forget that the term "tonal" has more than one meaning as well. That gives the term "atonal" a circular stupidity, which goes on forever. Also, the term "tonality" can denote a system, as well as a perception of a tone center.
> 
> The Harvard Dictionary says that "almost all music is tonal." Meaning, of course, tonal in the broader sense of "loyalty to a tonic."


I agree, and submit that under that broader definition, the term atonal is absolutely meaningless and should not be used. Organization of harmonies and local tonal centers are still operative in "atonal" works. This fits with the way I hear more than any other model; I can hear "modal", "common practice", "non-common practice diatonic", and "non-common practice chromatic" music, but I don't hear "atonality".


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I agree, and submit that under that broader definition, the term atonal is absolutely meaningless and should not be used.


Looking for a single-word descriptor to address this quandary: "Mistonal" perhaps? The prefix "mis-" means "bad or wrong." There are probably alternatives that some will prefer. Wiki has a pretty comprehensive list of prefixes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> You misunderstood me. I meant that you are making the same categorical mistake as Taggart when he says "the standard I, IV, V harmonies don't work because they don't work in the same way as triads in a normal scale". Meaning, it *seems* (like him) you think the V chord should always be major NO MATTER THE SCALE, because THAT'S WHAT IT IS IN A MAJOR SCALE. My point was that, when the scale changes, the harmony changes with it accordingly (but instead of learning about how it works, people just want to compare apples (the new scale) to oranges (the old harmony) and see "it doesn't" fit so they dismiss the new scale because it is new (hey, the old one worked fine!).
> 
> Cool, I got no beef with you then. My problem is with post #11, which isn't so coy. That poster, not I, brought up triads and harmony in a (church) modal context that I found grossly incorrect and replied to. Again, I did not bring it up.


Nope. I've no problem with a V being minor in a minor scale. I do have problems where the V includes a diminished fifth (mode III).

OK in post 11, I said



Taggart said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> A triad on the fifth is a little bit different as it can be major or minor depending on the type of minor scale and possibly the direction of travel.
> 
> All modes are different. Each mode has a different arrangement of tones and semi-tones. You can't talk about major or minor; you don't know, independent of the mode, the quality of a triad on *any *note of the mode. Harmony, as understood in common practice terms, is not there. That's why much medieval music used either doubling of voices at some interval or was properly polyphonic (*not *harmonic) using different melodies working together.


Please feel free to point out the error(s), referring carefully to post 39 where I expanded on the statement:



Taggart said:


> I was talking about modes in general.
> 
> So Dorian starting on D has the notes D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D and the interval pattern T-s-T-T-T-s-T.
> 
> ...


Note that in E minor the V will be major (B D# F#) if you have a raised seventh and minor otherwise ( B D F#). The same applies in any minor scale. I am not picky about majors or minors.

Note that in mode III the V will a) always be minor and b) include a tritone because of the diminished fifth (B D F)

In mode IV the IV has the same problem (B D F again) the I is major as is the V but the IV is problematic.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Nope. I've no problem with a V being minor in a minor scale. I do have problems where the V includes a diminished fifth (mode III).


You shouldn't have a problem with ANY CHORD IN A *MODE* not matching or not adhering to CP/major/minor harmony. The diminished fifth in a V in mode III is PERFECTLY FINE FOR (wait for it) *MODE III*. Why? BECAUSE MODE III IS NOT A MAJOR SCALE!!!!!!! The V chord in Mode III is (wait for it) not the same thing, does not serve the same purpose, is not categorically the same as, is not to be compared to, has absolutely nothing to do with, the ***V chord that you want it to be***!!!!!


> Note that in mode III the V will a) always be minor and b) include a tritone because of the diminished fifth (B D F)
> 
> In mode IV the IV has the same problem (B D F again) the I is major as is the V but the IV is problematic.


Please see comment above. Do you understand my post #77 BTW?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> Yes, as long as we agree that we are sort of faced with the somewhat tautological realization that plainchant was monophonic, hence no harmony.
> Otherwise, if you want to go back to post #11 and argue that the reason you feel "harmony wasn't there" or "you can't talk about major or minor" in church modes is because of the properties inherent in church modes that aren't inherent in modern major and minor scales, then you and I will probably be continuing.


Tautological? Huh? There just wasn't harmony in this repertoire. Period. As for _why_ harmony wasn't there, it is probably because the concept didn't exist.

Sorry I failed to comment earlier on the major versus minor issue. Some theorists in the Renaissance thought the nature of the third above the final was a significant factor in the character of the modes. Gioseffo Zarlino, in Part Three of his Istitutione harmoniche (1558) says (in Chapter 10): "The property or nature of the imperfect consonances is such that some of them are lively and cheerful, accompanied by great sonority; and others, although sweet and smooth, tend to be sad and languid." Unsurprisingly, the lively and cheerful ones turn out to be M3 and M6, the sad and languid ones, m3 and m6. He goes on to say that some compositions, those in which "the major imperfect consonances are often heard on the finals," are "lively and full of cheer," whereas those in which minor imperfect consonances are heard on the finals "I can only describe as sad or languid … which renders the entire composition soft." He points out that the modes tending toward cheerfulness are the "fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, eleventh and twelfth," those tending toward sadness and languidness are the "first, second, third, fourth, ninth, and tenth." Here Zarlino is using the numbering system found in Heinrich Glarean's Dodekachordon, according to which the Dorian is mode one and the Ionian is mode eleven. In any case, the cheerful modes have a major third on the bottom, the sad ones a minor third.

Note however, that he doesn't actually propose anything like the terminology major mode versus minor mode. Note also that this book was written seven centuries after the chant repertoire was codified.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish by discussing modal harmony in this context.


And yet, you were completely silent on the issue when Taggart brought it up (to which I replied). Strange, that.

I am simply replying to post #11 (for the millionth time). That is all.

The rest of your post, while I am in agreement with as to the aesthetics of modal harmony it makes, has nothing to do with what we are discussing.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Looking for a single-word descriptor to address this quandary: "Mistonal" perhaps? The prefix "mis-" means "bad or wrong." There are probably alternatives that some will prefer. Wiki has a pretty comprehensive list of prefixes...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix


Maybe if it were trying to be tonal but failing.

Since it's a practice that builds on tonal harmony, but goes beyond it, I suggest "supertonal" or "metatonal" for those who cannot do without one-word terms to label this music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Since it's a practice that builds on tonal harmony, but goes beyond it, I suggest "supertonal" or "metatonal" for those who cannot do without one-word terms to label this music.


 I suggest that we seem quite happy to seek a one-word definition of music we consider "tonal." Why object to a one-word definition of music that doesn't fit that definition? By the laws of language, such music is "nontonal" or "atonal" -- either will do.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I suggest that we seem quite happy to seek a one-word definition of music we consider "tonal." Why object to a one-word definition of music that doesn't fit that definition? By the laws of language, such music is "nontonal" or "atonal" -- either will do.


Well, that makes pre-tonal music atonal as well.

The difference is that tonality can be quite clearly described as a certain collection of conventions relating to diatonic music, whereas atonal is a catchall for anything, regardless of the kinds of harmonies used or the way they are used, as long as it is chromatic and not based on the diatonic scale.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, that makes pre-tonal music atonal as well.


Indeed it does. You're suggesting that we not use the word "atonal" at all; I'm suggesting that we use it in the sense of what it logically means. I don't expect that either of us has much chance of success!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, that makes pre-tonal music atonal as well.
> 
> The difference is that *tonality can be quite clearly described as a certain collection of conventions relating to diatonic music, *whereas atonal is a catchall for anything, regardless of the kinds of harmonies used or the way they are used, as long as it is chromatic and not based on the diatonic scale.


This problem is *easily* solved if we _reject _the academic definition above, and accept the broader, general definition of "tonal" as meaning "loyalty to a tonic." As the Harvard Dictionary says, "almost all music is tonal" in this sense. We also avoid the ridiculous sounding assertion that Gregorian chant is "atonal," even though it is firmly rooted around droning tone-centers.

Under this broader definition, most folk musics are tonal, Gregorian chant is tonal, even Debussy is tonal.

Under this broader definition, "atonal" music is not a "catchall" term, but is a term specifically targeted at serialism, just the same way it originally arose as a term. I have a feeling Mahlerian will not like this.

Under this definition, "free atonality" could be a more credible term, since "free atonality" refers to _highly chromatic tonal music_ in which the tonal center is hard to locate, ambiguous, or near non-existent. That could be called "free tonality" just as easily, but since the status quo thinks it sounds a lot like serialism, "free atonality" is better. And admittedly, free atonality is closer to serialism, IMHO.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> This problem is easily solved if we reject the academic definition above, and accept the broader, general definition of "tonal" as meaning "loyalty to a tonic." As the Harvard Dictionary says, "almost all music is tonal" in this sense.


Other than your calling it so, I have no idea

1) what, specifically, makes this use of the term "academic"
2) what, in this case, "academic" means
3) why, in this case, an "academic" definition would be bad at all

Your entire argument for this point has consisted of repeatedly asserting that my view of the matter is overly academic, when I have told you time and again that I am perfectly happy to go with a broad definition of tonality that is consistent and includes all music, including serial music. Your arguments against serial music being tonal have rested entirely on assertions that it is not "harmonic" (another nebulously defined term) because of the methods involved, but to me, this is unimportant, because I care about the result and the sound of the music, in which the harmonic content is as important as in any other music, despite the fact that it is not organized according to diatonic hierarchies.



millionrainbows said:


> Under this broader definition, "atonal" music is not a "catchall" term, but is a term specifically targeted at serialism, just the same way it originally arose as a term. I have a feeling Mahlerian will not like this.


Of course not, because that's not true. Atonal arose as a term in the early 1920s to describe *all* music that was "ultramodern", from Stravinsky to Prokofiev to Mahler to Strauss to Reger to Debussy, as well as Schoenberg and his school. Only the very first serial pieces had just been written, and no one knew outside of a small group knew anything about the methods involved.



millionrainbows said:


> Under this definition, "free atonality" could be a more credible term, since "free atonality" refers to _highly chromatic tonal music_ in which the tonal center is hard to locate, ambiguous, or near non-existent. That could be called "free tonality" just as easily, but since the status quo thinks it sounds a lot like serialism, "free atonality" is better. And admittedly, free atonality is closer to serialism, IMHO.


There's plenty of "tonal" music where the tonal center is "hard to locate, ambiguous, or near non-existent". There's a good deal of 20th century music where a perception of a tonic is anchored only by a pedal point and nothing more. I still don't understand what atonality is supposed to sound like. I don't hear atonality.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> *Torkelburger*: Yes, as long as we agree that we are sort of faced with the somewhat tautological realization that plainchant was monophonic, hence no harmony.
> Otherwise, if you want to go back to post #11 and argue that the reason you feel "harmony wasn't there" or "you can't talk about major or minor" in church modes is because of the *properties inherent in church modes that aren't inherent in modern major and minor scales,* then you and I will probably be continuing.





EdwardBast said:


> Tautological? Huh? There just wasn't harmony in this repertoire. Period. As for _why_ harmony wasn't there, it is probably because the concept didn't exist.


Torkelburger has a point here: a mode is simply a collection of seven notes, under the larger umbrella term of "scale." These notes existed from the beginning, and their inherent properties have not changed. The only difference is in how they are used.

There seems to be an unwillingness among some here to view modes "in the abstract," as musical tools, apart from their historical use in chant music of the church.

Although this attitude pays respect to tradition, it is a strict academic definition of modes, which, as we can see, sheds no light on clarifying the issue, and might cause mis-communication with musicians with a more modern, inclusive understanding of music as a craft, to be used to make music.

The academic attitude has also caused me to expend considerable effort, on this thread and on past threads, when I have tried to present a broader definition of "tonality" as "loyalty to a tonic or central tone." The same goes for the meaning of "modes" or "modal," which can be defined in two ways.

Silence speaks volumes, and I am glad that this subject is at last seeing some of the light of day, rather than being defensively guarded in a cloak of silence, as if demons were attacking the sacred structures of religious ideology.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Other than your calling it so, I have no idea
> 
> 1) what, specifically, makes this use of the term "academic"


Because it is academically strict, rigid, and only applicable to CP tonality, rejecting all other folk, world, and jazz music. It refers only to major/minor scales. It leaves out modal thinking, and excludes much of the world's tone-centric music as being "non-tonal" or "atonal," which will only cause confusion. If your true desire is to communicate with other members, and avoid misunderstandings, then you would recognize this.



Mahlerian said:


> Your entire argument for this point has consisted of repeatedly asserting that my view of the matter is overly academic, when I have told you time and again that *I am perfectly happy to go with a broad definition of tonality that is consistent and includes all music, *including serial music.


Serial music is not "loyal to a tonic."



Mahlerian said:


> Your arguments against serial music being tonal have rested entirely on assertions that it is not "harmonic" (another nebulously defined term) because of the methods involved, but to me, this is unimportant, because I care about the result and the sound of the music, in which *the harmonic content is as important as in any other music,* despite the fact that it is not organized according to diatonic hierarchies.


I agree; the harmonic result in serial music is important, because our ears hear it that way. It is still not music which is "loyal to a tonic," and I think this is becoming increasingly obvious. The non-repetition of a tone row insures that no loyalty to a tonic will emerge from the row. You could create the illusion that it does, by placing a drone under it, but polyphonically, it is unlikely. Can you repeat a single note in serialism? Yes, but all eleven other notes must occur. This seems like a desperate method to create tonality, perhaps because it was designed to do the opposite. I don't hear _any _of Schoenberg's serial music as sounding anywhere near "tonal," although it is beautiful stuff, and I love it, and accept it on its own terms.



Mahlerian said:


> There's plenty of "tonal" music where the tonal center is "hard to locate, ambiguous, or near non-existent". There's a good deal of 20th century music where a perception of a tonic is anchored only by a pedal point and nothing more.* I still don't understand what atonality is supposed to sound like.* I don't hear atonality.


Well, you yourself said it: for you, "tonality" refers *only* to CP major/minor music. You made your own bed, now lie in it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Although this attitude pays respect to tradition.


I personally am not interested in respecting tradition, and it has nothing to do with religion - I don't think many people would accuse me of being too respectful to medieval religion. But I want to understand history as accurately as possible. If the medieval modes were used differently than later modes, I want to know the difference. The fact that the medieval Dorian mode could not be transposed makes it different from modes as we use them today. I wanted to know that. That's good, accurate information. When I was told that Dorian mode meant exactly the same thing in the Middle Ages that it means today, that was at best misleading information. I'm glad I found out it wasn't true!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

science said:


> I personally am not interested in respecting tradition, and it has nothing to do with religion - I don't think many people would accuse me of being too respectful to medieval religion. But I want to understand history as accurately as possible. If the medieval modes were used differently than later modes, I want to know the difference.


That's good, as long as you know that, essentially, a mode is a scale, and that has never changed; only its use has.



science said:


> The fact that the medieval Dorian mode could not be transposed makes it different from modes as we use them today. I wanted to know that. That's good, accurate information.


It's misleading to say "the _*medieval*_ Dorian mode *could not* be transposed."

It would be clearer to say "the Dorian mode was not transposed in medieval practice."

The Dorian mode was the same mode in medieval times as it is now; it was just subject to different practices.



science said:


> When I was told that Dorian mode *meant* exactly the same thing in the Middle Ages that it* means *today, that was at best misleading information. I'm glad I found out it wasn't true!


But as you can see, your version is just as misleading in the opposite direction. A Dorian mode doesn't "mean" anything; it is just a scale. The "meaning" is in how it is used.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

To be fair to the academics out there, and to avoid incurring the wrath of God (the ultimate moderator), here are two excerpts from the WIKI entry on "mode":

*Liane Curtis writes that "Modes should not be equated with scales: principles of melodic organization, placement of cadences, and emotional affect are essential parts of modal content" in Medieval and Renaissance music.*

Okay, _as long as this is qualified by saying "the medieval conception of modes" should not be equated with the modern conception of scales, and modes as a subset of scales.
_
and this:

*Use and conception of modes or modality today is different from that in early music. As Jim Samson explains, "Clearly any comparison of medieval and modern modality would recognize that the latter takes place against a background of some three centuries of harmonic tonality, permitting, and in the nineteenth century requiring, a dialogue between modal and diatonic procedure".
Indeed, when 19th-century composers revived the modes, they rendered them more strictly than Renaissance composers had, to make their qualities distinct from the prevailing major-minor system. Renaissance composers routinely sharped leading tones at cadences and lowered the fourth in the Lydian mode.

*Ok, as a pragmatic materialist, I can agree that _"the use and conception"_ of modes has changed, but *the actual notes are still the same; a mode is a mode is a mode.

*If the academics can't see modes as abstractly as I, perhaps I shall never agree with the academics.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

modal, tonal, atonal - they're just words, loose terms at the end of the day. To understand what modal music is you'd have to have a medieval mindset and view of music. There's a danger of looking it from a modern perspective and overcomplicating things. Its not like modal composers considered themselves 'proto-tonal', they just composed in the only way they knew how.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Liane Curtis writes that "Modes should not be equated with scales: principles of melodic organization, placement of cadences, and emotional affect are essential parts of modal content" in Medieval and Renaissance music.
> 
> Okay, as long as this is qualified by saying "the medieval conception of modes" should not be equated with the modern conception of scales, and modes as a subset of scales.


Yeah. But it could be interpreted in a less semantic context as well. I think the colon gives a clue. I think they are saying what I've been saying. People familiar with the major/minor scale system want to apply the same "principles of melodic organization, placement of cadences," principles of harmony, to the church modal system. You cannot equate the two in that manner.

It's like the mistake previous discussed about the V chord in Mode III. The V chord in the MAJOR (or minor) "classical" scale system is cadential and "resolves" to the tonic. But in Mode III, the V chord does not have that role. That responsibility is given to a different chord. However, someone who equates the major/minor scale system to modes will not recognize that and falsely conclude that Mode III cannot be harmonized because they think it has a non-functional V chord.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Use and conception of modes or modality today is different from that in early music. As Jim Samson explains, "Clearly any comparison of medieval and modern modality would recognize that the latter takes place against a background of some three centuries of harmonic tonality, permitting, and in the nineteenth century requiring, a dialogue between modal and diatonic procedure".
> Indeed, when 19th-century composers revived the modes, they rendered them more strictly than Renaissance composers had, to make their qualities distinct from the prevailing major-minor system. Renaissance composers routinely sharped leading tones at cadences and lowered the fourth in the Lydian mode.


That last part would make sense, since at some point in the Late Renaissance we would expect to see some sort of metamorphoses into the next era (Baroque) that uses a major-minor system.

But on the contrary to his first paragraph, every Gregorian Chant I've seen has been strict.

And yes, you are correct. Transposition makes no difference. A mode is a mode. Church Dorian is the same as dorian today.

Church Dorian:
WHWWWHW

"Modern" Dorian:
WHWWWHW

The melodic characteristics are exactly the same and the harmonic characteristics (if one were to attempt to harmonize the church mode) are exactly the same.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> And yes, you are correct. Transposition makes no difference. A mode is a mode. Church Dorian is the same as dorian today.
> 
> The melodic characteristics are exactly the same and the harmonic characteristics (if one were to attempt to harmonize the church mode) are exactly the same.


Actually the situation is much more complex than this. Church Dorian, before notation and codification, was something altogether other than a scale-like collection of pitches. It seems to have been a collection of functional formulae for improvising chant, with different formulae for initial ascents, reciting phrases, cadencial figures and the like. Moreover, these formulae were different for the authentic and plagal forms of a mode. If what you are saying were true, there should be no essential difference between Dorian and Hypodorian, since they use the same set of pitches. Singers and theorists of the day, however, thought there were essential differences between Dorian and Hypodorian, and one can see this by analyzing chants in these two modes. I would say that the Church Modes are closer to ragas than to modern modes because of the features noted above.

So Church Dorian is not the same as Dorian today. It included and implied modes of organization that are not a part of anyone's modern conception of the modes.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Actually the situation is much more complex than this. Church Dorian, before notation and codification, was something altogether other than a scale-like collection of pitches. It seems to have been a collection of functional formulae for improvising chant, with different formulae for initial ascents, reciting phrases, cadencial figures and the like. Moreover, these formulae were different for the authentic and plagal forms of a mode.


Gee, that's funny. Taggart said in post #39 of Church Dorian, "So Dorian starting on D has the notes D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D and the interval pattern T-s-T-T-T-s-T." (that certainly matches exactly what I had just said) to which not only you gave your explicit blessing to (saying this was in reference to church mode), scolded me for suggesting he was discussing modes in general in that specific post, but were also (not surprisingly) completely silent once again on your hair-splitting skills. Maybe the two of you should have a sidebar together and discuss this and get back to us with something consistent?


> If what you are saying were true, there should be no essential difference between Dorian and Hypodorian, since they use the same set of pitches.


You'd have a point if they had the same set of pitches and step configurations. Good thing they don't. Hypodorian is A to A, not D to D. Completely different. Having a D final doesn't make it "the same set of pitches". Nice try, though.


> Singers and theorists of the day, however, thought there were essential differences between Dorian and Hypodorian, and one can see this by analyzing chants in these two modes.


Yeah, that's 'cause there is.


> So Church Dorian is not the same as Dorian today. It included and implied modes of organization that are not a part of anyone's modern conception of the modes.


It's pointless to quibble over it anyway since it doesn't even matter if they are the same OR not the same to the point Taggart made in post #11. Just pick a church mode, say church dorian, and we can discuss it on its own. That's what MR and I keep trying to do but keep getting crickets chirping. Let's try again.

It is Taggart's stated position that it is a major and minor scale's arrangement of tones and semi-tones (not their usage) that allows a priori for the two scales to be capable of harmonization and modulation. Over the course of the thread I and MR have asked on what inherent trait of this arrangement makes that possible. Why does WWHWWWH make those notes transposable and capable of being harmonized? We are still waiting for an answer.

Further, this position was utilized to act as a control group so when compared against a church mode's arrangement of tones and semi-tones, the church mode does not accomplish the stated goal under analysis (can it be harmonized when tried, can triads be determined from the scale, can it be transposed). My position (and I believe MR's) is that it is their manipulation and usage by human minds that makes the scales transposable and capable of harmonization and that he made his assertion up out of thin air and that his "explanation" is equivalent to "magic" (and his bias towards the major/minor system). Further, I assert that no fair and equal analysis has been made between the control group and the experimental group, and when you do, you find no difference (for example, if church dorian's USAGE was equal to the major scale (transposable) which it COULD have been (even though it wasn't), then the control group fails and is no different than the experimental group). What is more, I think we don't know the true reason why they did not write harmony. We are faced with the tautology previously discussed and agreed upon.

Again, his position is that plainchant was not composed with harmony because of some inherent quality of the arrangement of tones and semi-tones of church modes that is absent in the major and minor arrangement of tones and semi-tones and therefore prevents it from being so (why does T-s-T-T-T-s-T make those notes non-transposable and not capable of harmonization?). He also states that it would be impossible to know the quality of a triad on any note of the given (church) mode (I asked for an explanation of this as, in fact, it would be impossible NOT to know such a thing). If you see a C, you have three choices of triads in church dorian: C Major, a minor, F Major (flat seven, five, or flat three); you have three choices of triads in church phrygian: C Major, a minor, F Major (flat six, four, flat two), and so on.

If these are not his positions, then please state them clearly. If you don't think harmony should even be discussed at all in this context, then the discussion should end there (we simply agree on what we agreed previously).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*Liane Curtis writes that "Modes should not be equated with scales: principles of melodic organization, placement of cadences, and emotional affect are essential parts of modal content" in Medieval and Renaissance music.*



Torkelburger said:


> People familiar with the major/minor scale system want to apply the same "principles of melodic organization, placement of cadences," principles of harmony, to the church modal system. You cannot equate the two in that manner.


 Yes; she's talking about *procedures* as applied to scales vs. modes, not the notes and the tonality they imply.

She's saying that "*principles of melodic organization, placement of cadences, and emotional affect..." *(i.e. medieval modal procedures) of medieval modes cannot be equated with the way CP tonality uses scales in cadences, melodic peaks, and derivation of melody (i.e. CP tonal procedures)

This is irrelevant to my inquiry. I am not concerned with procedural and practical differences.

I am considering *only* how modes imply a tone center.

I am considering _only the note collection of the mode itself, _which, like scales, implies a tonal center.

I am interested in a general notion of tonality,and I think that's been answered:

...chant is tone-centric.


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