Scale, gamut, mode ......

Hello ALL,

mode, scale, gamut, genus, thaat (mela), the ascending/descending
(aroha/avaroha), raga -- a plethora of terms under discussion.

Formerly I was *only* ignorant; now I am *confused* as well.

Regards,
Haresh.

Haresh BAKSHI wrote:
> Hello ALL,
> > mode, scale, gamut, genus, thaat (mela), the ascending/descending
> (aroha/avaroha), raga -- a plethora of terms under discussion.
> > Formerly I was *only* ignorant; now I am *confused* as well.
> > Regards,
> Haresh.
The only reason I can think of why this attempt at cleaning up the vocabulary can be confusing is that many people are maybe not aware of the two usages of "mode" in English (and probably many other languages) in the last decades.

The original meaning (in music and concerning pitch organization) of "mode" is the means for giving your melodies a beginning, a middle and an ending. The medieval modes were ordered according to four possible finales and their relative compass. They had primary and secondary recitation tones (sometimes called "dominants", another potentially confusing term) assigned, had a number of possible opening notes, melodic gambits, and a mood. In polyphonic music, this system was eroded because authentic and plagal pairs were used together, the fifth and the third were admitted as last notes in a part &c. Part of this erosion history is Glarean's Dodekachordon, where he describes the eight church modes on D, E, F, and G and adds four more, on C and A. He named them all and two more modes on B after Greek tribes. (Probably he also considered the F modes ((Hypo-)Lydian) to have a raised fourth degree, whereas the resulting tritone would have been avoided in earlier music.)

The other meaning came about in the last half century seems immensely more popular and less meaningful. For the description of tonal music, Glareans names were used to describe scales built on the diatonic chords of major; superfluous names in my opinion that ring scientic. Functional harmonic theory just called these "the nth degree of" - and then you didn't even have to alter the mode names if you were describing minor. For these I proposed "rotation". Not the term itself, mind you, which came from a posting by Dave Keenan, only its use for the "modern" meaning of "mode".

Yahya and I were satisfied with our definitions as far as they went; if you have questions or different ideas, please ask end discauss them.

kalus
Please ask if anything

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, klaus schmirler <KSchmir@o...> wrote:

> The other meaning came about in the last half century seems immensely
> more popular and less meaningful.

It's been used that way longer than that--I learned my first theory
from Redfield, which dates to the 40s at least as my mother had it as
a college textbook. Redfield was very big on JI, and used this meaning
for the church modes.

Gene Ward Smith wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, klaus schmirler <KSchmir@o...>
> wrote:
> > >> The other meaning came about in the last half century seems
>> immensely more popular and less meaningful.
> > > It's been used that way longer than that--I learned my first theory
> from Redfield, which dates to the 40s at least as my mother had it
> as a college textbook.

That's interesting. If it is John Redfield, his book apparently came
out in 1949. The Berklee School was still called Schillinger house,
and Schillinger was dead for 6 years. It's not impossible that
Redfield picked up ideas from Schillinger.

Redfield was very big on JI,

Understandable, since he was a physicist by training

and used this meaning
> for the church modes.

Could you expand on that? Which meaning? Did he explain cadences in
major as "D Dorian - G Mixolyidan - C Ionian" or did he rotate the
scales and demonstrate retuning some note to move the wolf to
inconspicuous places?

Schillinger, by the way, probably used Glarean's modes to (re)introduce alternatives to major and minor. His method generally was breaking something down into its elements (the diatonic scale into 2 semitones and 5 whole tones) and reassembling them in various ways. The following quote is either about Schillinger's teachings themselves or from a draft of a course curriculum at Schillinger House: (http://www.berklee.edu/bt/122/connection.html)

> The material points out that the familiar Western European system
> of diatonic harmony is just the tip of the iceberg since, according
> to Schillinger, any scale can form the basis of a "diatonic" or
> "symmetric" system from which characteristic intervals and chords
> may be derived.

klaus

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, klaus schmirler <KSchmir@o...> wrote:

> and used this meaning
> > for the church modes.
>
> Could you expand on that? Which meaning? Did he explain cadences in
> major as "D Dorian - G Mixolyidan - C Ionian" or did he rotate the
> scales and demonstrate retuning some note to move the wolf to
> inconspicuous places?

Redfield called the rotations of 1-9/8-5/4-4/3-3/2-5/3-15/8 or
1-10/9-5/4-4/3-3/2-5/3-15/8 "modes" if I recall correctly, but also
tempered forms of these. So, modes are rotations so far as he is
concerned, but he mostly did not approve of tempering, claiming that
well-trained choirs and string ensembles really use some form of
adaptive intonation anyway. The latter scale he claimed as his own
discovery; it is a rotation or "mode" of a JI version of minor.

Funny that Redfield's mode is what is claimed by the grandson of Rauf Yekta as the principal scale for Maqam Music. His argument is quite baseless though.

----- Original Message -----
From: Gene Ward Smith
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 13 Haziran 2005 Pazartesi 13:19
Subject: [tuning] Re: Scale, gamut, mode ......

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, klaus schmirler <KSchmir@o...> wrote:

> and used this meaning
> > for the church modes.
>
> Could you expand on that? Which meaning? Did he explain cadences in
> major as "D Dorian - G Mixolyidan - C Ionian" or did he rotate the
> scales and demonstrate retuning some note to move the wolf to
> inconspicuous places?

Redfield called the rotations of 1-9/8-5/4-4/3-3/2-5/3-15/8 or
1-10/9-5/4-4/3-3/2-5/3-15/8 "modes" if I recall correctly, but also
tempered forms of these. So, modes are rotations so far as he is
concerned, but he mostly did not approve of tempering, claiming that
well-trained choirs and string ensembles really use some form of
adaptive intonation anyway. The latter scale he claimed as his own
discovery; it is a rotation or "mode" of a JI version of minor.

Gene Ward Smith wrote:

> Redfield called the rotations of 1-9/8-5/4-4/3-3/2-5/3-15/8 or
> 1-10/9-5/4-4/3-3/2-5/3-15/8 "modes" if I recall correctly, but also
> tempered forms of these. So, modes are rotations so far as he is
> concerned,

except for the wolf, which is why he came up with the different ratios to accomodate Aeolian.

but he mostly did not approve of tempering, claiming that
> well-trained choirs and string ensembles really use some form of
> adaptive intonation anyway. The latter scale he claimed as his own
> discovery; it is a rotation or "mode" of a JI version of minor.

Can you remember what the purpose of the rotations was? I suspect it was not really an exposition of Gregorian chant or Palestrina, so maybe either a hint at "new musical resources" or something to assist or replace the explanation of cadential chords.

klaus

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, klaus schmirler <KSchmir@o...> wrote:
>
> Can you remember what the purpose of the rotations was? I suspect it
> was not really an exposition of Gregorian chant or Palestrina, so
> maybe either a hint at "new musical resources" or something to assist
> or replace the explanation of cadential chords.

I think it was in the new musical resources department.