Examples of songs which use one mode?

[thisnameistaken]

I'm trying to get my teeth into modes properly. Problem is, I've never really played with musicians who have any more theory knowledge than I do, so finding adventurous music (harmonically) to practise with seems to be a bit of a solo gig.

But anyway I decided to look into them again, because I'm in a position with my bands where I need to start writing a lot again, and I'm having trouble consuming all this info in one go.

So: Can anybody give me examples of some songs which use the chords of one single mode, or two at most, so I've got a frame of reference to work from, and a way of breaking up all this info into more consumable lumps?

Fascinating stuff BTW. It's been ages since I've had time to sit down and think about music and I'd all but forgotten how interesting it is.

[steve]

nice idea for a thread, it's information I would benefit from too

[rslaing]

So What - Miles Davis, and covered by most musicians in nearly every genre.

Try it on Spotify- Candy Dulfer does a decent "funky" version.

[Ray]

[quote name='rslaing' post='547278' date='Jul 22 2009, 08:23 AM']So What - Miles Davis, and covered by most musicians in nearly every genre.

Try it on Spotify- Candy Dulfer does a decent "funky" version. [/quote]
Yeah, I was going to say So What.

I think the form is 16 bars D dorian, 8 bars Eb dorian, 8 bars D dorian.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

[Mikey D]

More Jazz ones:

Passion Dance - McCoy Tyner
Mr Clean - Freddie Hubbard
Mode for Joe - Joe Henderson
Maiden Voyage - Herbie Hancock
Impressions - John Coltrane
Sweet Georgia Bright - Charles Lloyd

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Mikey D' post='547322' date='Jul 22 2009, 09:21 AM']More Jazz ones:

Passion Dance - McCoy Tyner
Mr Clean - Freddie Hubbard
Mode for Joe - Joe Henderson
Maiden Voyage - Herbie Hancock
Impressions - John Coltrane
Sweet Georgia Bright - Charles Lloyd[/quote]

Hi Mikey,

Could you tell me which mode these tunes use or is that an exercise for me? I suppose I'll have to look up the changes anyway...

[dlloyd]

The wikipedia pages for the modes have examples on them:

eg. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_mode"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_mode[/url]

"Along Comes Mary" by The Association[4]
"Drunken Sailor"[5]
"Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles[6]
"Scarborough Fair"[5]
"The Snows, They Melt the Soonest" Traditional[citation needed]
"Milestones" by Miles Davis — The composition takes the form aabba with the a sections in G Dorian and the b sections in A Aeolian.[7]
"The End" by The Doors[8]
"Smoke on the water" by Deep Purple[8]
"The Way I Feel" by Gordon Lightfoot[8]
"Apache" by The Shadows[citation needed]
"So What" by "Miles Davis" Written in D dorian and E♭ dorian.[9]
"Earth Song" by Michael Jackson, the wailing chorus is in dorian[citation needed]

I can't speak for the accuracy of those.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='dlloyd' post='548056' date='Jul 22 2009, 07:52 PM']eg. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_mode"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_mode[/url]

...
"Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles[6]
...[/quote]

OK well here's a song I know. The chords in the verse are Em and C, but there is no C natural in E Dorian. So is this incorrect info at Wikipedia or am I missing something?

The melody over the Em chord does use E Dorian, but there's a C natural that resolves to B at the end of the melody. See how easily confused I am?

Edited July 22, 2009 by thisnameistaken

[dlloyd]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='548333' date='Jul 22 2009, 10:21 PM']OK well here's a song I know. The chords in the verse are Em and C, but there is no C natural in E Dorian. So is this incorrect info at Wikipedia or am I missing something?

The melody over the Em chord does use E Dorian, but there's a C natural that resolves to B at the end of the melody. See how easily confused I am? [/quote]

Yep, the 'Eleanor rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been' bit is E dorian, but it shifts on the next line to C ionian.

That's not to say that Lennon and McCartney were thinking in those terms at the time.

[thisnameistaken]

Ah OK that's fair enough. I might be double-confused here though... So are modes really only used to give a certain character to a melody, or do people ever write songs using the chords of a particular mode?

If they do, that's sort-of what I was asking about originally - examples of songs which are written around the chords of a particular mode.

[dlloyd]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='548503' date='Jul 23 2009, 01:32 AM']Ah OK that's fair enough. I might be double-confused here though... So are modes really only used to give a certain character to a melody, or do people ever write songs using the chords of a particular mode?

If they do, that's sort-of what I was asking about originally - examples of songs which are written around the chords of a particular mode.[/quote]

Well, the chords that harmonise any particular mode will be shared by other modes. What defines the modality is where the melodic resolution of the piece.

Take Scarborough Fair for example. The chords are Am G and D, and the notes that are found in the melody are those that you would find in the key of G major, but the melody sits around the A, so it's A dorian.

[thisnameistaken]

Right, I think I get it.

Well it's all useful, I'll persevere. Looks like I'm having to learn to read at the same time though, so it'll be slow going...

Thanks.

[Major-Minor]

I have the feeling that there is a lot of confusion about musical modes on this forum !

I doubt I can put this right in one post, and I do have the intention of creating a new topic called "The History and Modern Usage of Musical Modes" when I can find time to do it properly !

But for now:

Musical modes are actually very simple to understand once you know their history and how they became part of the current "jazz" music education system.
In brief (apologies to scholars):
Modes have probably been around for thousands of years. Nobody really knows because, until the Greek Civilisation, nothing was really written down. The Greeks theorised what was at that time the main musical vehicle, but of course we can never know just how their music sounded. The best guess is to listen to Indian Carnatic (Classical) music which developed even further down the modal line creating very complex and structured scales and rules.

The Greeks identified 7 basic modal scales rooted on the 7 notes of the modern major scale:
Ionian (our modern major scale)
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolidian
Aeolian (natural minor scale)
Locrian (a rarely used mode - mainly just theoretical)
(There are other modes and scales and things like the wholetone scale and pentatonics that developed over time but lets leave that for another post)

The important thing to understand here is that, more often than not, there would have been a drone (continuous bass note) underlying the melody. There were no chords - harmony as we know it had yet to emerge. (And once that harmony started to take root, the use of modes gradually died out. )

Each note of the modal scale had a relationship to that drone or root note. This is what created its character.

Lets be clear: The ancients were probably not just playing up and down scales ! They were creating melodies or improvisations from within the notes of a particular mode. But always with a root note that the melody kept referring to (or a drone to root the melody on).
(So the melody to "So What", had it been in existence in Byzantine times, would not have been clearly in Dorian mode, as it is actually based on a pentatonic scale (5 notes), and this melody doesn't give a clue as to whether it is major or minor.)


The use of modes in music has always been essentially an academic one. If you analyze a folk tune like Scarboro' Fair, you can say it is in Dorian mode. But when it was created, i doubt very much whether the writer(s) realised that !
Folk music through the ages has always used modal ideas (so the academics now tell us), but much of that folk music was un-harmonised, unlike today when we put chords to everything.

This really is the point i'm trying to put across: For much of it's history, modal music was purely melody based on a drone or root.

More recently, composers who liked to incorporate folk-like moments in their music, used the modal analysis as a starting point for their composition. I'm referring here to the likes of Ralph Vaughn-Williams and Gustav Holst (and many others I can't think of right now!)

It's only really with the emergence of jazz education systems that the mode has re-emerged as an analytical / compositional / improvisational tool.

When I was at music college in the 1960's, musical modes were only vaguely mentioned from a historic perspective, and it wasn't until the jazz academics started to pidgeon-hole the different emerging styles that the humble mode started to re-appear in jazz educational tomes.

It was realised that the jazz musicians were improvising using scales over chords that you could identify by the old Greek modal names. That's not to say that the players were sticking rigidly to this idea - far from it in fact - the modal approach is just one of many way of kicking off improvised soloing.

Nowadays modes are taught as if they were the only way forward for the jazz improviser / composer. And this is where i take issue with the jazz educators.
A mode is actually a [u]limitation[/u] if taken too literally. Incorporate it - yes - but control it - don't let it rule you!

An improvising soloist needs to understand the possibilities that modal thinking will throw up - but they also need to understand that modes can actually hold you back unless you take them with a pinch of salt.

And particularly for bass players, where the underlying harmonic sequence should be at the forefront of your mind when creating a bass part, modal thinking should be left to the academics !!

The Major

[rslaing]

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='554064' date='Jul 28 2009, 03:43 PM']I have the feeling that there is a lot of confusion about musical modes on this forum !

I doubt I can put this right in one post, and I do have the intention of creating a new topic called "The History and Modern Usage of Musical Modes" when I can find time to do it properly !

But for now:

Musical modes are actually very simple to understand once you know their history and how they became part of the current "jazz" music education system.
In brief (apologies to scholars):
Modes have probably been around for thousands of years. Nobody really knows because, until the Greek Civilisation, nothing was really written down. The Greeks theorised what was at that time the main musical vehicle, but of course we can never know just how their music sounded. The best guess is to listen to Indian Carnatic (Classical) music which developed even further down the modal line creating very complex and structured scales and rules.

The Greeks identified 7 basic modal scales rooted on the 7 notes of the modern major scale:
Ionian (our modern major scale)
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolidian
Aeolian (natural minor scale)
Locrian (a rarely used mode - mainly just theoretical)
(There are other modes and scales and things like the wholetone scale and pentatonics that developed over time but lets leave that for another post)

The important thing to understand here is that, more often than not, there would have been a drone (continuous bass note) underlying the melody. There were no chords - harmony as we know it had yet to emerge. (And once that harmony started to take root, the use of modes gradually died out. )

Each note of the modal scale had a relationship to that drone or root note. This is what created its character.

Lets be clear: The ancients were probably not just playing up and down scales ! They were creating melodies or improvisations from within the notes of a particular mode. But always with a root note that the melody kept referring to (or a drone to root the melody on).
(So the melody to "So What", had it been in existence in Byzantine times, would not have been clearly in Dorian mode, as it is actually based on a pentatonic scale (5 notes), and this melody doesn't give a clue as to whether it is major or minor.)


The use of modes in music has always been essentially an academic one. If you analyze a folk tune like Scarboro' Fair, you can say it is in Dorian mode. But when it was created, i doubt very much whether the writer(s) realised that !
Folk music through the ages has always used modal ideas (so the academics now tell us), but much of that folk music was un-harmonised, unlike today when we put chords to everything.

This really is the point i'm trying to put across: For much of it's history, modal music was purely melody based on a drone or root.

More recently, composers who liked to incorporate folk-like moments in their music, used the modal analysis as a starting point for their composition. I'm referring here to the likes of Ralph Vaughn-Williams and Gustav Holst (and many others I can't think of right now!)

It's only really with the emergence of jazz education systems that the mode has re-emerged as an analytical / compositional / improvisational tool.

When I was at music college in the 1960's, musical modes were only vaguely mentioned from a historic perspective, and it wasn't until the jazz academics started to pidgeon-hole the different emerging styles that the humble mode started to re-appear in jazz educational tomes.

It was realised that the jazz musicians were improvising using scales over chords that you could identify by the old Greek modal names. That's not to say that the players were sticking rigidly to this idea - far from it in fact - the modal approach is just one of many way of kicking off improvised soloing.

Nowadays modes are taught as if they were the only way forward for the jazz improviser / composer. And this is where i take issue with the jazz educators.
A mode is actually a [u]limitation[/u] if taken too literally. Incorporate it - yes - but control it - don't let it rule you!

An improvising soloist needs to understand the possibilities that modal thinking will throw up - but they also need to understand that modes can actually hold you back unless you take them with a pinch of salt.

And particularly for bass players, where the underlying harmonic sequence should be at the forefront of your mind when creating a bass part, modal thinking should be left to the academics !!

The Major[/quote]

That was a brilliant post and very well written! Thank you.

It was me that mentioned So What because I honestly thought under the modern "interpretation" of modes, it was a modal tune.

Why do the jazz academics refer to So What as the principal example of modern modal music then? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick?

You mentioned that the melody doesn't indicate whether it is in a major or minor? What about the minor 3rd all the way through the melody? Is that just considered a "blue" note?

I know Wikipedia is not accurate a lot of the time, but some of the dialogue seems to underpin a lot of jazz as being modal.

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_jazz"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_jazz[/url]

[Major-Minor]

[quote name='rslaing' post='554241' date='Jul 28 2009, 06:08 PM']That was a brilliant post and very well written! Thank you.

It was me that mentioned So What because I honestly thought under the modern "interpretation" of modes, it was a modal tune.

Why do the jazz academics refer to So What as the principal example of modern modal music then? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick?

You mentioned that the melody doesn't indicate whether it is in a major or minor? What about the minor 3rd all the way through the melody? Is that just considered a "blue" note?

I know Wikipedia is not accurate a lot of the time, but some of the dialogue seems to underpin a lot of jazz as being modal.

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_jazz"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_jazz[/url][/quote]
I often play "So What" as a bass guitar feature so hopefully I know how it goes (!) and there is no minor third in the melody:

(in D minor) D A B C D E C D A are the notes of the main phrase which is repeated with small variations but still confined to the same set of notes.

So as you can see there is no 3rd (minor or major).
Its only by putting a chord of Dminor against the melody that you get an F (minor 3rd) in the mix

Lets be clear: Every scale is a type of mode. so any piece of music (or part of a piece) that has a clearly defined scale at its heart is modal.
And you are right to say that So What is a good example of the modern use of modes. We no longer think of the mode as just a scale. It has become a way to think of possible notes to play against a given chord. But it's only one of several approaches that one can take.
I'm just concerned that people seem to get the wrong end of the stick when learning about modern modes. It becomes restrictive if you think you have to stick to the notes of the scale.
Modes are a great starting point when composing or improvising, but nobody actually sticks to these scales except to create modal effects within a solo or composition.

The Major

[rslaing]

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='554300' date='Jul 28 2009, 06:57 PM']I often play "So What" as a bass guitar feature so hopefully I know how it goes (!) and there is no minor third in the melody:

(in D minor) D A B C D E C D A are the notes of the main phrase which is repeated with small variations but still confined to the same set of notes.

So as you can see there is no 3rd (minor or major).
Its only by putting a chord of Dminor against the melody that you get an F (minor 3rd) in the mix

Lets be clear: Every scale is a type of mode. so any piece of music (or part of a piece) that has a clearly defined scale at its heart is modal.
And you are right to say that So What is a good example of the modern use of modes. We no longer think of the mode as just a scale. It has become a way to think of possible notes to play against a given chord. But it's only one of several approaches that one can take.
I'm just concerned that people seem to get the wrong end of the stick when learning about modern modes. It becomes restrictive if you think you have to stick to the notes of the scale.
Modes are a great starting point when composing or improvising, but nobody actually sticks to these scales except to create modal effects within a solo or composition.

The Major[/quote]

Apologies for my stupid comment about a minor third in the melody of "So What", I really should know better. I can't honestly explain where I got that from

I am getting a bit lost here. Sorry to ask more questions. I have attached a lead sheet for "So What". I see minor thirds in the horn harmony defining the mode.. The sheet also defines the modal chord as Dmin7 dorian. That's what it sounds like to me too. This is the lead sheet (as you can probably see from it's condition) I have used for gazillion years

HELP!! Tell me where I am going wrong.................

[attachment=29809:so_what.jpg]

Edited July 28, 2009 by rslaing

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='554064' date='Jul 28 2009, 03:43 PM']I have the feeling that there is a lot of confusion about musical modes on this forum !

I doubt I can put this right in one post, and I do have the intention of creating a new topic called "The History and Modern Usage of Musical Modes" when I can find time to do it properly !

But for now:[/quote]

That definitely helped clear a few things up for me, thanks.

[rslaing]

To The Major:-

It really would be great if you could find the time to write your theory on Modes.

I am particularly keen to know your ideas on the application of modal scales in modern music.

Cheers

Rob

[endorka]

Just to fan the flames a bit, although "So What" is considered to be in the Dorian mode, Mile's solo contains a few C# leading notes, which would place it most likely into the Harmonic minor. This would back up Major Minor's assertion that the application of modes should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Jennifer

[rslaing]

[quote name='endorka' post='554527' date='Jul 28 2009, 10:33 PM']Just to fan the flames a bit, although "So What" is considered to be in the Dorian mode, Mile's solo contains a few C# leading notes, which would place it most likely into the Harmonic minor. This would back up Major Minor's assertion that the application of modes should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Jennifer[/quote]

After your fanning of the flames, I am reluctantly suggesting a few chromatic notes does not change the basic outline of the tune. And there are no Bb's which is the other note that defines a D harmonic minor?

I've had a think about this and I think that Major is right. The possible misunderstanding though, comes from people not knowing that there is a difference between modal song, and using modal scales in a non-pure modal song - if you know what I mean.

Perhaps when we see a song with only a couple of chords, with a repetitive bass or melodic motif, it is all too easy to label it as "modal".

Of course, it doesn't help when the jazz commentators pigeonhole this stuff as modal and no one objects and then you check the definition and that is strictly speaking not correct.

Maybe we should have a new label. Stuff that is not built on a drone could be called "New Modal" or "Modern Modal" as against "Traditional Modal".
After all, they have been doing this with folk music for years, with the stalwarts refusing to acknowledge modern folk music as "folk".



Rob.

[Major-Minor]

[quote name='rslaing' post='554690' date='Jul 29 2009, 06:40 AM']After your fanning of the flames, I am reluctantly suggesting a few chromatic notes does not change the basic outline of the tune. And there are no Bb's which is the other note that defines a D harmonic minor?

I've had a think about this and I think that Major is right. The possible misunderstanding though, comes from people not knowing that there is a difference between modal song, and using modal scales in a non-pure modal song - if you know what I mean.

Perhaps when we see a song with only a couple of chords, with a repetitive bass or melodic motif, it is all too easy to label it as "modal".

Of course, it doesn't help when the jazz commentators pigeonhole this stuff as modal and no one objects and then you check the definition and that is strictly speaking not correct.

Maybe we should have a new label. Stuff that is not built on a drone could be called "New Modal" or "Modern Modal" as against "Traditional Modal".
After all, they have been doing this with folk music for years, with the stalwarts refusing to acknowledge modern folk music as "folk".



Rob.[/quote]
I think this discussion is starting to get somewhere now. And most enjoyable it is too !
"So What":
I suggested that in ancient times this tune would not have been [u]clearly[/u] in Dorian mode as there is no 3rd in the melody. What I was referring to was the fact that in its original incarnation, modes were purely melodic with no harmonic accompaniment. However (and this is where I have had arguments with eminent classical musicians over this subject), the notes of the mode, in relation to the drone, create a harmonic tonality over a period of playing. So if the drone is D, by playing a few phrases that include the note the note F, we get the impression that it is a minor mode. If an Eb is slipped in, we know it is in some sort of Phrygian mode. Bear in mind that the Greek modes we talk of today were only the basic modes. If you follow the historic development of modes thru into the Asian classical styles, you can clearly see how complex the thinking became, with up scales being different to down scales, and sometimes bunches of semitones rather than our simple tone / semitone way of using the basic Greek modes today.

Melodic modes (with no harmonic accompaniment) create a tonality over a period of time. So if you play a few phrases in Mixolydian mode (lets say GABCDEF) you will create a tonality that is dominant - the G7 chord that we would normally put against this will be implied by the relation of all the notes to the root note G. In particular, in this instance, the B and F are pivotal.
So if you play one note from outside the mode, you destroy that clear tonality. If in this instance you slip in a Csharp, it is no longer Mixolydian. But who cares ?! You played the note you wanted, you created the line that was in your head, you can go on and add all sort of other notes that will be away from the mode you started with. You might play a phrase using BCDEF, then slip it up a semitone, and back down again. Youv'e gone right away from the mode, but it works and audience love it. So now where is your modal integrity ? Its gone forever. Hooray!

Another thing that occurs to me:
When you play, lets say, a Phrygian scale (EFGABCD) with its E root over an Eminor chord, if you were to "hang about" on the F, it will sound fairly dissonant. Nothing wrong with that per se, but some people might be thinking you were playing a "wrong" note. What I'm trying to get at is the fact that these scales, used by jazz soloists, are often played at speed, so the individual dissonances are not a problem. So if fast playing is your thing, then fine, you can use modal scales to fly about all over the place and probably very impressively. But if you want to investigate some, dare I say, more meaningful and emotional aspects of improvisation, then you need to be more aware of the affect of each note within the scale in relation not only to the root note but also the chord you are playing against.

I keep stressing this:
The modal approach is one that all creative musos need to be conversant with. But it can only ever be a starting point for creativity. On its own it is self limiting. If you want to compose a piece for a TV prog that has a middle eastern feel, then yes something like the Phrygian mode will give our modern ears that impression.
If you want to create an improvised solo [u]purely[/u] in Dorian mode, go ahead. It will sound fine(ish). But why limit yourself when there is so much more you can do.

Some of the best jazz musos out there have never fully studied modal thinking. I have spoken to many great players who think the Aebersold methods (and others)are a retrogressive step. Personally, I think the Aebersold (and others) play-along CD's are a great way to practice at home, but they are limited in their scope as the most important aspect of any improvisation (in a group context) is communicating with the other players, listening, reacting to what is going on around you. You can't do that with a CD as the those players can't react to what [u]you [/u]play.
I've read Aebersold's Scale Syllabus that Rob so kindly posted for us. As an analysis of improv choices it is very interesting. And I would recommend it to every player. However, once read and digested, forget it and start being creative.

As I've said before, jazz educators and academics have found modal thinking to be a very handy way of explaining some of the possible approaches to improv and creativity. But don't get bogged down with these methods. They can be very off-putting to the jazz student, and also there is the danger that players will come out of their education all sounding the same. It is always the players who show individuality and a creative spirit who get noticed rather than the lemmings who have learnt it all by rote !

The Major

[acidbass]

Very interesting discussion so far. I've always shared the same viewpoint mentioned above that modes (and indeed scales) should be used as a guideline only - why limit oneself? If you play what you hear in your head and it's aurally pleasing, to yourself or an audience, then you've succeeded. Obviously if you're teaching the above, then getting the facts right is important, but I've never been lambasted for throwing in a chromatic tone or two here and there during solos or fills. Then again, maybe my audience have been too forgiving!

Danny

[leftybassman392]

At the risk of butting into an already well developed discussion, (and I'm aware that this is probably a little OT by this time,) perhaps I could put a bit of historical perspective into Major-Minor's excellent initial post.

In my final undergraduate year as a Maths/Philosophy student I researched the topic of music in ancient Greece, and wrote a dissertation of my findings.

All this was a long time ago I hasten to add, and the details are fairly cloudy, but the Greeks didn't think about music in the same way we do. They would have had no understanding of the notion of a mode at all (the word 'mode' is derived from the Latin word 'modus' and has no equivalent that I ever found in ancient greek writings). Their music (such as it was) was intimately tied up with their world view generally and their religious beliefs in particular. Folk music in the sense of casual music for the purpose of secular (non-religious) entertainment probably did not exist (despite what Hollywood would like you to believe).

As I understand it (and someone may care to correct me on this) the modes we use today are medieval in origin, set down (like everything else in that period) by the church - in fact musicologists tend to call them the Ecclesiastical Modes for that reason.

The Greeks did not have anything like our understanding of musical harmony - their approach was essentially mathematical in its nature, and the notes heard were simply a consequence of the divisions created by ancient Greek Proportion Theory - roughly the same as the modern notion of Ratio. Most of the important work from that period was done by the Pythagorean religious cult, but also appeared in the work of others such as Plato ( check out The Timaeus).

The Greek names given to the modes are almost certainly to do with the fact that the Medieval Church had a religious philosophy taken almost entirely from ancient Greek Philosophy (particularly the work of Aristotle).



If anybody's still awake I'd be happy to discuss it further .....

[dlloyd]

[quote name='leftybassman392' post='556664' date='Jul 30 2009, 10:49 PM']If anybody's still awake I'd be happy to discuss it further ..... [/quote]

Totally... I love this stuff.

[leftybassman392]

If you're really interested in modes as a topic there's loads of stuff on Wikipedia. Just type 'musical modes' or 'Ecclesiastical Modes' into the search engine.

A related topic is to do with the intervals - if you try to construct scales the way the church did in the middle ages, it doesn't actually work all that well. I won't bore you with the details, but the method involves stack ratios on top of one another to create the notes of the scale. Problem is, however you do it you don't quite get an exact octave note (and there is a s**tload of stuff on this in Wikipedia - or you might want to try out Grove's dictionary of Music & Musicians at your local library). That makes it much harder to generate multi-octave harmonies 'cos they sound increasingly 'out of tune'. There's a bunch of other problems as well - modulation between keys, for example.

Many people have tried to square the circle in different ways. The equal temperament scale we mostly use today is only one of them - Bach, for instance used a method called Well Temperament (hence 'The Well Tempered Clavier'). Equal temperament sacrifices some of the sonic purity of the intervals as generated using ratios for much improved utility. To achieve this it uses a mathematical formula that pretty much guarantees consistency across the entire range of your instrument - which is important when you start discussing modes because modes generated using the Ecclesiastical method (also called the cycle of fifths) are not interchangeable. Equal temperament makes that kind of thing much more manageable.

I'll be happy to talk about it some more tomorrow but can I go to bed now please? -_- -_- -_-

Edited July 30, 2009 by leftybassman392