Product Code Database
In music theory, the term mode or modus is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context.
Its most common use may be described as a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviors. It is applied to major and minor keys as well as the seven (including the former as Ionian mode and Aeolian mode) which are defined by their starting note or tonic. (Olivier Messiaen's modes of limited transposition are strictly a scale type.) Related to the diatonic modes are the eight church modes or Gregorian modes, in which authentic and plagal forms of scales are distinguished by ambitus and tenor or reciting tone. Although both diatonic and Gregorian modes borrow terminology from ancient Greece, the Greek tonoi do not otherwise resemble their medieval/modern counterparts.
Previously, in the Middle Ages the term modus was used to describe intervals, individual notes, and rhythms (see ). Modal rhythm was an essential feature of the modal musical notation of the Notre-Dame school at the turn of the 12th century. In the mensural notation that emerged later, modus specifies the subdivision of the longa.
Outside of Western classical music, "mode" is sometimes used to embrace similar concepts such as Octoechos, Arabic maqam, pathet etc. (see below).
In 1792, Sir Willam Jones applied the term "mode" to the music of "the Persians and the Hindoos". As early as 1271, Amerus applied the concept to cantilenis organicis (lit. "organic songs", most probably meaning "polyphony"). It is still heavily used with regard to Western polyphony before the onset of the common practice period, as for example "modale Mehrstimmigkeit" by Carl Dahlhaus or "Alte Tonarten" of the 16th and 17th centuries found by Bernhard Meier.
The word encompasses several additional meanings. Authors from the 9th century until the early 18th century (e.g., Guido of Arezzo) sometimes employed the Latin modus for interval, or for qualities of individual notes.N. Meeùs, " Modi vocum. Réflections sur la théorie modale médiévale." Con-Scientia Musica. Contrapunti per Rossana Dalmonte e Mario Baroni, A. R. Addessi e. a. ed., Lucca, Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2010, pp. 21-33 In the theory of late-medieval mensural polyphony (e.g., Franco of Cologne), modus is a rhythmic relationship between long and short values or a pattern made from them; in mensural music most often theorists applied it to division of longa into 3 or 2 breves.A. M. Busse Berger, "The Evolution of Rhythmic Notation", The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, Th. Christensen ed., Cambridge University Press 2002, pp. 628-656, particularly pp. 629-635
The concept of "mode" in Western music theory has three successive stages: in Gregorian chant theory, in Renaissance polyphonic theory, and in tonal harmonic music of the common practice period. In all three contexts, "mode" incorporates the idea of the diatonic scale, but differs from it by also involving an element of melody type. This concerns particular repertories of short musical figures or groups of tones within a certain scale so that, depending on the point of view, mode takes on the meaning of either a "particularized scale" or a "generalized tune". Modern Musicology practice has extended the concept of mode to earlier musical systems, such as those of Ancient Greek music, Jewish cantillation, and the Byzantine music system of octoechos, as well as to other non-Western types of music.
By the early 19th century, the word "mode" had taken on an additional meaning, in reference to the difference between major and minor keys, specified as "Major scale" and "Minor scale". At the same time, composers were beginning to conceive "modality" as something outside of the major/minor system that could be used to evoke religious feelings or to suggest Folk music idioms.
| Aristoxenus' description |
| hypate hypaton–paramese |
| parhypate hypaton–trite diezeugmenon |
| lichanos hypaton–paranete diezeugmenon |
| hypate meson–nete diezeugmenon |
| parhypate meson–trite hyperbolaion |
| lichanos meson–paranete hyperbolaion |
| mese–nete hyperbolaion or proslambnomenos–mese |
These names are derived from ancient Greeks' cultural subgroups (Dorians), small regions in central Greece (Locris), and certain peoples (Lydia, Phrygia) (not ethnically Greek, but in close contact with them). The association of these ethnic names with the octave species appears to precede Aristoxenus, who criticized their application to the tonoi by the earlier theorists whom he called the "Harmonicists". According to , he felt that their diagrams, which exhibit 28 consecutive dieses, were
Depending on the positioning (spacing) of the interposed tones in the , three genera of the seven octave species can be recognized. The diatonic genus (composed of tones and semitones), the chromatic genus (semitones and a minor third), and the enharmonic genus (with a major third and two or diesis). The framing interval of the perfect fourth is fixed, while the two internal pitches are movable. Within the basic forms, the intervals of the chromatic and diatonic genera were varied further by three and two "shades" ( chroai), respectively.
In contrast to the medieval modal system, these scales and their related tonoi and harmoniai appear to have had no hierarchical relationships amongst the notes that could establish contrasting points of tension and rest, although the mese ("middle note") might have functioned as some sort of central, returning tone for the melody.
| nominal modern base | Aristoxenus name |
Ptolemy, in his Harmonics, ii.3–11, construed the tonoi differently, presenting all seven octave species within a fixed octave, through chromatic inflection of the scale degrees (comparable to the modern conception of building all seven modal scales on a single tonic). In Ptolemy's system, therefore there are only seven tonoi. Pythagoras also construed the intervals arithmetically (if somewhat more rigorously, initially allowing for 1:1 = Unison, 2:1 = Octave, 3:2 = Fifth, 4:3 = Fourth and 5:4 = Major Third within the octave). In their diatonic genus, these tonoi and corresponding harmoniai correspond with the intervals of the familiar modern major and minor scales. See Pythagorean tuning and Pythagorean interval.
| + Harmoniai of the School of Eratocles (enharmonic genus) ! Mixolydian | 1 |
Particularly in the earliest surviving writings, harmonia is regarded not as a scale, but as the epitome of the stylised singing of a particular district or people or occupation. When the late-6th-century poet Lasus of Hermione referred to the Aeolian harmonia, for example, he was more likely thinking of a Melody type characteristic of Greeks speaking the Aeolic Greek than of a scale pattern. By the late 5th century BC, these regional types are being described in terms of differences in what is called harmonia – a word with several senses, but here referring to the pattern of intervals between the notes sounded by the strings of a Lyre or a Cithara.
However, there is no reason to suppose that, at this time, these tuning patterns stood in any straightforward and organised relations to one another. It was only around the year 400 that attempts were made by a group of theorists known as the harmonicists to bring these harmoniai into a single system and to express them as orderly transformations of a single structure. Eratocles was the most prominent of the harmonicists, though his ideas are known only at second hand, through Aristoxenus, from whom we learn they represented the harmoniai as cyclic reorderings of a given series of intervals within the octave, producing seven octave species. We also learn that Eratocles confined his descriptions to the enharmonic genus.
The philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle () include sections that describe the effect of different harmoniai on mood and character formation. For example, Aristotle stated in his Politics:
Aristotle continues by describing the effects of rhythm, and concludes about the combined effect of rhythm and harmonia (viii:1340b:10–13):
The word ethos () in this context means "moral character", and Greek ethos theory concerns the ways that music can convey, foster, and even generate ethical states.
According to Thomas J. Mathiesen, music as a performing art was called melos, which in its perfect form () comprised not only the melody and the text (including its elements of rhythm and diction) but also stylized dance movement. Melic and rhythmic composition (respectively, and ) were the processes of selecting and applying the various components of melos and rhythm to create a complete work. According to Aristides Quintilianus:
The 6th-century scholar Boethius had translated Greek music theory treatises by Nicomachus and Ptolemy into Latin. Later authors created confusion by applying mode as described by Boethius to explain Plainsong modes, which were a wholly different system. In his De institutione musica, book 4 chapter 15, Boethius, like his Hellenistic sources, twice used the term harmonia to describe what would likely correspond to the later notion of "mode", but also used the word "modus" – probably translating the Greek word τρόπος ( tropos), which he also rendered as Latin tropus – in connection with the system of transpositions required to produce seven diatonic octave species, so the term was simply a means of describing transposition and had nothing to do with the church modes.
Later, 9th-century theorists applied Boethius's terms tropus and modus (along with "tonus") to the system of church modes. The treatise De Musica (or De harmonica institutione) of Hucbald synthesized the three previously disparate strands of modal theory: chant theory, the Byzantine oktōēchos and Boethius's account of Hellenistic theory. The late-9th- and early 10th-century compilation known as the Alia musica imposed the seven octave transpositions, known as tropus and described by Boethius, onto the eight church modes, but its compilator also mentions the Greek (Byzantine) Echos translated by the Latin term sonus. Thus, the names of the modes became associated with the eight church tones and their modal formulas – but this medieval interpretation does not fit the concept of the ancient Greek harmonics treatises. The modern understanding of mode does not reflect that it is made of different concepts that do not all fit.
According to Carolingian theorists the eight church modes, or , can be divided into four pairs, where each pair shares the "final" note and the four notes above the final, but they have different intervals concerning the species of the fifth. If the octave is completed by adding three notes above the fifth, the mode is termed authentic, but if the octave is completed by adding three notes below, it is called plagal (from Greek πλάγιος, "oblique, sideways"). 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. A melody that remains confined to the mode's ambitus is called "perfect"; if it falls short of it, "imperfect"; if it exceeds it, "superfluous"; and a melody that combines the ambituses of both the plagal and authentic is said to be in a "mixed mode".
Although the earlier (Greek) model for the Carolingian system was probably ordered like the Byzantine oktōēchos, with the four authentic modes first, followed by the four plagals, the earliest extant sources for the Latin system are organized in four pairs of authentic and plagal modes sharing the same final: protus authentic/plagal, deuterus authentic/plagal, tritus authentic/plagal, and tetrardus authentic/plagal.
Each mode has, in addition to its final, a "reciting tone", sometimes called the "dominant". It is also sometimes called the "tenor", from Latin tenere "to hold", meaning the tone around which the melody principally centres. The reciting tones of all authentic modes began a perfect fifth above the final, with those of the plagal modes a Mediant above. However, the reciting tones of modes 3, 4, and 8 rose one step during the 10th and 11th centuries with 3 and 8 moving from B to C (half step) and that of 4 moving from G to A (whole step).
After the reciting tone, every mode is distinguished by scale degrees called "mediant" and "participant". The mediant is named from its position between the final and reciting tone. In the authentic modes it is the third of the scale, unless that note should happen to be B, in which case C substitutes for it. In the plagal modes, its position is somewhat irregular. The participant is an auxiliary note, generally adjacent to the mediant in authentic modes and, in the plagal forms, coincident with the reciting tone of the corresponding authentic mode (some modes have a second participant).
Only one accidental is used commonly in Gregorian chant – B may be lowered by a half-step to B. This usually (but not always) occurs in modes V and VI, as well as in the upper tetrachord of IV, and is optional in other modes except III, VII and VIII.
In 1547, the Swiss theorist Heinrich Glarean published the Dodecachordon, in which he solidified the concept of the church modes, and added four additional modes: the Aeolian (mode 9), Hypoaeolian mode (mode 10), Ionian mode (mode 11), and Hypoionian (mode 12). A little later in the century, the Italian Gioseffo Zarlino at first adopted Glarean's system in 1558, but later (1571 and 1573) revised the numbering and naming conventions in a manner he deemed more logical, resulting in the widespread promulgation of two conflicting systems.
Zarlino's system reassigned the six pairs of authentic–plagal mode numbers to finals in the order of the natural hexachord, C–D–E–F–G–A, and transferred the Greek names as well, so that modes 1 through 8 now became C-authentic to F-plagal, and were now called by the names Dorian to Hypomixolydian. The pair of G modes were numbered 9 and 10 and were named Ionian and Hypoionian, while the pair of A modes retained both the numbers and names (11, Aeolian, and 12 Hypoaeolian) of Glarean's system. While Zarlino's system became popular in France, Italian composers preferred Glarean's scheme because it retained the traditional eight modes, while expanding them. Luzzasco Luzzaschi was an exception in Italy, in that he used Zarlino's new system.
In the late-18th and 19th centuries, some chant reformers (notably the editors of the Mechelen, Pustet-Ratisbon (Regensburg), and Rheims-Cambrai Office-Books, collectively referred to as the Cecilian Movement) renumbered the modes once again, this time retaining the original eight mode numbers and Glareanus's modes 9 and 10, but assigning numbers 11 and 12 to the modes on the final B, which they named Locrian and Hypolocrian (even while rejecting their use in chant). The Ionian and Hypoionian modes (on C) become in this system modes 13 and 14.
Given the confusion between ancient, medieval, and modern terminology, "today it is more consistent and practical to use the traditional designation of the modes with numbers one to eight", using Roman numeral (I–VIII), rather than using the pseudo-Greek naming system. Medieval terms, first used in Carolingian treatises, later in Aquitanian tonaries, are still used by scholars today: the Greek ordinals ("first", "second", etc.) transliterated into the Latin alphabet protus (πρῶτος), deuterus (δεύτερος), tritus (τρίτος), and tetrardus (τέταρτος). In practice they can be specified as authentic or as plagal like "protus authentus / plagalis".
Carl Dahlhaus lists "three factors that form the respective starting points for the modal theories of Aurelian of Réôme, Hermannus Contractus, and Guido of Arezzo":
Various interpretations of the "character" imparted by the different modes have been suggested. Three such interpretations, from Guido of Arezzo (995–1050), Adam of Fulda (1445–1505), and Juan de Espinosa Medrano (1632–1688), follow:
| Ionian mode | I | W–W–H–W–W–W–H | C–D–E–F–G–A–B–C |
| Dorian mode | ii | W–H–W–W–W–H–W | D–E–F–G–A–B–C–D |
| Phrygian mode | iii | H–W–W–W–H–W–W | E–F–G–A–B–C–D–E |
| Lydian mode | IV | W–W–W–H–W–W–H | F–G–A–B–C–D–E–F |
| Mixolydian mode | V | W–W–H–W–W–H–W | G–A–B–C–D–E–F–G |
| Aeolian mode | vi | W–H–W–W–H–W–W | A–B–C–D–E–F–G–A |
| Locrian mode | viiø | H–W–W–H–W–W–W | B–C–D–E–F–G–A–B |
For the sake of simplicity, the examples shown above are formed by (also called "white notes", as they can be played using the white keys of a piano keyboard). However, any transposition of each of these scales is a valid example of the corresponding mode. In other words, transposition preserves mode.
Although the names of the modern modes are Greek and some have names used in ancient Greek theory for some of the harmoniai, the names of the modern modes are conventional and do not refer to the sequences of intervals found even in the diatonic genus of the Greek octave species sharing the same name.
The Phrygian mode is very similar to the modern natural minor scale (see Aeolian mode below). The only difference with respect to the natural minor scale is in the second scale degree, which is a minor second (m2) above the tonic, rather than a major second (M2).
The single tone that differentiates this scale from the major scale (Ionian mode) is its fourth degree, which is an augmented fourth (A4) above the tonic (F), rather than a perfect fourth (P4).
The single tone that differentiates this scale from the major scale (Ionian mode) is its seventh degree, which is a minor seventh (m7) above the tonic (G), rather than a major seventh (M7). Therefore, the seventh scale degree becomes a subtonic to the tonic because it is now a whole tone lower than the tonic, in contrast to the seventh degree in the major scale, which is a semitone tone lower than the tonic (leading-tone).
The distinctive scale degree here is the diminished fifth (d5). This makes the tonic triad diminished, so this mode is the only one in which the chords built on the tonic and dominant scale degrees have their roots separated by a diminished, rather than perfect, fifth. Similarly the tonic seventh chord is half-diminished.
The first three modes are sometimes called major, the next three minor, and the last one diminished (Locrian), according to the quality of their tonic triads. The Locrian mode is traditionally considered theoretical rather than practical because the triad built on the first scale degree is diminished. Because are not consonant they do not lend themselves to cadential endings and cannot be tonicized according to traditional practice.
The Ionian, or Iastian, mode is another name for the major scale used in much Western music. The Aeolian forms the base of the most common Western minor scale; in modern practice the Aeolian mode is differentiated from the minor by using only the seven notes of the Aeolian mode. By contrast, minor mode compositions of the common practice period frequently raise the seventh scale degree by a semitone to strengthen the cadences, and in conjunction also raise the sixth scale degree by a semitone to avoid the awkward interval of an augmented second. This is particularly true of vocal music.
Traditional folk music provides countless examples of modal melodies. For example, Irish traditional music makes extensive usage not only of the major and minor (Aeolian) modes, but also the Mixolydian and Dorian modes. Within the context of Irish traditional music, the tunes are most commonly played in the keys of G-Major/A-Dorian/D-Mixolydian/E-Aeolian (minor) and D-Major/E-Dorian/A-Mixolydian/B-Aeolian (minor). Some Irish music is written in A-Major/F#-Aeolian (minor), with B-Dorian and E-Mixolydian tunes not being completely unheard of. Rarer still are Irish tunes in E-Major/F#-Dorian/B-Mixolydian.
In some regions of Ireland, such as the west-central coast area of counties County Galway and County Clare, "flat" keys are far more prevalent than in other areas. Instruments will be constructed or pitched accordingly to allow for modal playing in C-Major/D-Dorian/G-Mixolydian or F-Major/G-Dorian/C-Mixolydian/D-Aeolian (minor), with some rare exceptions in Eb-Major/C-minor being played regionally. Some tunes are even composed in Bb-Major, with modulating sections in F-Mixolydian. A-minor is less popularly played in the region, despite the localised prevalence of tunes in C-Major and related modes. Much Flamenco music is in the Phrygian mode, though frequently with the third and seventh degrees raised by a semitone.
Zoltán Kodály, Gustav Holst, and Manuel de Falla use modal elements as modifications of a diatonic background, while modality replaces diatonic tonality in the music of Claude Debussy and Béla Bartók.
Since Dorian mode is the standard mode, we compare it with other modes:
(♯ and ♭ are dual, 2 and 7 are dual, 3 and 6 are dual, 4 and 5 are dual)
Dorian is self-dual, Mixolydian mode and Aeolian mode are dual, Ionian mode and Phrygian mode are dual, etc.
| implied mode |
| Mixolydian mode |
| Aeolian mode (natural minor and descending melodic minor) |
| Ionian mode (natural major and ascending melodic major) |
| Phrygian mode |
| Lydian mode |
| Locrian mode |
| Lydian augmented scale |
| Altered scale |
| Jazz minor scale (ascending melodic minor) |
| Dorian ♭2 scale |
| Acoustic scale |
| Half diminished scale |
| Lydian dominant ♭6 scale |
| Major Locrian scale |
| ? (Ionian ♭2 scale?) |
| Neapolitan scale |
| Romanian major scale |
| ? |
| Double Harmonic Augmented Scale |
| Persian scale |
| Ukrainian Dorian scale (Dorian harmonic scale?) |
| ? (Dorian harmonic scale?) |
| ? (Mixolydian harmonic scale?) |
| ? (Aeolian harmonic scale?) (harmonic minor) |
| ? (Ionian harmonic scale?) (harmonic major) |
| Phrygian dominant scale (Phrygian harmonic scale?) |
| ? (Lydian harmonic scale?) |
| ? (Locrian harmonic scale?) |
| Hungarian minor scale |
| Oriental mode |
| Aeolian dominant scale (descending melodic major) (self-dual) |
| Neapolitan scale (self-dual) |
| Double harmonic scale (self-dual) |
Or remove two diatonic notes to get pentatonic scale:
| implied classical Chinese scale |
| 商 ( shāng) mode (self-dual) |
| 徵 ( zhǐ) mode |
| 羽 ( yǔ) mode |
| 宮 ( gōng) mode |
| 角 ( jué) mode |
Scales that are called "harmonic" contain all seven types of seventh chords (like the harmonic major scale and the harmonic minor scale).
e.g. for Dorian ♯4:
and for Dorian ♭5:
In contrast, the original Dorian mode (also the natural major scale and the natural minor scale) does not contain minor major seventh chord and augmented major seventh chord and diminished seventh chord.
The Dorian mode, and Aeolian dominant scale (Dorian ♯3 ♭6 scale), and Neapolitan scale (Dorian ♭2 ♯7 scale), and double harmonic scale (Dorian ♭2 ♯3 ♭6 ♯7 scale), are all self-dual. However, there are no harmonic scales that are self-dual. From that, we can list the scales and the triad qualities and the seventh chord qualities in each scale as degrees of Dorian mode and Aeolian dominant scale (Dorian ♯3 ♭6 scale) and Neapolitan scale (Dorian ♭2 ♯7 scale) and double harmonic scale (Dorian ♭2 ♯3 ♭6 ♯7 scale) and the two types of Dorian harmonic scale: (for Dorian mode and Aeolian dominant scale and Neapolitan scale and double harmonic scale, the 2nd / 7th scales, the 3rd / 6th scales, the 4th / 5th scales, are dual scales, and for the scale of a type of Dorian harmonic scale, its dual is the 2nd / 7th scale, the 3rd / 6th scale, the 4th / 5th scale, of another Dorian harmonic scale).
| + Scale |
| + Triad qualities |
| + Seventh chord qualities |
Aeolian dominant scale (Dorian ♯3 ♭6 scale) can be called "anti-Dorian scale", since it and Dorian scale are the only two scales which are self-dual.
| major seventh chord (self-dual) | dominant seventh chord ~ half-diminished seventh chord |
| minor seventh chord (self-dual) | augmented major seventh chord ~ minor major seventh chord |
| diminished seventh chord (self-dual) |
|
|
