MODES - major, minor and anarchic

[chas]

Did someone mention rant mode?

Great minds think alike. I've got a beer; I'd recommend you get one, too, because, after all, great minds drink alike.

[peteinmn]

This is actually kind of an interesting subject. What I don't get however (not having ever studied music theory) is what practical use is it? How can I use this when I'm playing ITM or, for that matter other stuff on the whistle?


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[buddhu]

That's it. What Nano said.

Kittens are nice as well. They help us to relax.

So do rants.

[Nanohedron]

This is actually kind of an interesting subject. What I don't get however (not having ever studied music theory) is what practical use is it? How can I use this when I'm playing ITM or, for that matter other stuff on the whistle?

For me it's limited at best. Here's an example: just came back from working with a couple of guys. One of the things we're doing is inserting a reel into a particular song and using it to conclude, too. It is, modally speaking, D Dorian in our version. That said, I obdurately say "D minor". That's all I need when playing backup. Anyway, the final note of the piece's conclusion, instead of landing with the predictable D-based chord, is instead informed by a chord whose tonic is the tune scale's flattened sixth (Bb in this case). This is utterly outside the Dorian mode. It has nothing to do with it. Yet the device, a surprise, works quite well to a Western ear in context to the tune as a whole. Were I to be chained to a modal paradigm, I might not allow myself the freedom to do such a thing, and that self-limitation would be a mistake.

My approach is solely practical and tune-based in achieving an end product. The way of the tune itself, free of category, tells me what I can do with it, and taste tells me what I ought not to.

Now it may be that the modal paradigm is in reality capable of allowing strange accidentals, but I'm already there without it, so...

Y'all carry on.

[talasiga]

This is actually kind of an interesting subject. What I don't get however (not having ever studied music theory) is what practical use is it? How can I use this when I'm playing ITM or, for that matter other stuff on the whistle?


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I think a good example of the utility of this sort of understanding is found here in my March 5, 2004 post, the last post at the bottom:-

of this page in this other topic

(Well Darwin seemed to appreciate my angle anyway.)

I think if you're a player who
*doesn't compose (formally or impromptu improvisation) OR
*follows the dots pretty much in a tradition with a relatively set key signature/s for its music OR
*play with others only that which you have already rehearsed OR
*plays in only one, two or a few traditions which share 3 to 4 melody types for its repertoire of music
then this sort of stuff may not be useful for you. Just follow the dots.

However, if you are like me, and you
* like to compose and improvise and elaborate
* are not into following the dots but play a lot by ear and are willing to transpose pieces into different keys
* are excited by the fresh challenge of playing with others things that you may have not heard before
* play in more than one tradition and the music repertoire comprehends over 12 melody types including non-diatonic types
then,
this sort of stuff MAY be useful for you.

Others will identify other reasons why this sort of stuff is useful.
I must thank Weekender for his comment in the first page.

Even for ITM (noting that this isn't an ITM forum and my topic here didn't intend ITM specificity), it can help to have a cupboard in your brain with different drawers for the songs. Like having a E Dorian Drawer for all those pieces you play with homenote XXX XXO and an E Aeolian Drawer for pieces with the same homenote but which crossfinger for the 6th interval. You could have a E Devious Drawer for all those songs that are basically Dorian but have some accidentals in them (like the occasional D#).

Of course you could have a different cupboard arrangement. Your drawers could be according to metre and tempo types. Whatever suits you. (And of course you could cross dress also, I mean cross drawers)

The thing is organising repertoires into systems makes for efficiency in recalling and auto functions in performing. The auto function liberates your application of spontaneity and verve and heart. When you think less about what you are playing you can bring more feeling interpretation.

Its about feeling.

[Caroluna]

For me it's limited at best. ... Anyway, the final note of the piece's conclusion, instead of landing with the predictable D-based chord, is instead informed by a chord whose tonic is the tune scale's flattened sixth (Bb in this case). This is utterly outside the Dorian mode. It has nothing to do with it. Yet the device, a surprise, works quite well to a Western ear in context to the tune as a whole. Were I to be chained to a modal paradigm, I might not allow myself the freedom to do such a thing, and that self-limitation would be a mistake.

My approach is solely practical and tune-based in achieving an end product. The way of the tune itself, free of category, tells me what I can do with it, and taste tells me what I ought not to.....

(earnestly writes in little notebook) "However, not all ITM musicians agree
as to the utility of the above"

I appreciate the discussion, since I have heard the words but had no idea
what they meant. To me it's all mystryolydian

[Nanohedron]

(earnestly writes in little notebook) "However, not all ITM musicians agree
as to the utility of the above"

Fair enough. It's just that I've always been more immediately intuitive than analytical, and have seldom found myself at a loss. This may not be true for all. At the end of the day, as Talasiga said: it's about feeling. And whether you take his approach or mine, it's working from one's feeling, coupled with one's skill set, that determines whether the result is excellent, tolerable, indifferent, or bad. And for better or worse, there may be nothing one can do about that.

Mind you, I don't hold myself up as an example of excellence. That would be not only mistaken, but laughable. But I'm convinced of my above viewpoint.

[Congratulations]

I'm on board with Nano, here. I happen to know some theory from my classical music background, but I only find modes and such useful in ITM as a curiosity. I know that Morrison's Jig is E Dorian, but hell if I'm thinking "Okay, E Dorian, so I can use D F# G A B C# D... alright." Especially since I play whistle/flute. It's important for me to know generally what scale degree I'm playing, but that hardly requires knowledge of modes. I mean, we're talking a ballpark idea of where I am in the scale--if you start adding chromatic stuff, and you're having to keep track of diminished thirds and augmented 7ths and stuff, you're probably not playing ITM anymore.

And there's so many "exception tunes" when you're trying to apply modes to ITM that it's almost useless. But there you have it.

So perhaps the quick lesson in modes for the ITM musician should be: LISTEN.

[talasiga]

.....
For me it's limited at best. Here's an example: just came back from working with a couple of guys. One of the things we're doing is inserting a reel into a particular song and using it to conclude, too. It is, modally speaking, D Dorian in our version. That said, I obdurately say "D minor". That's all I need when playing backup. Anyway, the final note of the piece's conclusion, instead of landing with the predictable D-based chord, is instead informed by a chord whose tonic is the tune scale's flattened sixth (Bb in this case). This is utterly outside the Dorian mode. It has nothing to do with it. Yet the device, a surprise, works quite well to a Western ear in context to the tune as a whole. Were I to be chained to a modal paradigm, I might not allow myself the freedom to do such a thing, and that self-limitation would be a mistake.

......

From where I sit the modal appreciation/understanding has a liberating rather than constraining effect.

Every diatonic mode has an interval in it that cannot serve as the root note of a harmonic chord triad. In the case of the Dorian that happens to be the sixth interval. Just maths.


If you wish to incorporate the tonic and the minor third in a chord triad which needs to exclude the perfect fifth (your standard keynote minor chord ) you must form a chord with a minor sixth as the root. Lady Dorian is gracious enough to allow this because her major sixth does not have capacity to root a harmonic chord triad. (And why would you wish to avoid the perfect fifth or downplay its role? That will depend on the nature of the melodic movement in the song and the flavour you wish to bring out. For instance the song, from a no chordal perspective, may involve strong linear resolutions with tonic, min 3rd and perfect 4th.)

This may seem like gobbledigook rationalisation until you start to extrapolate this sort of thinking to other modes. Like Aeolian. Her weak interval is the 2nd. The 2nd cannot be root. Now Aeolian is gracious enough to allow the Phrygian minor 2nd as root. Minor 2nd rooted chords work well in a lot of Aeolian even though that interval is not in the mode.

A mode is not just a description of what it is but also an invitation.

[Nanohedron]

Just maths.

There's the rub. I can be intuitively mathematical, but for applied math: forget about it. I can try to do it, but it's a very slow, difficult process, and prone to error even in the simplest things for me. Maddening. I'm as applied-mathematically adept as a fork. So, modes would be of less freedom to me than they would be to you.

The modal realm is probably just the thing for the mathematically-oriented, come to think about it. Here's a story from the other end of the learning/application spectrum:

Now, I taught a physical discipline/art for eleven years. I found myself dealing with a number of mindsets and I had to learn to get the best result for each student according to his or her inner life (IOW, it wasn't their job to know my mind - that would be an arrogant thought - it was my job to know theirs), and one way to recognise these various mindsets was the mathematical/visual mind comparison (with a nod to talasiga, these are, yes, categories, but they're simple, general, and serve only up to a point as a teaching expedient and should be discarded when their usefulness is finished). The mathematical types had the hardest time of it when it came to realising and applying concepts, as they tended to need exactitude and had some trouble with the reality that, in general, physical priciples are actually flexible up to a point, and need to be, to be successful as principles. In light of the manifold ways a body can manifest itself in the world, you cannot present bodily principles, in their immediate muscle-nerve-and-bone sense, with mathematical precision. Fundamental priciples need to be stated in compressed form that allow for expansion and even reinterpretation. Many times these principles had to be presented in terms of a "feeling". There was no other way. When the mathematically-oriented "got it", they were fine; it just took a long time for most; then on to the next task. The visually-oriented tended to have the easiest time of it, and were more intuitive in their approach. Applied learning had to be something of a hit-or-miss process for both, but the visual types were often able to see implications in a nonresult and hone their search. The mathematical types were frequently just hit-or-miss. They had my special admiration because of their persistence when others would have given up, and many did. Believe me, I tried to find ways to make things as clear as I knew how for them.

Before you ask, the issue of teacher/student personalities is only valid up to a point. I hate to say it, but I don't know of any truly "mathematical" types (there's that category again) who made good teachers in my field. There were some, but they all had strong intuitive streaks. The rest, if skilled, could conduct classes, but they usually didn't teach well.

In a lot of ways, we're really saying the same thing, but perspectives count, too. At least music appears to accommodate the mathematical and nonmathematical equally well. Intercommunication is another issue, it would seem.

[talasiga]

.....
......
My approach is solely practical and tune-based in achieving an end product. The way of the tune itself, free of category, tells me what I can do with it, and taste tells me what I ought not to.
.......

A tune, like a landscape, speaks to me in many ways.
Not always at once of course. Mostly not.

One can live in heightened emotive oneness in a misty valley for months
revelling the vista and relishing the myriad bird calls.
Then one morning one wakes and one wonders, "Ah, these beautiful eucalypts on the edge of the rainforest, the ones whose fallen branches I have been using as firewood - what a wonderful scent! - I do wonder what VARIETY they might be?" and "Ah that bird call that haunts me each morn, so many months have gone by and how I have loved it - I wonder what that bird looks like, I wonder what TYPE of bird that might be!"

The bird category and the tree category books are out there for those who want to be so informed. Critics do not buy them. No forest lover is distraught that the trees she or he loves have been named and categorised. A blind man may be distraught that the birds he can only hear, others can hear and see also. Of course, the blind man may console himself that he hears deeper than those who both see and hear.
Those of us who can do both have the choice of hearing blindly and seeing deafly.

Ultimately music transcends all senses. It is highest art, is it not?

[talasiga]

Thanks for this post. I get corn-fused as well. So how do modes relate to keys??

Only seven of the the twelve diatonic modes relate to the western key signature system for which MT Guru has given you a linear summary.
There are umpteen other heptatonic modes which can only relate to the key signature system by modifying the sig. with "accidentals". Included in the "umpteen" is the harmonic minor scale.

[cowtime]

I really don't understand modes.

My music theory, including modes, is sort of okay, but I just can't think fast or clearly enough for it to really help my playing. Basically I just learn tunes without analysing them too deeply.

When accompanying a vocal I might occasionally bung in a few deliberate intervals whose effect I know well, that are off the main melody to add a bit of tension or movement, but that's just really stuff I learned in guitar chord theory when I was a kid. I can't do anything really analysed or clever.

I'm not a good whistle player. I'm not a good mandolin player. I'm not a good musician. But I have great fun just playing along with people who are much better, and who (given a chance) would explain modes until the cows come home.

I don't give them the chance.

I couldn't have said it better myself! Me too!

[talasiga]

If I go along to a jam with musicians, many of them being better musicians than me, and they are playing something I have never heard before, they don't have written music for it (and even if they did, I don't read fast enough to play read), and they want me to join in and one of them says,
"Eb Dorian with some accidental flat 6ths" I know immediately to use my C# (Db) bansuri and because, they know I am good at playing by ear they know I will be able to able to take off on that minimal info, to play the song line and to improvise with it.

This is what they expect of me and what I expect of myself.

There are other people out there who need to be told the type of rhythm and suchlike. You will see categories like "jig", "reel" and the like being used. Some may find such categories redundant or academic.

The thing is, things are useful or meaningful for us according to the level of our understanding as driven by experiential and contextual needs.

[cowtime]

I' m glad it helps some of ya'll. I just play the stuff when I can, and enjoy listenin' when I can't. That's all.