Newent Orchestral Society
Celebrating 70 years of music making, 1940-2010

Bill's Musical Notes, March, 2010    

Modes Of Making MusicBlown Away by Music

Before the development of harmony rules, the church in particular adopted melodic “modes”.  Our major and minor keys are but two examples of these of which there are many.  The scale in each mode has its own particular sequence of tones and semitones and, without any sharps or flats (or just examining the white notes on a piano), start your mode off on any note and you have the scale of a particular mode.  The names given to the modes stem from ancient Greece and each was said to have a particular effect on the listener.

The qualities (after Juan de Espinoza, 17th C.) and starting notes for some of the modes are Dorian (happy, taming the passions, D), Phrygian (inciting anger, E), Lydian (happy, F), Mixolydian (uniting pleasure and sadness, G), Aeolian (our minor mode, A), Hypophrigian (inciting delights, tempering fierceness, B) and Ionian (our major mode, C).  The qualities given to each of the modes suggests the mediaeval system of correspondences, whereby all things with common qualities could be bracketed together.  More than this, their influence would be consistent within their grouping.  In that way, a particular herb, day of the week, planet, metal, food, etc., each corresponding with the other within its category,  would have a predictable, accumulative effect, this being put to use for healing, for example, or creating the right conditions for a good outcome to a situation.  So, each musical mode would correspond with other substances, with moods, types of personality, and so on.  If you wanted to create a particular effect with your music, then you would choose the appropriate mode to write in so that it would influence listeners in the way the composer desired.

Modern composers, particularly Olivier Messiaen, have developed a further mode which contains only whole tones between the consecutive notes of its scale.  The use of this mode can be traced back as far as Mozart and it was commonly employed by the French impressionist composers, such as Debussy and Ravel.  There is a particularly interesting interval contained in this mode between the first and fourth notes and this is called a tritone, spanning the interval of three whole tones.  At one time this interval was thought to be so diabolical, it was nicknamed the Devil's interval and was even banned from use in church music.   Today, our ears have become accustomed to its unearthly quality but it still can be used effectively to shock the listener.

Modes and harmonies seem to possess different qualities affecting the hearer in different ways.  The system of correspondences has fallen by the wayside but I'm sure that a lot has been lost in the process.

Bill Anderton, March, 2010

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Previous "Musical Notes"
Up Bows, Down Bows, January, 2009
Audiences - Are They Important? February, 2009
How to Practise, March, 2009
Newent and a Very Peculiar Musical Mix, April, 2009
Art of the Loudspeaker, May, 2009
Temperament - Are You Bovvered?, June, 2009
Music And Its Empty Spaces, July, 2009
Musical Madness, August, 2009
The Heath Robinson Style of Composing Music, September, 2009
Mood Music, October, 2009

A World Symphony, November, 2009
New Age Music, December, 2009
Words, Pictures - and Music, January, 2010
Roots of Music, February, 2010