Modes inquiry

[Marc Schonbrun]

If you count Musica Ficta, you do see it in music earlier than Bach, it's just not properly codified until Rameaux wrote about it in his treatise.

[StudioDave]

If you count Musica Ficta, you do see it in music earlier than Bach, it's just not properly codified until Rameaux wrote about it in his treatise.

That makes sense. Thanks, Marc, I haven't even thought about the practice of musica ficta since my classroom days.

And thanks for the reminder about Rameau. I've been toying with the idea of reading his treatise completely one of these days, perhaps I'll do it sooner than later.

Best,

dp

[Marc Schonbrun]

Hi Dave,

It's a wonderful look back at simpler times.

Mista Ficta be the shit!

[beboop]

In light of becoming more interested in music theory, I decided to analyze some of my songs and melodies from way back when. a recent study has me baffled however. Among a couple other chords, the song contains:

Am Gmaj Dm Fmaj Cmaj Emaj

Why can I not find a mode that contains these?

Because you didn't start with a mode, you didn't limit your materials to pitches found within that mode, and your piece is not really a modal piece. That's not a problem, the confusion only comes when you try to analyze it using the wrong tools. (you can actually fit these notes into an ordinary mode, more on that later).

The direct, practical answer is the one contrast gave you -- your piece is in A minor. In the major/minor key system, G# is normal note within the key, notated as an accidental where it occurs. Within that system, the conventional explanation for the G# in the E chord is to strengthen the feeling of resolution to the Am chord.

The abstracted pitch sets called natural, harmonic, and melodic minor might be a little misleading. Those are incredibly useful constructs, as long as you don't lose sight of the larger picture, a minor scale with a variable sixth and seventh degree.

OK, modes. Before the evolution of the major/minor key system, and before anybody worried about "harmonic function", you still got to use a G# in what would later be called "the key of A minor". In fact, depending on what the rules of the moment were, and where you were in the piece, it was _required_ to use G#, rather than G natural. In this period, the major/minor key system, and notions of root movement and V-i resolution don't exist yet. But the device of raising the seventh degree a half-step where needed, that was already common practice.

so what's my point -- well, first, you don't have to analyze your composition in terms of modes, a more practical paradigm is "the key of A minor".

Second, the rules of modal composition accomodated (or demanded) the use of the raised seventh where needed (the note G# in what we now call key of A minor).

So, if you absolutely have to name a mode (say, you're under threat of death, exile, excommunication, burning at the stake, that kind of thing), you can say your piece is A aeolian, and no one will fault you for the G#, you're covered.

well, for the G#, anyway -- better get the part writing right, those guys can be really touchy...

[jancivil]

I am wondering, it's been awhile since I was immersed in classical, did the 'full' form exist much before JS Bach? which is where you really begin to see it, at any rate.

Good question.

Given its utility for modulations, I'd guess that its usage expanded with the broader acceptance of equal temperament, which of course really takes off in the Baroque period.

But I'm guessing.

yeah, that would be behind my guess also. (By the time music history class got around to such modernity as JS Bach, I'd got kicked out of the class. We were in the 13th/14th centuries for months, I did not cope well with describing the differences and correlating with dates.. so I don't know fer sher)

*Clemens non papa*

[jancivil]

In light of becoming more interested in music theory, I decided to analyze some of my songs and melodies from way back when. a recent study has me baffled however. Among a couple other chords, the song contains:

Am Gmaj Dm Fmaj Cmaj Emaj

Why can I not find a mode that contains these?

Because you didn't start with a mode, you didn't limit your materials to pitches found within that mode, and your piece is not really a modal piece. That's not a problem, the confusion only comes when you try to analyze it using the wrong tools. (you can actually fit these notes into an ordinary mode, more on that later).

This is a good point, which I have made more than once in these pages; when music students in their early investigations into such devices as modes encounter the 'minor' modes, they won't, at first, understand that the only 'modal' use of minor, in the pure or true sense you mean, is 'aeolian'.

IE., the altered forms of 'minor mode' are derived from harmonic usage, IE., functional properties. Which are made to satisfy a move to the tonic, and later to modulate to temporary new tonic areas - which is not concomitant with 'modality' (which is static, one tonic, and the tones make a color or mood (rasa), per their vibration compared with the tonic).