Modes and where to go

[trewq]

When you start comparing mode formulas to chord formulas you will see that they are also pretty useful at outlining all the chords of a scale.
For example C Ionian is 1234567, and if this formula was viewed with repect to D as number 1, it becomes -712-3456. So the D chord types you get from the C Major scale include Dm,Dm7,D7sus4,Dm9,Dm69, and also includes D dominant7sus. So those chords in the key of C represent the Dorian Mode.

Also, using this method of indexing formula numbers to represent modes, and cross-referencing to chord formulas is how ChordwarePA generates chords from input scales.

[tapper mike]

What modal music is, is a set of pitches like a scale, where the notes have a character essentially defined in how they compare to the tonic. Authentically modal music always refers to the tonic.

I disagree
Modality is the relation to tones with the chord it is currently being played over not the tonic of the key.

Modality means playing scale tones which fit the guide tones.
Hence the popularity of the bebop scale, dominant7 pentatonic and ii melodic minor over the V7 and well as the ever popular b5 subsitution.

[Aroused by JarJar]

What modal music is, is a set of pitches like a scale, where the notes have a character essentially defined in how they compare to the tonic. Authentically modal music always refers to the tonic.

I disagree
Modality is the relation to tones with the chord it is currently being played over not the tonic of the key.

Modality means playing scale tones which fit the guide tones.
Hence the popularity of the bebop scale, dominant7 pentatonic and ii melodic minor over the V7 and well as the ever popular b5 subsitution.

That's a harmonic, and specifically jazz, interpretation, but modality predates what we'd call "chords" by thousands of years, and you could even say it is primarily a way of stucturing monophonic music, or melody over a drone.

Not only that, but even the idea of modal scales as such is quite "recent and local" for modes originate and function with tetrachords and pentachords, not octave scales.

[jancivil]

What modal music is, is a set of pitches like a scale, where the notes have a character essentially defined in how they compare to the tonic. Authentically modal music always refers to the tonic.

I disagree
Modality is the relation to tones with the chord it is currently being played over not the tonic of the key...
Hence the popularity of the bebop scale, dominant7 pentatonic and ii melodic minor over the V7 and well as the ever popular b5 subsitution.

That isn't modal music. It isn't. That's harmonic thinking, it's antithetical to modal thinking. Do any of these usages have a character independent from the harmonic context?

Note very well, I said modal music. It is clear that you are talking about something else, harmonic music, chord changes. I also qualified the term JUST IN CASE of such confusion, w. "authentically".

And as far as 'jazz' thinking, you might look at your history. EG: Miles Davis, the whole so-called modal school came about when people stopped going for that ii V I, which 'b5 substitute' refers to in the strictest sense.
Ask around.

[Aroused by JarJar]

What modal music is, is a set of pitches like a scale, where the notes have a character essentially defined in how they compare to the tonic. Authentically modal music always refers to the tonic.

And as far as 'jazz' thinking, you might look at your history. EG: Miles Davis, the whole so-called modal school came about when people stopped going for that ii V I, which 'b5 substitute' refers to in the strictest sense.
Ask around.

My experience with jazz musicians has, unfortunately, indicated that the usual conception of "modes" is just as Mike described, actual modal jazz willy nilly. Same concept seems to be standard with fretburner/prog/etc. guitarists (IME).

[jancivil]

Fine. 'Modal jazz' is something other than 'modal music', then. I think that's really confused language.

one mo' gin:
Do any of these usages have a character independent from the harmonic context?

anyway, Frank Gambale totally agrees with me.