Key this track is in?

[Aroused by JarJar]

I wouldn't agree with G minor.

The bass pitch that it keeps returning to and sounds as a starting point for each progression is C.

There is also a melodic figure that plays throughout with the pitches G-Ab-Bb-C, which is a G Phrygian tetrachord.

I'd say C minor with a lot of typical pop harmonic motion, mediant progressions etc.

I think that's another valid and useful way of grokking it.

Years ago I performed a Romanian piece from the 1920's and got into an argument with a "bookish" musician. The thing on paper was undoubtedly A minor even though it had a v, because it had tonicizing flourishes altered to vii°, not VII. But if you sang the melody without the piano part, it was undoubtedly, even stereotypically, phrygian on e. Books, schmooks, that's obviously how the piece was made.

So from the viewpoint of creating music, which is what matters, you could very well be thinking C minor with a G phrygian motif and end up with something really nice.
You won't be able to pin the thing down in four bars, or even be able to put it precisely in some drawer, but who cares?

[Aroused by JarJar]

Notice that in one post I said it's C aeolian and not C minor, and in the next post I agree that you can call it C minor like stringtapper does. That's because we're not doing some academic cataloging, but looking at something from the viewpoint of making music. You can look at it either way- it's not like some guy from the Vatican is looking over your shoulder making sure you don't monkey up the Church modes.

[jancivil]

as to needle dropping, that's what I did essentially. I would have said quite confidently on the first one, 'C aeolian'. I nearly typed 'C minor' conclusively but fundamentally I want the OP to do their own work. Then I was more curious about it and listened further but in that needle drop manner.

(albeit I like the distinction between aeolian and minor, contextually as I like 'ionian' vs 'major'. even though the academic expert here ridiculed that distinction as impossible and pointless since that practice is dead, even though he wanted the language to be perfectly observed in talking about modal usage today, which scarcely resembles that. although this does harken back to, in a particular sense.)

but noting that [G] phrygian lick the next time... and there is this one thing that isn't a chord I'd want to name, pretty dissonant... and a certain feeling of C as 'iv' so I wouldn't want to call it any one thing.

[Aroused by JarJar]

as to needle dropping, that's what I did essentially. I would have said quite confidently on the first one, 'C aeolian'. I nearly typed 'C minor' conclusively but fundamentally I want the OP to do their own work. Then I was more curious about it and listened further but in that needle drop manner.

(albeit I like the distinction between aeolian and minor, contextually as I like 'ionian' vs 'major'. even though the academic expert here ridiculed that distinction as impossible and pointless since that practice is dead, even though he wanted the language to be perfectly observed in talking about modal usage today, which scarcely resembles that. although this does harken back to, in a particular sense.)

but noting that [G] phrygian lick the next time... and there is this one thing that isn't a chord I'd want to name, pretty dissonant... and a certain feeling of C as 'iv' so I wouldn't want to call it any one thing.

Well, if someone were ridiculing the distinction between Ionian and Major, that wouldn't be an "expert" opinion. The real story of the "Ionian mode" is quite interesting and even has a bit of "conspiracy" (in a fun way) to it which should warn people against making dismissive statements when it comes to music theory.

[jancivil]

this was one of those disagreements that people have in mind here when they say this forum is full of terrible shit. then again, people were banned this week behind a thread about iPad vs some competing product.

I was saying something kind of normal, 'modal' music means the character of a mode is based in its 'tonic' (terminology I took some blows for also), the relationship of intervals vis a vis its '1' in the first place, in response to the mofo saying 'modal in a tonal environment' or the like. and somewhere along the line he pooted forth with //the meaning of the modes belongs to these medieval practices, the usage today is all wrong because it misses this// and I disagreed. Notice I said 'academic expert', which means he must have focused on it in school past where it lost me. His proof for that 'modal in a tonal environment' was some JS Bach which was not modal, it cadenced in major quite obviously and in no time at all. I'd have to place JS Bach right where we can brightly draw the border in favor of the major/minor paradigm. I object to that kind of horning in as muddying the waters. 'Modal playing' means something today that can be discussed in clear and useful terms.

Ionian vs major, ie., without the ramifications of function. Cf., Bilaval thaat in Hindustani raags. 7 isn't through itself 'the leading tone', etc., could be a plateau and tends to point to 5, or something.

I had enough of this area of 'The Church'/vocal music emphasis in history at CCM and later investigation to understand that a lot of what is received as gospel or taught does not enjoy as much consensus as you'd think. I'd enjoy it if you took up some space with that story...

[Aroused by JarJar]

this was one of those disagreements that people have in mind here when they say this forum is full of terrible shit. then again, people were banned this week behind a thread about iPad vs some competing product.

I was saying something kind of normal, 'modal' music means the character of a mode is based in its 'tonic' (terminology I took some blows for also), the relationship of intervals vis a vis its '1' in the first place, in response to the mofo saying 'modal in a tonal environment' or the like. and somewhere along the line he pooted forth with //the meaning of the modes belongs to these medieval practices, the usage today is all wrong because it misses this// and I disagreed. Notice I said 'academic expert', which means he must have focused on it in school past where it lost me. His proof for that 'modal in a tonal environment' was some JS Bach which was not modal, it cadenced in major quite obviously and in no time at all. I'd have to place JS Bach right where we can brightly draw the border in favor of the major/minor paradigm. I object to that kind of horning in as muddying the waters. 'Modal playing' means something today that can be discussed in clear and useful terms.

Ionian vs major, ie., without the ramifications of function. Cf., Bilaval thaat in Hindustani raags. 7 isn't through itself 'the leading tone', etc., could be a plateau and tends to point to 5, or something.

I had enough of this area of 'The Church'/vocal music emphasis in history at CCM and later investigation to understand that a lot of what is received as gospel or taught does not enjoy as much consensus as you'd think. I'd enjoy it if you took up some space with that story...

The name of the Ionian mode was made up out of whole cloth, centuries after the mode was already in use. But this was a musical thing to do- Glareanus was giving an "official" and properly "anciente" sound to something that was happening in music on a big scale but was ignored by theorists as it didn't fit the book understanding of the time.

The Ionian mode was popular and used in dance music (hic modus saltationibus aptissumus est, as Glareanus said) before it was recognized in church music. This business about Ionian being on C to c is something people learn in school but that conceals a very interesting fact. The way the Ionian came into the church modes was by means of what we could very well call today a "blue note". The B natural of Lydian on F was flattened to B flat. This turns Lydian into the popular and "lascivious" Ionian. The church literature continued to call pieces in the Ionian mode Fifth Mode pieces (Lydian on F) and notate the Bb's as accidentals (all the way up to about 1600)

Basically what Glareanus said was come on guys, we all know it's pop dance but you've been sneaking it in for generations, so let's give it a family name and cut out the pretense.

I think that some pondering of the historical background will make it quite clear as to why it is not wise to pooh-pooh distinctions musicians make.

[jancivil]

The Ionian mode was popular and used in dance music (hic modus saltationibus aptissumus est, as Glareanus said) before it was recognized in church music. This business about Ionian being on C to c is something people learn in school but that conceals a very interesting fact. The way the Ionian came into the church modes was by means of what we could very well call today a "blue note". The B natural of Lydian on F was flattened to B flat. This turns Lydian into the popular and "lascivious" Ionian. The church literature continued to call pieces in the Ionian mode Fifth Mode pieces (Lydian on F) and notate the Bb's as accidentals (all the way up to about 1600)

Basically what Glareanus said was come on guys, we all know it's pop dance but you've been sneaking it in for generations, so let's give it a family name and cut out the pretense.

I think that some pondering of the historical background will make it quite clear as to why it is not wise to pooh-pooh distinctions musicians make.

Oh yeah, I knew that insofar as the 'ficta' technically, from a little bit of investigation into 'modal counterpoint'. Which I abandoned, very dry and I'm not going to use it.
- not with that much backstory though. When I would look at that rule, I wondered why they bothered to say 'Lydian'. This text was 15th c iirc.

thanks for that

[Aroused by JarJar]

The Ionian mode was popular and used in dance music (hic modus saltationibus aptissumus est, as Glareanus said) before it was recognized in church music. This business about Ionian being on C to c is something people learn in school but that conceals a very interesting fact. The way the Ionian came into the church modes was by means of what we could very well call today a "blue note". The B natural of Lydian on F was flattened to B flat. This turns Lydian into the popular and "lascivious" Ionian. The church literature continued to call pieces in the Ionian mode Fifth Mode pieces (Lydian on F) and notate the Bb's as accidentals (all the way up to about 1600)

Basically what Glareanus said was come on guys, we all know it's pop dance but you've been sneaking it in for generations, so let's give it a family name and cut out the pretense.

I think that some pondering of the historical background will make it quite clear as to why it is not wise to pooh-pooh distinctions musicians make.

Oh yeah, I knew that insofar as the 'ficta' technically, from a little bit of investigation into 'modal counterpoint'. Which I abandoned, very dry and I'm not going to use it.
- not with that much backstory though. When I would look at that rule, I wondered why they bothered to say 'Lydian'. This text was 15th c iirc.

thanks for that

I don't remember where exactly the "catch" is, but the original eight modes were not "octave scales". IIRC they started as tetrachordal, then some kind of hexachordal system was set in stone. From that system you couldn't build "Ionian". So Lydian with a flatted fourth would be ficta, and not qualify as a proper mode.
So the composers continued calling it Modus Quintus (Lydian on F) in order to disguise the fact that they were really writing in a "wrong" mode lifted from pop music.

Glareanus rewrote the theoretical derivation of the modes in order to include what was happening in real life, which of course is the musical thing to do.

"All this has happened before and will happen again". Same thing happened in ancient Greece as the difficult and "dark" enharmonic genus disappeared, leaving the chromatic (for pros) and the diatonic (for everybody), then again when the chromatic pretty much disappeared. And again in Protestant church music in America with bluesy/jazzy/whorin' 'n' drinkin' flatted sevenths and so on found its way into church music. Now Gospel and Spirituals are pinnacles of holy music, but 150 years ago the gentry would have been shocked silly.

And the wheels turn both ways- I distinctly remember more than one cheesey mainstream pop-rock guy I knew 30+ years ago considering the Phrygian mode some dark acadamic thing completely unsuited to popular music, but it's all over "tarnce" and other popular "electronica". Tool is a hugely and genuinely popular band and I'll bet my shoes that if you bother to analyze them you'll find "super-locrian" and ultra-"dark" shit like that throughout. At the same time, in a broad historical view, stuff along the lines of droning in C major has become part of academia.

[JumpingJackFlash]

I wrote something on an old thread about this, so out of laziness I'm just going to paste it here for anyone interested.

The Ecclesiastical Modes

Although the origins of the modal system go back to the ancient Greeks, the concept of mode as a function of scale and final originated in the 10th and 11th centuries, when an attempt was made to organise the ("Gregorian") chants of the Roman church according to the categories of ancient Greek music theory. This classification and categorisation was done, in part, to aid the memorisation of the melodies.

Specifically, antiphons (short syllabic chants) were compared with psalm tones (fixed melodies to which Psalm verses were sung) to see how the interval was filled in between their ending note (the finalis or "final", similar to what we now call the tonic) and the pitch corresponding to the psalm tone's reciting tone (the "tuba" or "tenor", similar to what we now call the dominant), which was normally a fifth above.

There are four ways a fifth can be filled in using the diatonic pitch set and its arrangement of tones (T) and semitones (S):

1) TSTT
e.g. the white notes descending from A to D

2) STTT
e.g. the white notes descending from B to E

3) TTTS
e.g. the white notes descending from C to F

4) TTST
e.g. the white notes descending from D to G

The ending notes, D,E,F,G were called "the four finals" and each was named according to their Greek ordinal numbers; protus, deuterus, tritus and tetrardus respectively. (It must be remembered however that the notes are only an abstract convenience and do not actually refer to literal pitches).

The range of the chants was also considered.
Those with the final at the bottom of their range (usually extending to an octave above it) were said to be "authentic", while those that extended lower than their finals so that the final occurred in the middle of their range (usually from a fourth below to a fifth above), were called "plagal".

Thus, each of the four finals governed two modes:
1. protus authenticus TSTTTST
2. protus plagalis TSTTSTT
3. deuterus authenticus STTTSTT
4. deuterus plagalis STTSTTT
5. tritus authenticus TTTSTTS
6. tritus plagalis TTSTTTS
7. tetrardus authenticus TTSTTST
8. tetrardus plagalis TSTTTST (NB: This has the same order of intervals as protus authenticus, but they have different finals).

Originally, these 8 modes were reckoned as 4 pairs (there is a fable that St. Ambrose made the authentic modes in the 4th century and St. Gregory made the plagal ones in the 6th century).

With authentic modes, the tuba/tenor lies a fifth above the final. However, where the tuba/tenor would fall on B, it was later changed to C.
With plagal modes, the tuba/tenor lies a third below that of its authentic counterpart.

Later theorists assigned the modes different names adopted from late Greek sources (although the Greek usage was different and the nomenclature was technically incorrect):

Code: Select all

                   Range  Dominant  Final
1. Dorian           D-D       A       D
2. Hypodorian       A-A       F       D
3. Phrygian         E-E       C       E
4. Hypophrygian     B-B       A       E
5. Lydian           F-F       C       F
6. Hypolydian       C-C       A       F
7. Mixolydian       G-G       D       G
8. Hypomixolydian   D-D       C       G

The Greek prefix "hypo" is roughly synonymous with the word "plagal".

After this system had been perfected, it began to serve not only as a description of existing music, but as a prescriptive guide to new compositions. (Though modal theory was not extended to the analysis of polyphonic music until the late 15th century where the tenor line was usually used as the primary reference point).

Centuries later (around 1547), a humanist called Glareanus recognised 4 additional modes which came to be knows as Ionian and Aeolian, and their plagal forms. The Ionian mode has its final on C, and the Aeolian on A (the Locrian and Hypolocrian modes, with B as a final, barely existed).

Ionian and Aeolian modes were not necessary however and existed in practice long before they were given specific names. Singers often used a Bb to avoid the augmented fourth from F to B, even though this wasn't always specified in the notation. Since the 11th century, the use of the Lydian mode with a Bb provided the "Ionian" mode (which corresponds to what we now call "major"), and the Dorian mode with Bb provided the "Aeolian" mode (which corresponds to what we now call "minor").

With the rise of harmony, a leading-note became a necessity, and the "Ionian Mode" effectively became one of the favourite modes. - Both this and the "Aeolian mode" were more suitable for harmony.

In addition, more notes began to be chromatically altered. In the Mixolydian mode for example, the 7th was often sharpened to provide a leading-note (thus making it identical to the Ionian Mode). The ancient modes gradually disappeared until only the "major" and "minor" modes remained.

Between around 1450 and 1650, there was a gradual change from "modal" to "tonal" thinking, the latter based on triadic harmony and the diatonic circle of fifths.

[stringtapper]

Notice that in one post I said it's C aeolian and not C minor, and in the next post I agree that you can call it C minor like stringtapper does. That's because we're not doing some academic cataloging, but looking at something from the viewpoint of making music. You can look at it either way- it's not like some guy from the Vatican is looking over your shoulder making sure you don't monkey up the Church modes.

Of course I absolutely agree with the Aeolian designation too, the G Phrygian figure is the upper tetrachord of C Aeolian after all.

[mridlen]

Here's a circle of fifths infographic that I set as my wallpaper and use all the time for determining keys and modes:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9leiwr2rhvxi ... fifths.png

BTW, "The Fox" is in C# Dorian due to the use of the F# major chord, until the end when it switches to C# Minor.