Modal Harmony vid series

[zethus909]

What is art? - Is a sunset art by itself?
Music is an art.

art is a word
music is a word
they are both words, words are abstractions.

in·ept
iˈnept/
adjective
adjective: inept

having or showing no skill; clumsy.
"the inept handling of the threat"
synonyms: incompetent, unskillful, unskilled, inexpert, amateurish; More

yes i am inept. in that i am clumsy, inexpert, amateurish when it comes to knowing about formal music theory and all the training, but this doesnt mean I dont understand music. and it doesnt mean that i dont know my theory, i know what i need to know...you can test me, i will pass it easily. the problem is, there is too much conjecture and whatifs in this convo, and it's all just too much chest puffing. but knowing too much theory, as i stated before can actually be bad for your creativity. and make you worse at making music. because it makes you a robot, incapable of producing anything before thinking about it. once again. "MUSIC theory, is NOT prescriptive"...it isn't a "direction/instruction"...it's a description...an abstraction, that only exists inside the mind of the Man/Woman.]

it's the same as engineering, or architecture, you dont need to know any math to build a shelter. you balance a beam of wood horizontally at the right angle and apex points. it's a shelter. conversely, you can engineer the leaning tower of piza. or the titanic. with stacks and stacks of blueprints and schematics, none of them are necessary to build a boat, or a shelter.

yes, you can build very effective ships and submarines by knowing lots of math, but one little hole and it's just another coral reef.

[jancivil]

So, by your own words, this whole 'music is real, sound is real' or whatever can never be true. You have now moved to nihilism, nothing is real because it's all just a description, or even just a word. That's the corner you've painted yourself into avoiding the question. You tried to argue that "music" is physical, so the abstractions can't do better than describe, now music is but a word/an abstraction. You chased your tail until you finally caught it.

No one misses that you're purely bullshitting, no reasoning person is deceived that you know what you're doing.

[zethus909]

what? youre losing me, i dont understand what you are saying...

music is sound....call it music, call it glabbbelyfoo, it's still sound. it's just sound. it's physical, its not abstract. animals, even tiny insects have the ability to generate consciously patternistic intervals of sound, patterns, call it music, fine. even when a rock is dropped randomly anywhere into a pond, it will create a geometric wave form, there will be intervalistic design to it. it's the law of entropy. everything even that which begins in chaos, will ultimately collapse into some sort of order...even if it doesnt appear that this order is not a result of anything "intelligent"

what am i even going on about I dont know really...

the point is, i say that Ionian intervals are the same as C major...that is all I am saying. all of this extraneous stuff about music and language and reality is just hyperbolae. i dont know all the secrets of nature, i just know what i see and what i experience.

i was wrong to state that "the Cmajor scale is the Mother of all modes" or whatever i said, it was an innacurate statement. on the surface. but beneath the surface, in reality, its accurate. it's accurate that Ionian intervals are the same as C major. we can play all sorts of word games but the underlying reality is that Cmajor IS the same as Ionian, (intervalically) and Ionian, is the Mother of the classical modes. it's the "home" Tonic, Root, whatever, it's where you start from ....that is why the piano is based around Cmajor, and the white keys are based on Cmajor. because thats what we base all of our music from.

but someone said that that is wrong, i think FMR, that the piano keys aren't based on C major, which I found weird. how is it not so. isnt that why all the Cmajor intervals are white keys? and thus all the other modes are white keys but just starting on different notes of the Cmajor scale? how is that incorrect?

i dont know why you are accusing me of trying to "deceive" or whatever, like i am sinister and trying to mis guide people, I am just trying to explain myself, and if it is not entirely accurate, what i am saying about the Cmajor and the modes, Ionian = Cmajor...then I can accept that...but I am not trying purposely to deceive people thats ridiculous. I am not trying to explain things that are over my head in terms of music theory, I happen to think i do have a certain level of expertise though on musical intervals, call them what you want, from whatever time period you want, or whatever is fashionable..explaining that Ionian mode is the same as Cmajor, is not that complex...and i dont think it is deceitful, that s just being silly, like i have some evil anti music theory agenda and i poke music theory professor voodoo dolls with long pins in my alone time.

i think music theory is vital, in becoming a better musician, but its reflective, analytical, it's not instructional....which is part of the problem i had with the video, it's just another example of creating this "aura" around modes and the "theory" that, it is like a guide, or a HOW-TO-guide on how to make music. It's not!

*like in the video, you say that Ionian = Happy, i just got turned off as soon as you said that...chandler, i'm not coming down on you, i just think that is an over simplification, and not doing it justice. but your video has a lot of thumbs up and positive comments and basically no negativity except on this forum where you chose to share it. so good work...i guess....but it is somewhat careless how the info is being provided. but seriously, theres like thousands of videos and pages of people "teaching" music, there is no perfect way of doing it, and if someone learns something (or at least feels like they did) then thats great. but like i said, none of the theory matters unless you apply yourself and actually make music....just thinking about it, and abstracting, is ultimately useless.

[MadBrain]

[...]
i was wrong to state that "the Cmajor scale is the Mother of all modes" or whatever i said, it was an innacurate statement. on the surface. but beneath the surface, in reality, its accurate. it's accurate that Ionian intervals are the same as C major. we can play all sorts of word games but the underlying reality is that Cmajor IS the same as Ionian, (intervalically) and Ionian, is the Mother of the classical modes. it's the "home" Tonic, Root, whatever, it's where you start from ....that is why the piano is based around Cmajor, and the white keys are based on Cmajor. because thats what we base all of our music from.

but someone said that that is wrong, i think FMR, that the piano keys aren't based on C major, which I found weird. how is it not so. isnt that why all the Cmajor intervals are white keys?

That's the tonal system _after_ modality turned into tonality. Before that, B and Bb were more or less on equal footing and one or the other was used depending on mode and music. And it's not evident that 'C' is the 'starting note' either - in modal music, it wasn't (and D, E, F, G were the starting notes instead). So before tonality, no.

But for the modern 'Jazz musician' modes you're right. Because the 'Jazz musician' modes aren't the original medieval and renaissance modes, they're a reinvention from somewhere around the late 19th century or early 20th century, where they took the C major scale and started it from every other note to get some extra scales for color. And this was originally somewhat marginal, but turned out to be useful for explaining the harmonic structure of blues (mixolydian) and some of Jazz and pop music, so it was adopted there.

[fmr]

but someone said that that is wrong, i think FMR, that the piano keys aren't based on C major, which I found weird. how is it not so. isnt that why all the Cmajor intervals are white keys? and thus all the other modes are white keys but just starting on different notes of the Cmajor scale? how is that incorrect?

I'll try to explain you (again) why that's incorrect:
1. The piano keyboard is not an invention that appeared with the piano. There were keyboard instruments way before the piano. Here is a quote from Wikipedia:
"The organ is a relatively old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria (285–222 BC), who invented the water organ. It was played throughout the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman world, particularly during races and games. During the early medieval period it spread from the Byzantine Empire, where it continued to be used in secular (non-religious) and imperial court music, to Western Europe, where it gradually assumed a prominent place in the liturgy of the Catholic Church."

Ana another: "The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras..."

And another: "The virginal is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in Europe during the late Renaissance and early baroque periods."

All these instruments have a keyboard similar (with the same configuration) to the piano (even if some of them have the colours inverted - white keys in the piano are dark on them, and vice-versa). So, since the older of these instruments comes from 285 BC, how can it be based on C Major (or Ionian, if you prefer, for that matter), if it PREDATES them by more than 1000 years? Now, do you understand? Or is this just an "abstraction" too?

[Harry_HH]

This thread should be included to the course "Short introduction to the Modes for rhythm musicians and project studio composers".

All in all, good discourse, we have all learned something.

I think MadBrain condenced the core nicely.

BTW - where have you left the OP?

[zethus909]

That's the tonal system _after_ modality turned into tonality. Before that, B and Bb were more or less on equal footing and one or the other was used depending on mode and music. And it's not evident that 'C' is the 'starting note' either - in modal music, it wasn't (and D, E, F, G were the starting notes instead). So before tonality, no.

ok, except starting on D with a Bflat is just Aeolian Mode. Dm

All these instruments have a keyboard similar (with the same configuration) to the piano (even if some of them have the colours inverted - white keys in the piano are dark on them, and vice-versa). So, since the older of these instruments comes from 285 BC, how can it be based on C Major (or Ionian, if you prefer, for that matter), if it PREDATES them by more than 1000 years? Now, do you understand? Or is this just an "abstraction" too?

not abstraction, im saying the modern piano, with 88 keys is based on Cmajor, thats why the white keys are the notes of Cmajor....the white keys are the easist to play, and have the most robust resonance...i think so...

[fmr]

That's the tonal system _after_ modality turned into tonality. Before that, B and Bb were more or less on equal footing and one or the other was used depending on mode and music. And it's not evident that 'C' is the 'starting note' either - in modal music, it wasn't (and D, E, F, G were the starting notes instead). So before tonality, no.

ok, except starting on D with a Bflat is just Aeolian Mode. Dm

That's why the minor mode came (was born) from it

And that's what was being discussed since many pages now - that the Ionian mode isn't more than the Lydian with Bb, and the Aeolian mode isn't more than the Dorian with Bb. And since these came (way) first and were widely used...

Now, did you get it?

[zethus909]

thats why i am saying its all just intervals. its the intervals tht matter, not what you name them, and these intervals have been known and used since ancient Greece, call them whatever you want. thus my whole diatribe. on the actual music, and sound being way more important than what we label the sound as being.

and to go even further, as i was saying, these intervals exist before the greeks, before man was even made, these intervals are part of the fabric of the universe and reality we exist in. they are there, regardless of what any human calls them, or even if any human exists to "play" with them. they dont require humans to exist.

[JumpingJackFlash]

what? youre losing me, i dont understand what you are saying...

Evidently.
So maybe try listening a bit harder and keeping an open mind. By all means ask questions, but there is no point clinging to your ignorance. You have an opportunity to learn things here, stop rambling on for a minute and avail yourself of the opportunity. You can either keep repeating nonsense after nonsense in a vain attempt to justify what you think you know, or you can get out of that comfort zone, challenge your preconceptions, and actually learn something.

music is sound....

It's more than that. Not all sound is music.

animals, even tiny insects have the ability to generate consciously patternistic intervals of sound, patterns, call it music, fine. even when a rock is dropped randomly anywhere into a pond, it will create a geometric wave form, there will be intervalistic design to it.

I would say things like this aren't "music".
But in any case, such discussion is largely irrelevant here since birdsong and the like neither fits into the system of the ecclesiastical modes, nor that of common practice tonality.

what am i even going on about I dont know really...

Indeed.

the point is, i say that Ionian intervals are the same as C major..

Ok fine, yes, the intervals are the same. Nobody is disputing that.
They are also the same as in Bilaval That, Mela Shankarabharanam, Raga Atana, Ghana Heptatonic, Makam Cargah and Ajam Ashiran. It doesn't matter. The intervals themselves doesn't make them all the same thing. There is more to it that that. "Ionain", "Major" and so on are more than just labels. You obviously don't understand or appreciate the nuances involved, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

...that is all I am saying

Except it isn't, and this is where we get into problems. You are extrapolating from the one very basic fact that their intervals are the same to conclude that that must mean they are the same thing. It doesn't, and they're not.

If you go down far enough, you can always find that, ultimately, one thing is made up of the same things as something else. Whether that's bricks, metal, amino acids... Everything in the universe is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. Does that mean everything is the same as everything else? No!

Things are more than the sum of their parts.

Diamond and graphite are both allotropes of carbon. Does that make them the same thing? Why don't we just call them both "carbon"? Because there's more to it than that; give a girl a graphite ring and she's not likely to be especially happy. But give her a diamond...

Is "pink" a real colour? Does it exist? Why don't we simply call it "light red"? - Again, the distinction is important. "Red" has very different connotations than "pink".

Please note, I don't really want to dwell of the above examples; they're admittedly not perfect analogies and I have no interest debating them, but hopefully they might make you think a bit.

i was wrong to state that "the Cmajor scale is the Mother of all modes" or whatever i said, it was an innacurate statement. on the surface. but beneath the surface, in reality, its accurate.

So is it either accurate or inaccurate? - I'l tell you, it's inaccurate.
Several people have tried to explain that to you now, what is it exactly that you're failing to understand?

the underlying reality is that Cmajor IS the same as Ionian, (intervalically)

As stated many times, the fact they have the same intervals does not make them the same thing.

and Ionian, is the Mother of the classical modes. it's the "home" Tonic, Root, whatever, it's where you start from ....that is why the piano is based around Cmajor, and the white keys are based on Cmajor. because thats what we base all of our music from.

Sigh.
None of this is true. I thought we had dealt with this several pages ago.
It is a FACT that the Ionian (and Aeolian) mode(s) did not exist until several centuries after the others. It is also a fact that keyboard instruments also came several centuries before any concept of "C major" existed.

It might be where YOU start from, but that doesn't make it the "mother of all modes" in and of itself.

that the piano keys aren't based on C major, which I found weird. how is it not so. isnt that why all the Cmajor intervals are white keys? and thus all the other modes are white keys but just starting on different notes of the Cmajor scale? how is that incorrect?

All the ecclesiastical modes use the white keys (at least in theory):
Dorian mode: DEFGABC
Phrygian mode: EFGABCD
Lydian Mode: FGABCDE
Mixolydian Mode: GABCDEF

All of these existed long before "C major" did, as did keyboard instruments. The piano was by no means the first instrument to have white and black keys arranged in that way. The church organ for example is much, much older, then there was the harpsichord and many others.

Have you looked at a piano? The one next to me at the moment starts on A (not C). So why aren't you arguing that it's based on the Aeolian mode? (It isn't by the way).

The modes are separate entities in themselves. They are not somehow part of C major.

I am not trying to explain things that are over my head in terms of music theory, I happen to think i do have a certain level of expertise though on musical intervals, call them what you want, from whatever time period you want, or whatever is fashionable..explaining that Ionian mode is the same as Cmajor, is not that complex...and i dont think it is deceitful, that s just being silly, like i have some evil anti music theory agenda and i poke music theory professor voodoo dolls with long pins in my alone time.

I wouldn't say you're being deceitful, but you are ignorant in this matter. I don't mean that in an offensive way, we are all ignorant of many things, myself included. As I said above, the real test is whether you're willing to accept that and try and learn more, or whether you'd rather sit there trying to convince yourself that know more than you really do.

if someone learns something (or at least feels like they did) then thats great.

If someone "learns" something incorrectly though, that's worse than not "learning" anything at all.

yes i am inept. in that i am clumsy, inexpert, amateurish when it comes to knowing about formal music theory and all the training, but this doesnt mean I dont understand music. and it doesnt mean that i dont know my theory, i know what i need to know...you can test me, i will pass it easily.

I'm sure there's a lot that you do understand, but I'm afraid there is obviously a lot that you don't. You have continually demonstrated as much with claims like "Ionian and major are the same thing", "the piano is based on C major' and so on. These statements are objectively false.

starting on D with a Bflat is just Aeolian Mode. Dm

But the point is that the Dorian mode (with or without a Bb) came first.

the white keys are the easist to play, and have the most robust resonance...i think so...

This is subjective at best.
I think most pianists would agree that playing (correctly) the scale of B major is actually easier than C major because the position of white and black notes correspond to how you use you fingers (and thumbs; we don't put thumbs on black notes).

And of course the piano is by no means the only instrument in the world.

[fmr]

All these instruments have a keyboard similar (with the same configuration) to the piano (even if some of them have the colours inverted - white keys in the piano are dark on them, and vice-versa). So, since the older of these instruments comes from 285 BC, how can it be based on C Major (or Ionian, if you prefer, for that matter), if it PREDATES them by more than 1000 years? Now, do you understand? Or is this just an "abstraction" too?

not abstraction, im saying the modern piano, with 88 keys is based on Cmajor, thats why the white keys are the notes of Cmajor....the white keys are the easist to play, and have the most robust resonance...i think so...

Now, you are stubborn The white keys exist because those are the "natural" notes (the notes used since ever in ANY mode - this was more than 1000 years before there was C Major (actually, circa 2000 years before, since the organ was born in Alexandria before the christian era). I repeat: the white keys are the notes that were used in ANY of the church modes, or the byzantine modes where they came from. The black keys are the altered notes. Now, that C Major (and A minor for that matter), also have the same natural notes is just a coincidence.

And more robust resonance? What the f*ck - where do you come from with those ideas? The resonance has nothing to do with the keys, man. Inside the piano, there are no black and white jeys - just stings, of three types, with no distinctions between black and white keys whatsoever. Please, do some reading, study a little, before you say something.

BTW: As JJP pointed very well, the piano keyboard even starts in A (usually), so, I may say that A minor is the "mother" of all scales, because it is the one where the piano keyboard comes from (which, since it is the same as the mode of D - the first mode - with Bb, would be more plausible, even if it's as fictitious as your statement).

[MadBrain]

Do you guys really have to pile it on like that? zethus909 doesn't really know too much music history, and he's applying his 21st century European musician point-of-view/dialect to stuff that doesn't really work like that (like medieval or Arabic or Indian music), but this is not really a problem as long as your goal is to make 21st century European music. You don't have to pound and pound it into him.

[fmr]

... he's applying his 21st century European musician point-of-view/dialect to stuff that doesn't really work like that (like medieval or Arabic or Indian music), but this is not really a problem as long as your goal is to make 21st century European music. You don't have to pound and pound it into him.

NOT european, nor 21st century. I am european (proud of my roots, well into 21st century - even musically and more than him, probably) and don't say those things. This has nothing to do with cultural heritage, just with lack of knowledge (and lack of cultural heritage also, for that matter).

No matter where anyone comes from, or what he/she intends to work on, if people go on with wrong assertions, they have to be corrected. And the piano/keyboard is something contemporary, so, better knowing what it is, and where it comes from. Ignorance is one thing - arrogant illiteracy is another. The first one is excusable and deserves help. The second just deserves a slap in the face.

[stringtapper]

but knowing too much theory, as i stated before can actually be bad for your creativity. and make you worse at making music. because it makes you a robot, incapable of producing anything before thinking about it.

This is probably the most common misconception of music theory held by people who haven't studied it or refuse to study it.

If you have to actively think about a theoretical concept before you play it or write it then you haven't actually learned that concept.

"Learning" music theory is about internalizing musical concepts and materials by connecting the intellectual understanding of them with the aural and physical experience of them. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane couldn't have played all of those notes over all of those chord changes at such speed if they were having to think through every chord tone, passing tone, or chromatic embellishment as they were playing them. That doesn't mean they didn't study the theory of those things intensively. They did. And they internalized the sounds and how it felt to play those sounds on their instruments.

It seems as if certain people have the idea in their head that the de facto process of studying music theory is sitting with a music theory text and just reading it like a novel. I don't know any music educator who would prescribe that method. You want to be in front of an instrument, hearing the things that you're reading.

The whole sentiment of "just feeeeel it maaaaaan" is nice and romantic, but is, ultimately, an anti-intellectual endeavor.

[jancivil]

Do you guys really have to pile it on like that? zethus909 doesn't really know too much music history, and he's applying his 21st century European musician point-of-view/dialect to stuff that doesn't really work like that (like medieval or Arabic or Indian music), but this is not really a problem as long as your goal is to make 21st century European music. You don't have to pound and pound it into him.

He actually said 'beneath the surface /in reality/ major *is* the mother of all modes.', that's only <inaccurate> on the surface. He's immune to the understanding that the other modes in question preexist the thing. Let alone tonal v. modal...

Being a young honky is no excuse. Point-of-view, disposition, "dialect" have zero bearing here.

No worries, I shan't pound any further. The philostophical trap he inadvertently set for himself and stepped right into was hard to resist but I really have to set a solid border somewhere, thanks.