Is the V chord always Dominant?

[Sascha Franck]

When using modes (the old modes), I tend to think of music just melodically, and filling it with plain chords, like pedal notes.

No offense meant, but this is more or less precisely one of the things why modes are so widely misunderstood these days.
It seems to be either the classical approach *or* the jazzy approach, the latter making us think of works along the lines of Davis' "Sketches Of Spain" or some whatever-sounding fusion music.

I think functional harmony and modes do not fit well.

IMHO they do. Sometimes even very well. In fact, often there's close to no difference to whatever traditional harmonic approach. In other words: You have a chord progression belonging to one key and fill it up with whatever harmony and melody.

An example: One of the most traditional chord progressions in both classical and folk, country or whatever music styles might be I-IV-V(-I). Like C, F, G.
Now, regardless of some different voicing (and voice leading) rules, what else does the classical composer do than to fill that progression up with melodies and chords? Right, nothing (let's npt talk about using secondary dominants, nifty passing notes and whatever right now - they do exist in just about any musical style anyway).

Ok, then let's think about some more "modern" (in fact, it's not really modern at all) progression, such as Amin7 - D7. Theoreticaly, this would be a II-V progression in G major. But, does it really sound like that? No way. Listen to a tune such as "Oye Como Va" from Santana. Does it sound like being in G major for you? Never ever.
That's one possibly hundreds of examples of how a mode can sorta "take over" and live on its own, even inside a progression that'd otherwise belong to a different tonic chord.

Now, this doesn't have exactly to do with the original question, but as I said in my previous post, if you kinda see modes of being able to live a life on their own, you may as well use a V chord that is not a dom7 one.

But I know jazzy people work with modes as kind of subscales for the major and minor

I don't think it's git anything to do with jazz or not jazz. I fact, I think that modes as a separate entity have even more importance in whatever sorts of soul, funk, pop and rock music than they ever had in jazz (which I think is a lot more traditional by any functional means).

Cheers
Sascha

[fmr]

When using modes (the old modes), I tend to think of music just melodically, and filling it with plain chords, like pedal notes.

No offense meant, but this is more or less precisely one of the things why modes are so widely misunderstood these days.
It seems to be either the classical approach *or* the jazzy approach, the latter making us think of works along the lines of Davis' "Sketches Of Spain" or some whatever-sounding fusion music.

I think functional harmony and modes do not fit well.

IMHO they do. Sometimes even very well. In fact, often there's close to no difference to whatever traditional harmonic approach. In other words: You have a chord progression belonging to one key and fill it up with whatever harmony and melody.

An example: One of the most traditional chord progressions in both classical and folk, country or whatever music styles might be I-IV-V(-I). Like C, F, G.
Now, regardless of some different voicing (and voice leading) rules, what else does the classical composer do than to fill that progression up with melodies and chords? Right, nothing (let's npt talk about using secondary dominants, nifty passing notes and whatever right now - they do exist in just about any musical style anyway).

Ok, then let's think about some more "modern" (in fact, it's not really modern at all) progression, such as Amin7 - D7. Theoreticaly, this would be a II-V progression in G major. But, does it really sound like that? No way. Listen to a tune such as "Oye Como Va" from Santana. Does it sound like being in G major for you? Never ever.
That's one possibly hundreds of examples of how a mode can sorta "take over" and live on its own, even inside a progression that'd otherwise belong to a different tonic chord.

Now, this doesn't have exactly to do with the original question, but as I said in my previous post, if you kinda see modes of being able to live a life on their own, you may as well use a V chord that is not a dom7 one.

But I know jazzy people work with modes as kind of subscales for the major and minor

I don't think it's git anything to do with jazz or not jazz. I fact, I think that modes as a separate entity have even more importance in whatever sorts of soul, funk, pop and rock music than they ever had in jazz (which I think is a lot more traditional by any functional means).

Cheers
Sascha

OK, this is becooming interesting, and maybe I get some enlightment. Sorry Sascha, but I didn't follow you. How and exactly what mode do you fit in a I-IV-Y-I progression?
On a II-V progression, yes, as long as you stay there, or just come back to II, but then you are not in a tonal world anymore (funtions are not there). I may be misunderstanding, but I love this stuff, so, I hope you post again.

[Sascha Franck]

OK, this is becooming interesting, and maybe I get some enlightment. Sorry Sascha, but I didn't follow you. How and exactly what mode do you fit in a I-IV-Y-I progression?

For me, that's a typical "ionian progression" (as long as it's in major).

On a II-V progression, yes, as long as you stay there, or just come back to II, but then you are not in a tonal world anymore (funtions are not there).

Well, for me, a non-resolving II-V progression, hence establishing the dorian mode, is as functional as anything else. Sure, it doesn't follow the typical functions of whatever dominants resolving into whatever tonics, so one *might* be saying it's "less functional" or so - but still, there's chords and melodies out of one common "pool" of notes that are used, which makes things quite functional for me.

Fwiw, I do think that in the end, apart from aeolian (natural minor) and ionian (major) only two modes really make it in a functional context, that's dorian and mixolydian. Both of them can more or less easily be established through chord progressions whereas lydian and phrygian are a little too weak, so they usually only work in whatever pedal root note contexts, that's even more true for locrian (which, to my ears, never becomes established at all). But dorian and mixolydian are very integrated in all sorts of modern music, so I do think they deserve to be called "functional".

Cheers
Sascha

[fmr]

OK, this is becooming interesting, and maybe I get some enlightment. Sorry Sascha, but I didn't follow you. How and exactly what mode do you fit in a I-IV-Y-I progression?

For me, that's a typical "ionian progression" (as long as it's in major).

Fwiw, I do think that in the end, apart from aeolian (natural minor) and ionian (major) only two modes really make it in a functional context, that's dorian and mixolydian. Both of them can more or less easily be established through chord progressions whereas lydian and phrygian are a little too weak, so they usually only work in whatever pedal root note contexts, that's even more true for locrian (which, to my ears, never becomes established at all). But dorian and mixolydian are very integrated in all sorts of modern music, so I do think they deserve to be called "functional".

Cheers
Sascha

Well, but the problem. IMO, is that aeolian is not a mode (at least one that was used when modes were used), and you said it yourself - it's the minor mode, so what's the point of call it something different?

The same applies to ionian. As I said, there were only four modes (I-D, II-E, III-F, IV-G), which had plagal modes starting with A,B,C and D. However, these were not "authentic", since they had a different starting note, a different "main" note (the "repercusa"), but ended in the same note as the "authentic" - D, E, F and G.

I must say I never saw the point of having a "ionian" mode, since we have a "major" mode. Why don't call it simply major mode. The same applies to the Aeonian, which is the minor mode. Even the greek names are somehow silly. I myself, avoid greek names, and always say I Mode, II Mode, III Mode and IV Mode. But hey - I'm just a humble musician and student of these things, therefore, I may be wrong, of course.

BTW - there are lots of other modes - Debussy used the very well known six note mode called "entire (whole?) tone mode" (sorry, don't know the exact word in english). Harry Partch used a sixteenth note mode. Meassiaen used what he called "modes of limited transpositions". Modes are a universe in themselves, and deserve a deep study, but treated as entities in their own right.

Regarding the "functional" of the ii-v progression, I share your opinion that it works, it works even very well, but it's not "functional", at least in the meaning that Schoenberg, which is what I studied, and what I think of when talking about "structural functions", stated. The "structural functions of harmony" are well established in western music, and are based in "functions", in which the V-I and the IV-V-I are the main basis. Of course, music cannot be constrained by theory, and one may use whatever feels fits best on the mood.