Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
There have been some threads on this board, over the last however many years, about tunes with "missing" notes - tunes that don't use the full diatonic scale - and the perils of backing same. Here's the one, started by benhall.1, that inspired this here post - http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/13991/. Often, the missing notes make the mode of the tune ambiguous: for instance, when a tune that resolves in D contains F#s, but no C's, either sharp or natural, so you can't peg the tune as being in Dmaj or Dmix just by looking at the notes used. Cheshire puddy tat commented in that thread, "I often don't like it when a tune's modal ambiguity is abruptly decided by a backer's choice of chord" - in other words, the sensitive guitarist would do well to select chords that would work in any of the possible modes.
And, in theory, I agree.
But in practice, I so often find that a single mode is hinted at, often very strongly, in these tunes of ostensibly ambiguous mode.
I was noodling about on a half-remembered version of O'Keefe's slide the other day, and found myself inserting a C natural as a leading note. When I later consulted both the sheet music on this site and the version I'd recorded at a session some time ago, I was surprised to find that there were no C's or C#s to be seen or heard anywhere in the tune, so submitting it in Amix instead of Ador wouldn't have produced a different midi file. Yet when I experimented by replacing the Cnat with a C# in playing it, it grated. I assume that a guitar chord containing a C# would have been similarly jarring. Something in my subconscious strongly rejected the possibility that O'Keefe's could be in mixolydian mode.
And there are any number of tunes that contain this property. The Killarney Boys of Pleasure is doubly ambiguous, lacking C's, C#s, G's, and G#s, at least as I play it. Yet it's unmistakably in a minor key. A few months ago I submitted a (slightly inaccurate) transcription of a Newfoundland tune, the Festival reel, in D dorian, but absent any B's. A few months later, my rendition of the Festival (and, indeed, the recording that I'd improperly transcribed) has a handful of B's as leading notes, which can be omitted without any harm to the tune, but which can't be exchanged for Bb's. And some time ago I composed a trite, skippy little D major jig that I found, only upon completing, to lack any C#'s. Yet that tune is unquestionably a major key ditty, lacking the uneasy, quirky "feel" that I associate with mixolydian tunes.
I know I'm not the only person to hear shadows, or echos, if you will, of missing notes in tunes that don't feature them explicitly. There are always plenty of variations of tunes that work well musically, but even more variations of tunes that don't hold together, and many of the latter can be created by "filling in the gaps" incorrectly. And it's not just a matter of taste - it's something intrinsic to the tune itself that I just can't pin down. Sticking in a C#, no matter how subtly, in the middle of O'Keefe's just plain wouldn't work. So what is it about the structure of O'Keefe's that makes it an A dorian, rather than an A mixolydian tune? Why isn't The Killarney Boys of Pleasure in Emix? As these examples make clear, it's not the notes - there's something else. Anyone?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
The difference between theory and practice.. theoretically two note could be part of a number of chords. in practice they will have a feel that is right, well according to my music teacher and to my ear.
Music is about feel, if it feels right, it is right..... cant really help much more.
It could well have an answer based upon the physics of music, i dont know.
But its a great question and and await with interest and hope. Actually i will do a bit of research and see what i can dig up.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
There is nothing in O'Keefe's slide that makes it definitively A dorian; the lack of third means, like you say, that it is modally ambiguous. It cannot be defined as one or the other unless someone plays a minor or major third. As to whether it becomes jarring or not, if you add a C#, I think previous exposure to the tune defines what we think of as jarring. To my ears, it would sound a little odd if someone were to start the tune with either A2ce2dBABd2b or A2c#e2dBABd2b (ie. with either cnat or c#), but if that was the first time you'd heard the tune that way then it would sound 'normal' to your ears. Personally, I like the non-defined version, too, but am unsure as to whether this is because I like the 'in-between modes' sound or whether the main way I've heard this tune played has programmed my appreciation of it!
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Doodle, I'm not so sure. I don't know where I'd heard O'Keefe's before the session where I recorded it, but it was quite possibly lurking somewhere in my subconscious when I heard it there, so maybe your prior exposure theory holds there. Killarney Boys, on the other hand, was completely new to me when my teacher taught it to me a few months ago, and it struck me immediately as a minor key tune. And what to make of the D major jig I composed, that certainly I hadn't been exposed to before?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
TDM, bear in mind that how we hear a tune is influenced by all of the music we are exposed to--including pop, rock, jazz, classical, etc. Given that we're bombarded by harmonized music these days, we're programmed to infer modes a certain way. Which may not do justice to the 300 yearold tune in question.
That's precisely why I enjoy and prefer leaving the ambiguity unresolved in some tunes. To my ear, resolving it (whether by a backer imposing chords or a melody player imposing note choices) yanks the tune into the modern world and out of the musical and cultural context it developed in. In short, it sounds "less Irish traditiona" and more like all the other music we hear on our car radios, at the mall, in the produce aisle of our local grocer. Bleh. I get enough of that--let me wallow in the unresolved clarity, please.
My response to your main question--why do some ambiguous tunes seem to favor one mode over the other--is to point you toward Black Haired Lass: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/237
Play it with C nats and it's a nice A dorian tune. Play it with C sharps and it's a lovely A mix tune. Depending on how you first learn it, the other is likely to sound jarring to your ear--unless you learn it both ways and get used to it either way.
Or the popular jig Garret Barry's. Today, most people play it with F sharps. But I also know an older version with F naturals. I've had other players say the F natural version songs "wrong" or just "weird." Funny that, because I imagine Garret Barry himself would think the F sharp version to be a bit plain and strident....
My point is that even unambiguous tunes can be transmodal. Which one you choose depends entirely on previous expsoure to tunes with similar intervals and structure. More of today's musicians are routinely exposed to the conventions of mass-produced, mass-appeal music, so their preferences are mucking up the old sensitivities to interval choices. One of those choices is to entirely leave out the 3rd or 7th note of the scale--it's what *makes* some tunes.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
'tstrue, I (along with the vast majority of the folks on this site) was weaned on Western music, which informs our taste in far-reaching and mysterious ways. And I might have to settle for that explanation for my brain imposing various modes on tunes that might seem more ambiguous to someone with less (or different) exposure to music - the examples you gave, CPT, certainly support that conclusion. (Along the same lines as the comments on The Black-Haired Lass, there was a discussion on the Ger the Rigger thread about playing it in Amix, which sounds a bit off to me - I play it in Amaj. My teacher gave me the sheet music for the tune, with two sharps in the key signature, and when I asked him if that was a misprint, he noodled for a bit and then acknowledged that he plays it with a G#. "But it doesn't sound like it's in A major," he reflected afterward, and couldn't explain why.) Still, I find the prior-exposure explanation incomplete at best, and (stomps foot, arms akimbo) I want to know precisely *what* it is about close to 30 years of listening to music that makes me insist that O'Keefe's is in A dorian, dammit. I guess I was hoping for an explanation based on the "physics of the music", as jig puts it, and I'm sure that there is one involving same, though whether it can be grasped by any of us mortals is unclear.
As an aside, a few months ago I decided, on a lark, to play Si Beag, Si Mohr in D minor. Despite my prior exposure to that tune/my prior exposure to hundreds of years of Western music/whatever, the didn't sound wrong to me, just different, and haunting. And I'd been exposed to that tune plenty.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"... how we hear a tune is influenced by all of the music we are exposed to--including pop, rock, jazz, classical, etc. Given that we're bombarded by harmonized music these days, we're programmed to infer modes a certain way..."
True. Properties such as keys and modes were probably never assigned to the tunes before the 20th Century, at least, not by the people who played them - they just 'went as follies'.
*However*, that doesn't change the fact that certain hexatonic and pentatonic tunes have some inherent quality that makes them seem to fall into one mode or another, despite the absence of the notes that would define their modality. The Killarney Boys of Pleasure might seem like a minor tune to some of us (in fact, I had never noticed before that it was pentatonic - I just thought of it as minor/dorian) because of exposure to harmony-based music. But why does that exposure make one tune sound major and another minor?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I dont get why in Irish music the "modes" have greek names?? The only way i understand it is when your playin Amix is that you flaten the 7th note( when playin a scale) . I find Dorian (3rd and 7th) more complicated but its all new to me really. If i had to accompany on guitar, i would most definately make a balls of it, thats why my guitar has no involvement with my trad. I find it all a bit confusing. I have a tendancy to want to play only C#'s which isn't very helpful at all.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I'm no expert, no accompanist, and I've had half a bottle of wine, but here's an experiment to try:
Imagine that you're playing bass accompanying a tune, playing only on the beat (1st and 5th for reels, 1st and 4th for jigs, etc. - argue away!), and playing only one note on each beat. (Also imagine that your musicanship is pretty rudimentary.) What notes would you play? Try to guess the chord implied by the melody and play its root (are "root" and "rudimentary" etymologically related?). Don't worry about major or minor or dorian or mixolydian; just the root.
Do you find yourself (imagining yourself) playing mostly the tonic and the seventh? Or is it mostly the tonic, fourth and fifth? If it's the tonic and the seventh, chances are the seventh is flatted and the mode is Dorian (or rarely Minor). If it's the tonic, fourth and fifth, chances are it's Mixolydian or Major.
My guess is that this experiment would resolve 80-90% of the ambiguities. I'm sure there are tunes that would defeat this suggestion, but I'd challenge anyone to come up with more than a few dozen.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I agree that sometimes gapped scales can imply certain modes. In a tune with a scale A-B-D-E-F#-G, that F# would usually be used as a passing note to G in a dorian tune, but if it's more prominent in the tune then it gives it a major - and therefore mixolydian - feel. I'm thinking of the Drunken Tinker http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1555. In the version I transcribed, the only C's are natural, but the tune as a whole has a mixolydian feel because of all the F#s implying a "majorish" melodic contour. I think anyway.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it seems that the function and prominence of the 6th in the melody might be the deciding factor between dor/mix in the absence of a 3rd.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
This thread is starting to make my head hurt but for Lollypolly ,the greeks were the first folks to write about modes are they gave them the names and there are many other different ones other than that used in ITM, rumoured to be named by Pythagerous himself ,he's the bloke with the triangles .
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Not off topic but not mentioned so far is the presence of overtones in the instruments used.
Any and all strings produce the major chordal hamonies as partials (harmonics) above whatever root note is being played on the particular string. If the bass player has a strong ear and lays down a solid A, the partials of A, C# and E are all present and well within what would be the playing (and audible) range of higer pitched (i.e. lead) instruments.
An A played on the fiddle will also be sounding partials that are both loud and clear. These situations are where we discern - many times unconsiously - the necessary harmonic material in deciding what backing chords will work best.
Further, a particularly resonant tone wood top can also place emphasis to certain ovetones. The result is a possible discord with the melody which might not have been a problem with another instrument.
I've noticed this effect most predominantly whilst playing with groups that consitst of only strings. For some reason - to my ear anyway - just adding a flute, whistle or other non-string makes the overall sound less influenced by these effects but not immune to them.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
i mentioned it!.... ahh no thats where my post got eaten ! Oh well never mind , yes partials and overtones, the physics of music. Makes interesting reading. And were my first port of call in investigating this phenomena.
For example it never occurred to me that O Keef's had no C's yet to me It is clearly in Am mode.
I guess it would depend on the notes played their patterns and chords implied......
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Anyone have any thoughts that the Irish (or celtic) peoples might have favoured particular modes because they favoured paricular moods (same word) or emotional states,as a kind of cultural characteristic (Plato's suggestion) ? Could it be argued that the western classical conception of music has narrowed the range of moods or emotional states that we are 'allowed' to feel today? I'm not suggesting anyone consciously conspired to bring that about,maybe it just happened,but it's fairly obvious that state authorities have a predeliction for rousing martial music and that some music is considered soppy and wimpish...maybe there is a circular relationship between national character (if there is any such thing) and national music...?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
LV's remark regarding overtones is certainly relevant to acoustic guitars.Not only the soundboard but the whole of the very complicated construction has an influence upon which harmonics and overtones get emphasized or reduced.One instrument will sound great for DADGAD,another will not.There's some interesting stuff about the theory here http://www.harmonics.com/lucy/lsd/chap1.html
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
lvjmusic: "Any and all strings produce the major chordal hamonies as partials (harmonics) above whatever root note is being played on the particular string. If the bass player has a strong ear and lays down a solid A, the partials of A, C# and E are all present and well within what would be the playing (and audible) range of higer pitched (i.e. lead) instruments.
An A played on the fiddle will also be sounding partials that are both loud and clear. These situations are where we discern - many times unconsiously - the necessary harmonic material in deciding what backing chords will work best."
Yes. But then, wouldn't that make all A tunes missing a 3rd degree sound major? Why do minor chords sound 'right' on some such tunes? I think Dow has hit on something with the melodic role of the 6th degree. But then, The Killarney Boys of Pleasure doesn't have a 6th degree.
lvjmusic's post made me think about the fiddle and intonation: Fiddlers have the capacity to finely tune each fingered note relative to the open string (this is true to a lesser extent of pipers, flute and whistle players). So the fiddler can subtly change the mood of a tune by playing certain notes sharper or flatter (it's not really as simple as just 4 modes) - each note then having a subtly different set of overtones.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Fascinating topic....so,on fretless fiddles and banjos you can make micro-adjustments to bend the note closer to the feel of the particular mode ('transmodal' is a wonderful idea!) but on guitars the note is fixed by the fret,so the tuning can be spot on for one mode but would need slight adjustment for another mode.Is that right?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I actually hear something akin to the "jarring" major 3rd mentioned above in pop music fairly often-it's when a pop/rock/whatever tune lacks the 3rd, and the backing chords likewise lack the 3rd, but when it's time for the instrumental solo the guitarist or sax player has major 3rds all over his solo. Sounds like the soloist hasn't even been listening to the song!
To me these gap-scale Irish tunes sound best when the guitarist hears what's happening and plays gap chords. But, when a tune lacks the 3rd, it's true that using a minor 3rd in the backup usually works, while using a major 3rd in the backup clashes. A good guitarist will stay out of the way of the tune's harmonic ambiguity.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Maybe? certainly for different keys. It depends on whether the guitarist is comfortable tuning to a tuner, in equal temperament, or will tune to certain chords, ie a G chord, a D chord so that they sound fully harmonious.
In that case the player would quite likely need to retune for a different key. maybe this only relates to chords in root positions.
This of course would be irrelevant to someone using a tuner, because theyre not in 'tune' with anything, apart from the little digital box.
Perhaps a tune like O'keef's would, when played on a true tone instrument reflect minor third partials? the combination of notes vibrating together creating chordal overtones?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Hi Richard,I expect you're right about that,dunno.Personaly,I'm trying to use modal guitar tunings to play the melody solo,so I'm not thinking as an accompanist at this moment.
From all the stuff I've been reading on this subject,I tend towards the view that,given a clean slate,if one wanted to build a methodical theoretical understanding of irish music,one wouldn't be using classical western music theory or modal theory...it's almost like there's a mismatch between the logic of the theory and the actual natural aural phenomena.I mean,especially listening to uillean pipes,there's all kinds of wild weirdness going on,notes beating against each other and overtones and microtones and discordancies.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Yeah the pipes, the pipes!
talking of which, how many older sets would give you the choice of F orF#? presuming they were in D of course. or the relative notes were they 'flatter' pipes.
Richard , were you to place a strategic ABC triplet, as an ornament in say O'keef's , if you were to play it for some reason would the pipes have a preference to C or C#? and would you?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"so the tuning can be spot on for one mode but would need slight adjustment for another mode.Is that right?"
What I'm talking about goes beyond *modes* as such. If you allow for infinitesimal variations in pitch on every note of the scale, the number of possible modes is infinite. Of course, in practice, there is a limit to how small a difference in pitch even the most finely tuned ear can perceive. But many (if not most) Irish fiddlers do not play in equal temperament, or any named temperament system. Rather, each plays with their own intonation which, in some cases, may be a long way off what either Pythagoras or J S Bach would call 'in tune'. (See Canúintí Ceoil - 5/10/2007 at http://www.tg4.tv/ for Caoimhin O Raghallaigh's views on this.). I don't know this for a fact, but I would speculate that some fiddlers use these microtonal differences within their own playing, perhaps unconsciously, as an expressive medium - they might play one 'C' in one tune and another 'C' in another tune or even use variations in pitch within the same tune. After all, stripped of its rules and theory, what is music but using pitch (and rhythm, timbre, dynamics etc.) for emotional expression?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Hi NameChanges,more fascinating stuff.Seems there's some deep issues here.Some people are born with perfect pitch,no? that matches up well to intervals of Bach's 'well tempered clavier'.
Jig said above 'if it sounds right,it is right'. But the 'rightness' is culturally conditioned,no? So maybe a Thai or Cambodian or Morroccan or Peruvian will have a different sense of when the tuning is right or wrong.
An analogy from art.What 'looked right' in the 19th C. got upset by Impressionism and Cubism,where everything 'looked wrong'.
Yes, I saw that C.O Raghallaigh a few weeks back.Great stuff.But he plays a Scandinavian fiddle? is that 'authentic trad'
or is he moving towards something new? I'm a novice with all this,so I wouldn't presume an opinion.
What if the standard major and minor of mainstream music conditions us to a certain restricted set of moods or emotions.Maybe it's possible to open up new unfamiliar areas of 'how we feel' if we get free from 'if it sounds right it is right'?
I expect musicologists have been down this route long ago,I'm just a naive hillbilly here trying to sort it out for my own satisfaction so please excuse my limited understanding.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Ok but to me most modern western music sounds like sh*te. while a trad piper/concertina player etc sounds right.
So yes I think you are absolutely correct. Like language, the sounds we are conditioned to understand influence our choice of what sounds right.
Some languages will contain whole concepts which simply cant be expressed in another language. Only by being fluent in the language will this become clear.
If this'nt an argument for being very selective as to our choice of music i dont know what is! TV and radio are guilty of junk sounds, like junk mail..... turn it off! At least with the net you can choose what you listen too.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"I think Dow has hit on something with the melodic role of the 6th degree. But then, The Killarney Boys of Pleasure doesn't have a 6th degree".
Right, so by default we hear it as dorian. For the Killarney Boys to sound mixolydian in the absence of a 3rd, there'd not only have to be a 6th in the melody, but it would have to figure prominently, and not just as a passing note to D.
As it happens, you can put a 6th in the melody, but it would tend to come out as a passing note, e.g the bars that go |BdAF FEE2| you can play as |(3B^cd AF FEE2|.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Couldn't agree more,Jig.What my ears want to hear is sounds that convey some sense of honesty and integrity and beauty.It's hard to find that these days when the mainstream is so overwhelming and everywhere,touting shallow synthetic commercial junk.
I agree with you that 'sounds right is right' gets us freed up from the dogma of orthodox music theory.But what I meant to convey,we are still bound,in some unclear way,to a sense of 'rightness' that maybe is partly biological inherited and/or partly culturally conditioned,and maybe we can also get free from that to some degree?
For example,electric guitar in the 1960's when feedback was seen as a problem to be eliminated until Jimi Hendrix turned it around and said 'sounds good to me' and the goal posts moved.
You know,I can play a sequence of notes of a modal scale which sounds pleasant in some way.And then add just a hint of another note,and it tips the balance in some very subtle mysterious way,so the whole section takes on a different feeling.I know players have used the effect for 2 or 3 thousand years,but does anybody really understand how or why this happens?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Thanks, everyone - I do like what's happened to this thread. And thanks especially to GaryAMartin and Dow for pinning down at least part of what it is that gives some tunes with key notes missing a major or minor key feel.
Upon reflection, I'm seeing that I've overgeneralized my mental classification of some tunes. Apparently O'Keefe's sounds as wrong in Ador to some people as it does in AMix to me. And, after a bit more noodling, I did excise my Cnat from that tune, because I like it better without. And I'd probably prefer C-less chords over dorian chords as backing to that slide. So maybe even to my ear, O'Keefe's is "more dorian than mixolydian", rather than unambiguously in dorian mode. A quantum tune of sorts, of which there are many.
I was also thinking back to my days, 10-20 years ago, as a lousy (classical) piano player with a knack for theory. I could always tell, instinctively, whether a piece was in a major or minor key. I could do this with pop music as well. When I started listening to Irish music a decade ago, though, I couldn't classify tunes as easily or as reliably. Part of this probably had to do with the fact that I had twice as many modes to choose from, but I wonder how many of the tunes whose taxonomy eluded me were modally ambiguous, too.
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Ideally you'd classify it as some sort of "hexatonic" rather than as a mode. I don't know how you'd differentiate different types of hexatonic scale in the terminology without ambiguity and confusion, but really they deserve to be recognised as gapped, seeing as gapped tunes seem to behave differently in that they are usually more flexible when it comes to messing about with harmonic accompaniment, double stops and variations.
For example, if you add in the 3rd to the B-part, you don't have to choose one or the other - major or minor - you can have a bit of fun alternating like this:
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
(Re; Killarney Boys)
"As it happens, you can put a 6th in the melody, but it would tend to come out as a passing note, e.g the bars that go |BdAF FEE2| you can play as |(3B^cd AF FEE2|".
....I sometimes put in a 3rd as well (I don't know what the trad Police would think of it) in places, and it would invariably be a G natural, not a sharp. e.g. |EGFD EFGA| for the first bar. (I don't know what the trad Police would think of that. Please, sir! I didn't mean to do it, honest! It just came out like that.)
But is that just because I'm not used to hearing trad tunes resolving onto an E major chord?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
chill dave, try meditation. aoummm.
I agree it is a complicated field, incredibly complicated actually! mind bogglingly complicated in fact... but interesting is it not?
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
jig said it best, if it sounds good - regardless of the theory or science behind it - it's all good.
I listen to many, many styles of music and will say that all - even non- 12 tone scale and microtonal tunings - have unique and particular idiomatic expressions that actually define the character and depth of the music. Trad has its own vocabulary just as does jazz, blues and even 'electonica' (but I will say that I cannot call all that has been label as electronica to really be music, no more than would be the scratching of a needle on an old worn out 45!).
In playing a non-fretting string, the ability to adjust for differing modes is a matter of listening and reacting with the correct 'vocabulary' at the right time. To a fretted player it is still possible as some keys lend themselves to being a little more aggressive in pressing (or slightly bending) a note to pull it into the correct pitch to fit the just tuning of a given scale.
Further, in all live playing, the experience itself is the end result. The tune is just the vehicle to get us there. A well played and in tune instrument make the journey that much more pleasant, but the company we have in getting there makes all the difference.
Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
There have been some threads on this board, over the last however many years, about tunes with "missing" notes - tunes that don't use the full diatonic scale - and the perils of backing same. Here's the one, started by benhall.1, that inspired this here post - http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/13991/. Often, the missing notes make the mode of the tune ambiguous: for instance, when a tune that resolves in D contains F#s, but no C's, either sharp or natural, so you can't peg the tune as being in Dmaj or Dmix just by looking at the notes used. Cheshire puddy tat commented in that thread, "I often don't like it when a tune's modal ambiguity is abruptly decided by a backer's choice of chord" - in other words, the sensitive guitarist would do well to select chords that would work in any of the possible modes.
And, in theory, I agree.
But in practice, I so often find that a single mode is hinted at, often very strongly, in these tunes of ostensibly ambiguous mode.
I was noodling about on a half-remembered version of O'Keefe's slide the other day, and found myself inserting a C natural as a leading note. When I later consulted both the sheet music on this site and the version I'd recorded at a session some time ago, I was surprised to find that there were no C's or C#s to be seen or heard anywhere in the tune, so submitting it in Amix instead of Ador wouldn't have produced a different midi file. Yet when I experimented by replacing the Cnat with a C# in playing it, it grated. I assume that a guitar chord containing a C# would have been similarly jarring. Something in my subconscious strongly rejected the possibility that O'Keefe's could be in mixolydian mode.
And there are any number of tunes that contain this property. The Killarney Boys of Pleasure is doubly ambiguous, lacking C's, C#s, G's, and G#s, at least as I play it. Yet it's unmistakably in a minor key. A few months ago I submitted a (slightly inaccurate) transcription of a Newfoundland tune, the Festival reel, in D dorian, but absent any B's. A few months later, my rendition of the Festival (and, indeed, the recording that I'd improperly transcribed) has a handful of B's as leading notes, which can be omitted without any harm to the tune, but which can't be exchanged for Bb's. And some time ago I composed a trite, skippy little D major jig that I found, only upon completing, to lack any C#'s. Yet that tune is unquestionably a major key ditty, lacking the uneasy, quirky "feel" that I associate with mixolydian tunes.
I know I'm not the only person to hear shadows, or echos, if you will, of missing notes in tunes that don't feature them explicitly. There are always plenty of variations of tunes that work well musically, but even more variations of tunes that don't hold together, and many of the latter can be created by "filling in the gaps" incorrectly. And it's not just a matter of taste - it's something intrinsic to the tune itself that I just can't pin down. Sticking in a C#, no matter how subtly, in the middle of O'Keefe's just plain wouldn't work. So what is it about the structure of O'Keefe's that makes it an A dorian, rather than an A mixolydian tune? Why isn't The Killarney Boys of Pleasure in Emix? As these examples make clear, it's not the notes - there's something else. Anyone?
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
The difference between theory and practice.. theoretically two note could be part of a number of chords. in practice they will have a feel that is right, well according to my music teacher and to my ear.
Music is about feel, if it feels right, it is right..... cant really help much more.
It could well have an answer based upon the physics of music, i dont know.
But its a great question and and await with interest and hope. Actually i will do a bit of research and see what i can dig up.
# Posted on November 13th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
There is nothing in O'Keefe's slide that makes it definitively A dorian; the lack of third means, like you say, that it is modally ambiguous. It cannot be defined as one or the other unless someone plays a minor or major third. As to whether it becomes jarring or not, if you add a C#, I think previous exposure to the tune defines what we think of as jarring. To my ears, it would sound a little odd if someone were to start the tune with either A2ce2dBABd2b or A2c#e2dBABd2b (ie. with either cnat or c#), but if that was the first time you'd heard the tune that way then it would sound 'normal' to your ears. Personally, I like the non-defined version, too, but am unsure as to whether this is because I like the 'in-between modes' sound or whether the main way I've heard this tune played has programmed my appreciation of it!
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Doodle
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Doodle, I'm not so sure. I don't know where I'd heard O'Keefe's before the session where I recorded it, but it was quite possibly lurking somewhere in my subconscious when I heard it there, so maybe your prior exposure theory holds there. Killarney Boys, on the other hand, was completely new to me when my teacher taught it to me a few months ago, and it struck me immediately as a minor key tune. And what to make of the D major jig I composed, that certainly I hadn't been exposed to before?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
TDM, bear in mind that how we hear a tune is influenced by all of the music we are exposed to--including pop, rock, jazz, classical, etc. Given that we're bombarded by harmonized music these days, we're programmed to infer modes a certain way. Which may not do justice to the 300 yearold tune in question.
That's precisely why I enjoy and prefer leaving the ambiguity unresolved in some tunes. To my ear, resolving it (whether by a backer imposing chords or a melody player imposing note choices) yanks the tune into the modern world and out of the musical and cultural context it developed in. In short, it sounds "less Irish traditiona" and more like all the other music we hear on our car radios, at the mall, in the produce aisle of our local grocer. Bleh. I get enough of that--let me wallow in the unresolved clarity, please.
My response to your main question--why do some ambiguous tunes seem to favor one mode over the other--is to point you toward Black Haired Lass: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/237
Play it with C nats and it's a nice A dorian tune. Play it with C sharps and it's a lovely A mix tune. Depending on how you first learn it, the other is likely to sound jarring to your ear--unless you learn it both ways and get used to it either way.
Or the popular jig Garret Barry's. Today, most people play it with F sharps. But I also know an older version with F naturals. I've had other players say the F natural version songs "wrong" or just "weird." Funny that, because I imagine Garret Barry himself would think the F sharp version to be a bit plain and strident....
My point is that even unambiguous tunes can be transmodal. Which one you choose depends entirely on previous expsoure to tunes with similar intervals and structure. More of today's musicians are routinely exposed to the conventions of mass-produced, mass-appeal music, so their preferences are mucking up the old sensitivities to interval choices. One of those choices is to entirely leave out the 3rd or 7th note of the scale--it's what *makes* some tunes.
My tuppence, fwiw.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Will Harmon
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
'tstrue, I (along with the vast majority of the folks on this site) was weaned on Western music, which informs our taste in far-reaching and mysterious ways. And I might have to settle for that explanation for my brain imposing various modes on tunes that might seem more ambiguous to someone with less (or different) exposure to music - the examples you gave, CPT, certainly support that conclusion. (Along the same lines as the comments on The Black-Haired Lass, there was a discussion on the Ger the Rigger thread about playing it in Amix, which sounds a bit off to me - I play it in Amaj. My teacher gave me the sheet music for the tune, with two sharps in the key signature, and when I asked him if that was a misprint, he noodled for a bit and then acknowledged that he plays it with a G#. "But it doesn't sound like it's in A major," he reflected afterward, and couldn't explain why.) Still, I find the prior-exposure explanation incomplete at best, and (stomps foot, arms akimbo) I want to know precisely *what* it is about close to 30 years of listening to music that makes me insist that O'Keefe's is in A dorian, dammit. I guess I was hoping for an explanation based on the "physics of the music", as jig puts it, and I'm sure that there is one involving same, though whether it can be grasped by any of us mortals is unclear.
As an aside, a few months ago I decided, on a lark, to play Si Beag, Si Mohr in D minor. Despite my prior exposure to that tune/my prior exposure to hundreds of years of Western music/whatever, the didn't sound wrong to me, just different, and haunting. And I'd been exposed to that tune plenty.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"... how we hear a tune is influenced by all of the music we are exposed to--including pop, rock, jazz, classical, etc. Given that we're bombarded by harmonized music these days, we're programmed to infer modes a certain way..."
True. Properties such as keys and modes were probably never assigned to the tunes before the 20th Century, at least, not by the people who played them - they just 'went as follies'.
*However*, that doesn't change the fact that certain hexatonic and pentatonic tunes have some inherent quality that makes them seem to fall into one mode or another, despite the absence of the notes that would define their modality. The Killarney Boys of Pleasure might seem like a minor tune to some of us (in fact, I had never noticed before that it was pentatonic - I just thought of it as minor/dorian) because of exposure to harmony-based music. But why does that exposure make one tune sound major and another minor?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
We've X-posted, TDM.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I dont get why in Irish music the "modes" have greek names?? The only way i understand it is when your playin Amix is that you flaten the 7th note( when playin a scale) . I find Dorian (3rd and 7th) more complicated but its all new to me really. If i had to accompany on guitar, i would most definately make a balls of it, thats why my guitar has no involvement with my trad. I find it all a bit confusing. I have a tendancy to want to play only C#'s which isn't very helpful at all.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Lollypoll
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I'm no expert, no accompanist, and I've had half a bottle of wine, but here's an experiment to try:
Imagine that you're playing bass accompanying a tune, playing only on the beat (1st and 5th for reels, 1st and 4th for jigs, etc. - argue away!), and playing only one note on each beat. (Also imagine that your musicanship is pretty rudimentary.) What notes would you play? Try to guess the chord implied by the melody and play its root (are "root" and "rudimentary" etymologically related?). Don't worry about major or minor or dorian or mixolydian; just the root.
Do you find yourself (imagining yourself) playing mostly the tonic and the seventh? Or is it mostly the tonic, fourth and fifth? If it's the tonic and the seventh, chances are the seventh is flatted and the mode is Dorian (or rarely Minor). If it's the tonic, fourth and fifth, chances are it's Mixolydian or Major.
My guess is that this experiment would resolve 80-90% of the ambiguities. I'm sure there are tunes that would defeat this suggestion, but I'd challenge anyone to come up with more than a few dozen.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by GaryAMartin
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I agree that sometimes gapped scales can imply certain modes. In a tune with a scale A-B-D-E-F#-G, that F# would usually be used as a passing note to G in a dorian tune, but if it's more prominent in the tune then it gives it a major - and therefore mixolydian - feel. I'm thinking of the Drunken Tinker http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1555. In the version I transcribed, the only C's are natural, but the tune as a whole has a mixolydian feel because of all the F#s implying a "majorish" melodic contour. I think anyway.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Dr. Dow
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it seems that the function and prominence of the 6th in the melody might be the deciding factor between dor/mix in the absence of a 3rd.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Dr. Dow
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
This thread is starting to make my head hurt
but for Lollypolly ,the greeks were the first folks to write about modes are they gave them the names and there are many other different ones other than that used in ITM, rumoured to be named by Pythagerous himself ,he's the bloke with the triangles .
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by bazouki dave
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Not off topic but not mentioned so far is the presence of overtones in the instruments used.
Any and all strings produce the major chordal hamonies as partials (harmonics) above whatever root note is being played on the particular string. If the bass player has a strong ear and lays down a solid A, the partials of A, C# and E are all present and well within what would be the playing (and audible) range of higer pitched (i.e. lead) instruments.
An A played on the fiddle will also be sounding partials that are both loud and clear. These situations are where we discern - many times unconsiously - the necessary harmonic material in deciding what backing chords will work best.
Further, a particularly resonant tone wood top can also place emphasis to certain ovetones. The result is a possible discord with the melody which might not have been a problem with another instrument.
I've noticed this effect most predominantly whilst playing with groups that consitst of only strings. For some reason - to my ear anyway - just adding a flute, whistle or other non-string makes the overall sound less influenced by these effects but not immune to them.
Just sayin'...
regards,
LV
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by lvjmusic
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
i mentioned it!.... ahh no thats where my post got eaten ! Oh well never mind , yes partials and overtones, the physics of music. Makes interesting reading. And were my first port of call in investigating this phenomena.
For example it never occurred to me that O Keef's had no C's yet to me It is clearly in Am mode.
I guess it would depend on the notes played their patterns and chords implied......
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Anyone have any thoughts that the Irish (or celtic) peoples might have favoured particular modes because they favoured paricular moods (same word) or emotional states,as a kind of cultural characteristic (Plato's suggestion) ? Could it be argued that the western classical conception of music has narrowed the range of moods or emotional states that we are 'allowed' to feel today? I'm not suggesting anyone consciously conspired to bring that about,maybe it just happened,but it's fairly obvious that state authorities have a predeliction for rousing martial music and that some music is considered soppy and wimpish...maybe there is a circular relationship between national character (if there is any such thing) and national music...?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
LV's remark regarding overtones is certainly relevant to acoustic guitars.Not only the soundboard but the whole of the very complicated construction has an influence upon which harmonics and overtones get emphasized or reduced.One instrument will sound great for DADGAD,another will not.There's some interesting stuff about the theory here http://www.harmonics.com/lucy/lsd/chap1.html
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
lvjmusic: "Any and all strings produce the major chordal hamonies as partials (harmonics) above whatever root note is being played on the particular string. If the bass player has a strong ear and lays down a solid A, the partials of A, C# and E are all present and well within what would be the playing (and audible) range of higer pitched (i.e. lead) instruments.
An A played on the fiddle will also be sounding partials that are both loud and clear. These situations are where we discern - many times unconsiously - the necessary harmonic material in deciding what backing chords will work best."
Yes. But then, wouldn't that make all A tunes missing a 3rd degree sound major? Why do minor chords sound 'right' on some such tunes? I think Dow has hit on something with the melodic role of the 6th degree. But then, The Killarney Boys of Pleasure doesn't have a 6th degree.
lvjmusic's post made me think about the fiddle and intonation: Fiddlers have the capacity to finely tune each fingered note relative to the open string (this is true to a lesser extent of pipers, flute and whistle players). So the fiddler can subtly change the mood of a tune by playing certain notes sharper or flatter (it's not really as simple as just 4 modes) - each note then having a subtly different set of overtones.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Fascinating topic....so,on fretless fiddles and banjos you can make micro-adjustments to bend the note closer to the feel of the particular mode ('transmodal' is a wonderful idea!) but on guitars the note is fixed by the fret,so the tuning can be spot on for one mode but would need slight adjustment for another mode.Is that right?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
I actually hear something akin to the "jarring" major 3rd mentioned above in pop music fairly often-it's when a pop/rock/whatever tune lacks the 3rd, and the backing chords likewise lack the 3rd, but when it's time for the instrumental solo the guitarist or sax player has major 3rds all over his solo. Sounds like the soloist hasn't even been listening to the song!
To me these gap-scale Irish tunes sound best when the guitarist hears what's happening and plays gap chords. But, when a tune lacks the 3rd, it's true that using a minor 3rd in the backup usually works, while using a major 3rd in the backup clashes. A good guitarist will stay out of the way of the tune's harmonic ambiguity.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Richard D Cook
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Maybe? certainly for different keys. It depends on whether the guitarist is comfortable tuning to a tuner, in equal temperament, or will tune to certain chords, ie a G chord, a D chord so that they sound fully harmonious.
In that case the player would quite likely need to retune for a different key. maybe this only relates to chords in root positions.
This of course would be irrelevant to someone using a tuner, because theyre not in 'tune' with anything, apart from the little digital box.
Perhaps a tune like O'keef's would, when played on a true tone instrument reflect minor third partials? the combination of notes vibrating together creating chordal overtones?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Hi Richard,I expect you're right about that,dunno.Personaly,I'm trying to use modal guitar tunings to play the melody solo,so I'm not thinking as an accompanist at this moment.
From all the stuff I've been reading on this subject,I tend towards the view that,given a clean slate,if one wanted to build a methodical theoretical understanding of irish music,one wouldn't be using classical western music theory or modal theory...it's almost like there's a mismatch between the logic of the theory and the actual natural aural phenomena.I mean,especially listening to uillean pipes,there's all kinds of wild weirdness going on,notes beating against each other and overtones and microtones and discordancies.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Yeah the pipes, the pipes!
would the pipes have a preference to C or C#? and would you?
talking of which, how many older sets would give you the choice of F orF#? presuming they were in D of course. or the relative notes were they 'flatter' pipes.
Richard , were you to place a strategic ABC triplet, as an ornament in say O'keef's , if you were to play it for some reason
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"so the tuning can be spot on for one mode but would need slight adjustment for another mode.Is that right?"
What I'm talking about goes beyond *modes* as such. If you allow for infinitesimal variations in pitch on every note of the scale, the number of possible modes is infinite. Of course, in practice, there is a limit to how small a difference in pitch even the most finely tuned ear can perceive. But many (if not most) Irish fiddlers do not play in equal temperament, or any named temperament system. Rather, each plays with their own intonation which, in some cases, may be a long way off what either Pythagoras or J S Bach would call 'in tune'. (See Canúintí Ceoil - 5/10/2007 at http://www.tg4.tv/ for Caoimhin O Raghallaigh's views on this.). I don't know this for a fact, but I would speculate that some fiddlers use these microtonal differences within their own playing, perhaps unconsciously, as an expressive medium - they might play one 'C' in one tune and another 'C' in another tune or even use variations in pitch within the same tune. After all, stripped of its rules and theory, what is music but using pitch (and rhythm, timbre, dynamics etc.) for emotional expression?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Hi NameChanges,more fascinating stuff.Seems there's some deep issues here.Some people are born with perfect pitch,no? that matches up well to intervals of Bach's 'well tempered clavier'.
so please excuse my limited understanding.
Jig said above 'if it sounds right,it is right'. But the 'rightness' is culturally conditioned,no? So maybe a Thai or Cambodian or Morroccan or Peruvian will have a different sense of when the tuning is right or wrong.
An analogy from art.What 'looked right' in the 19th C. got upset by Impressionism and Cubism,where everything 'looked wrong'.
Yes, I saw that C.O Raghallaigh a few weeks back.Great stuff.But he plays a Scandinavian fiddle? is that 'authentic trad'
or is he moving towards something new? I'm a novice with all this,so I wouldn't presume an opinion.
What if the standard major and minor of mainstream music conditions us to a certain restricted set of moods or emotions.Maybe it's possible to open up new unfamiliar areas of 'how we feel' if we get free from 'if it sounds right it is right'?
I expect musicologists have been down this route long ago,I'm just a naive hillbilly here trying to sort it out for my own satisfaction
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Ok but to me most modern western music sounds like sh*te. while a trad piper/concertina player etc sounds right.
So yes I think you are absolutely correct. Like language, the sounds we are conditioned to understand influence our choice of what sounds right.
Some languages will contain whole concepts which simply cant be expressed in another language. Only by being fluent in the language will this become clear.
If this'nt an argument for being very selective as to our choice of music i dont know what is! TV and radio are guilty of junk sounds, like junk mail..... turn it off! At least with the net you can choose what you listen too.
Say NO to musak.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"I think Dow has hit on something with the melodic role of the 6th degree. But then, The Killarney Boys of Pleasure doesn't have a 6th degree".
Right, so by default we hear it as dorian. For the Killarney Boys to sound mixolydian in the absence of a 3rd, there'd not only have to be a 6th in the melody, but it would have to figure prominently, and not just as a passing note to D.
As it happens, you can put a 6th in the melody, but it would tend to come out as a passing note, e.g the bars that go |BdAF FEE2| you can play as |(3B^cd AF FEE2|.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Dr. Dow
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Couldn't agree more,Jig.What my ears want to hear is sounds that convey some sense of honesty and integrity and beauty.It's hard to find that these days when the mainstream is so overwhelming and everywhere,touting shallow synthetic commercial junk.
I agree with you that 'sounds right is right' gets us freed up from the dogma of orthodox music theory.But what I meant to convey,we are still bound,in some unclear way,to a sense of 'rightness' that maybe is partly biological inherited and/or partly culturally conditioned,and maybe we can also get free from that to some degree?
For example,electric guitar in the 1960's when feedback was seen as a problem to be eliminated until Jimi Hendrix turned it around and said 'sounds good to me' and the goal posts moved.
You know,I can play a sequence of notes of a modal scale which sounds pleasant in some way.And then add just a hint of another note,and it tips the balance in some very subtle mysterious way,so the whole section takes on a different feeling.I know players have used the effect for 2 or 3 thousand years,but does anybody really understand how or why this happens?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Thanks, everyone - I do like what's happened to this thread. And thanks especially to GaryAMartin and Dow for pinning down at least part of what it is that gives some tunes with key notes missing a major or minor key feel.
Upon reflection, I'm seeing that I've overgeneralized my mental classification of some tunes. Apparently O'Keefe's sounds as wrong in Ador to some people as it does in AMix to me. And, after a bit more noodling, I did excise my Cnat from that tune, because I like it better without. And I'd probably prefer C-less chords over dorian chords as backing to that slide. So maybe even to my ear, O'Keefe's is "more dorian than mixolydian", rather than unambiguously in dorian mode. A quantum tune of sorts, of which there are many.
I was also thinking back to my days, 10-20 years ago, as a lousy (classical) piano player with a knack for theory. I could always tell, instinctively, whether a piece was in a major or minor key. I could do this with pop music as well. When I started listening to Irish music a decade ago, though, I couldn't classify tunes as easily or as reliably. Part of this probably had to do with the fact that I had twice as many modes to choose from, but I wonder how many of the tunes whose taxonomy eluded me were modally ambiguous, too.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Ideally you'd classify it as some sort of "hexatonic" rather than as a mode. I don't know how you'd differentiate different types of hexatonic scale in the terminology without ambiguity and confusion, but really they deserve to be recognised as gapped, seeing as gapped tunes seem to behave differently in that they are usually more flexible when it comes to messing about with harmonic accompaniment, double stops and variations.
For example, if you add in the 3rd to the B-part, you don't have to choose one or the other - major or minor - you can have a bit of fun alternating like this:
d|^c2a a2b a2g e2d|=c2a a2b a2g e2d|
B2g gfe dBA G2A|BAB d2e B2A A2:|
You've just gotta hope that your backer is playing power chords and not ones with 3rds!
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Dr. Dow
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
(Re; Killarney Boys)
"As it happens, you can put a 6th in the melody, but it would tend to come out as a passing note, e.g the bars that go |BdAF FEE2| you can play as |(3B^cd AF FEE2|".
....I sometimes put in a 3rd as well (I don't know what the trad Police would think of it) in places, and it would invariably be a G natural, not a sharp. e.g. |EGFD EFGA| for the first bar. (I don't know what the trad Police would think of that. Please, sir! I didn't mean to do it, honest! It just came out like that.)
But is that just because I'm not used to hearing trad tunes resolving onto an E major chord?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Modal music is just perfect for diatonic instruments.
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
All the Fs should be F sharps, of course.
....(upside-down exclamation mark)Los Chicos Quilarneses de Placer!
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
well the mix is a major key.... The 3rd not being a major third. so perhaps you still can?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
"well the mix is a major key.... The 3rd not being a major third. so perhaps you still can?"
What do you mean, jig? Still can *what*?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
Sardines?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
sorry cross posted, by the time i replied to TDAM 7 other post had occurred!.... maybe i got distracted
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
My headache is getting worse
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by bazouki dave
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
chill dave, try meditation. aoummm.
I agree it is a complicated field, incredibly complicated actually! mind bogglingly complicated in fact... but interesting is it not?
# Posted on November 14th 2007 by piobagusfidil
Re: Missing notes, and not-so-ambiguous modes: a theory query
jig said it best, if it sounds good - regardless of the theory or science behind it - it's all good.
I listen to many, many styles of music and will say that all - even non- 12 tone scale and microtonal tunings - have unique and particular idiomatic expressions that actually define the character and depth of the music. Trad has its own vocabulary just as does jazz, blues and even 'electonica' (but I will say that I cannot call all that has been label as electronica to really be music, no more than would be the scratching of a needle on an old worn out 45!).
In playing a non-fretting string, the ability to adjust for differing modes is a matter of listening and reacting with the correct 'vocabulary' at the right time. To a fretted player it is still possible as some keys lend themselves to being a little more aggressive in pressing (or slightly bending) a note to pull it into the correct pitch to fit the just tuning of a given scale.
Further, in all live playing, the experience itself is the end result. The tune is just the vehicle to get us there. A well played and in tune instrument make the journey that much more pleasant, but the company we have in getting there makes all the difference.
LV
# Posted on November 18th 2007 by lvjmusic