I've found music theory alone can be dull and tedious. I sit there wondering how each fact applies to the music I play.
I personally like "Celtic Backup for all Instrumentalists" by Chris Smith. I don't play back up. I play the melody. But I go to this book when I feel like I should know more theory and I put it down when I've had enough. Chris explains the music theory as it relates to ITM to make his points for accompanists. The depth is more than enough for me.
In my experience, I have found music theory to be quite useful in my guitar playing. I have an understanding of I, IV, V, V7, and V/V chords so am able to figure out which chords to play. I kinda suck at guitar, so usually reduce the folk songs down to 3 or 4 chords. Knowing how to use those chords has been helpful.
As far as the use of theory in my ITM experience, not so much as I am a fiddle player, playing melody.
It's all in the attitude you take to it, or your preconceptions. If you've ever been made to feel stupid or have been belittled on some related subject you might even have a phobia about it.
You can take it in small pieces rather than all at once, which is good for folks with a short attention span. It is best learned from someone through sharing, with maybe a pint thrown in now and then... Surely SS you've got someone nearby you'd open your mind to ~ someone with a sense of humour and empathy? ~ and similar interests in music would help...
I find that any growth in understanding only deepens my passion. Knowledge doesn't lessen my love for the music or my appreciation of the magic of it. On the contrary, it just keeps growing...
No, ceolachan, around here I would be a music encyclopedia but thats only due to the lack of fellow musicians.
I have tried to read up on theory on the internet but find that after two or three lines I mysteriously find myself typing thesession.org into the address bar.
. Its a massive subject, so take it step at a time. think about what might apply to the sort of stuff you do, and concentrate on that first.
I would imagine scales and chord formations, reading and writing would be the first steps.
I found being able to read and write opened up a huge world of possibilities. I highly recomend it.
I can read and write music ok. What I know very little about is chord formations and names for scales.
Chord formations etc are not too important, I've been playing the guitar long enough now that I know enough chords.. I may not know the names but I dont need to know those.
I guess what I need to learn is how to figure out what key a piece of music is in. for example whaen people go on about a peice being E dorian or A mixolydian i get lost.
Wikipedia can tell you that. modes in music.
A mix means the same notes of the D major scale but based around A. ie chords ADG, A7
Its pretty straight forward really. With trad we generally use a limited no' of keys. I like that word actually;key. Its like the key to the door. very helpfull if you want to get in .
My own knowledge of music theory is thin, but it has been useful. I know that a mode is just the notes of a major scale, where you start and end on a different note than usual--dorian is the easiest, you just start on the second note, sounds minor-ish. But things like mixolydian, phrygian... duh, I dunno. I'm just a fiddler, as long as I can play the tune I'm happy.
But I do think that a piano keyboard can be helpful to learn chords. Makes it easier to see how it all works.
Do people actually go on about mixolydian or dorian at sessions, like they do on here?
I've never actually heard it in real life.
I think your ears will soon tell you if a piece is a pipe tune in A with a G natural, for example. That would be preferable than trying to understand someone shouting the name of the scale over pub din, and probably being wrong anyway. Some box players and fiddlers I know are notoriously bad at telling the right key - they just name the note it starts on or something.
I don't mean that it is bad to look at theory - quite the opposite. But I don't see how it will help your session playing in itself
I absolutely love music theory. I find that it's like reading the program of a play you love, or a review of a book you like. As in, it can't possibly match the real thing, but it gives you a wider understanding.
I second musictheory.net - or otherwise, get a teacher, they can tailor tutoring to what you want to learn and what you already know.
True enough Bren, I spent many yrs playing with little grasp of theory, but plenty of practice
However understanding some theory can be helpful in some situations. for example working out how to play a tune in a specific different key.
Can't comment specifically on the Music Theory for Dummies book, but I've found the "for Dummies" series (there are literally hundreds of widely varied topics ) to be excellent - its the first place I go if I'm looking for information on something.
I think c has it right. Probably the best way to learn is to have a knowledgeable friend who will answer your questions as they arise and maybe expand on it just a bit. Music theory lectures can be mind-numbing. There is so much jargon and arcane detail that it’s easy to get bogged down and discouraged. You don’t need to learn it all, just the parts you’re curious about. And don’t worry *too* much about proper terminology. Understand it in your own way.
It helps a lot of you play guitar or piano. If you pay attention to chords and how they’re used, a considerable amount of theory will gradually become apparent.
When I was in school, I had some music-major friends who were willing to answer my questions (and laugh at my made-up terminology). Since then, I’ve poked my nose into several theory books, but I learned a *lot* more from my friends.
I think the most important is knowing scale patterns, chords, and keys. For example, a major scale is 2 whole steps up from the root, then 1 half step, then 3 whole steps, then a final half.
Chords are always made up of the first note of the scale (Root note), the 3rd note, and the 5th note.
With keys you kinda have to remember them. A good mnemonic for remembering the order of sharps and flats is BEAD and GCF. Thats as in a beaded necklace and GCF as in the Greatest Common Factor in a math equation. When you read it forwards you can tell what flats are in a key. For example the key of F has one flat, so that is Bb. The key of Bb has two flats, Bb and Eb.
When you're looking at sharps you read it backwards. The key of E has 4 sharps, F#, C#, G# and D#.
The best way of learning is to take a class really. I found it tedious when I was learning in a class, so its that much harder to read it yourself.
Music theory is just that -- a theory. People will argue about it as though it were politics. All it's doing is taking what we already know and providing definitions -- making the intangible tangible. You know when music sounds right, but you might not know the mechanics for how it gets there. Music theory attempts to describe it definitively. But there are so many variables and perspectives that it still remains ambiguous.
To play ITM doesn't require music theory knowledge because we are relying on the sound itself to guide us. It can be a handy tool, but I think, to a certain degree, its usefulness is out of context with the spirit of ITM. You can understand what the Mixolydian and Dorian mode are supposed to be, but you'll also recognize them without needing any definitions to confirm it. Very often the tunes are drifting between modes and your ear will know when it's one way or the other without bothering to have to explain it or determine it on paper or in speech.
As was mentioned above, the people who can benefit the most are back-up players. As a tune player it might come in handy so you can communicate with back-up players, but the back-up players should be able to find there way around without assistance if they're going to attempt the task to begin with. Do they need to know music theory? No, but they need to have some sort of understanding whether it be academic or their own.
I agree with Phantom for the most part. I have found that understanding the theory behind the music greatly benefits the playing. While we don't need to know how it is made, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't. When I started to understand more about music I began to see tings in tunes that I didn't notice before, and now I can put more emphasis on this in my playing.
One of the reasons people do not
talk about music theory in a session has to do with how our brain works. When you play music you are in a certain state of mind. It is very easy to play a tune without knowing the name of the tune. Etc. & so forth. But even in that state of mind you use some such information. I play a tune by Vincent Broderick called 'The Coachman's Whip'
If you know the tune you understand the significance of the title.
Ha. That link, Music theory.net, just learnt Am scale on the mandolin in 25 seconds, and it even tell you what the notes are, I rely on doe,ray,me...
But then it gets confusing. A scale is a number of notes in an octave, but what's an octave. And bits about timing. Too complicated, all this 4/4 crap, just play what fits.
Now I am hooked. Take an octave mandola, tuned GDAE(EADG), which is an octave below a mandolin. Now, if I want to play "Fanny Power" in the key of G, can I just put my fingers in the same place as I would on a mandolin? Or do I have to play it on different strings, putting my fingers on different frets?
The above is a serious question and I would appreciate any help before lashing out £80 or $160 on a superior type octave mandola.
I sat in class as a music major every morning while our teacher would pound out chords on the piano and then turn to us and emphasize each word with a loud clap saying, "WHAT'S THAT CHORD... WHAT'S THAT CHORD?!!?" I get a headache just thinking about that.
This is just one small example of the torture I endured day after day (often after staying up all night) but now I know the key and mode of the tunes I'm playing and when they drift from one mode to another and back etc... but I never talk about it in a session. I rarely even talk about it in conversations with fellow musicians. People who didn't have my training play the same as I do or better -- so it doesn't matter at the end of the day. It only really comes in handy when I'm arranging medleys or suggesting chords. Other than that -- no big deal.
"Music theory is not "just a theory". It is a system of terminology and as such it is true by definition, like mathematics."
~~~
It's still a theory. 2 + 2 = 4 -- there's no question -- but music is less definitive and different answers to the same question can be argued. This is why it's called a "theory."
==It's still a theory. 2 + 2 = 4 -- there's no question -- but music is less definitive and different answers to the same question can be argued. This is why it's called a "theory."==
You keep on saying that word - it does not mean what you think it means...
Music theory does not make any moral judgements about music.
"The scale of E dorian contains the notes E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D" is a statement of music theory. There's only one answer to the question "what are the notes in the E dorian scale?", and music theory provides it.
"A reel in E dorian must place more emphasis on the D's than on the G's, or else it's not a real tune" is not. There may be many answers to the question "How should I play the twelfth bar of Pigeon on the Gate in order for it to sound the best?", and I'm sure that lives have been lost over this issue, but the answer does not lie in music theory, nor do any music theorists claim it does, inasmuch as the words "music theory" are generally understood to be used.
Tall, dark and mysterious all three of you are quite right!! There are certain things concerning music about which absolute certainty is possible.
Music theory is theory not because it’s a hypothesis or some such. It means it’s a study of the abstract principles underlying the music, as opposed to the technique of music or practice.
Reckon your right there BB. tuned CGDA [ADGC ] Handy enough for playing with a C whistle and low G, mind.
A friend of mine had one he put a capo on the second fret making DAEB.[BEAD] Ok for D and A tunes , but your have to relearn fingering for G tunes.
Octave mandola is yr best bet for ITM really.
'Music theory is theory not because it’s a hypothesis or some such. It means it’s a study of the abstract principles underlying the music, as opposed to the technique of music or practice.'
Agreed, neddiescotus.
If people who would like to learn more about music theory are not sure where to begin, they might find studying a bit of history of Western music more interesting.
It's fascinating to learn how simple melodies( eg. Gregorian chant) eventually were joined to other simple melodies (think barbershop quartet) to become the complex compositions of Bach, for example, and all the symphonic music which followed.
Learning how music developed over time allows you to understand how chords formed and how music came to be structured and tons of other useful and interesting facets of music.
Irish traditional music is part of this amazing progression and understanding only increases the pleasure as ceolachan mentioned above. The knowledge doesn't have to be trotted out anytime but when it's there it sheds such a light on things.
Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle - for Sharps
or
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father - for Flats
Neat sentence that reads both ways and tells you which notes are sharpened or flattened.
e.g. 4 sharps in the key signature; so FCGD are sharpened
5 flats so BEADG are flattened
It shouldn't be called "theory". It is very logical and I teach this stuff every day to 12 year olds. Anyone can learn it. You really need to approach it from the piano keyboard, so you can visualize how each note relates to the next one. There is a lot of gas on this site about modes, which only clouds the understanding;
If I were ever asked to rank-order the curriculum, it would go like this;
1) notes of the piano keyboard (white and black keys)
2) treble clef notation
3) intervals
4) basic major scales (half steps, whole steps); key signatures
5) chords; major and minor triads and their inversions
6) minor scales (natural, melodic, harmonic)
7) only then would I consider adding modes
I'd think of this like first-year Latin, where you get all the grammar out of the way so you can begin to read the good stuff.
...just my two cents.
Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. Amabo, amabis, amabit, amabimus, amabitis, amabunt. Imaco, imacis, imacit, imacimis, imacitis, I'm a **** ha ha, you knew that already. Scales, latin, tories, all the same, totally pointless.
Good God no, people dont go on about that stuff in any sessions I go to. I only get that theory stuff here.
If someone started on about theory at a session I would tell them that my ears are all the theory I need and then possibly start singing ... spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does.....
Well for trad Greg, we make no use of the Harmonic minor. but we use4 modes daily. so i would modify your list , for ITM and switch6 and7. Saying that I dont think it necessary to practice scales in modes. all the finger work is done through the major scale.
By the way, I have no Latin, but my girlfriend, a translator and Linguist says it is very helpfull in understanding the basis of European Romantic languages.... I take her word for it, I struggle with English she is fluent in5 languages.
If somebody shouted " G Phrygian" here I'd look to see who left the door open. Or shout "pint o Guinness" just in case they were offering to buy. Doesn't happen very often.
I've been in bands where I have to try and work out what key we're in by looking over the shoulder of a bouzouki player playing GDAD with a capo, without any foldback to hear myself. That fairly trains the mind
I've read many books on theory,and the only one that I found to be completely clear was a book called "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine.
There is a clear,though 85 page section on chord/scale theory,which is(at least the major scale harmony section)in my opinion essential knowledge for accompanists in Irish music.
I've heard a lot of gtr/bzki players,but very few recognize harmony in depth and at some point are lost for the correct chord(s).
Or also when melody players are required to improvise on a song or otherwise.
Same limitations.....
I'd agree pretty much with what Phantom has to say. Also tunes don't always stick to one mode.
All that been said I would say if these things don't come naturally to you, a little bit of theory might help....however knowing theory isn't in itself going to make you know all about trad sounds obvious I know but there are some....).
Also it's not that confusing, just made out to be by sone...ormaybe it's like anything else, it sounds complicated when you don't know it.
Here's some theory that might help:
The Meaning of Dorian, Mixolydian etc:
Take C Major as the starting point: C D E F G A B C
If you understand that A minor is the relative minor of C then you’re halfway there to understanding modes.
A minor uses the same notes but has a different starting point.
A minor then is: A B C D E F G A
In the same way D Dorian is the relative Dorian of C
D Dorian uses the same notes but has a different starting point
D Dorian then is: D E F G A B C D
In the same way G is the relative mixolydian of C
G Mix then is G A B C D E F G
So from C, the dorian mode starts from the second note, Mixoldyian the 5th note, minor from the sixth note.
The tonic is different and the intervals between notes has shifted giving the mode it’s
individual sound.
That’s one way of viewing it and of understanding it – using the “relative to” another mode scenario but different tonics.
What Chords are made up of:
Take again the C Scale, start with C and take every second note till you have three notes.
ie C E G (the first third and fifth of the scale)
this is C Major
Flatten the third and it become Cminor
Do the same starting with D (but still using notes from C Major scale) you get D F A - which makes aDminor chord
So if you were to continue for all the notes in the scale you'd get : Cmajor, DMinor, Eminor, FMajor, GMajor, AMinor, BDim
so all the relative modes would have the same chords as the modes are made up of the same notes.
So for example, D major, would have same chords as Bminor, A Mix and E Dorian.
Another would be to look at the intervals and compare to other modes but SAME tonic.
Lets take D Major.
D Major: D E F# G A B C# D
D Mix: D E F# G A B C D (Flattened seventh)
D Dorian: D E F G A B C D (Flattened third and seventh)
D Minor: D E F G A Bb C D (Flattened third, sixth and seventh)
Knowing some music theory can help you understand why what you are playing works. I know a lot of music theory. I certainly use it and it can help, say, when I'm working out vocal harmonies but it can also be restrictive in that I find it difficult to break the rules of classical harmony on paper (you know, no parallel fifths, etc). However when I use my ears it's a different story.
And I think that using your ears is what music is all about. I was always a bit suspicious of those John McLaughlin jazz books where it would say something like "solo using the A super locrian scale for the first eight bars then switch to the B minor pentatonic". I can't believe people actually follow that advice rather than using their ears. When I'm soloing (which, needless to say, I never do whilst playing trad toons) I play by ear and often have no idea what the notes I am playing are called let alone what scale I'm using.
well, i had six or seven years of classical piano as a kid, so when i began learning itm on box about six years ago, i was completely, let's say neurologically even, hard-wired to written music. i simply could not learn a tune by ear. so i took three semesters of ear training at night at colleges (solfege, do-re-me sight singing, hours in the listening lab with earphones, etc) in my city to start to melt the hard-wiring. and, because college music education is almost all classical-conservatory based, each semester of ear-training was inextricably tagged to a semester of music theory and vice versa: you were forced to take both or none. so with no desire to do so, i took theory through classical fugue. and while ear training has helped my itm adventure enormously, i wouldn't say theory was useful until pretty recently. that is because a) i only recently began incorporating basses into my accordion playing, and rudimentary theory helps with that a little, i guess like pb was saying for backup players; and b) after getting obsessed with concertina, i have found that having some awareness of intervals is kinda helpful in terms of figuring out what notes are comptabile candidates to be cuts or double stops. and i guess it's nice to know about modes. but that's really been it.
I can't agree with BegF about the modes. Gmix is *not* the 'relative' mixolydian of C. It doesn't relate to the classical scale of C major at all. It's just Gmix. It is, however, a convenient way of *thinking* about the modes to think of them as the patterns formed when you start on different degrees of the C major scale on a keyboard. The modes are still their own scales, and don't 'relate' to a major scale at all. In fact, if you look at the history, it's rather the other way round ...
It's also worth pointing out that it is rare that you will find a traditional tune that changes mode. Sometimes they are thought of that way, but, in fact, this is generally because notes - certain degrees of the mode, depending on the mode - are 'inflected' and therefore may be sharpened or flattened depending on the context. More modern, or composed tunes do sometimes change modes, but that's fashion for you, I suppose ...
Meanwhile, I think I detect a feeling amongst some on this thread that music theory is of no use when thinking about / talking about / practising ITM. The old masters of the tradition would have known the theory right enough. If you ever talked to people like John Kelly or Bobby Casey or some of the great players of today, they knew / know their stuff. I think they know / knew it because they are / were interested in their art. And if it's good enough for them ...
Hi Benhall.1,
To say that G Mix doesn't relate to G Mix is not true.
If A Aeolian (A Minor) is the relative minor of C Major (which it is) then it is not a stretch to say G mixolydian is the relative mixolydian of C major, in that the notes for C Major, A Aeolian and G Mixolydian are the same.
Llig - that thread that you posted is funny as it has conversations with people who are now deleted, it makes me look weirder than I am (slightly) - remember Jim Troy and Larsheen.
I don't *think* I said that "G Mix doesn't relate to G Mix". that would be mad. I said that Gmix is not the relative mixolydian of C major. This is true, because there is no such thing a a "relative mixolydian". Mixolydian is its own mode.
A aeolian *isn't* the relative minor of C major. A minor is the relative minor of C major. A aeolian and A minor are two different scales. The notes for A minor are *not* the same as the notes for C major. This is where a knowledge of theory is helpful, I suppose ...
Ye-s-s-s ... I didn't find the link to that old thread particularly helpful. All the deletions mean you can't get a sense of the discussion. Shame - Michael's original post on that thread was interesting.
In what, Dow? That A aeolian and A minor are the same? That A aeolian is the relative minor of C major? That the church modes are somehow related to the classical major scale (as opposed to the other way round)?
Anyway "To say that G Mix doesn't relate to G Mix is not true"
that was a typo on m behalf sorry.
I meant to say that G mix doesn't relate to C major is not true.
I don't go with the "That the church modes are somehow related to the classical major scale (as opposed to the other way round)?"
If x is related to y then surely y is related to x.
"The notes for A minor are *not* the same as the notes for C major." They are.
Er ... no, they're not. We're talking about theory here, so I suppose we might as well get it right. The notes for A minor include, for instance, and among others, the note G#, which definitely doesn't appear in C major. This, and several other factors, is one of the reasons why A minor is not the same as A aeolian, and why, therefore, A aeolian is definitely *not* the relative minor of C major.
Perhaps if I explain the sort of 'philosophy' (can't think of a less poncy word for it at the moment) behind what I'm saying:
To me, the modes are individual in their own right - they don't really relate to classical scales at all (and C major is a classical scale, in which, nevertheless, many fine tunes have been written.) Dorian can start on any note, of course, but the important thing is that it didn't develop the pattern of tones and semitones it has because it is somehow the mode that starts on the second degree of the classical major scale. It developed the pattern of tones and semitones it has many centuries before the classical major scale was invented. The classical major and minor scales developed out of modal music, not the other way round.
So, whilst is may be helpful simply in terms of being able to memorise the modes to think of them as 'the patterns you get when you start on successive degrees of the major scale', it could be misleading to think that that's what they actually are, because that could imply that that's how they came about. And they didn't.
btw, BegF, I do appreciate you saying I wasn't coming across as grumpy. I was to me, being somewhat crapulent this morning.
(apols - my ex-wife gave me Foyles Philavery [list of unusal words] for Christmas, and I've been lying in a half stupor, reading it. - nearest I can get to a smile)
Unfortunately, the length and complexity (and occasional contradiction and confusion) of the above discussion is a perfect exposition of why most trad musicians won't be eagerly embracing modal theory anytime soon
I was going to weigh in on the value of music theory. But, as, usual, the discussion has devolved right back to the 2nd century, B.C. Aeolian-Phygrian wars. Anyone who has been around for any amount of time know knows it's not safe to myxolidian at this point. Especially with minors nearby.
Re-reading it, I kind of agree, Bren. This discussion has become confusing and over-complicated. But, from where I start - and finish, for that matter - it's quite simple: each mode is its own unique thing. You learn them, you understand how each one works. That's it. I think it only gets complicated if you try to make them fit in with classical theory and relate them to major and minor scales.
Lets take D Major.
D Major: D E F# G A B C# D
D Mix: D E F# G A B C D (Flattened seventh)
D Dorian: D E F G A B C D (Flattened third and seventh)
D Minor: D E F G A Bb C D (Flattened third, sixth and seventh
so spoke beg f.
however the last one d minor,is normally called d aeolian,the term minor is best avoided,as in classical music there are two of them,harmonic and melodic,and they only add to the confusion.
minor chords can be used to harmonise some of these modes, so too can chords or dyads,using only the first and the fifth[power chords][
Er ...no, Dickens. The last one isn't D minor. It's D aeolian, which is different.
And there's only one D minor in classical music. I think you're getting confused with the different scale patterns which students are required to practise - harmonic and melodic minor scales - which is different matter altogether.
But minor is different. I'm sorry, but I think it was fair for me to assume that you meant the normal meaning of the word 'minor', which *is* different from aeolian. It's not pedantry. It's a bit like saying a horse is the same as a donkey. It wouldn't be pedantic to point out that it's not.
And I'm very aware that if someone shouts out 'D minor' in a session, it could be one of a number of different things, and that it doesn't really matter all that much in a practical context. But here we are in a theory thread, and I just think it's better to be right than wrong, because it's being wrong that causes confusion.
For guitarists, I think they would mostly think of E dorian as 'that E minor-ey thing that sometimes has some c#'s in' - E minor for short. I don't think it would be helpful for most of them to think of it in terms of D major.
From wikipedia (thought I'd never say that, so I do feel sheepish now):
"A minor (abbreviated Am) is a minor scale based on A, consisting of the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G♯. Its key signature has no flats or sharps (see below: Scales and keys).
Its relative key is C major, and its parallel major is A major."
Well actually I think it would be very helpful, for the very reason that some would make that mistake of thinking "E dorian might be thought of as the E minor-ey key."
Because if you take D major and view the chords available to you to harmonise (with all the usual caveats of accidentals, and actually knowing the tune before you back it etc etc) you'd get D, Em, F#m, G, A ,Bm, C#Dim
(ie the three chord trick D G A, all the rest are minor except last which is diminished)
Well if you say E Dorian is the relative dorian to D major, you've got all the chords immediately in your head, with a different tonic (again stressing all the caveats above)
This can be very helpful - it's not enough (as discussed in Llig's thread) but it is helpful - particularlly with the confusion some backers may when ruining a G Mixoldian tune with the usual G major chords for ex.
That Wiki quote: of course A minor is the relative minor of C major. A minor, not A aeolian. And, if something was properly in A minor, you should harmonise it very differently from the way you would if it was A aeolian. And, btw, A minor (the key, not necessarily the scale) absolutely has G#'s in. Look at the ultimate tonal composer, Bach, if you don't believe me.
The rest, what may or may not be helpful to guitarists, is a matter of opinion. But most of the time, yelling 'E minor' when in fact it is in E dorian, will, in my opinion, produce the best you're likely to get from most guitarists. If they get as far as you're suggesting, BegF, I think they've already sussed the modes anyhow and are *way* more intellectual than the majority of session musicians, let alone guitarists.
Well on the contrary...using the relative idea i outlined earlier makes it simple.....however bringing in back, classical terms and Church modes, one relative to the other but not vice versa I think confuses things .....anyway...I've enjoyed the discussion.
I'm off for now.
Aeolian and minor are only different in a chord structure sense. BegF, you're right, *natural* minor and aeolian have the same scale. However, in functional harmony (classical-music type harmony), minor pieces are never *harmonized* with only these notes. See, if you were to take the notes out of the natural minor scale:
A B C D E F G A
come up with a tonic chord ACE
and a secondary chord EGB
you would end up with a *minor* secondary chord, which just ain't right from functional harmony standards. It sounds right to Irish musicians, because it's modal, but it doesn't work with the standard voiceleading that was developed in the late Renaissance to end phrases (and was then adopted by "classical-type" composers, and eventually the Backstreet Boys). So, harmonists changed that secondary chord to: E G# B.
Now, if we look at the scale that is produced by those two chords (ACE EG#B), we get:
A B C D E F G# A
This is the "harmonic" minor scale, containing the minimum notes you need to have for harmony in the classical, functional harmony sense. However, there's one more problem with this - few melodies these folks designed wanted to accommodate the space between F-nat and G#. So they had to come up with one more bit of theory, the melodic minor scale, which looks like this ascending:
A B C D E F# G# A
and this descending:
A G F E D C B A
which is the same as aeolian, or natural minor.
This scale explained the system behind the tunes they heard, and the chords they wanted. So, in a real sense, that aeolian scale is quite different that the natural minor - because the chords that made up the tunes and harmony act very, very differently depending on whether you're in a modal system or a functional harmony system.
Ben writes: "And I'm very aware that if someone shouts out 'D minor' in a session, it could be one of a number of different things, and that it doesn't really matter all that much in a practical context."
~~~
Indeed... and this is where music theory collides with ITM. This is one reason I don't like shouting out keys at a session. For one thing, we're usually wrong in the true sense of what we shout out. If you hear "D minor" it usually means D Dorian 99.9% of the time. If the tune is actually in D minor it would call for a different dominant chord -- so it might be handy to know -- but how do you distinguish it from Dorian? If the tune is Mixolydian I'll say, "modal" that seems to ambiguously cover it, but try to shout D Mixolydian and see how easily that can be misconstrued. Try saying it while playing the flute.
Also, what about tunes that are in one key but start on the sub-dominant chord instead of the root chord? I’ve tried shouting, "G, but it starts on a C chord." And the response is usually, "WHAT?!!?" And how do you shout out that a tune is going to drift between modes? And what about the ones that switch modes between parts?
So I prefer to talk about the medley in advance, but most people are opposed to this approach and feel it takes away from the spontaneity -- even when they know in advance what tunes they're going to string together. I don’t know -- maybe it would be like discussing the details about sex in advance of doing it.
So your only hope is that the back-up person is familiar enough with the tunes to recognize them after hearing the first few notes the same way the melody players do and not require any explanation. The guitar player I usual work with does this and I'm confident that I can just shout the first chord if need be and he'll know it's that tune that's in G but starts on a C chord, or it’s the peculiar one that drifts between modes, or what mode the second part is in... or the third part... or how ever many parts etc., etc.
reenactor is it possible to play modal tunes without
chordal (or minimum) accompaniment?
Perhaps melody, modulation now & then ,possibly a drone, &
just a wee bit of harmony.
Just trying to see which theory would be 'common' in trad.
Greg the Piano Tuner recommends treating modes after "(4) basic major scales (half steps, whole steps); key signatures (5) chords; major and minor triads and their inversions (6) minor scales (natural, melodic, harmonic)."
This seems completely unnecessary, given that major and minor are just the two modes that have survived in modern European classical music. Where’s the complication about modes?
Modes are differentiated by where the half-tone occurs in the scale:
Dorian Semi-tones 2-3, 6-7 Natural minor scale with raised sixth degree
Phrygian Semi-tones 1-2, 5-6 Natural minor scale with lowered second degree
Lydian Semi-tones 4-5, 7-8 Major scale with raised fourth degree
Mixolydian Semi-tones 3-4, 6-7 Major scale with lowered seventh degree
Aeolian Semi-tones 2-3, 5-6 Same as natural minor scale
Ionian Semi-tones 3-4, 7-8 Same as major scale
Locrian Semi-tones 1-2, 4-5 Natural minor with a lowered second & fifth degree.
And if you play a melody instrument, you can leave the chords for the long winter evenings, when there’s nothing good on telly. You don’t really need that much by way of theory to play superbly well as far as I’m concerned. The best players I have known, my great uncles, could not read music. They had an intuition for nice modal shifts, natural scales, discordant elements, etc. What theory IS handy for (these days especially) is so you can avoid being deceived by the many people about these days talking nonsense about Irish and Scottish music. Some of these are referred to as ‘master musicians’, but they are doing a great disservice to the tradition by their little learning and much talking. It’s handy to be armed with some musical theory in order to avoid being led astray!
I should qualify my question.
I play melody (whistle & flute)
I do not play chords. & that is the reason
I ask. When I hear backing &/or harmony . . .
there are chords ~ & There are CHORDS
there is harmony ~ & There s HARMONY
How would it inform a guitarist's choice of chord?
Theoretically, they should play something like Em-D-Em-B7-Em The linked music is in the original key of (what I'd call, probably mistakenly) Em, not Am as it is usually played now.
But most just play a quick D instead of the B7,and it doesn't sound catastrophically wrong to me.
Neddie, I think its standard practice in the Classical world. My music teacher also had this approach. Its just a different approach . After all, the other modes are not used very much in 'classical music' are they?
Approaching music from the standpoint of a trad musician means we view '' music'' from our different perspective, modes are not advanced but basic. While the Harmonic minor is advanced....... I think
You could look at theory & learning on a gradient;
basic to advanced. If so I am learning in reverse.
The more I play sessions the more I want to not add too much.
All types of music have some way of making 'space'.
You can try & understand all the theory all the scales.
Knowledge is power.
Sometimes it just gets me to the point where I cannot play the pentatonic. Yeah, I keep bringing it up. But with some trad tunes that is what I hear ~ sometimes less is more.
& then there are the exceptions . . .
Putting all this theory into practice (though I did this before I knew the theory), I like to play sets that have the same notes in the tunes, but not the same centres.
There is something I find particularly attractive about a bit set of reels - five or ten or so - that use only the notes D, E, F#, G, A, B, and Cnat. Just stick to these notes, avoid the temptation to move to using C#s or G#s or Fnats. There are thousands of tunes that just use these notes, Mix 'em up, move the tonal centres around, but not the scale. It's great.
jig
,try art okeefees polka, a tune that only uses five notes[penta]
the pentatonic scale,is very useful,no 1,2,3,5,6.of the major scale, the notes of the major chord1,3,5.,notes 2 and 6,are useful notes ,for guitarists for bass runs.
Or alternatively,they can be used as extra flavouring for an ordinary chord, they then become added sixth or ninth chords[the second taken up an octave [eight notes] becomes the ninth]
the pentatonic major scale is also a useful starting point for improvisation,and is used a lot in white American traditional music[bob wills etc] and country music,and very early jazz,
the pentatonic minor can be used to improvise around minor chords.
99 percent of the time the pentatonic scales major or minor will sound harmonically, ok against a major or minor chord
Move the tonal center!
That's great Michael.
Patsy Touhey could do that.
Jig, it's not so much that ITM tunes "are"
pentatonic (or hexatonic).
It's just that sometimes you can drop the VII for a nice effect
(hexatonic) & sometimes you can drop the IV (pentatonic)
Sometimes I hear those spaces while everyone else hears
a solid stream of notes.
Ok, but in all that I still cant feel it. Sure I use the +9 +13, etc but music.?.......... I can improvise freely in phrygian, dorian mix etc but the pentatonic.... nah not really, just repeat a few licks and riffs I would have learnt. To the casual observer it might appear like i am improvising but really its just play by numbers. Lord I have tried, 30 yrs but my mind dont think like that, gotta be realistic, accept our limitations while stretching the boundaries. Had a few jazz lessons too,. but its not my scene.
I have enjoyed reading this, bar posts that my computer has scrambled up, which it does on long threads.
I take much pleasure in music theory, though I haven't pursued it very far. I find the modes no trouble to understand - but I'd be lost in a guitarniks' confab, as I've only got to melodeon basses when it comes to chordal / backing stuff. Working out strings backing to ITM must be (for those especially ambitious for it) particularly interesting and problematic and demanding of a knowledge of musical first principles.
As a lad, I wished I could play an instrument (should have started to then, of course!), and found explanations of music theory at any level as incomprehensible as I'd find Stephen Hawking - or found school mathematics. I looked wistfully and enviously at the musical terrain, thinking I'd never enter it. And now I'm inside, at any rate in one of its corners, and I like to increase my understanding of the adjoining territory and also - very non-PC word - my control over what I understand. Hence my liking for music theory. And being more a visual, pattern-spotting person than an aural and/or mental-arithmetical one, I understand it most readily in written form.
My next challenge is, or ought to be, to learn some basic harmony; my attempts to improvise variations on session standards in full cry sound (on whistle) like budgies being strangled, and doing it well is obviously not a piece of cake. I've got the book...
When I first met the guitar p[layer I've been working with he was just coming from a jazz background. It was interesting to hear his initial interpretations of the tonal landscape for the tunes. He seemed to come at each one from a side door. Even though it wasn't at all "correct" it was very interesting.
He was hoping to become a substitute for the guitar player we were using at the time so he wanted me to guide him in that direction. But I kind of regret that we couldn't have followed the tunes down his path for a while. The effect he had on the tonal landscape destroyed all my medley concepts, and I would have had to put them together entirely differently in the context of how he was hearing it. That would have been an interesting project. It's too late for that because now he's firmly locked into a more traditional style and his tonal base matches what everyone else hears. Oh well...
TheMuse said something above which I interepreted (probably wrongly) as implying there aren't too many properly pentatonic Irish tunes. For a laugh, check out this old thread where Dow gives me a good drubbing over saying outright that I didn't think there were too many pentatonic tunes. I thought it was one of his finer moments:
1) Modal theory is not separate from classical theory. Classical theorists are just as capable of talking about modes as their "major" and "minor". Their terminology is consistent regardless of the genre of music they're talking about. You've just got to be careful to interpret them the right way, and read "the whole" of what they write, not just pick and choose parts of it, otherwise you'll misunderstand the theory.
2) "Gmix is *not* the 'relative' mixolydian of C"
Yes it is. It's just that you obviously haven't done your reading on "relative and parallel modes". Do a Google search for "relative modes" for a start, and learn about them. What you've said shows that you have quite a limited knowledge of scales. It's like someone from a country where the only cars are Fords, and who has only ever seen cars that are Fords. That someone goes abroad and sees a BMW. Someone else asks him "what's that?" Of course he says "it's a Ford", because that's all he knows. Someone else tries to argue with him, but he *knows* it's a Ford, because all the cars in his own country are Fords, so it must be the same here, right? Eventually, the people around him will give up trying to argue with him, because he's convinced himself that all the cars he sees are Fords, and nobody can convince him otherwise. As in your statement 'there is no such thing a a "relative mixolydian"'. No such thing in your limited experience, perhaps. If BegF tells you there is such a thing, your best course of action is to look it up for yourself and learn about it so that you don't have to argue blind.
3) "It doesn't relate to the classical scale of C major at all. It's just Gmix. It is, however, a convenient way of *thinking* about the modes to think of them as the patterns formed when you start on different degrees of the C major scale on a keyboard. The modes are still their own scales, and don't 'relate' to a major scale at all."
It's not just a convenient way of thinking about it - it's a very real and important relationship. We are talking about the "modes of the major scale" here. You probably don't know this, but there are other types of mode. There are "modes of the harmonic minor scale" for instance. All those modes (unsurprisingly) relate to the harmonic minor scale. There are also altered modes. Don't worry about them - just know that there's a bigger picture. The relationship between the modes of the major scale is really important for a backer. Even if the backer can't tell you the terminology, and doesn't think of him/herself as "knowing the theory", they will still know their stuff, and they'll be able to "see" the relationships between keys in their mind's eye (if they're a decent backer of course). For example, a decent backer will know that if the 6 main chords used in the key of G major are G, Am, Bm, C, D and Em, they'll also know that they can use that exact same set of chords for tunes in A dorian, D mixolydian and E aeolian, just with some role-swapping for each chord in the set. This is because of the relationship between these "relative modes" of G major.
4) "A aeolian *isn't* the relative minor of C major".
Yes it is. This statement shows your lack of understanding of what "major" means in this case. "Major" (like "minor") can refer to a number of different things, but conventionally, it refers to the scale of C ionian, which itself is a mode. A aeolian is the relative minor of C ionian, because conventionally (especially when talking about relative scales) the "minor" refers to "natural minor", not the "harmonic minor". It's this relationship that people are referring to when they say "A minor is the relative minor of C major", whether they be classical theorists, jazz theorists or whatever, it makes no difference. To misunderstand this means misunderstanding the whole concept of relative scales.
5) "A aeolian and A minor are two different scales. The notes for A minor are *not* the same as the notes for C major. This is where a knowledge of theory is helpful, I suppose ..."
You're damn right a knowledge of theory is helpful. You need to read up on the meaning of the terms "major" and "minor". There are many different types of major, and many different types of minor. The lydian scale, for example, is a type of major scale. There's also a scale called the "harmonic major", just like there's also a "harmonic minor". Google it to find out about it. The dorian scale is aslo a type of minor scale.
The problem is that "major" and "minor" have become shorthand for certain very common scales in classical music. This is a bit like the case of the tomato, which is really a fruit, but nobody ever actually refers to it as such, because its qualities are not what one usually associates with "fruits". In the most limited type of classical theory education, you learn simply that "harmonic minor = minor". Then you learn that your "A minor scale" is A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A, to be contrasted with your A major scale A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A. This is the kind of simplified theory that music teachers teach to kids at primary school level. Unfortunately, it doesn't show you the bigger picture in terms of what other minor scales are available, and why they exist as they do. In reality, the other two classical scales common in classical music are the "melodic minor" and the "natural minor" (or aeolian mode - same thing). These are A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A and A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A respectively. The natural minor is called that because it is considered (by classical musicians also!) to be the "true" minor, since it is the relative minor of the major scale (Cmaj in this case). Bit of a history lesson here: despite the fact that it was considered by early classical musicians to be "true" or "pure" (and by "classical" here I mean with a small "c", since this stuff predates the Classical period), they also considered melodies created with this natural minor (aeolian) scale to be ugly and unfinished-sounding. Or more specifically, they considered the harmonies you'd use to harmonise the natural minor scale to be ugly and unfinished-sounding. It was considered that a Vm-I cadence was not strong enough to end a piece or phrase, that's a minor chord on the V, to root I, since if you added a 7th you ended up with a minor 7th chord on the V, which they thought was horrible (a few centuries later, it would be considered to be beautiful and desirable). So what they did was, they made that V chord major, giving you (in A minor again) an E(7) to Am cadence. This, they thought, sounded nice, but what had happenend to the scale for the melody now? It had become A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A. Now they were in difficulties, because this scale just sounded disgusting to them. What they wanted was aesthetically pleasing art music for the upper classes, and this scale reminded them of the kind of sound used by gypsies and their folk music. This was unthinkable for them. What should they do?! They loved that V7-I cadence but they hated the scale. They would have to come up with scales that would fit over the top of their harmonies, but sound nice and elegant as melodies. So they came up with a compromise. They altered that scale slightly and raised the 6th degree, giving them A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A. This sounded great over their harmonies, and didn't sound too gypsified. This is how the "harmonic minor" and "melodic minor" scales were born, and why they differ from the "natural minor" - the aeolian mode. Unfortunately their problems didn't end there. When they tried to write melodies using the melodic minor scale, it sounded great some of the time, and crap some of the time. It always seemed to sound good when going up the scale, because it sounded like it was anticipating that V-I cadence. The problem came on the way back down the scale. It just didn't sound "minor" enough!! It sounded too major. For passages of pieces that went back down the scale, they found that it sounded okay to use the natural minor scale. This is why if you ever had music lessons on a classical instrument, you might have been taught that "A melodic minor" was A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A on the way up, and A-G-F-E-D-C-B-A on the way back down. That's only part of the story, really. The melodic minor is really only the ascending bit, and the descending bit was the natural minor. If you analyse melodies from early classical pieces that were in a *minor* key, they almost always use the scales in this way: melodic minor for ascending passages, natural minor for descending passages, and the harmonic minor was mostly just a theoretical scale that resulted from melodicizing the harmonies they used for minor pieces.
So, end of classical theory lesson. The upshot of it all is that the particular minor scale that you have been conditioned to think of as "*the* minor scale", Ben, is your harmonic minor. You see now that this is a somewhat articificial scale which was really only ever intended (by Bach and others) as a theoretical construct to go part of the way towards "ridding" classical music of what was considered to be "dirty-sounding" harmony. The subtonic to tonic cadence (bVII-I) that sounds cool to our (trad) ears sounded awful to classical musicians of that era, and to some extent that way of thinking has continued in some musically conservative circles.
So, put simply, to say that *your* minor (A harmonic minor) is the relative minor of C major isn't just oversimplified, it's plainly incorrect. And to say that "A aeolian and A minor are two different scales" just doesn't make any sense, because it depends on what you mean by "minor". If you mean "natural minor" then yes, that's the same scale as A aeolian. It would make more sense to follow convention as BegF has done and use "minor" as a default term for "natural minor". Then if you need to specify other types of minor scale you can qualify it by using "harmonic..." "melodic..." "dorian" or whatever you want. Classical theorists would agree with this. Like I said, the only people who would use "minor" as a shorthand for "harmonic minor" are music teachers of young children trying to get the kids to practise scales.
6) "We're talking about theory here, so I suppose we might as well get it right."
Very good. Quite bombastic. But still wrong - at least as far as interpreting what I said goes. I'm in work now, so no time. But the gist is that I wasn't talking about scales when I referred to the very real difference between A aeolian and A minor - I was talking about, on the one hand, the *key* of A minor and, on the other, the *mode* of A aeolian.
*Slightly* unfair of you to talk about my "lack of understanding" and "limited knowledge of scales". I know all the stuff you've set out above. I just have a different take on it.
Keys are based on scales and harmony. In classical terms, the "key" of A minor was a compromise. The key signature had to follow the pattern of the "true" minor - the natural minor. That's why the key sig for A minor would be no sharps or flats, just as in Cmajor. The sharps were accounted for by accidentals. Ben, very little of your "take" on things has anything to do with trad music and everything to do with the Baroque and Classical periods. What you're spouting only has relevance for classical (art) music composed between about the late 17th and early 19th centuries, plus of course later music influenced by the conventions set by that period. What the likes of BegF has been saying has everything to do with trad music.
And in doing so, you've not realised that the systems of both classical music (of said era) and trad music are explained using uniform terminology from one overarching theory of music.
Yes I see the humour Llig (I think) – it sounds like I was saying “it’s only complicated if you do it right”,
But too many people shy away from theory on the basis that’s it’s too complicated (and it’s not as if theory is something that occupies my mind day to day).
But what you need (or rather what might be helpful to those that need it – speaking from my own experience) for this type of music is a limited amount of theory – if people start arguing over whether A minor is not A Aeolian or confusing matters by bringing in the history of it ( it doesn’t matter whether classical scale derived from modes or not)
You’re example of changing the tonal centres is a good one - there’s not too much theory to understand there if it’s kept simple but someone reading the thread, who otherwise would find all this stuff helpful, might be put off bothering when reading all this stuff about harmonic minors, melodic minor changing notes depending on whether it ascending or descending etc etc.
Rather tell someone that the notes of E Dorian are the same as D Major , it’s relative to it in the same way as
B minor is relative to it. It’s a concept they’d be already familiar with.
Simple, as long as someone doesn’t start saying – ah no, the “harmonic” minor has an A# so it’s not the same blah blah blah.
The Phantom says that the average guitarist would have to be a genius to be at that level. No they wouldn’t.
It’s not rocket salad. (that one I meant, but not as funny, I’m funnier in real life – also you laugh like a girl !).
No, because if I was a lawyer I'd have been careful to say "overarching theory of Western music" in case anyone tried to sue me for implying that that theory could ever come close to explaining the complexities and subtleties of the music of somewhere like India or the Middle East.
Pedantry? I'll give you pedantry! I'll give you pedantry with a good solid dose of condescension, sneering bombasticness (bombasticity??) and made up words like "melodicization"!
If "bombast" refers to what the content of the actual speech or writing is, then wouldn't "bombasticness" refer to a person's state of "being bombastic" or the speech/writing's state of "being bombastic"?
Re: same info, different conclusion, what about the bit where you said "there is no such thing a a "relative mixolydian" and I said "there is"? That's not the same info!
You wouldn't even make a very good politician, Ben. I mean, if George Bush used your debating tactics, he wouldn't even have bothered trying to defend the war in Iraq, he'd simply have denied its very existence. Being a politician would be easy!
Q: "President Bush, could you tell us why our troops are still in Iraq?"
A: "They aren't in Iraq. In fact, this country doesn't have an army, so your question is void. Next!" LOL
Sorry, I'm being deliberately irritating as usual...
Portmanteau. I was trying to remember what you called that. So I've finally come up with a good made-up word of my own that gets no Google hits. I hereby announce the birth of the word "bombastardize", coined by me. I define it as meaning "to take a passage of speech or text and corrupt it by rewording it in a bombastic way".
I was going to give up, but I think I've found something interesting. I did what you suggested, Dow, and Googled 'relative modes'. And I think I've got where you're coming from. Those sites were all coming from the standpoint of someone understanding modes for the purposes of chordal backing. Like a guitar, for instance. And seeing them as somehow 'relative' to the major scale could be useful, I see now, for that. Not real theory, but practical, for some people.
But it still ignores the fact that the modes that ITM - and a lot of other trad - is based on, came *before* the more modern concept of the major scale. A long time before. Understanding them as 'relative' to the major scale doesn't help me at all. I prefer to understand them as they are, individually.
Yes, jig has it. The idea of the major scale is hardly a modern concept, it being the ionian mode. It just so happened that from a certain point in history, it was called the "major scale" since none of the other types of major scale (like the lydian for example) were commonly used, given that they were thought to be ugly or unfinished-sounding.
The concept of relative modes isn't a new one either. The whole *point* of modes was that they were relative to each other, and not separate, unrelated entities. This has implications for melody-making and improvising using modes as well as harmony-making. Just think about the effect of that shift between E dorian and D major (ionian!) when going into the B-part of Drowsy Maggie. It's a smooth, natural-sounding shift both melodically and harmonically precisely because it's not a key change as such, it's a modal shift with no key change.
As for the implications for chordal backing on guitar - well, that might well be a more modern thing, but you certainly can't say it's "not real theory". It's real alright, and very nifty at that. There's all sorts of amazing stuff you can do just playing around with relative and parallel modes when backing trad. Even if you don't know what the terms mean, it's possible to "know" the theory by knowing the music inside out. A lot of the chord sequences backers come up with on the recordings you hear are basically the result of messing around with relative and parallel modes. The fact that classical theorists and classical musicians never quite understood it is probably because they never had cause to use it. So to many classical musicians, it probably wouldn't be "real theory". That's the Ford and the BMW again, of course. You've just got to nod and smile politely...
(Just to clarify, when I said "Modal theory is not separate from classical theory" I meant that the classical theory does cover it and provides terminology for it, but classical theorists don't tend to talk about it much and many classical musicians don't really understand the theory simply because they've never needed to use it.)
When I studied music, which admittedly was a long time ago, we were taught that the Ionian and Aeolian modes were somewhat to be distrusted, because they were relatively (probably ought to emphasise that *realtively*) modern concepts. This is why:
The Ionian mode, at least as far as the medieval modes we're talking about goes, was invented in the 16th century *in order* to impose some 'over-arching theory' on what, until then, had been a quite simple system.
I haven't looked up Aeolian to remind myself yet, so I might be entirely wrong about that one ...
Yeah, the 16th century is *so* modern, Ben... Not sure about Wikipedia's claims here. Have a look at this source http://www.greenwych.ca/evidence.htm. I don't think anyone really knows for sure. Anyway, regardless of any of this, all the modes were established well before even Bach was born. Hardly a "modern" invention, whichever way you look at it. I reckon you're clutching at straws here!
"the Ionian and Aeolian modes were somewhat to be distrusted, because they were relatively (probably ought to emphasise that *realtively*) modern concepts"
"The Ionian mode, at least as far as the medieval modes we're talking about goes, was invented in the 16th century *in order* to impose some 'over-arching theory' on what, until then, had been a quite simple system."
This is simply incorrect! Even the articles you cite don't say that these modes were invented in the 16th century!
This is where confusion between Greek modes and churh modes comes in. Greek modes were, as far as we know, completely different from the later, medieval, church modes, which are the basis for the so-called 'folk modes' now.
The confusion between the old Greek modes and the ecclesiastical modes (our dorian, mixolydian etc) was brought about by a learned 16th c Swiss theoretician, Glarean, in his "Dodecachordon" (Basle 1547), in which he attempted to put some order into the theory of modes. He distinguished twelve of them, and assigned them Greek names, which were, however, incorrectly transferred. His nomenclature for ecclesiastical modes has been generally followed ever since - ever since his pile of parchment presumably fell off his desk and didn't get sorted out properly.
Exactly, Trevor. With the added complication - unavoidable, I'm afraid, simply 'cos that's what happened - that he *added* some modes to the pre-existing ones, notably his version of Ionian and Aeolian and their plagal counterparts. (It's how he got from the pre-existing 8 church modes to his 12, as in 'Dodecachordon'.)
We're talking theory here, BegF. I really don't think this stuff's pedantic. It's just the way it is.
This is probably the only pace in the trad world you can discuss music theory. Everytime I bring up the subject in session the drummer drowns me out. I think he misses that music theory applies to rhythm as well.
To quote both Wikipedia articles:
"It seems that the additional modes were used in popular folk music, but were not part of the official church repertory."
Therefore, it is false that "Ionian mode... was invented in the 16th century *in order* to impose some 'over-arching theory'..."!!
I definitely *didn't* say that. Of *course* Bm is the relative minor of D major. I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. To say "Bm is not the relative minor of D major" wouldn't be pedantic - it would be just plain wrong.
OK, neddiescotus, accepting that there may or may not have been something like the mode that Glarean named "Ionian" at that time, it's still the case that it's not the same as the major scale. Again, quoting the same article, although I have to say, the article only skates the surface, really:
"However, it would not be correct to refer to any piece in a now-traditional major key as being in the Ionian mode, which would imply that the style of the piece was modal, which is usually not the case with music in a major key as understood today."
And, btw, I think the author *isn't* using the term 'traditional' here to mean what *we* might take it to mean. (Although it would, of course, help my argument if he was. )
No Ben but you did say...
"A aeolian *isn't* the relative minor of C major. A minor is the relative minor of C major. A aeolian and A minor are two different scales"
As the Aeolian mode forms the natural Minor scale it is pedantic to pick someone when they say that A Aeolian and Aminor are the same.
or that "GMix..It doesn't relate to the classical scale of C major at all. It's just Gmix" when actually it does relate to it in a very real way (as opposed to historically) in that they both contain the same notes.
I'm going to have to disagree, then. 'Cos I don't think it's pedantic to say that A aeolian and A minor are different. In music theory they are, at least, but also in a very real way, in the implied harmonies and in the pattern of the notes which make up melodies in, respectively, A minor and A aeolian. Hence that quote from wiki:
"However, it would not be correct to refer to any piece in a now-traditional minor key as being in the Aeolian mode, which would imply that the style of the piece was modal, which is usually not the case with music in a minor key as understood today."
That quote is totally intelligible, but *only* if you accept that the Aeolian mode is *not* the same as the normal useage of the term "minor key".
Things are *so* much easier if one just accepts that trad music, generally, is in four modes plus the major and minor keys. Oh, and by the way, it's even simpler when you realise that, of those four modes, only two are generally used in trad music from the UK and Ireland. Then we have to mention pentatonic, but that leaves us with something really quite simple:
Dorian
Mixolydian
Major key
Minor key (less common than others)
Pentatonic
Interestingly, it doesn't seem to me to be that common to have a properly modal tune in Aeolian - normally, if it's going to do that sort of thing, it'll often be in a minor key.
If you do not know a pedantist you probably are one.
The keys &/or modes imply 7 notes (plus the octave)
Pentatonic refers to 5 notes (in various modes)
There is also hexatonic using 6 notes . . .
There seems to be an arguement whether apple trees and orange trees should have the same rules.
Trad music follows a set of theoretical rules which are valid for that genre. Some of the rules overlap into other genres, others don't.
"art" music developed its own unique set of rules which it has tried to foist on other genres.
What rules do Bulgarian tunes follow with intervals of 3 semi-tones?
How about Indian or Chinese music?
Even the modern scale has been foisted on us. 12 note equal temperament is a modern invention introduced by "art" musicians so they could write music that changed key and it would all sound relatively in tune.
See, everyone, you can tell him it's a BMW time and time again, and he'll always say it's a Ford. There's absolutely nothing you can do to convince him! Scary or what...
"Interestingly, it doesn't seem to me to be that common to have a properly modal tune in Aeolian - normally, if it's going to do that sort of thing, it'll often be in a minor key."
Well, *that's* not terribly helpful, Dow. I've at least tried to point out where I'm coming from. And I have tried to see - and therefore have figured out, I think - where you're coming from. I've not once - and won't now - said that you were full of rubbish, or indeed accused you of any other unfortunate personal charateristic.
So, is this rubbish?
"Much of the character of old Irish melodies is derived from the scales on which they are founded. We may distinguish at least five such scales. They are constructed by taking each of the notes do, re, mi, soh and la as tonics or fundamentals, and building on them a scale without the use of accidentals. Thus we have a tone, and not, as in modern music, a semi-tone at the top of four of these scales - the scales of re, mi, soh and la. Errors in notation have frequently been made by collectors through ignorance of this fact. They have written the airs as if they were constructed on the modern major or minor scales, not understanding that Irish melodies have a scale system all their own. Another fact to be noted is that we have three minor scales in old Irish music - the scale of re, the scale of mi, and the scale of la. It must not be supposed that the airs constructed on theses scales have always that plaintive character which we now-a-days associate with the minor scale. Many of our liveliest dance tunes are written in the minor modes."
Cathaoir O'Braonain, 1909 in the foreword to the Roche Collection.
Now, actually, I think there is some confusion in the passage written above. Even so, a clear distinction is made between the minor modes and the minor scale (I personally would rather use the term 'the minor key' because, in this context, that's a technical term and therefore *should* be less ambiguous). To me, this is simple stuff - it's because they *are* different.
But there does seem to be a sense of “if it came from a book it’s true”
About all this - rather than just say yes – G Mix does relate to C Major (same notes).
And why I think it’s “complicated when we get pedantic” is that
earlier on this thread that kind of information would have been helpful to some to take the mystery out of the thing…….but now all that’s left interested is us geeks.
Pity.
Ben, you asked "so is this rubbish?" and then quoted that passage from the Roche Collection. My answer is yes, it is rubbish. It says "modern major scale". Like I said earlier, the major scale is not modern by any stretch of the imagination. Next!
Yes, BegF - it possibly is a shame. But I'm wondering if it's inevitable where there are two points of view. It doesn't mean that one of them is less valid, or that the putting forward of either of them is somehow to blame for putting other people off.
And Dow, again, admittedly from some time ago, but when I studied music, the term 'modern' did tend to mean something much older than I think you're meaning by modern, and, in those terms, and in the opinion of O'Braonain, the use as we have it today of the major and minor scales would have been classed as 'modern', and not coming from quite the same cultural eddy (backwater? ... can't think of a word that isn't poncey but I'm hoping you'll see what I mean) as Irish traditional music (and I would add the same for trad from other parts of the UK and Ireland).
Dude, the major scale has been around at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks, and if the article I posted a link to earlier is to be believed, it may well have been around for even longer than that - over 3400 years ago. Is that really what you consider to be "modern"? You really haven't made much sense on this thread anyway, but this just takes the biscuit - I mean, c'mon! WTF?!
The article you referred to is in support of one person's own theory which, in his own admisssion, flies in the face of most experts. I presume this is also where you got the idea that the major scale was used by the Ancient Greeks. Actually, this is not universally accepted, and it is fairly widely thought that the use they would have made of it would likely *not* have equated to the use of the scale in a 'modern' major key.
So, I would have thought your point is a red herring.
It doesn't matter how they used it! It's used differently in trad to how it's used in classical music. Doesn't make it a different scale! The point is that it existed back then. So therefore your point is absolutely invalid, and I dismiss it with a theatrical roll of the eyes and a contemptuous wave of the hand.
And no, that article isn't where I got the idea that the major scale was used by the Ancient Greeks. That's a well known fact. It's part of my general knowledge. I don't know whether the stuff in that article is true or not, but it's certainly interesting. Either way, we know that the Ancient Greeks had the major scale. If you want to call the Ancient Greeks "modern", then that's cool... I guess it's all relative... I mean yeah, I'd have to admit that they're more modern than the Bronze Age, or the age of the Dinosaurs or whatever..
music theory
music theory
I was reading deaths post there (funny one) and I just realised... I know diddly squat about music theory.
Now, I personally dont need to know any music theory, but i feel a little stooopid at times.
So, to avoid too much discussion going over my head, where is the best place to start? Is there a 'music theory for dummies' book?
Please bear in mind that I have the attention span of a........... where did i put my phone?....
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by session savage
Re: music theory
http://musictheory.net/ - not a bad place to start.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by reenactor
Re: music theory
I've found music theory alone can be dull and tedious. I sit there wondering how each fact applies to the music I play.
I personally like "Celtic Backup for all Instrumentalists" by Chris Smith. I don't play back up. I play the melody. But I go to this book when I feel like I should know more theory and I put it down when I've had enough. Chris explains the music theory as it relates to ITM to make his points for accompanists. The depth is more than enough for me.
http://larkinam.com/product.asp?pn=BOA931&bhcd2=1201271218
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by abuteague
Re: music theory
In my experience, I have found music theory to be quite useful in my guitar playing. I have an understanding of I, IV, V, V7, and V/V chords so am able to figure out which chords to play. I kinda suck at guitar, so usually reduce the folk songs down to 3 or 4 chords. Knowing how to use those chords has been helpful.
As far as the use of theory in my ITM experience, not so much as I am a fiddle player, playing melody.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by wyogal
Re: music theory
It's all in the attitude you take to it, or your preconceptions. If you've ever been made to feel stupid or have been belittled on some related subject you might even have a phobia about it.
You can take it in small pieces rather than all at once, which is good for folks with a short attention span. It is best learned from someone through sharing, with maybe a pint thrown in now and then...
Surely SS you've got someone nearby you'd open your mind to ~ someone with a sense of humour and empathy? ~ and similar interests in music would help...
Good luck! ~
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: music theory
I find that any growth in understanding only deepens my passion. Knowledge doesn't lessen my love for the music or my appreciation of the magic of it. On the contrary, it just keeps growing...
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: music theory
I enjoy reading that tedious music theory stuff......guess it's a Capricorn thing.
Mary
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by Antikhntr
Re: music theory
Thanks for the suggestions guys.
No, ceolachan, around here I would be a music encyclopedia but thats only due to the lack of fellow musicians.
I have tried to read up on theory on the internet but find that after two or three lines I mysteriously find myself typing thesession.org into the address bar.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by session savage
Re: music theory
. Its a massive subject, so take it step at a time. think about what might apply to the sort of stuff you do, and concentrate on that first.
I would imagine scales and chord formations, reading and writing would be the first steps.
I found being able to read and write opened up a huge world of possibilities. I highly recomend it.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
I find playing the Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer to be a good way to learn a little music theory.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by sbhikes
Re: music theory
So SS which aspects interest you?
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
that music thoery web site look great reenactor.
Even my child like attention span can handle each small lesson... cheers bud
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by session savage
Re: music theory
Hi Jig,
I can read and write music ok. What I know very little about is chord formations and names for scales.
Chord formations etc are not too important, I've been playing the guitar long enough now that I know enough chords.. I may not know the names but I dont need to know those.
I guess what I need to learn is how to figure out what key a piece of music is in. for example whaen people go on about a peice being E dorian or A mixolydian i get lost.
that kind of stuff.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by session savage
Re: music theory
Wikipedia can tell you that. modes in music.
A mix means the same notes of the D major scale but based around A. ie chords ADG, A7
Its pretty straight forward really. With trad we generally use a limited no' of keys. I like that word actually;key. Its like the key to the door. very helpfull if you want to get in .
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
My own knowledge of music theory is thin, but it has been useful. I know that a mode is just the notes of a major scale, where you start and end on a different note than usual--dorian is the easiest, you just start on the second note, sounds minor-ish. But things like mixolydian, phrygian... duh, I dunno. I'm just a fiddler, as long as I can play the tune I'm happy.
But I do think that a piano keyboard can be helpful to learn chords. Makes it easier to see how it all works.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by mickray
Re: music theory
Phrygian would be a Spanish/arabic sounding scale.. mixolydian; bagpipe scale.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
Do people actually go on about mixolydian or dorian at sessions, like they do on here?
I've never actually heard it in real life.
I think your ears will soon tell you if a piece is a pipe tune in A with a G natural, for example. That would be preferable than trying to understand someone shouting the name of the scale over pub din, and probably being wrong anyway. Some box players and fiddlers I know are notoriously bad at telling the right key - they just name the note it starts on or something.
I don't mean that it is bad to look at theory - quite the opposite. But I don't see how it will help your session playing in itself
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by Bren
Re: music theory
These are sites I've visited for reference, session savage.
http://www.dolmetsch.com/theoryintro.htm
http://www.slowplayers.org/SCTLS/modes.htm
http://www.standingstones.com/modeharm.html
http://www.banjolin.co.uk/modes/modesandscales.htm
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/guitar/index_rb.html
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by joesmith
Re: music theory
I absolutely love music theory. I find that it's like reading the program of a play you love, or a review of a book you like. As in, it can't possibly match the real thing, but it gives you a wider understanding.
I second musictheory.net - or otherwise, get a teacher, they can tailor tutoring to what you want to learn and what you already know.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: music theory
I think it's wonderful you all love it so much, good for you!
...because Lord knows I don't. Egads, that stuff makes my eyes glaze over and my brain go comatose.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: music theory
There is in fact a "Music Theory for Dummies" book. I don't know if it is any good. Probably would be useful.
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Dummies-Michael-Pilhofer/dp/0764578383/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by crazy_fingerz
Re: music theory
True enough Bren, I spent many yrs playing with little grasp of theory, but plenty of practice
However understanding some theory can be helpful in some situations. for example working out how to play a tune in a specific different key.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
Can't comment specifically on the Music Theory for Dummies book, but I've found the "for Dummies" series (there are literally hundreds of widely varied topics ) to be excellent - its the first place I go if I'm looking for information on something.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by aikifiddler
Re: music theory
I think c has it right. Probably the best way to learn is to have a knowledgeable friend who will answer your questions as they arise and maybe expand on it just a bit. Music theory lectures can be mind-numbing. There is so much jargon and arcane detail that it’s easy to get bogged down and discouraged. You don’t need to learn it all, just the parts you’re curious about. And don’t worry *too* much about proper terminology. Understand it in your own way.
It helps a lot of you play guitar or piano. If you pay attention to chords and how they’re used, a considerable amount of theory will gradually become apparent.
When I was in school, I had some music-major friends who were willing to answer my questions (and laugh at my made-up terminology). Since then, I’ve poked my nose into several theory books, but I learned a *lot* more from my friends.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: music theory
I went back to school. evening classes can be found many places. A bit dull I admit, but I focused on my goal, and found my way.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
I think the most important is knowing scale patterns, chords, and keys. For example, a major scale is 2 whole steps up from the root, then 1 half step, then 3 whole steps, then a final half.
Chords are always made up of the first note of the scale (Root note), the 3rd note, and the 5th note.
With keys you kinda have to remember them. A good mnemonic for remembering the order of sharps and flats is BEAD and GCF. Thats as in a beaded necklace and GCF as in the Greatest Common Factor in a math equation. When you read it forwards you can tell what flats are in a key. For example the key of F has one flat, so that is Bb. The key of Bb has two flats, Bb and Eb.
When you're looking at sharps you read it backwards. The key of E has 4 sharps, F#, C#, G# and D#.
The best way of learning is to take a class really. I found it tedious when I was learning in a class, so its that much harder to read it yourself.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by rob_handel
Re: music theory
Music theory is just that -- a theory. People will argue about it as though it were politics. All it's doing is taking what we already know and providing definitions -- making the intangible tangible. You know when music sounds right, but you might not know the mechanics for how it gets there. Music theory attempts to describe it definitively. But there are so many variables and perspectives that it still remains ambiguous.
To play ITM doesn't require music theory knowledge because we are relying on the sound itself to guide us. It can be a handy tool, but I think, to a certain degree, its usefulness is out of context with the spirit of ITM. You can understand what the Mixolydian and Dorian mode are supposed to be, but you'll also recognize them without needing any definitions to confirm it. Very often the tunes are drifting between modes and your ear will know when it's one way or the other without bothering to have to explain it or determine it on paper or in speech.
As was mentioned above, the people who can benefit the most are back-up players. As a tune player it might come in handy so you can communicate with back-up players, but the back-up players should be able to find there way around without assistance if they're going to attempt the task to begin with. Do they need to know music theory? No, but they need to have some sort of understanding whether it be academic or their own.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
What I meant by "mentioned above" was "previously in the thread" and not in my own post.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
I agree with Phantom for the most part. I have found that understanding the theory behind the music greatly benefits the playing. While we don't need to know how it is made, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't. When I started to understand more about music I began to see tings in tunes that I didn't notice before, and now I can put more emphasis on this in my playing.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by rob_handel
In theory ~
The musical discussions on this board, because you don't hear them, use music theory.
How else would we 'talk' about music?
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
Good point Muse, i didn't think of that.
# Posted on January 25th 2008 by rob_handel
Talk, talk, talk
One of the reasons people do not
talk about music theory in a session has to do with how our brain works. When you play music you are in a certain state of mind. It is very easy to play a tune without knowing the name of the tune. Etc. & so forth. But even in that state of mind you use some such information. I play a tune by Vincent Broderick called 'The Coachman's Whip'
If you know the tune you understand the significance of the title.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
Ha. That link, Music theory.net, just learnt Am scale on the mandolin in 25 seconds, and it even tell you what the notes are, I rely on doe,ray,me...
But then it gets confusing. A scale is a number of notes in an octave, but what's an octave. And bits about timing. Too complicated, all this 4/4 crap, just play what fits.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
Do people actually go on about mixolydian or dorian at sessions, like they do on here?
I've never actually heard it in real life.
JfiddlerH does. The rest of us just stare blankly at him.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
There's a fairly simple introduction to Modes and such (mentioned abobe by Laitch) here:
http://www.standingstones.com/modeharm.html
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by neddiescotus
Re: music theory
Now I am hooked. Take an octave mandola, tuned GDAE(EADG), which is an octave below a mandolin. Now, if I want to play "Fanny Power" in the key of G, can I just put my fingers in the same place as I would on a mandolin? Or do I have to play it on different strings, putting my fingers on different frets?
The above is a serious question and I would appreciate any help before lashing out £80 or $160 on a superior type octave mandola.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
same BB.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
Music theory is not "just a theory". It is a system of terminology and as such it is true by definition, like mathematics.
This does not speak to its usefulness or lack thereof.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by crazy_fingerz
Re: music theory
I sat in class as a music major every morning while our teacher would pound out chords on the piano and then turn to us and emphasize each word with a loud clap saying, "WHAT'S THAT CHORD... WHAT'S THAT CHORD?!!?" I get a headache just thinking about that.
This is just one small example of the torture I endured day after day (often after staying up all night) but now I know the key and mode of the tunes I'm playing and when they drift from one mode to another and back etc... but I never talk about it in a session. I rarely even talk about it in conversations with fellow musicians. People who didn't have my training play the same as I do or better -- so it doesn't matter at the end of the day. It only really comes in handy when I'm arranging medleys or suggesting chords. Other than that -- no big deal.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
"Music theory is not "just a theory". It is a system of terminology and as such it is true by definition, like mathematics."
~~~
It's still a theory. 2 + 2 = 4 -- there's no question -- but music is less definitive and different answers to the same question can be argued. This is why it's called a "theory."
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
==It's still a theory. 2 + 2 = 4 -- there's no question -- but music is less definitive and different answers to the same question can be argued. This is why it's called a "theory."==
You keep on saying that word - it does not mean what you think it means...
Music theory does not make any moral judgements about music.
"The scale of E dorian contains the notes E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D" is a statement of music theory. There's only one answer to the question "what are the notes in the E dorian scale?", and music theory provides it.
"A reel in E dorian must place more emphasis on the D's than on the G's, or else it's not a real tune" is not. There may be many answers to the question "How should I play the twelfth bar of Pigeon on the Gate in order for it to sound the best?", and I'm sure that lives have been lost over this issue, but the answer does not lie in music theory, nor do any music theorists claim it does, inasmuch as the words "music theory" are generally understood to be used.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: music theory
Thank you JIg, I am eternally grateful. If you ever need someone "taken out" or anything.........
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
Tall, dark and mysterious all three of you are quite right!! There are certain things concerning music about which absolute certainty is possible.
Music theory is theory not because it’s a hypothesis or some such. It means it’s a study of the abstract principles underlying the music, as opposed to the technique of music or practice.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by neddiescotus
Re: music theory
Hah. So the night I had to put my fingers in a different place it was a TENOR mandola? I will have this theory bit cracked in another hour.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Pentatonic
It's theory & he includes everything but ITM;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YO0UmQCTpw
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
Reckon your right there BB. tuned CGDA [ADGC ] Handy enough for playing with a C whistle and low G, mind.
A friend of mine had one he put a capo on the second fret making DAEB.[BEAD] Ok for D and A tunes , but your have to relearn fingering for G tunes.
Octave mandola is yr best bet for ITM really.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
Sounds like it, but £189 for a Sicilian made one. And you know those Sicilians, get upset if you bring it back to complain.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Music theory ~ You Asked For It
This is pretty complete on Irish music theory;
http://www.geocities.com/novairishsession/modes/modes.htm#E
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
great link muse,
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
neddiescotus makes my point much better than I did.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
'Music theory is theory not because it’s a hypothesis or some such. It means it’s a study of the abstract principles underlying the music, as opposed to the technique of music or practice.'
Agreed, neddiescotus.
If people who would like to learn more about music theory are not sure where to begin, they might find studying a bit of history of Western music more interesting.
It's fascinating to learn how simple melodies( eg. Gregorian chant) eventually were joined to other simple melodies (think barbershop quartet) to become the complex compositions of Bach, for example, and all the symphonic music which followed.
Learning how music developed over time allows you to understand how chords formed and how music came to be structured and tons of other useful and interesting facets of music.
Irish traditional music is part of this amazing progression and understanding only increases the pleasure as ceolachan mentioned above. The knowledge doesn't have to be trotted out anytime but when it's there it sheds such a light on things.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by JNW
Re: music theory
>>Do people actually go on about mixolydian or dorian at sessions, like they do on here?
I've never actually heard it in real life.
It depends on how many math majors are in the group.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by sbhikes
Re: music theory
Similar to rob_handel:
Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle - for Sharps
or
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father - for Flats
Neat sentence that reads both ways and tells you which notes are sharpened or flattened.
e.g. 4 sharps in the key signature; so FCGD are sharpened
5 flats so BEADG are flattened
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Lurcherjohn
Re: music theory
Truer words, sbhikes...
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: music theory
It shouldn't be called "theory". It is very logical and I teach this stuff every day to 12 year olds. Anyone can learn it. You really need to approach it from the piano keyboard, so you can visualize how each note relates to the next one. There is a lot of gas on this site about modes, which only clouds the understanding;
If I were ever asked to rank-order the curriculum, it would go like this;
1) notes of the piano keyboard (white and black keys)
2) treble clef notation
3) intervals
4) basic major scales (half steps, whole steps); key signatures
5) chords; major and minor triads and their inversions
6) minor scales (natural, melodic, harmonic)
7) only then would I consider adding modes
I'd think of this like first-year Latin, where you get all the grammar out of the way so you can begin to read the good stuff.
...just my two cents.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: music theory
Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. Amabo, amabis, amabit, amabimus, amabitis, amabunt. Imaco, imacis, imacit, imacimis, imacitis, I'm a **** ha ha, you knew that already. Scales, latin, tories, all the same, totally pointless.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by strayaway
Re: music theory
To Bren and Bodhran Bliss..
Good God no, people dont go on about that stuff in any sessions I go to. I only get that theory stuff here.
If someone started on about theory at a session I would tell them that my ears are all the theory I need and then possibly start singing ... spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does.....
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by session savage
Re: music theory
Well for trad Greg, we make no use of the Harmonic minor. but we use4 modes daily. so i would modify your list , for ITM and switch6 and7. Saying that I dont think it necessary to practice scales in modes. all the finger work is done through the major scale.
By the way, I have no Latin, but my girlfriend, a translator and Linguist says it is very helpfull in understanding the basis of European Romantic languages.... I take her word for it, I struggle with English
she is fluent in5 languages.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
If somebody shouted " G Phrygian" here I'd look to see who left the door open. Or shout "pint o Guinness" just in case they were offering to buy. Doesn't happen very often.
I've been in bands where I have to try and work out what key we're in by looking over the shoulder of a bouzouki player playing GDAD with a capo, without any foldback to hear myself. That fairly trains the mind
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Bren
Re: music theory
"G Phrygian!"
"Hey! Frig' yourself, pal! What the heck? We're trying to have a nice friendly session here and you're over there cursing at me? Come on now..."
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: music theory
I've read many books on theory,and the only one that I found to be completely clear was a book called "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine.
There is a clear,though 85 page section on chord/scale theory,which is(at least the major scale harmony section)in my opinion essential knowledge for accompanists in Irish music.
I've heard a lot of gtr/bzki players,but very few recognize harmony in depth and at some point are lost for the correct chord(s).
Or also when melody players are required to improvise on a song or otherwise.
Same limitations.....
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by P.browne
E harmonic minor
There are parts of music theory which are rare in trad music.
Still Irish music has been known to ~ borrow;
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1421/comments#comment22897
Some players include Turlough O'Carolan in a session or 2.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
I'd agree pretty much with what Phantom has to say. Also tunes don't always stick to one mode.
All that been said I would say if these things don't come naturally to you, a little bit of theory might help....however knowing theory isn't in itself going to make you know all about trad sounds obvious I know but there are some....).
Also it's not that confusing, just made out to be by sone...ormaybe it's like anything else, it sounds complicated when you don't know it.
Here's some theory that might help:
The Meaning of Dorian, Mixolydian etc:
Take C Major as the starting point: C D E F G A B C
If you understand that A minor is the relative minor of C then you’re halfway there to understanding modes.
A minor uses the same notes but has a different starting point.
A minor then is: A B C D E F G A
In the same way D Dorian is the relative Dorian of C
D Dorian uses the same notes but has a different starting point
D Dorian then is: D E F G A B C D
In the same way G is the relative mixolydian of C
G Mix then is G A B C D E F G
So from C, the dorian mode starts from the second note, Mixoldyian the 5th note, minor from the sixth note.
The tonic is different and the intervals between notes has shifted giving the mode it’s
individual sound.
That’s one way of viewing it and of understanding it – using the “relative to” another mode scenario but different tonics.
What Chords are made up of:
Take again the C Scale, start with C and take every second note till you have three notes.
ie C E G (the first third and fifth of the scale)
this is C Major
Flatten the third and it become Cminor
Do the same starting with D (but still using notes from C Major scale) you get D F A - which makes aDminor chord
So if you were to continue for all the notes in the scale you'd get : Cmajor, DMinor, Eminor, FMajor, GMajor, AMinor, BDim
so all the relative modes would have the same chords as the modes are made up of the same notes.
So for example, D major, would have same chords as Bminor, A Mix and E Dorian.
Another would be to look at the intervals and compare to other modes but SAME tonic.
Lets take D Major.
D Major: D E F# G A B C# D
D Mix: D E F# G A B C D (Flattened seventh)
D Dorian: D E F G A B C D (Flattened third and seventh)
D Minor: D E F G A Bb C D (Flattened third, sixth and seventh)
Hope this helps.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
Knowing some music theory can help you understand why what you are playing works. I know a lot of music theory. I certainly use it and it can help, say, when I'm working out vocal harmonies but it can also be restrictive in that I find it difficult to break the rules of classical harmony on paper (you know, no parallel fifths, etc). However when I use my ears it's a different story.
And I think that using your ears is what music is all about. I was always a bit suspicious of those John McLaughlin jazz books where it would say something like "solo using the A super locrian scale for the first eight bars then switch to the B minor pentatonic". I can't believe people actually follow that advice rather than using their ears. When I'm soloing (which, needless to say, I never do whilst playing trad toons) I play by ear and often have no idea what the notes I am playing are called let alone what scale I'm using.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by DonaldK
Re: music theory
well, i had six or seven years of classical piano as a kid, so when i began learning itm on box about six years ago, i was completely, let's say neurologically even, hard-wired to written music. i simply could not learn a tune by ear. so i took three semesters of ear training at night at colleges (solfege, do-re-me sight singing, hours in the listening lab with earphones, etc) in my city to start to melt the hard-wiring. and, because college music education is almost all classical-conservatory based, each semester of ear-training was inextricably tagged to a semester of music theory and vice versa: you were forced to take both or none. so with no desire to do so, i took theory through classical fugue. and while ear training has helped my itm adventure enormously, i wouldn't say theory was useful until pretty recently. that is because a) i only recently began incorporating basses into my accordion playing, and rudimentary theory helps with that a little, i guess like pb was saying for backup players; and b) after getting obsessed with concertina, i have found that having some awareness of intervals is kinda helpful in terms of figuring out what notes are comptabile candidates to be cuts or double stops. and i guess it's nice to know about modes. but that's really been it.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: music theory
I can't agree with BegF about the modes. Gmix is *not* the 'relative' mixolydian of C. It doesn't relate to the classical scale of C major at all. It's just Gmix. It is, however, a convenient way of *thinking* about the modes to think of them as the patterns formed when you start on different degrees of the C major scale on a keyboard. The modes are still their own scales, and don't 'relate' to a major scale at all. In fact, if you look at the history, it's rather the other way round ...
It's also worth pointing out that it is rare that you will find a traditional tune that changes mode. Sometimes they are thought of that way, but, in fact, this is generally because notes - certain degrees of the mode, depending on the mode - are 'inflected' and therefore may be sharpened or flattened depending on the context. More modern, or composed tunes do sometimes change modes, but that's fashion for you, I suppose ...
Meanwhile, I think I detect a feeling amongst some on this thread that music theory is of no use when thinking about / talking about / practising ITM. The old masters of the tradition would have known the theory right enough. If you ever talked to people like John Kelly or Bobby Casey or some of the great players of today, they knew / know their stuff. I think they know / knew it because they are / were interested in their art. And if it's good enough for them ...
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/8231/
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: music theory
Hi Benhall.1,
To say that G Mix doesn't relate to G Mix is not true.
If A Aeolian (A Minor) is the relative minor of C Major (which it is) then it is not a stretch to say G mixolydian is the relative mixolydian of C major, in that the notes for C Major, A Aeolian and G Mixolydian are the same.
Llig - that thread that you posted is funny as it has conversations with people who are now deleted, it makes me look weirder than I am (slightly) - remember Jim Troy and Larsheen.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
I don't *think* I said that "G Mix doesn't relate to G Mix". that would be mad. I said that Gmix is not the relative mixolydian of C major. This is true, because there is no such thing a a "relative mixolydian". Mixolydian is its own mode.
A aeolian *isn't* the relative minor of C major. A minor is the relative minor of C major. A aeolian and A minor are two different scales. The notes for A minor are *not* the same as the notes for C major. This is where a knowledge of theory is helpful, I suppose ...
Ye-s-s-s ... I didn't find the link to that old thread particularly helpful. All the deletions mean you can't get a sense of the discussion. Shame - Michael's original post on that thread was interesting.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
It's ok, BegF. We know you're right
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
In what, Dow? That A aeolian and A minor are the same? That A aeolian is the relative minor of C major? That the church modes are somehow related to the classical major scale (as opposed to the other way round)?
All of the above?
Or none of the above?
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Sorry ... got no sense of humour this morning ... bad head.
I stick to the validity of the points I made, but they could have been made in slightly less grumpy way.
Mea culpa.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
I didn't think you were being grumpy at all...
Anyway "To say that G Mix doesn't relate to G Mix is not true"
that was a typo on m behalf sorry.
I meant to say that G mix doesn't relate to C major is not true.
I don't go with the "That the church modes are somehow related to the classical major scale (as opposed to the other way round)?"
If x is related to y then surely y is related to x.
"The notes for A minor are *not* the same as the notes for C major." They are.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
Er ... no, they're not. We're talking about theory here, so I suppose we might as well get it right. The notes for A minor include, for instance, and among others, the note G#, which definitely doesn't appear in C major. This, and several other factors, is one of the reasons why A minor is not the same as A aeolian, and why, therefore, A aeolian is definitely *not* the relative minor of C major.
Perhaps if I explain the sort of 'philosophy' (can't think of a less poncy word for it at the moment) behind what I'm saying:
To me, the modes are individual in their own right - they don't really relate to classical scales at all (and C major is a classical scale, in which, nevertheless, many fine tunes have been written.) Dorian can start on any note, of course, but the important thing is that it didn't develop the pattern of tones and semitones it has because it is somehow the mode that starts on the second degree of the classical major scale. It developed the pattern of tones and semitones it has many centuries before the classical major scale was invented. The classical major and minor scales developed out of modal music, not the other way round.
So, whilst is may be helpful simply in terms of being able to memorise the modes to think of them as 'the patterns you get when you start on successive degrees of the major scale', it could be misleading to think that that's what they actually are, because that could imply that that's how they came about. And they didn't.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
btw, BegF, I do appreciate you saying I wasn't coming across as grumpy. I was to me, being somewhat crapulent this morning.
(apols - my ex-wife gave me Foyles Philavery [list of unusal words] for Christmas, and I've been lying in a half stupor, reading it.
- nearest I can get to a smile)
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Unfortunately, the length and complexity (and occasional contradiction and confusion) of the above discussion is a perfect exposition of why most trad musicians won't be eagerly embracing modal theory anytime soon
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Bren
Re: music theory
I was going to weigh in on the value of music theory. But, as, usual, the discussion has devolved right back to the 2nd century, B.C. Aeolian-Phygrian wars. Anyone who has been around for any amount of time know knows it's not safe to myxolidian at this point. Especially with minors nearby.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BarryM
Re: music theory
even if they're relative minors?
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Bren
Re: music theory
Re-reading it, I kind of agree, Bren. This discussion has become confusing and over-complicated. But, from where I start - and finish, for that matter - it's quite simple: each mode is its own unique thing. You learn them, you understand how each one works. That's it. I think it only gets complicated if you try to make them fit in with classical theory and relate them to major and minor scales.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Lets take D Major.
D Major: D E F# G A B C# D
D Mix: D E F# G A B C D (Flattened seventh)
D Dorian: D E F G A B C D (Flattened third and seventh)
D Minor: D E F G A Bb C D (Flattened third, sixth and seventh
so spoke beg f.
however the last one d minor,is normally called d aeolian,the term minor is best avoided,as in classical music there are two of them,harmonic and melodic,and they only add to the confusion.
minor chords can be used to harmonise some of these modes, so too can chords or dyads,using only the first and the fifth[power chords][
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Rufus Jameson
Re: music theory
Er ...no, Dickens. The last one isn't D minor. It's D aeolian, which is different.
And there's only one D minor in classical music. I think you're getting confused with the different scale patterns which students are required to practise - harmonic and melodic minor scales - which is different matter altogether.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
*a* different matter altogether ... sheesh, this crapulence gets to one ...
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
A minor (as most people woukld know it) does NOT contain G sharp.
It is A B C D E F G (all the white notes of the piano - same as C Major - it's relative major)
The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G♯, but I think you know I wasn;t talking about that.
It's only complicated if we start getting pedantic.
It really doesn't matter how they came about, or if it's proper to say one is related to another or not .
In our music, minor and aeolian are the same thing - and it is helpful to think of E dorian related to D major.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
But minor is different. I'm sorry, but I think it was fair for me to assume that you meant the normal meaning of the word 'minor', which *is* different from aeolian. It's not pedantry. It's a bit like saying a horse is the same as a donkey. It wouldn't be pedantic to point out that it's not.
And I'm very aware that if someone shouts out 'D minor' in a session, it could be one of a number of different things, and that it doesn't really matter all that much in a practical context. But here we are in a theory thread, and I just think it's better to be right than wrong, because it's being wrong that causes confusion.
For guitarists, I think they would mostly think of E dorian as 'that E minor-ey thing that sometimes has some c#'s in' - E minor for short. I don't think it would be helpful for most of them to think of it in terms of D major.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
From wikipedia (thought I'd never say that, so I do feel sheepish now):
"A minor (abbreviated Am) is a minor scale based on A, consisting of the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G♯. Its key signature has no flats or sharps (see below: Scales and keys).
Its relative key is C major, and its parallel major is A major."
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
Well actually I think it would be very helpful, for the very reason that some would make that mistake of thinking "E dorian might be thought of as the E minor-ey key."
Because if you take D major and view the chords available to you to harmonise (with all the usual caveats of accidentals, and actually knowing the tune before you back it etc etc) you'd get D, Em, F#m, G, A ,Bm, C#Dim
(ie the three chord trick D G A, all the rest are minor except last which is diminished)
Well if you say E Dorian is the relative dorian to D major, you've got all the chords immediately in your head, with a different tonic (again stressing all the caveats above)
This can be very helpful - it's not enough (as discussed in Llig's thread) but it is helpful - particularlly with the confusion some backers may when ruining a G Mixoldian tune with the usual G major chords for ex.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
By the way ....when I mentioned that Aminor was the relative minor, it was safe to assume I meant the A natural minor scale
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
That Wiki quote: of course A minor is the relative minor of C major. A minor, not A aeolian. And, if something was properly in A minor, you should harmonise it very differently from the way you would if it was A aeolian. And, btw, A minor (the key, not necessarily the scale) absolutely has G#'s in. Look at the ultimate tonal composer, Bach, if you don't believe me.
The rest, what may or may not be helpful to guitarists, is a matter of opinion. But most of the time, yelling 'E minor' when in fact it is in E dorian, will, in my opinion, produce the best you're likely to get from most guitarists. If they get as far as you're suggesting, BegF, I think they've already sussed the modes anyhow and are *way* more intellectual than the majority of session musicians, let alone guitarists.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Well on the contrary...using the relative idea i outlined earlier makes it simple.....however bringing in back, classical terms and Church modes, one relative to the other but not vice versa I think confuses things .....anyway...I've enjoyed the discussion.
I'm off for now.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
Hey guys, can I play too?
Aeolian and minor are only different in a chord structure sense. BegF, you're right, *natural* minor and aeolian have the same scale. However, in functional harmony (classical-music type harmony), minor pieces are never *harmonized* with only these notes. See, if you were to take the notes out of the natural minor scale:
A B C D E F G A
come up with a tonic chord ACE
and a secondary chord EGB
you would end up with a *minor* secondary chord, which just ain't right from functional harmony standards. It sounds right to Irish musicians, because it's modal, but it doesn't work with the standard voiceleading that was developed in the late Renaissance to end phrases (and was then adopted by "classical-type" composers, and eventually the Backstreet Boys). So, harmonists changed that secondary chord to: E G# B.
Now, if we look at the scale that is produced by those two chords (ACE EG#B), we get:
A B C D E F G# A
This is the "harmonic" minor scale, containing the minimum notes you need to have for harmony in the classical, functional harmony sense. However, there's one more problem with this - few melodies these folks designed wanted to accommodate the space between F-nat and G#. So they had to come up with one more bit of theory, the melodic minor scale, which looks like this ascending:
A B C D E F# G# A
and this descending:
A G F E D C B A
which is the same as aeolian, or natural minor.
This scale explained the system behind the tunes they heard, and the chords they wanted. So, in a real sense, that aeolian scale is quite different that the natural minor - because the chords that made up the tunes and harmony act very, very differently depending on whether you're in a modal system or a functional harmony system.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by reenactor
Re: music theory
Perfect. Wish I could have put it that well.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
And BegF, I enjoyed it too. (Head slightly better now.
See?)
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Ben writes: "And I'm very aware that if someone shouts out 'D minor' in a session, it could be one of a number of different things, and that it doesn't really matter all that much in a practical context."
~~~
Indeed... and this is where music theory collides with ITM. This is one reason I don't like shouting out keys at a session. For one thing, we're usually wrong in the true sense of what we shout out. If you hear "D minor" it usually means D Dorian 99.9% of the time. If the tune is actually in D minor it would call for a different dominant chord -- so it might be handy to know -- but how do you distinguish it from Dorian? If the tune is Mixolydian I'll say, "modal" that seems to ambiguously cover it, but try to shout D Mixolydian and see how easily that can be misconstrued. Try saying it while playing the flute.
Also, what about tunes that are in one key but start on the sub-dominant chord instead of the root chord? I’ve tried shouting, "G, but it starts on a C chord." And the response is usually, "WHAT?!!?" And how do you shout out that a tune is going to drift between modes? And what about the ones that switch modes between parts?
So I prefer to talk about the medley in advance, but most people are opposed to this approach and feel it takes away from the spontaneity -- even when they know in advance what tunes they're going to string together. I don’t know -- maybe it would be like discussing the details about sex in advance of doing it.
So your only hope is that the back-up person is familiar enough with the tunes to recognize them after hearing the first few notes the same way the melody players do and not require any explanation. The guitar player I usual work with does this and I'm confident that I can just shout the first chord if need be and he'll know it's that tune that's in G but starts on a C chord, or it’s the peculiar one that drifts between modes, or what mode the second part is in... or the third part... or how ever many parts etc., etc.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
reenactor is it possible to play modal tunes without
chordal (or minimum) accompaniment?
Perhaps melody, modulation now & then ,possibly a drone, &
just a wee bit of harmony.
Just trying to see which theory would be 'common' in trad.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
Greg the Piano Tuner recommends treating modes after "(4) basic major scales (half steps, whole steps); key signatures (5) chords; major and minor triads and their inversions (6) minor scales (natural, melodic, harmonic)."
This seems completely unnecessary, given that major and minor are just the two modes that have survived in modern European classical music. Where’s the complication about modes?
Modes are differentiated by where the half-tone occurs in the scale:
Dorian Semi-tones 2-3, 6-7 Natural minor scale with raised sixth degree
Phrygian Semi-tones 1-2, 5-6 Natural minor scale with lowered second degree
Lydian Semi-tones 4-5, 7-8 Major scale with raised fourth degree
Mixolydian Semi-tones 3-4, 6-7 Major scale with lowered seventh degree
Aeolian Semi-tones 2-3, 5-6 Same as natural minor scale
Ionian Semi-tones 3-4, 7-8 Same as major scale
Locrian Semi-tones 1-2, 4-5 Natural minor with a lowered second & fifth degree.
And if you play a melody instrument, you can leave the chords for the long winter evenings, when there’s nothing good on telly. You don’t really need that much by way of theory to play superbly well as far as I’m concerned. The best players I have known, my great uncles, could not read music. They had an intuition for nice modal shifts, natural scales, discordant elements, etc. What theory IS handy for (these days especially) is so you can avoid being deceived by the many people about these days talking nonsense about Irish and Scottish music. Some of these are referred to as ‘master musicians’, but they are doing a great disservice to the tradition by their little learning and much talking. It’s handy to be armed with some musical theory in order to avoid being led astray!
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by neddiescotus
~
I should qualify my question.
I play melody (whistle & flute)
I do not play chords. & that is the reason
I ask. When I hear backing &/or harmony . . .
there are chords ~ & There are CHORDS
there is harmony ~ & There s HARMONY
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Random_notes
**
neddiescotus
Last night I was 'making up' tunes in
F Locrian just to hear how it sounds.
I do not own a television.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Random_notes
Oops!
F# Locrian mode
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/scottskinner/display.php?ID=JSS0149
What mode would "Miss Shepherd" be in then?
How would it inform a guitarist's choice of chord?
Theoretically, they should play something like Em-D-Em-B7-Em The linked music is in the original key of (what I'd call, probably mistakenly) Em, not Am as it is usually played now.
But most just play a quick D instead of the B7,and it doesn't sound catastrophically wrong to me.
# Posted on January 27th 2008 by Bren
Re: music theory
Neddie, I think its standard practice in the Classical world. My music teacher also had this approach. Its just a different approach . After all, the other modes are not used very much in 'classical music' are they?
Approaching music from the standpoint of a trad musician means we view '' music'' from our different perspective, modes are not advanced but basic. While the Harmonic minor is advanced....... I think
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
You could look at theory & learning on a gradient;
basic to advanced. If so I am learning in reverse.
The more I play sessions the more I want to not add too much.
All types of music have some way of making 'space'.
You can try & understand all the theory all the scales.
Knowledge is power.
Sometimes it just gets me to the point where I cannot play the pentatonic. Yeah, I keep bringing it up. But with some trad tunes that is what I hear ~ sometimes less is more.
& then there are the exceptions . . .
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
I have never been able to make much sense out of the pentatonic scale. I can play it sure, but make music with it? not me. sigh...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
The funnyest thing I've read for a while here was:
"It's only complicated if we start getting pedantic"
(tee he)
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: music theory
Putting all this theory into practice (though I did this before I knew the theory), I like to play sets that have the same notes in the tunes, but not the same centres.
There is something I find particularly attractive about a bit set of reels - five or ten or so - that use only the notes D, E, F#, G, A, B, and Cnat. Just stick to these notes, avoid the temptation to move to using C#s or G#s or Fnats. There are thousands of tunes that just use these notes, Mix 'em up, move the tonal centres around, but not the scale. It's great.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: music theory
jig
,try art okeefees polka, a tune that only uses five notes[penta]
the pentatonic scale,is very useful,no 1,2,3,5,6.of the major scale, the notes of the major chord1,3,5.,notes 2 and 6,are useful notes ,for guitarists for bass runs.
Or alternatively,they can be used as extra flavouring for an ordinary chord, they then become added sixth or ninth chords[the second taken up an octave [eight notes] becomes the ninth]
the pentatonic major scale is also a useful starting point for improvisation,and is used a lot in white American traditional music[bob wills etc] and country music,and very early jazz,
the pentatonic minor can be used to improvise around minor chords.
99 percent of the time the pentatonic scales major or minor will sound harmonically, ok against a major or minor chord
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Rufus Jameson
Re: music theory
Move the tonal center!
That's great Michael.
Patsy Touhey could do that.
Jig, it's not so much that ITM tunes "are"
pentatonic (or hexatonic).
It's just that sometimes you can drop the VII for a nice effect
(hexatonic) & sometimes you can drop the IV (pentatonic)
Sometimes I hear those spaces while everyone else hears
a solid stream of notes.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
Ok, but in all that I still cant feel it. Sure I use the +9 +13, etc but music.?.......... I can improvise freely in phrygian, dorian mix etc but the pentatonic.... nah not really, just repeat a few licks and riffs I would have learnt. To the casual observer it might appear like i am improvising but really its just play by numbers. Lord I have tried, 30 yrs but my mind dont think like that, gotta be realistic, accept our limitations while stretching the boundaries. Had a few jazz lessons too,. but its not my scene.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
I have enjoyed reading this, bar posts that my computer has scrambled up, which it does on long threads.
I take much pleasure in music theory, though I haven't pursued it very far. I find the modes no trouble to understand - but I'd be lost in a guitarniks' confab, as I've only got to melodeon basses when it comes to chordal / backing stuff. Working out strings backing to ITM must be (for those especially ambitious for it) particularly interesting and problematic and demanding of a knowledge of musical first principles.
As a lad, I wished I could play an instrument (should have started to then, of course!), and found explanations of music theory at any level as incomprehensible as I'd find Stephen Hawking - or found school mathematics. I looked wistfully and enviously at the musical terrain, thinking I'd never enter it. And now I'm inside, at any rate in one of its corners, and I like to increase my understanding of the adjoining territory and also - very non-PC word - my control over what I understand. Hence my liking for music theory. And being more a visual, pattern-spotting person than an aural and/or mental-arithmetical one, I understand it most readily in written form.
My next challenge is, or ought to be, to learn some basic harmony; my attempts to improvise variations on session standards in full cry sound (on whistle) like budgies being strangled, and doing it well is obviously not a piece of cake. I've got the book...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by nicholas
Re: music theory
When I first met the guitar p[layer I've been working with he was just coming from a jazz background. It was interesting to hear his initial interpretations of the tonal landscape for the tunes. He seemed to come at each one from a side door. Even though it wasn't at all "correct" it was very interesting.
He was hoping to become a substitute for the guitar player we were using at the time so he wanted me to guide him in that direction. But I kind of regret that we couldn't have followed the tunes down his path for a while. The effect he had on the tonal landscape destroyed all my medley concepts, and I would have had to put them together entirely differently in the context of how he was hearing it. That would have been an interesting project. It's too late for that because now he's firmly locked into a more traditional style and his tonal base matches what everyone else hears. Oh well...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
TheMuse said something above which I interepreted (probably wrongly) as implying there aren't too many properly pentatonic Irish tunes. For a laugh, check out this old thread where Dow gives me a good drubbing over saying outright that I didn't think there were too many pentatonic tunes. I thought it was one of his finer moments:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/13991/comments#comment288485
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Ben, here's my take on it:
1) Modal theory is not separate from classical theory. Classical theorists are just as capable of talking about modes as their "major" and "minor". Their terminology is consistent regardless of the genre of music they're talking about. You've just got to be careful to interpret them the right way, and read "the whole" of what they write, not just pick and choose parts of it, otherwise you'll misunderstand the theory.
2) "Gmix is *not* the 'relative' mixolydian of C"
Yes it is. It's just that you obviously haven't done your reading on "relative and parallel modes". Do a Google search for "relative modes" for a start, and learn about them. What you've said shows that you have quite a limited knowledge of scales. It's like someone from a country where the only cars are Fords, and who has only ever seen cars that are Fords. That someone goes abroad and sees a BMW. Someone else asks him "what's that?" Of course he says "it's a Ford", because that's all he knows. Someone else tries to argue with him, but he *knows* it's a Ford, because all the cars in his own country are Fords, so it must be the same here, right? Eventually, the people around him will give up trying to argue with him, because he's convinced himself that all the cars he sees are Fords, and nobody can convince him otherwise. As in your statement 'there is no such thing a a "relative mixolydian"'. No such thing in your limited experience, perhaps. If BegF tells you there is such a thing, your best course of action is to look it up for yourself and learn about it so that you don't have to argue blind.
3) "It doesn't relate to the classical scale of C major at all. It's just Gmix. It is, however, a convenient way of *thinking* about the modes to think of them as the patterns formed when you start on different degrees of the C major scale on a keyboard. The modes are still their own scales, and don't 'relate' to a major scale at all."
It's not just a convenient way of thinking about it - it's a very real and important relationship. We are talking about the "modes of the major scale" here. You probably don't know this, but there are other types of mode. There are "modes of the harmonic minor scale" for instance. All those modes (unsurprisingly) relate to the harmonic minor scale. There are also altered modes. Don't worry about them - just know that there's a bigger picture. The relationship between the modes of the major scale is really important for a backer. Even if the backer can't tell you the terminology, and doesn't think of him/herself as "knowing the theory", they will still know their stuff, and they'll be able to "see" the relationships between keys in their mind's eye (if they're a decent backer of course). For example, a decent backer will know that if the 6 main chords used in the key of G major are G, Am, Bm, C, D and Em, they'll also know that they can use that exact same set of chords for tunes in A dorian, D mixolydian and E aeolian, just with some role-swapping for each chord in the set. This is because of the relationship between these "relative modes" of G major.
4) "A aeolian *isn't* the relative minor of C major".
Yes it is. This statement shows your lack of understanding of what "major" means in this case. "Major" (like "minor") can refer to a number of different things, but conventionally, it refers to the scale of C ionian, which itself is a mode. A aeolian is the relative minor of C ionian, because conventionally (especially when talking about relative scales) the "minor" refers to "natural minor", not the "harmonic minor". It's this relationship that people are referring to when they say "A minor is the relative minor of C major", whether they be classical theorists, jazz theorists or whatever, it makes no difference. To misunderstand this means misunderstanding the whole concept of relative scales.
5) "A aeolian and A minor are two different scales. The notes for A minor are *not* the same as the notes for C major. This is where a knowledge of theory is helpful, I suppose ..."
You're damn right a knowledge of theory is helpful. You need to read up on the meaning of the terms "major" and "minor". There are many different types of major, and many different types of minor. The lydian scale, for example, is a type of major scale. There's also a scale called the "harmonic major", just like there's also a "harmonic minor". Google it to find out about it. The dorian scale is aslo a type of minor scale.
The problem is that "major" and "minor" have become shorthand for certain very common scales in classical music. This is a bit like the case of the tomato, which is really a fruit, but nobody ever actually refers to it as such, because its qualities are not what one usually associates with "fruits". In the most limited type of classical theory education, you learn simply that "harmonic minor = minor". Then you learn that your "A minor scale" is A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A, to be contrasted with your A major scale A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A. This is the kind of simplified theory that music teachers teach to kids at primary school level. Unfortunately, it doesn't show you the bigger picture in terms of what other minor scales are available, and why they exist as they do. In reality, the other two classical scales common in classical music are the "melodic minor" and the "natural minor" (or aeolian mode - same thing). These are A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A and A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A respectively. The natural minor is called that because it is considered (by classical musicians also!) to be the "true" minor, since it is the relative minor of the major scale (Cmaj in this case). Bit of a history lesson here: despite the fact that it was considered by early classical musicians to be "true" or "pure" (and by "classical" here I mean with a small "c", since this stuff predates the Classical period), they also considered melodies created with this natural minor (aeolian) scale to be ugly and unfinished-sounding. Or more specifically, they considered the harmonies you'd use to harmonise the natural minor scale to be ugly and unfinished-sounding. It was considered that a Vm-I cadence was not strong enough to end a piece or phrase, that's a minor chord on the V, to root I, since if you added a 7th you ended up with a minor 7th chord on the V, which they thought was horrible (a few centuries later, it would be considered to be beautiful and desirable). So what they did was, they made that V chord major, giving you (in A minor again) an E(7) to Am cadence. This, they thought, sounded nice, but what had happenend to the scale for the melody now? It had become A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A. Now they were in difficulties, because this scale just sounded disgusting to them. What they wanted was aesthetically pleasing art music for the upper classes, and this scale reminded them of the kind of sound used by gypsies and their folk music. This was unthinkable for them. What should they do?! They loved that V7-I cadence but they hated the scale. They would have to come up with scales that would fit over the top of their harmonies, but sound nice and elegant as melodies. So they came up with a compromise. They altered that scale slightly and raised the 6th degree, giving them A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A. This sounded great over their harmonies, and didn't sound too gypsified. This is how the "harmonic minor" and "melodic minor" scales were born, and why they differ from the "natural minor" - the aeolian mode. Unfortunately their problems didn't end there. When they tried to write melodies using the melodic minor scale, it sounded great some of the time, and crap some of the time. It always seemed to sound good when going up the scale, because it sounded like it was anticipating that V-I cadence. The problem came on the way back down the scale. It just didn't sound "minor" enough!! It sounded too major. For passages of pieces that went back down the scale, they found that it sounded okay to use the natural minor scale. This is why if you ever had music lessons on a classical instrument, you might have been taught that "A melodic minor" was A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A on the way up, and A-G-F-E-D-C-B-A on the way back down. That's only part of the story, really. The melodic minor is really only the ascending bit, and the descending bit was the natural minor. If you analyse melodies from early classical pieces that were in a *minor* key, they almost always use the scales in this way: melodic minor for ascending passages, natural minor for descending passages, and the harmonic minor was mostly just a theoretical scale that resulted from melodicizing the harmonies they used for minor pieces.
So, end of classical theory lesson. The upshot of it all is that the particular minor scale that you have been conditioned to think of as "*the* minor scale", Ben, is your harmonic minor. You see now that this is a somewhat articificial scale which was really only ever intended (by Bach and others) as a theoretical construct to go part of the way towards "ridding" classical music of what was considered to be "dirty-sounding" harmony. The subtonic to tonic cadence (bVII-I) that sounds cool to our (trad) ears sounded awful to classical musicians of that era, and to some extent that way of thinking has continued in some musically conservative circles.
So, put simply, to say that *your* minor (A harmonic minor) is the relative minor of C major isn't just oversimplified, it's plainly incorrect. And to say that "A aeolian and A minor are two different scales" just doesn't make any sense, because it depends on what you mean by "minor". If you mean "natural minor" then yes, that's the same scale as A aeolian. It would make more sense to follow convention as BegF has done and use "minor" as a default term for "natural minor". Then if you need to specify other types of minor scale you can qualify it by using "harmonic..." "melodic..." "dorian" or whatever you want. Classical theorists would agree with this. Like I said, the only people who would use "minor" as a shorthand for "harmonic minor" are music teachers of young children trying to get the kids to practise scales.
6) "We're talking about theory here, so I suppose we might as well get it right."
Yep, I'd go with that...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
OK, I surrender. Please stop
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Bren
Re: music theory
Very good. Quite bombastic. But still wrong - at least as far as interpreting what I said goes. I'm in work now, so no time. But the gist is that I wasn't talking about scales when I referred to the very real difference between A aeolian and A minor - I was talking about, on the one hand, the *key* of A minor and, on the other, the *mode* of A aeolian.
*Slightly* unfair of you to talk about my "lack of understanding" and "limited knowledge of scales". I know all the stuff you've set out above. I just have a different take on it.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Keys are based on scales and harmony. In classical terms, the "key" of A minor was a compromise. The key signature had to follow the pattern of the "true" minor - the natural minor. That's why the key sig for A minor would be no sharps or flats, just as in Cmajor. The sharps were accounted for by accidentals. Ben, very little of your "take" on things has anything to do with trad music and everything to do with the Baroque and Classical periods. What you're spouting only has relevance for classical (art) music composed between about the late 17th and early 19th centuries, plus of course later music influenced by the conventions set by that period. What the likes of BegF has been saying has everything to do with trad music.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
No. I'm arguing for an avoidance of *confusion* between art music principles and those relating to trad.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
And in doing so, you've not realised that the systems of both classical music (of said era) and trad music are explained using uniform terminology from one overarching theory of music.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Are you a lawyer, by any chance?
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
ha ha ha
"It's only complicated if we start getting pedantic"
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: music theory
(Thanks Dow)
Yes I see the humour Llig (I think) – it sounds like I was saying “it’s only complicated if you do it right”,
But too many people shy away from theory on the basis that’s it’s too complicated (and it’s not as if theory is something that occupies my mind day to day).
But what you need (or rather what might be helpful to those that need it – speaking from my own experience) for this type of music is a limited amount of theory – if people start arguing over whether A minor is not A Aeolian or confusing matters by bringing in the history of it ( it doesn’t matter whether classical scale derived from modes or not)
You’re example of changing the tonal centres is a good one - there’s not too much theory to understand there if it’s kept simple but someone reading the thread, who otherwise would find all this stuff helpful, might be put off bothering when reading all this stuff about harmonic minors, melodic minor changing notes depending on whether it ascending or descending etc etc.
Rather tell someone that the notes of E Dorian are the same as D Major , it’s relative to it in the same way as
B minor is relative to it. It’s a concept they’d be already familiar with.
Simple, as long as someone doesn’t start saying – ah no, the “harmonic” minor has an A# so it’s not the same blah blah blah.
The Phantom says that the average guitarist would have to be a genius to be at that level. No they wouldn’t.
It’s not rocket salad. (that one I meant, but not as funny, I’m funnier in real life – also you laugh like a girl !).
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
Don't make me go over there
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
No, because if I was a lawyer I'd have been careful to say "overarching theory of Western music" in case anyone tried to sue me for implying that that theory could ever come close to explaining the complexities and subtleties of the music of somewhere like India or the Middle East.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
That was to Benhall's question of "am I a lawyer?"
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Pedantry? I'll give you pedantry! I'll give you pedantry with a good solid dose of condescension, sneering bombasticness (bombasticity??) and made up words like "melodicization"!
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Actually, I can think of a few minor/aeolian diddley tunes with a tierce de picardy
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: music theory
And bloody good it was too, Dow.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Poor you, having to admit that I was right.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
I wouldn't go *that* far ...
... and I think you'll find it's 'bombast' ... would have thought you'd have known that ... [sniff]
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
... and you should have been a lawyer ... same info, different conclusion ... sometimes 2 opposing different conclusions ...
... impressive it was ...
[note my submissive use of the dots ...]
...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
If "bombast" refers to what the content of the actual speech or writing is, then wouldn't "bombasticness" refer to a person's state of "being bombastic" or the speech/writing's state of "being bombastic"?
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
If bombast is bombastic, then surely you can talk about bombast's bombasticness (or maybe bombasticity??)
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Re: same info, different conclusion, what about the bit where you said "there is no such thing a a "relative mixolydian" and I said "there is"? That's not the same info!
You wouldn't even make a very good politician, Ben. I mean, if George Bush used your debating tactics, he wouldn't even have bothered trying to defend the war in Iraq, he'd simply have denied its very existence. Being a politician would be easy!
Q: "President Bush, could you tell us why our troops are still in Iraq?"
A: "They aren't in Iraq. In fact, this country doesn't have an army, so your question is void. Next!" LOL
Sorry, I'm being deliberately irritating as usual...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
If I'm not allowed bombasticness, can I keep "melodicize"? I liked that one.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Damn, I just googled the word "melodicize" and someone has beaten me to it.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
What about bombasticism?
Can you bombastardize something?
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Portmanteau. I was trying to remember what you called that. So I've finally come up with a good made-up word of my own that gets no Google hits. I hereby announce the birth of the word "bombastardize", coined by me. I define it as meaning "to take a passage of speech or text and corrupt it by rewording it in a bombastic way".
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
You? Deliberately irritating? Surely not!
Pity about the Americanised (sic) spelling of your new word ...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
And I agree with you - I wouldn't make a good politician. I'm too straight.
Now, you on the other hand ...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Actually, British usage accepts both. Oh how I love Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Normal take on it is, it's acceptable but normally regarded as undesirable.
Hmmm ... that reminds me of something ...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Melodicize sounds like a bad excercise program feature Richard Simmons and lots of overweight women in tights.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: music theory
"featuring", of course, and for our friends who don't know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Simmons
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: music theory
Ye gods! I've just read that wiki article on -ise and -ize.
My only defence is;
At least mine's NOT American!
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Actually, according to that article, -ise is more Austalian than anything else ...
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
I was going to give up, but I think I've found something interesting. I did what you suggested, Dow, and Googled 'relative modes'. And I think I've got where you're coming from. Those sites were all coming from the standpoint of someone understanding modes for the purposes of chordal backing. Like a guitar, for instance. And seeing them as somehow 'relative' to the major scale could be useful, I see now, for that. Not real theory, but practical, for some people.
But it still ignores the fact that the modes that ITM - and a lot of other trad - is based on, came *before* the more modern concept of the major scale. A long time before. Understanding them as 'relative' to the major scale doesn't help me at all. I prefer to understand them as they are, individually.
# Posted on January 28th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
What was the a minor scale again? And what note does it start on?
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
a
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Pedantic
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
But ben, the major scale effectively is the ionian mode. ?
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
Thank you Benhall. But as the scale of A starts with A, and now A minor does, I am confused.
Think I will learn about modes instead.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
PB writes about music theory in his first posting to this thread: "People will argue about it as though it were politics."
~~~
See what I mean?
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: music theory
Yes, jig has it. The idea of the major scale is hardly a modern concept, it being the ionian mode. It just so happened that from a certain point in history, it was called the "major scale" since none of the other types of major scale (like the lydian for example) were commonly used, given that they were thought to be ugly or unfinished-sounding.
The concept of relative modes isn't a new one either. The whole *point* of modes was that they were relative to each other, and not separate, unrelated entities. This has implications for melody-making and improvising using modes as well as harmony-making. Just think about the effect of that shift between E dorian and D major (ionian!) when going into the B-part of Drowsy Maggie. It's a smooth, natural-sounding shift both melodically and harmonically precisely because it's not a key change as such, it's a modal shift with no key change.
As for the implications for chordal backing on guitar - well, that might well be a more modern thing, but you certainly can't say it's "not real theory". It's real alright, and very nifty at that. There's all sorts of amazing stuff you can do just playing around with relative and parallel modes when backing trad. Even if you don't know what the terms mean, it's possible to "know" the theory by knowing the music inside out. A lot of the chord sequences backers come up with on the recordings you hear are basically the result of messing around with relative and parallel modes. The fact that classical theorists and classical musicians never quite understood it is probably because they never had cause to use it. So to many classical musicians, it probably wouldn't be "real theory". That's the Ford and the BMW again, of course. You've just got to nod and smile politely...
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
(Just to clarify, when I said "Modal theory is not separate from classical theory" I meant that the classical theory does cover it and provides terminology for it, but classical theorists don't tend to talk about it much and many classical musicians don't really understand the theory simply because they've never needed to use it.)
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
When I studied music, which admittedly was a long time ago, we were taught that the Ionian and Aeolian modes were somewhat to be distrusted, because they were relatively (probably ought to emphasise that *realtively*) modern concepts. This is why:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionian_mode
The Ionian mode, at least as far as the medieval modes we're talking about goes, was invented in the 16th century *in order* to impose some 'over-arching theory' on what, until then, had been a quite simple system.
I haven't looked up Aeolian to remind myself yet, so I might be entirely wrong about that one ...
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_mode
Hmmm ... thought so - made up mode.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Yeah, the 16th century is *so* modern, Ben... Not sure about Wikipedia's claims here. Have a look at this source http://www.greenwych.ca/evidence.htm. I don't think anyone really knows for sure. Anyway, regardless of any of this, all the modes were established well before even Bach was born. Hardly a "modern" invention, whichever way you look at it. I reckon you're clutching at straws here!
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
I know you said "relatively" modern, but you know I've still got to twist your argument a bit to make mine look better
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
great link there dow. Just as I suspected.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by jig
Re: music theory
Er ... yes. All the modes were established before Bach was born. Exactly my point. Ah, I see, you mean including the ionian and aeolian?
We could go on. But, in the end, I still think that my position is theoretically correct, and yours is practically useful.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
"the Ionian and Aeolian modes were somewhat to be distrusted, because they were relatively (probably ought to emphasise that *realtively*) modern concepts"
"The Ionian mode, at least as far as the medieval modes we're talking about goes, was invented in the 16th century *in order* to impose some 'over-arching theory' on what, until then, had been a quite simple system."
This is simply incorrect! Even the articles you cite don't say that these modes were invented in the 16th century!
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by neddiescotus
Re: music theory
Er .. yes they do. There were even earlier modes that were *called* ionian etc, but they weren't what we call ionian etc now.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
This is where confusion between Greek modes and churh modes comes in. Greek modes were, as far as we know, completely different from the later, medieval, church modes, which are the basis for the so-called 'folk modes' now.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
"It's only complicated if we start getting pedantic."
Does't seem so funny now.
(that of course is not to say that we should take shortcuts)
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
The confusion between the old Greek modes and the ecclesiastical modes (our dorian, mixolydian etc) was brought about by a learned 16th c Swiss theoretician, Glarean, in his "Dodecachordon" (Basle 1547), in which he attempted to put some order into the theory of modes. He distinguished twelve of them, and assigned them Greek names, which were, however, incorrectly transferred. His nomenclature for ecclesiastical modes has been generally followed ever since - ever since his pile of parchment presumably fell off his desk and didn't get sorted out properly.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: music theory
Exactly, Trevor. With the added complication - unavoidable, I'm afraid, simply 'cos that's what happened - that he *added* some modes to the pre-existing ones, notably his version of Ionian and Aeolian and their plagal counterparts. (It's how he got from the pre-existing 8 church modes to his 12, as in 'Dodecachordon'.)
We're talking theory here, BegF. I really don't think this stuff's pedantic. It's just the way it is.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
This is probably the only pace in the trad world you can discuss music theory. Everytime I bring up the subject in session the drummer drowns me out. I think he misses that music theory applies to rhythm as well.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
I didn't know rhythm applied to drummers!
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
*
As with everything it depends on the player.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
I have a Greek goat skin on the drum, which is as close as drummers get to Ionian mode.
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: music theory
Do you own 'un?
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Yeah, these guys aren’t pedants. They’re wonks! And I mean that in the nicest way!
# Posted on January 29th 2008 by Bob himself
All I am saying is when you toss the bath water you might want to keep the baby.
Sometimes it turns out the other way around. Oh my!
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
To quote both Wikipedia articles:
"It seems that the additional modes were used in popular folk music, but were not part of the official church repertory."
Therefore, it is false that "Ionian mode... was invented in the 16th century *in order* to impose some 'over-arching theory'..."!!
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by neddiescotus
Re: music theory
I'm not saying "theory" is pedantic Ben.
I'm saying that telling a trad musician that Bm is not the relative minor of D major is.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
I definitely *didn't* say that. Of *course* Bm is the relative minor of D major. I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. To say "Bm is not the relative minor of D major" wouldn't be pedantic - it would be just plain wrong.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
OK, neddiescotus, accepting that there may or may not have been something like the mode that Glarean named "Ionian" at that time, it's still the case that it's not the same as the major scale. Again, quoting the same article, although I have to say, the article only skates the surface, really:
"However, it would not be correct to refer to any piece in a now-traditional major key as being in the Ionian mode, which would imply that the style of the piece was modal, which is usually not the case with music in a major key as understood today."
And, btw, I think the author *isn't* using the term 'traditional' here to mean what *we* might take it to mean. (Although it would, of course, help my argument if he was.
)
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
No Ben but you did say...
"A aeolian *isn't* the relative minor of C major. A minor is the relative minor of C major. A aeolian and A minor are two different scales"
As the Aeolian mode forms the natural Minor scale it is pedantic to pick someone when they say that A Aeolian and Aminor are the same.
or that "GMix..It doesn't relate to the classical scale of C major at all. It's just Gmix" when actually it does relate to it in a very real way (as opposed to historically) in that they both contain the same notes.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
I'm going to have to disagree, then. 'Cos I don't think it's pedantic to say that A aeolian and A minor are different. In music theory they are, at least, but also in a very real way, in the implied harmonies and in the pattern of the notes which make up melodies in, respectively, A minor and A aeolian. Hence that quote from wiki:
"However, it would not be correct to refer to any piece in a now-traditional minor key as being in the Aeolian mode, which would imply that the style of the piece was modal, which is usually not the case with music in a minor key as understood today."
That quote is totally intelligible, but *only* if you accept that the Aeolian mode is *not* the same as the normal useage of the term "minor key".
Things are *so* much easier if one just accepts that trad music, generally, is in four modes plus the major and minor keys. Oh, and by the way, it's even simpler when you realise that, of those four modes, only two are generally used in trad music from the UK and Ireland. Then we have to mention pentatonic, but that leaves us with something really quite simple:
Dorian
Mixolydian
Major key
Minor key (less common than others)
Pentatonic
Interestingly, it doesn't seem to me to be that common to have a properly modal tune in Aeolian - normally, if it's going to do that sort of thing, it'll often be in a minor key.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
If you do not know a pedantist you probably are one.
The keys &/or modes imply 7 notes (plus the octave)
Pentatonic refers to 5 notes (in various modes)
There is also hexatonic using 6 notes . . .
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: music theory
There seems to be an arguement whether apple trees and orange trees should have the same rules.
Trad music follows a set of theoretical rules which are valid for that genre. Some of the rules overlap into other genres, others don't.
"art" music developed its own unique set of rules which it has tried to foist on other genres.
What rules do Bulgarian tunes follow with intervals of 3 semi-tones?
How about Indian or Chinese music?
Even the modern scale has been foisted on us. 12 note equal temperament is a modern invention introduced by "art" musicians so they could write music that changed key and it would all sound relatively in tune.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by john spencer
Re: music theory
See, everyone, you can tell him it's a BMW time and time again, and he'll always say it's a Ford. There's absolutely nothing you can do to convince him! Scary or what...
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
"Interestingly, it doesn't seem to me to be that common to have a properly modal tune in Aeolian - normally, if it's going to do that sort of thing, it'll often be in a minor key."
OMG Ben you are *so* full of rubbish!
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Well, *that's* not terribly helpful, Dow. I've at least tried to point out where I'm coming from. And I have tried to see - and therefore have figured out, I think - where you're coming from. I've not once - and won't now - said that you were full of rubbish, or indeed accused you of any other unfortunate personal charateristic.
So, is this rubbish?
"Much of the character of old Irish melodies is derived from the scales on which they are founded. We may distinguish at least five such scales. They are constructed by taking each of the notes do, re, mi, soh and la as tonics or fundamentals, and building on them a scale without the use of accidentals. Thus we have a tone, and not, as in modern music, a semi-tone at the top of four of these scales - the scales of re, mi, soh and la. Errors in notation have frequently been made by collectors through ignorance of this fact. They have written the airs as if they were constructed on the modern major or minor scales, not understanding that Irish melodies have a scale system all their own. Another fact to be noted is that we have three minor scales in old Irish music - the scale of re, the scale of mi, and the scale of la. It must not be supposed that the airs constructed on theses scales have always that plaintive character which we now-a-days associate with the minor scale. Many of our liveliest dance tunes are written in the minor modes."
Cathaoir O'Braonain, 1909 in the foreword to the Roche Collection.
Now, actually, I think there is some confusion in the passage written above. Even so, a clear distinction is made between the minor modes and the minor scale (I personally would rather use the term 'the minor key' because, in this context, that's a technical term and therefore *should* be less ambiguous). To me, this is simple stuff - it's because they *are* different.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
... never have liked BMW's ...
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
But there does seem to be a sense of “if it came from a book it’s true”
About all this - rather than just say yes – G Mix does relate to C Major (same notes).
And why I think it’s “complicated when we get pedantic” is that
earlier on this thread that kind of information would have been helpful to some to take the mystery out of the thing…….but now all that’s left interested is us geeks.
Pity.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by BegF
Re: music theory
"it doesn't seem to me to be that common to have a properly modal tune in Aeolian"
Not in your limited experience of tunes, perhaps. I can think of several.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Ben, you asked "so is this rubbish?" and then quoted that passage from the Roche Collection. My answer is yes, it is rubbish. It says "modern major scale". Like I said earlier, the major scale is not modern by any stretch of the imagination. Next!
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Yes, BegF - it possibly is a shame. But I'm wondering if it's inevitable where there are two points of view. It doesn't mean that one of them is less valid, or that the putting forward of either of them is somehow to blame for putting other people off.
And Dow, again, admittedly from some time ago, but when I studied music, the term 'modern' did tend to mean something much older than I think you're meaning by modern, and, in those terms, and in the opinion of O'Braonain, the use as we have it today of the major and minor scales would have been classed as 'modern', and not coming from quite the same cultural eddy (backwater? ... can't think of a word that isn't poncey but I'm hoping you'll see what I mean) as Irish traditional music (and I would add the same for trad from other parts of the UK and Ireland).
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
Dude, the major scale has been around at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks, and if the article I posted a link to earlier is to be believed, it may well have been around for even longer than that - over 3400 years ago. Is that really what you consider to be "modern"? You really haven't made much sense on this thread anyway, but this just takes the biscuit - I mean, c'mon! WTF?!
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
The article you referred to is in support of one person's own theory which, in his own admisssion, flies in the face of most experts. I presume this is also where you got the idea that the major scale was used by the Ancient Greeks. Actually, this is not universally accepted, and it is fairly widely thought that the use they would have made of it would likely *not* have equated to the use of the scale in a 'modern' major key.
So, I would have thought your point is a red herring.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: music theory
It doesn't matter how they used it! It's used differently in trad to how it's used in classical music. Doesn't make it a different scale! The point is that it existed back then. So therefore your point is absolutely invalid, and I dismiss it with a theatrical roll of the eyes and a contemptuous wave of the hand.
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
And no, that article isn't where I got the idea that the major scale was used by the Ancient Greeks. That's a well known fact. It's part of my general knowledge. I don't know whether the stuff in that article is true or not, but it's certainly interesting. Either way, we know that the Ancient Greeks had the major scale. If you want to call the Ancient Greeks "modern", then that's cool... I guess it's all relative... I mean yeah, I'd have to admit that they're more modern than the Bronze Age, or the age of the Dinosaurs or whatever..
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Bronze age was a bad choice there. I dunno, something long ago, like the age of Neanderthal Man or the creation of the Earth or something...
# Posted on January 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: music theory
Music