Talk:Properties of musical modes

"Summertime" Aeolian?

The characterisation of Gershwin's "Summertime" as being in the Aeolian mode is highly questionable - the published melody never uses the sixth scale degree (with one exception where the second appears, it's entirely minor pentatonic), and the harmonic accompaniment uses both major and minor sixths and sevenths at various times. Thus isn't it more realistic to say that it's based on alternating melodic and harmonic minor scales if anything? Guy Hatton 13:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Overcomplication

Isn't the last section, on ways for instrumentalists to understand modes, self-defeating in it's complexity? So many different methods are given I believe it confuses the issue of what a mode is and how you can find one. Surely Wikipedia is not a teaching resource but a factual one, and thus such examples are beyond the proper remit of the page?195.92.109.217 12:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree it really is not the point of the article to talk about the various memory aids people have used. It's probably also original research. I'll take the liberty to remove it. Justinmeister 18:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• I disagree. This article has been in place for quite some time and represents the work of many editors who put forth sincere effort to create an informative page. If you wish to clean it up somewhat and improve upon it, then do so. I find it completely inappropriate, however, to eradicate almost an entire article simply because one or two editors feel that some parts may be superfluous. Even Wikipedia discourages this type of action. I have restored the article. 75.75.2.56 18:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• In fact, this article used to be part of the article Musical Mode. That article started getting too large so the parts pertaining to "Properties of musical modes" were moved to a new article . . . this article. That was about one year ago. Prior to that, this information had been a part of the "Musical Mode" article for some time as well. The entire purpose of this article is to discuss the "Properties of musical modes". It is therefore illogical to say that it is self-defeating. This content of this article adheres to exactly that which it is about. To delete large portions of it is the only thing I see which is self-defeating. This article needs to remain intact, with the exception of improvements by adding to it, not removing content. Additionally, the Musical Mode article links directly to this one as a reference for more detailed information on properties of the modes. 69.68.190.180 20:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• A guide on how to memorize the musical modes doesn't have anything to do with the properties of musical modes. It's also original research unless you can find a source that states it's part of some notable music school's curriculum. Otherwise, it's not encyclopedic. Justinmeister 20:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• It doesn't have to be part of a musical school's curriculum, it only needs to be referenced from a valid source. I admit, the references in this section are weak. When this section was moved from the old article, some of the references may have been left behind. I wrote the section entitled "By starting note" using the Harvard Dictionary of Music as my reference. When the article was moved, that particular reference wasn't. I added the reference back in. I don't know what references the others editors made use of, but perhaps you might use a "fact" tag on areas which seem questionable to you. I don't particularly care for the mnemonics section, but don't feel they warrant deletion. The article was given its name by the editor who moved the content. Perhaps a better title would have been "Learning the modes" or something of that nature. One additional note, and not that it is of any consequence whatsoever, but I've been a musician for more than 30 years and know that this information would be valuable to many seeking a greater understanding of the modes.69.68.190.180 20:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• I recommend that you read about What Wikipedia is not, especially the part about a collector of indiscriminate information and instruction manuals. The reason is because wikipedia is intended to convey information about people, places, concepts and ideas. IT is not a how-to guide. It would be acceptable if the section started off with something like "In traditional conservatories, such as Juliard, mnemonics are traditonally taught to aid students in memorizing the modes". Otherwise it's not. How do I know someone didn't just make this stuff up (as useful as it is)? Justinmeister 02:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Learning the modes

Is the section Properties of musical modes#Learning the modes a "how to"? In that case it would be Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Hyacinth 00:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Probably, although if properly cited and slightly rewritten it could be about commonly taught methods. However, it still wouldn't belong in this article, because pedagogy is not a property of musical modes. I'm not really sure if that split is the correct one anyway. I think a modern modes article (there's probably a better title) concentrating on how modes are understood in tonal music, alongside Gregorian mode, would be the proper way to break it out, leaving Musical mode as a concise overview article. This article is nearly there anyway. — Gwalla | Talk 05:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree (and more!) with Hyacinth. This article is called "Properties of musical modes". It should focus on properties and not get distracted. (BTW: what is actually meant by "properties" in the context?) So I'm following the be bold principle and pruning out the "Learning..." section completely and utterly. Hopefully such pruning, admittedly severe, will help the article breathe again, and begin to flower as it should. Feline Hymnic (talk) 19:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This article would be greatly enhanced and clarified by addition of the modal scales written on a musical staff. What is weasely about saying the Phrygian mode is aften referred to as the Spanish mode ? Whether true or not, it is not weasely (but maybe citation needed in the reference to Falamenco music). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.43.92.41 (talk) 11:32, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

See the article Weasel word for an explanation.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:05, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

"Happy Birthday To You"

The birthday song has a flat seven. Don't think it's Ionian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.77.75.13 (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know there were two songs of this name! The extremely familiar version certainly has not got a minor (i.e., flat) seventh degree.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The song is:

• G-G-A-G-C-B (not B♭)
• G-G-A-G-D-C
• G-G-high G-e-c-B-A
• F-F-E-C-D-C Georgia guy (talk) 23:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Which, if it is in G, gives it a minor seventh degree. (Don't you think you had better specify this is in C?)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Ending on C, that last line works with a IV-I-V-I cadence in C, sure seems like C to me. Not unusual for a piece to start on the dominant (here G) but you knew that, I bet. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 02:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

But is this the tune meant by 184.77.75.13? It is the only tune I know of to the words "Happy Birthday to you" (though I prefer it in B-flat major, rather than C), but there could be another one in Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, or some other scale with a minor seventh degree.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Me too: "Happy Birthday (to You)" is the only "birthday song" I know, so until anon.ed tells us otherwise, I will go with Ionian major here. Awfully fond of mixy. One hears it a fair amount in trad fiddle tunes. Dorian too. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 05:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Poorly written article

Firstly, I apologize, as I seldom edit Wikipedia, and this commentary will probably be formatted all wrong. I figured it would be better to leave note in here than to try to fix all the garbage in this article with no experience. Moving forward, here is my list of complaints:

• There is so much information without sources.
• There is so little information about properties of musical modes.
• Poor terminology; Is there any particular reason the 7 modes are being referred to as the 7 "modern" modes? Yes, I know there were the Greek modes, and the Western Church modes, but using this term to simply differentiate when there are no notable sources ever referring to the 7 modes as the "modern" modes doesn't seem right.
• Poor grammar; In Relationship between the modes: "for example, using the notes of the C Major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C" is a fragment.
• Irrelevant information; pointing out where the naturally-occurring dominant 7th chord is in every scale is totally irrelevant to modal composition. This chord leads back into Ionian, and in a modal piece (besides Ionian, if we must get technical) this chord should be avoided to maintain the distinct sound of that mode. The circle progression defines the function of each chord in relativity to the rest.
• Vagueness; "The Aeolian mode has a ♭3, ♭6 and ♭7." In relativity to what?
• Confusion; "the sixth and seventh degrees in a minor key can be altered to create major IV and V chords." First, why aren't Harmonic and Melodic minor mentioned here? Second, I don't often see major IV used in melodic minor, but I would even be willing to let that slide, save for my third point; if the sixth degree is raised without the seventh degree, it is a modulation to Dorian, and no longer minor. The quoted text glaringly poorly worded.
• Important information is missing; how are drones (pedal tones in the bass) never mentioned once in the article? This is a very, very widely used method of established the tonality of a modal piece.
• Small complaints; use the 'diminished' symbol '°' available at the bottom with the other symbols; the Relationship between the modes section is rather hard to read.

My apologies again for not knowing how things work around here. -Adam Badawy (talk) 06:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

No need to apologize. Your points are all well-taken. The only thing not quite in line with "how things work around here" is posting a new comment at the top instead of chronologically, at the bottom. Not a biggie. Welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you do a lot of constructive work here, and have fun doing it. One thing that sometimes gets in the way of making the kind of improvements you wish for here is difficulty in finding reliable sources. For example, the use of drones may or may not be widely used in modal music, and may or may not be used there more widely than in other kinds of music, but our personal knowledge or experience is of no use here: we need a source that says so. On the other hand, with only a single citation currently in this article, it shouldn't be too difficult to improve things in this direction.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Jerome. Your comment was pleasant and informative so I decided to register and be an official part of the community. It is my personal belief that this article needn't be separate from the main article on musical modes, but, if in days coming I have a few free hours, I may work on finding some scholarly sources to refine the information on the page. -Adam Badawy (talk) 06:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

This article

1. Why is this article not simply part of Musical mode?
2. Do modes pair up in major-minor pairs anywhere? (E.g. mixolydian-dorian, or whatever) Any answer should go into the "Modal relationships" section.

Contact Basemetal here 21:36, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

1. Lost in the mists of time, or at 17:06, 21 November 2005 (whichever comes first), User:Blahedo created this from "portions of the article Musical mode". The answer to your question, therefore, appears to be that it once actually was part of that article. Presumably there was some dissatisfaction with that state of affairs, and/or a feeling that this discussion of the "modern" modes was substantial enough to warrant its own article. From the tone of your question, I gather you are not at all sure this is the case. Should this be discussed?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I believe so. What reader would look for "Properties of musical modes" (here actually "Properties of the seven diatonic modes") who was not basically interested in learning about Musical modes. If the properties of musical modes are not part of the job description of an article called "Musical modes" then I don't know what is. Plus it is not the case this article contains such a huge amount of material that it couldn't be easily fit back into the parent article. I also believe this kind of separate article which is nothing but an appendage tends to encourage verbosity because it is felt "there is space", when exactly the same point could be much more concisely made in a better structured article when there isn't that feeling of space that needs filling in. This should encourage better writing. In the mist of time (sounds like the Dreamtime) people used to do stuff that is very hard to explain (maybe they had too much time on their hand and wanted to keep themselves busy somehow) and we're still stuck with that. I don't think such fragmentation really helps the reader of the encyclopaedia (and I'm not talking only about this article; this seems to be a disease of the English WP in general). Contact Basemetal here 23:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. This article is pretty thin gruel, and I think you should either propose a merger (if you think discussion is necessary), or simply be bold and merge it back from whence it came.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:49, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

2. I've never heard anyone claim that there are such modal pairs, though of course many theory texts posit a division of the seven diatonic scale types into "major(-like)" and "minor(-like)", based on whether the third scale degree is major (Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian) or minor (Locrian, Phrygian, Aeolian, Dorian), or whether the tonic triad is major or minor (in which case the Locrian falls into a category of its own).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

And in musical practice? When works use several modes are there tendencies that certain pairs of modes more often go together? Contact Basemetal here 23:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

This article seems mainly about jazz practice, and there I am out of my depth. Certainly the Church modes tend to gravitate into closely related groups when a chant changes modal emphasis, but I don't think a restriction to pairs is particularly common. In polyphonic music the combination of plagal and authentic forms (modes 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8) of course is very frequent, if not even universal, because of the relationship between the different vocal ranges.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:56, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

From a recent edit summary from Jerome Kohl I take it he's not a fan of my nouveau style of inserting point by point retorts. So back to the old fashioned way. In answer to the support for the merge I'll say that I have nothing in principle against being bold but just this one time, for the sake of the readers of Mode (music), I think I'll ask them what they think on their talk page. Contact Basemetal here 04:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

That is probably the prudent course of action. FWIW, the problem with your "nouveau style" was that it (1) removed my signature from the first half of my comment (making it appear that you were talking to yourself), and (2) broke the sequence of automatic numbers generated by the "#" sign following a line-feed, thereby forcing me to number my responses manually. There are sometimes reasons for these seemingly arcane preferences :-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the transfert

As I'm taking a look at the texts of both this article and of article Mode (music) I find there is very very little that's here and not already in Mode (music).

One tiny example is the degrees where the dominant [sic] 7th is found. That will do no harm in Mode (music).

Now I wonder how useful is that part on how to solfa the modal scales in movable Do (both on the "white keys" and uniformly from tonic C)?

I propose to scrap that (or at most transfer it to article Solfeggio) as the theoretical information which degrees are raised/lowered in a given mode compared to major (which those solfa scales are just an application of) is already in Mode (music). I guess I don't very well see the point of this example of a practical application of movable Do being in Mode (music).

Finally is it pedantry (in English) to insist on "the minor 7th over major chord" or "the major minor 7th chord" when that chord is not actually on the dominant? Or is no one shocked by "in Dorian the dominant 7th is on IV" and it's best is to just boldly go with the flow?

Contact Basemetal here 12:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

PS: Looking at this solfa business I find they're not doing it in the movable Do system I thought I knew about. But then again I grew up with fixed Do. I thought in movable Do the tonic of the major scale is always Do, the tonic of the minor (natural) scale is always La, and by implication the tonic of the Dorian scale should always be Re, that of the Phrygian scale always be Mi and so on. So I don't get it when in this article they solfa the Dorian on C like this: Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Te, Do. To me you solfa any Dorian scale, with any key whatsoever as a tonic', exactly in the same way, namely Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do, Re, and that's precisely why the system is called movable Do. What sense does it make to attach the syllable Do to the note C and still call it movable Do? Hoping for some help from someone who grew up with movable Do. This said, I still believe this solfa material has no place in article Mode (music) but at least if I transfer it to Solfeggio at least I'll know what I'm talking about. Contact Basemetal here 13:58, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I see two real questions here (along with some rhetorical ones to which a silent response may be taken as equivalent to assent). First, "is the term 'dominant 7th' acceptable to describe chords with a root not actually on the dominant scale degree?" In practice, this is done all the time by professional musicians and even by music theorists, but it is a loose practice that requires considerable experience to avoid confusion. Wikipedia articles are not intended primarily for people who have already earned advanced degrees in the subject, so I would strongly recommend against using "dominant seventh" to describe anything except chords of this structure with a root on the fifth scale degree. "Major-minor seventh" or "minor 7th over a major triad" is much less likely to cause confusion to the novice. Second: My own experience with movable Do (which is the system I was brought up in) is that "Do" always refers to the tonic scale degree, whether the scale is major, minor, or some other diatonic (or non-diatonic) configuration. To use "La" for the tonic in minor would be a hybrid system between fixed and movable Do. Movable Do has got enough problems when applied to passages in modulation, without the additional confusion of having two or more reference points for the key center.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we could pretend "dominant" stands for "supreme" and that the dominant 7th is called that because it was historically the most important 7th:) Never mind. I was joking. Your point is taken. There was a third question: what do you think of my suggestion to not transfer the solfa examples of this article to Mode (music)? Contact Basemetal here 17:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Good question. The solfège explanations might be of use to readers already familiar with it, but surely most of them would already be familiar with the modal scales, as well. For those to whom solfège is novel, and modal scales unfamiliar, it may make things look a lot more complicated than they actually are. Once again, I think this is a question of weighing the merits of favouring the expert over the beginner and, on balance, I would say it is better omitted than kept.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

And should I include this material in Solfège? Contact Basemetal here 22:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Plausible?

Some statements from the old page I haven't transferred are still there: Properties of musical modes. Are they plausible? Contact Basemetal here 09:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

These are all to do with the Locrian mode, I think. There are no references, and although there is a certain grain of truth running through it, on the whole it sounds like what an undergraduate might write the moment after leaving a class in which this modal idea was encountered for the first time. There are massive assumptions there (the assumption that triads are necessary in music is the most egregious) so that, without references to reliable sources that reflect this shallow thinking, I would recommend deleting it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Done. Same for statement regarding Mixolydian? Contact Basemetal here 20:00, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I overlooked that little scrap, sorry. It, too, was uncited and probably contrary to fact. Besides, this is not a redirect page, so it had to go. Better to oblivion than move it to the Mode article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)