Does anyone have any examples of genuine irish tunes (or others for that matter) in the less used modes lydian, phrygian and locrian? These modes are difficult to spot by searches because they can so easily be disguised as something else, and, presumably because of their rarity, they do not always appear in lists of keys.
trevor
I’m not familiar with these
could you write them out in the form: tone, tone, semitone, or what ever, for an octave
I can’t help you by actually citing any tunes in those modes but I did look around a bit and found some information. Here’s a web page with a some. A little more than halfway down the page there’s a table with frequencies of English folk songs in various modes. As you can see those in the lydian and phrygian are pretty rare. http://clem.mscd.edu/~yarrowp/MODEXh.html
Chris Smith also has some information on his page. The materian is in the article titled modes.txt.
http://www.geocities.com/coyotebanjo/instruction/
If you look at these pages, Michael, you’ll get the information you want.
Steve
If you sing a scale -- do re mi fa sol la ti do -- you get a major scale, or ionian mode. If you sing those exact notes but start and end on “re” you get a dorian scale. Start and end on “Mi” it’s lydian.Start and end on “Fa” and it’s phrygian. On “sol” it’s mixolydian. On “la” it’s aeolian (which is basically a minor scale), and on“ti” it’s locrian.
Oops, did I remember to say that I don’t know any Irish tunes that are based on scales starting and ending on mi, fa or ti? I don’t. Anybody else?
Michael
Here the info you want about these obscure modes.
s = a semitone to the next note up
t = a whole tone to the next note up
lydian t-t-t-s-t-t-s
phrygian s-t-t-t-s-t-t
locrian s-t-t-s-t-t-t
If you play them on a keyboard using the white notes only,
the phrygian starts and finishes on E,
the lydian on F,
and the locrian on B.
The phrygian gives the impression of being more minor than either the dorian or minor modes (the dorian actually sounds slightly more major than the minor key). It is closely related to a minor key which will differ from it by only one sharp or flat.
The lydian seems to have the effect of an ultra-major key because it sounds as if it is forever wandering in and out of two very closely related major keys (major keys differing by only 1 sharp or flat). I think the reason is for this is that it has in effect two leading notes, one leading up to the fundamental note, and the second leading up to the fifth above the fundamental.
The locrian is the weird one because it’s as “minor” as you can go and doesn’t have a fifth above the fundamental like all the other modes do; instead it has a flattened fifth (or sharpened fourth), technically known as the tritone, and this worries the ear because it is difficult to establish the fundamental note. It is a musically disturbing mode and I suspect it would need more than a little skill to write a convincing tune in locrian to avoid slipping out of it into another mode.
You can set up a table of the major/minor “feel” of the various modes. Descending from the most major to the most minor in “feel” it is:
lydian starts on F
major (aka “ionian”) starts on C
mixolydian starts on G
dorian starts on D
minor (aka “aeolian”) starts on A
phrygian starts on E
locrian starts on B
I’ve shown the note each mode would start on if you’re playing the white notes only on a keyboard. Anyone who has done a bit of musical theory will recognise the sequence F-C-G-D-A-E-B as the “circle of fifths”.
trevor
Trevor, did I mix up lydian and phygian in my simpler example?
So a Ionian scale in two octaves goes:
first note, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone (first octave), tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone (third octave)
Then a Lydian one goes:
first note, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone (first ovtave), semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone (third ovtave)
Hmm, I see now.
But why is it so strict on this patern?
I know a bulgarian tune that goes:
First note, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, semitone, tone (octave).
What’s that called?
trevor,
we were posting at the same time there
cuchulain
Yep, you did. I in my turn referred to the augmented fourth in discussing locrian, when I shouldn’t have!
I’m sure if you wade far enough into the morass of greek, ecclesiastical, byzantine, folk modes etc you’ll find yourself drafting a PhD thesis before you know what’s happening!
trevor
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t bother to look it up before I posted -- I don’t really want to know!
Michael
Yes, we’ve apparently had some cross-posting here. Could be a reason for having on the posting a time of reception by the website as well as the date, but I digress. (any comments Jeremy?)
Cuchulain inadvertently confused phrygian with lydian in his example so that caused you to talk about lydian when it should have been phrygian. These things happen.
The semitone-whole tone patterns of the modes are vitally important because they define the “feel” of the mode, its major-minorish if you like. That’s why it’s so difficult for a guitarist to accompany a modal tune correctly. If he doesn’t understand the mode and doesn’t use only the chords appropriate to that mode then he’s going to destroy the modality of the tune or at least set up a conflict of modes.
Your bulgarian scale doesn’t fit in with the modal scales because it has 4 consecutive whole tones whereas none of the seven modal scales has more than three. The bulgarians probably have a name for it - in bulgarian.
If you play your bulgarian scale on the piano starting on C you’ll have the notes
c-d-e-f#-g-a-bflat-c, a scale with 1 sharp and 1 flat. Oh dear, we won’t get many marks for that in our musical theory grade exams will we 🙂 So much for exams.
If, however, you play the same notes but starting on the G instead of the C you’ll get the ascending melodic minor scale of G (so beloved of our music exam system). When you come down that melodic minor scale you play g-fnatural-eflat-d-c-bflat-a-g.
Your bulgarian scale, though, starting as it does on a different note to our melodic minor scale, has a completely different feel and is clearly a perfectly good scale in its own right.
Steve
many thanks for info about those web pages. They’re invaluable, and I’ve put them into my favorites for the time being as reference.
I’m convinced now we’re not going to get a flood of tunes in locrian, although that Icelandic one looks intriguing. I bet it’ll make you think of frozen wastes and ice gods etc.
trevor
For the guitarists reading these postings, you need not be scared off from Trevor’s comments above. As long as you understand the mode, accompanying modes is really easy. You should know that the same set of chords apply as long as the key signature doesn’t change -- you just use them differently. The problem comes when you think you’re in, for example, Aminor (which has no sharps and flats in the key signature) and you’re really in A dorian (which, like the key of G, has one sharp). If you know the key signature of the tune you’re in, it’s not so important that you know the mode, as long as you know the beginning and ending chord and the chords that “go with” that key signature. Practice your chord scales and you’ll be all right..
So, only scales that follow the same intervals as the white notes on a piano (transposed to whatever and starting on whatever) are called modes. Is that right?
So there are only seven modes. Is that right?
And anything else is just something else?
It’s a good question; I don’t know whether that Bulgarian scale you referred to earlier can properly be called a “mode.” Or any other combination of whole-tones and semi-tones someone could think of. For that matter, maybe you could get into quarter-tones and eight-tones, thereby creating an infinite variety of possibilities.
But the ones that start at the various white notes on the piano, as you say -- the ones that bear the names lydian, phrygian, etc., referred to above -- are the ones that are based on Greek tunings that give most western music its harmonic structure. And yes, there are only seven of those, I believe For Irish music, though, you generally can think about just the four -- Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian and Aeolian -- and I’m not so sure Aeolian comes up very often, even though an altered form of Aeolian (the “minor” key) is as common in non-Irish music as the typical major key.
Michael,
yes, 7 modes, each starting on the white notes. The ones used in itm are major, minor, dorian and mixolydian. The others are so rare they can safely be ignored - which is why Jeremy doesn’t have them on his list of keys in the tunes section.
Anything else is just something else like your bulgarian scale, and so isn’t part of itm.
trevor
yet another example of double posting!
trevor
Kind of off and kind of on topic. I just read a nice book of essays by Steven Harvey an old time banjo and dulcimer player and English teacher. Each section of one or two essays is introduced by one of the modes. He doesn’t really describe them or even give a tune in each mode except to say that there are none in locrian. He tries to use the idea of a mode to set the tone of the essays. It’s a bit expensive for so slender a book though.
http://www.uga.edu/ugapress/books/shelf/0820321974.html
Steve
Trevor, is “minor” common in ITM? I know that most of the minor key tunes I see posted in the Session are dorian, and I can’t think of any minor key tunes, but none of that means it doesn’t happen.
With ITM it’s all down to the guitarist/bouzouki player to temporarily “suggest” these modes with the chords they play since in this type of music they aren’t strong enough to suggest themselves by melody alone…
Following on from what other people have said, this is my view on these modes:
Firstly, I think you can safely discount the Locrian for the reasons given above, namely that it is built on a diminished 5th which is alien to ITM. It is sometimes used in jazz where diminished chords containing flat 5ths are common.
Next, there are 2 reasons why you don’t see many lyd and phr tunes - 1) because there aren’t many tunes which are “obviously” in these modes like you’d get in the music of other cultures, and 2) when guitar or bouzouki players use these modes they often don’t realise they are doing so.
The modes aren’t just separate scales - they are interrelated to each other in varying degrees of strength. Discounting the Locrian, each of the 6 modes has a corresponding “relative” major or minor:
Ionian (major) - Aeolian (minor)
Lydian (major) - Dorian (minor)
Mixolydian (major) - Phrygian (minor)
(Note that if you look down the left column, Ion-Lyd-Mix = I-IV-V - all related to what’s called the “circle of 5ths” and frequencies of tones and all that scientific stuff…)
Whereas you can usually tell easily by ear which is which with the first 2 examples (ion and aeo), the lydian and phrygian modes are more “ambiguous”, and it is sometimes possible to substitute any number of modes. It is because of the flexibility of this substitution that tunes which sound good in lydian or phrygian aren’t labelled as such in tune indexes.
A good example of this is “Earl’s Chair”. I notice that Brad Maloney says in the comments section for this tune “a guitarist would do well to start on a chord of G”. If you do this you are temporarily “suggesting” the lydian mode of D major, since there is a C# in the key signature. However, it is equally possible to start with a chord of Em, in which case you’d be “suggesting” the dorian mode. Some people back this one in B minor to start off with, so in that case you’d be in Aeolian. Other tunes that work like this are “The Viginia Reel” and “The Banks/Shores of Lough Gowna” amongst others. It tends to be the first chord or 2 that establishes what mode you’re in, since in ITM you don’t have to finish on the “base” chord of your mode.
Another example which is more obviously in the Lydian mode is a tune called “The Bunch of Green Rushes”. I don’t think it’s posted on this site, but have a look for it on the ABC tunefinder. It’s a cracking tune in 3 parts, the first 2 of which are best backed in F lydian (thereby making the melody players play in lydian too), and the third part is in Dmix. You can tell the first part is F lydian because the contour of the melody suggests that your “base” is a chord of F, but then there’s a B natural in the scale, meaning that you’re playing with the chords of F, C and G, and perhaps Am. If you’re playing the melody, and you reckon the backer doesn’t know the tune, you could have fun making them try and work out what mode they’re in. I bet they manage the Dmix bit, but a lot of people will be stumped with F lydian because you don’t come across it very often, and it’s difficult to find the chords by ear even if you can “hear” what chords are implicit in the melody.
I can think of a few pieces I’d back with phrygian. Since it is the relative minor mode of the mixolydian, you can sometimes substitute it. For example have a listen to the way Mark Kelly begins the B part of “The Snowy Path” on Altan’s “Harvest Storm” with a chord of F#m. He could just as easily have started on A and made it mixolydian, but that F#m establishes the phrygian mode temporarily and gives it a very weird, minor flavour.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how the modes work or examples like the above then e-mail me at markusdow@hotmail.com
Mark
cuchulain
The easiest available source for looking for “minor” keys as distinct from “dorian” is probably Henrik Norbeck’s abc files.
I’ve done a quick check on his reels files (a reasonable sample of irish reels) using the find and replace function in Word, which tells you the number found and replaced. For example, I searched for the string K:Amix^p and replaced it with K:9Amix9^p. This told me that Amix occurs 38 times in the reels file. When doing this exercise it is important to include the invisible end-of-line character ^p as part of the search string.
Norbeck appears to distinguish clearly between minor (e.g. Am), dorian (e.g. Ador), mixolydian (e.g. Amix), and major (e.g. A) in his abc files.
The results are:
Am 2
Ador 92
Amix 38
A 53
Dm 4
Ddor 26
Dmix 60
D 204
Em 16
Edor 71
Emix 2
E 5
Gm 2
Gdor 7
Gmix 9
G 202
Bm 16
Bdor 6
C 11
F 3
Bmix, B, Cm, Cdor, Cmix, Fm, Fdor, Fmix are all 0.
Converting this little lot into percentages we have, for reels,
major 58
dorian 24
mixolydian 13
minor 5
I’d say the results would be similar for the other dance forms, so your guess that minor, as distinct from dorian, is not all that common in itm, is correct.
trevor
Henrik Norbeck’s a flautist isn’t he? He therefore gives all the information a melody player would need to know, but I bet tunes like “The Earl’s Chair” are in B Aeolian on his index. He’d theoretically have to list possible mode substitutions such as “Baeo, Glyd or Edor all possible” for each piece! Also I’ve found one or two errors with key/mode listings on the Norbeck index, but it’s mostly correct, and it’s excellent so I use it all the time.
Mark
I play the Earl’s Chair in D major, simple. It just starts on a G major chord. You may be missing something in a tune if you think its first note is its fundamental, then working out what mode its in from that note.
Michael,
I take your point, but modes aren’t like keys; with modes it is all a question of what sort of flavour you want to add to a tune when you’re harmonising. The Earl’s Chair is in the key of 2#s, so depending on how you want it to sound you can choose the most appropriate mode from the 6 at your disposal, or a lot of the time it’s a question of taste.
For example for a 2-part tune that sounds as though it’s in Gmajor, you could try playing in Eminor for the second part to add interest value to the harmony. But that doesn’t mean that the second part played on its own on (say) a fiddle would immediately sound as if it was in E minor to the ear - it’s just the particular mode you’ve chosen as the harmony to create a certain mood.
I certainly never said that you should go by the first note - you’re right, you’d be “missing something”. You’d have to base on the tune as a whole or chunks of it of course, but nevertheless, the first couple of chords establish the mode for the human ear. That’s how the brain can tell just from listening to the harmony whether something is in a major or minor key. Similarly, with practice the ear can tell when something should be in Lydian or Phrygian: there’s nothing complicated or “special” about these modes - you’re using all the same chords and you’re in the same key - it’s just a question of emphasis. I don’t think I’m missing anything!
Mark
Thanks everybody for your great inputs to my initial question. It’s been a great education for me and I feel that I’ve learnt a lot about the interpretation of modal tunes and how guitarists in particular react to them.
trevor
Hmmmm,
This is the problem with modes and strummers.
It happens all the time so I suppose I should be used to it by now, but when I play the Earl’s chair, some strummer always wades in with an E minor or a B minor sus 4 or something when it’s quite plain that the chord is G. They just think G is too boring
The problem with modes and strummers is that strummers don’t play it the way Michael would have them play it. That’s the problem with fiddlers: they want to do the backing AND the melody.
I was just looking over the Earl’s Chair as posted here -- it’s not a tune I know -- but it’s apparent that there is a lot of ambiguity to it, a lot of places where the chord choice is wider than you think. But if you prefer this chord to that chord, well, each to his own taste, right?
Thats the problem (problem?) with fiddlers. they think the tune is tune is where it’s at. Not the backing.
But each to there own eh
What happened to the original thread - Irish tunes in the said modes? We talk about all Irish Traditional tunes as being modal. What we really mean is that some tunes use modes other than the major and minor scales of Western Art Music. Tunes are often not fixed rigidly to any mode, but fluctuate between modes.
Take, for example, the reel, Dr. Gilbert’s. For the sake of argument, say we notate it in E Doian mode (F# and C# in the key signature).
The A-part begins:
gf | eBBA ~B3c | dBA=c BAGF |
In the first bar, there is a C# present, but already in the second bar we have a C-natural, placing it, if momentarily, into E minor, or E-Aeolian mode. One could argue that this is only an accidental, and so it does not count. But we might equally well have notated the tune in E minor and place an accidental in the first bar for the C#. True, not every player would play it like this, perhaps replacing the C-natural with a D (To my ear, at least, a C# would definitely sound wrong in that position)- indeed, the individual player has a certain amount of freedom to alter the mode of a tune by way of variation.
As for the Lydian Mode, take the New(?) Copperplate. It would normally be noated in G major, or G-Ionian mode (F# in key signature).
The repeat of bars 7 and 8:
ABcd efge | aged ^cdef |
In bar 7 there is a C-natural, but in bar 8 a C#, placing it in the Lydian mode. Although I have never yet come across an Irish tune which is consistently in the Lydian mode, there are numerous tunes in major keys which feature an occasional sharpened fourth degree. I have heard some older players, mostly pipers or flute players, who almost seem not to have C-natural in their musical vocabulary (if such a term may be used), playing all tunes in G major as if they were in G-Lydian. Related to this, some fiddlers play all their Cs ‘half-sharp’ (the C-supernatural, as somebody here in the session called it), which would means that all g-major tunes would in fact be somewhere between G-major and G-Lydian.
I’d go on, but I’m being thrown out of this computer room.
That was well put David, and you were right it is the New not the Old Copperplate. In this case you’re not only getting a mode change but you’re modulating between the modes of 2 keys. As a backer I’d treat the C# as “preparation” for going into the dorian mode or the relative minors of both modes (Gmaj and Glyd), so the second part of the tune I’d fluctuate between E minor and E dorian.
Another example I can think of where a C# appears in a G major tune is “The Mountain Top”, also posted on this site.
Incidentally, Trevor, if you’re looking for Lydian tunes, there are a few in Northumbrian traditional music. Off the top of my head I can think of a song called “The Bonny Pit Laddie” in which each verse is in the Lydian mode. The words gan: “The bonny pit laddie, the canny pit laddie, the bonnie pit laddie for me-o… He sits in a hole as black as the coal, And brings the bright silver for me-o… He sits on his crackit and hews in his jacket, And brings the bright silver for me-o”. The song appears on Nancy Kerr and James Fagan’s album “Scalene”, although it is not the version in the minstrelsy (which you’ll be able to find on one of the tune indexes).
Michael, your argument seems long on smugness and short on logic. Nothing about the chording, whether it’s a G or a Bminor stops the tune from being a tune. And no intelligent backer wants to take away from the tune but rather put it in its best possible light. You may indeed argue that the best possible light means solo fiddle, and, since it’s a matter of personal opinion, I’d never argue with that. Indeed, I’ve listened to solo fiddle and like it just fine. But that doesn’t end the argument that if someone wants to back a fiddle tune in the best possible way, he or she needs to know the best possible backing to supply, and just because the fiddler thinks a G chord is the best, his carrying of the tune doesn’t necessarily guarantee the quality of his choice.
In any case, I’ve since downloaded the Earl’s Chair -- it is a fabulous tune, and I thank whomever steered me toward it.
Cuchulain54,
Sorry to go a bit off topic but this is interesting. To be fair on Michael, with a key signature of 2 sharps there’s no reason for a fiddler to think in terms of any other “modal frameworks” than D major or B minor. However, with a tune like “The Earl’s Chair”, a backer has the freedom to impose whatever mood he/she feels like suggesting by picking and choosing which framework he/she wishes to work within. I don’t know what instrument you play Cuchulain54, but I’m assuming you have a guitar somewhere to hand. If you have, try the following chords and notice how superimposing each different mode over the melody puts a whole different slant on the tune. Each is equally valid. This is just my opinion, but for me it turns a normalish tune into a catchy melody that is “cyclic” (i.e. it wants to repeat itself and you feel you can’t finish it), and you can’t get it out of your head for days. It is this freedom to be creative that I love about backing in a session (although obviously a melody player can be creative with ornamentation and dynamics etc also):
The Earl’s Chair
A-Part (Suggestion of Lydian mode - majorish feel)
|:G |Em |Bm |D |G |Em |A7 |Bm :|
B-part (Simultaneous suggestion of Phrygian/Dorian modes - “unresolved”, minorish feel)
|:F#m Em|Em |A Bm|Bm |F#m Em|Em |A7 D:|
Alternative modes for A-part:
Imposing a Dorian-associated chord progression this time:
|:Em |G |D |Bm |Em |G |A7 |Bm :|
Lastly, imposing an Aeolian-associated chord progression:
|:Bm |G |D |F#m |Bm |G |D |A7 :|
…You could 1) choose one of these and stick to it, or 2) choose a different variant on each repetition of the tune, or 3) mix and match during the A-part fluctuating between each mode. When I am backing, I am aware the whole time of what mode I’m in, and if I change it is usually a conscious decision. It’s like: “okay, I did Lydian last time, so I want to drop the volume a bit and give it a minor tinge with Dorian” or “last time through I want to really lift it before the next tune in the set and superimpose the Aeolian mode”. It’s this aspect of playing ITM that I find so fascinating, and although I realise it’s silly to get hung up about modes, it is the “flexible” modal quality of the tunes that sets it so drastically apart from classical styles of music, and we should all be celebrating that I reckon. Enjoy your new tune!
Mark
Mark,
Thanks so much for the lecture. Before reading your last post, I had played the tune a few times and found it likeable unbacked. But then I started putting chords to it and stumbled onto many of the progressions you describe here and got very excited about the possibilities, noticing the different moods that came out.
But my methods have always been a bit arbitrary -- grab chords that I think will work and enjoy the sound. What you describe here systematizes it in a way that is very, very helpful. I especially like the idea of running through the different modes each time the tune revolves, which is something I generally have only been able to do accidently. So again, thanks for your informative postings. Have you any other recommendations for tunes that are that flexible?
And thank you, too, Trevor. You also have a wonderful grasp of a tough topic and a good ability to explain it.
Michael: Didn’t mean to argue about it. I do think you’re right, that the tune is the whole point. But if you read Mark’s posting carefully, you will agree, I’m sure, that nothing he says opposes the view that the tune is the thing. In fact, his approach can celebrate the depth of a tune by showcasing it in a variety of ways. Playing a tune unaccompanied showcases it, too, but in only one way. I guess I’d argue that backers who approach their job seriously love the tune every bit as much as the fiddlers or any other lead-player.
Cuchulain54,
That’s the amazing thing about ITM: *every* tune is flexible like this; it’s just a case of knowing that you have 6 “modal frameworks” to work with in about 5 or 6 keys of varying numbers of sharps or flats. Then you get used to playing in each one and learn where all your chords are in relation to each other and what order they tend to come in (there’s a system to that as well which is different for each mode).
It’s a bit like being a chef, and learning what flavours go with what until it eventually becomes automatic; to me the raw tune is like the ingredients of a dish that you can get off the net or out of a book, or have someone tell you. Any dynamics or ornamentation the lead players want to add is what the ingredients become, like a nice steaming lasagne, mmmm. The backers have the job of adding in the salt and pepper seasoning to taste, and also the blend of herbs and spices. It’s no more important than the ingredients and the lovely dish of course, but it adds an extra dimension to it and complements it, and naturally if you add an inappropriate spice or too much salt (or go overboard with anything for that matter), you are in serious danger of messing up and spoiling the whole dish - the sword cuts both ways or whatever the expression is.
Basically substitution works like this: if you judge something to be in a major (Ionian) mode you can substitute minor (Aeolian) which is usually the best, or sometimes also Lydian and its relative minor Dorian. Occasionally Phrygian can sound amazing, but be careful and sparing with it.
If you initially judge a tune to be in the minor (Aeolian), try substituting the Lydian or Dorian.
If you judge something to be obviously in Dorian like Brian O’Lynn and so many others, try substituting Mixolydian (Planxty do this on “After The Break”). There are many many tunes you can do this with and it’s one particular way of harmonising that excites me! It works because of the way that pipers drone e.g. on a D over Ador tunes. Alternatively you could “majorise” it and lean towards Lydian in one of the parts maybe.
Lastly, if you judge something to be in Mixolydian, you can sometimes substitute its relative minor (Phrygian).
All this isn’t as complicated as it sounds I promise - try it on a guitar and you’ll probably find that you’ve been doing it naturally or accidentally all along, but just hadn’t analysed what you were doing.
By the way, if substituting modes like this you sometimes have to be a bit careful if you get really abstract and start superimposing e.g. Dorian onto Ionian (doing an ascending progression in Aminor over something like the B-part of a tune in G major), you need to emphasize the key and make sure you retain the 3rd in the chord, and adding 7ths like minor 7ths works when you do this.
Anyway, I’ve written a whole load of stuff on this subject for another website with specific examples, and clarifying some rules to enable you to find what chords are at your disposal and do this spontaneously - it’s a lot easier than it seems, especially if you already have an ear for the different sounds you end up creating, which you obviously have from what you are saying. If you want to find out more then feel free to e-mail me on markusdow@hotmail.com and I can send you some stuff, but I’m feeling a little guilty for wandering so far off the original topic of this thread (sorry Trevor!), so I guess we should either do that or start a new thread or something.
Mark
Trevor,
Having said that I’d just like to add something to my already far-too-long babble.
I’ve just reread your earlier posting about the spectrum of “major” and “minor” feel of each mode, and I see what you’re on about. I realised before that some had a more major or minor feel than others, but I never realised that if you list them like that you get the circle of 5ths - that’s so clever - I’m well impressed.
The only thing I would add to is the way you’ve analysed the Lydian mode. To a melody player, the Lydian mode sounds a bit odd and exotic, but to someone harmonising ITM or jazz, it simply functions as the relative major of the Dorian mode; it’s just that most often in ITM the Lydian is “gapped” so you don’t get to hear the #4th in the melody (like “The Earl’s Chair” if you harmonise that using Glyd). You said that the Lydian has the effect of having 2 leading notes, and the accepted theory on this is that you have 2 tonics for modes like Dorian, Mixolydian etc (there’s stuff about that on the net - mainly on jazz guitar sites). But I’m not sure that I agree with the accepted analysis. I think that this is a classic case of theorists trying to impose “tonics” for every mode willy-nilly, trying to make it make sense in terms of classical harmony, and without really realising how the modes interrelate to each other.
I think proof of this comes in 2 forms: 1) If you harmonise your 2 leading notes, you can only harmonise one of them with a dominant 7th chord, not both, and 2) if you harmonise a piece you reckon is in Glyd with the chords G, A and D, it sounds Lydian, but if you try substituting the G chord for an Em chord, all of a sudden you’ve converted it to its relative minor Edor, with the 3 primary chords you’d usually use for that mode - i, IV and bVII.
Okay it really is time for me to shut up now - apologies.
Mark
…Okay, maybe I’ll just say just one more thing before I go. This is directed mainly at Trevor who started the original thread. Trevor, you asked for tunes written in these modes, and I’ve pointed out that they are “weak” or “ambiguous” modes that can easily lapse into their stronger relative major or minor. A prime example of this is the Northumbrian tune “The Peacock Followed The Hen”, posted by… he he he I’ve just checked this and strangely enough it was none other than Cuchlain54 - funny that! Anyway, the B-part can be harmonised in Ador like the A-part, but if you start the B-part with a chord of C, and then wander to D and then G, that’s where your stongly Lydian feel comes in. This is a perfect illustration of what I’ve been going to great lengths to try and explain, and it also happens to be one of my favourite tunes.
Mark
Now I’m thoroughly confused. I back that tune exactly how you explain it, yet I can’t “hear” it done any other way. Consequently, I’m not really understanding what makes it “lydian” in feel.
Music and intellect clearly don’t mix. Let’s just stop thinking and play - anyway, us melody players wouldn’t know a wrong chord if it hit us in the eardrum.
That’s okay then isn’t it!? I could tape-record myself vamping in G and set it to “repeat”, then spend the whole night at the bar - nobody would ever know the difference!
Cuchulain, David and Dow, phew
I love all this theory stuff and appreciate its merits and importance. (It’s a bit rich calling me long on smugness and short on logic though)
You three seem to be in agreement about the flexibility of diddly tunes fitting perfectly with a shifting modal harmony. You are of course correct, and full marks for your exhaustive explanations and illustrations.
But allow me to suggest an alternative appraoch:
What if diddly tunes aren’t flexible at all, merely fluid. By this I mean that their tonal centres are fixed and it is the spacing of notes arround the centre that shifts.
By backing the same tune with different modal accompaniaments, your appraoch suggests that the tune itself modulates. Or rather that each time you shift the mode, you shift the tune’s centre. While I accept this approach, can you accept that you may be imposing something on a tune that is not actually there in the melody.
Lets get back to the earl’s chair. It’s a great little tune and I am by no means suggesting that it should be played solo.
You say (rather smugly) that there is no reason for me to think of the tune in anything other that Dmaj or Bmin because it has two sharps. You say (rather smugly) that it’s your job to enlighten me, that you have the “freedom” to “impose” whatever mood you feel like. Can you not see that that is a tad arrogant.
The earl’s chair is a great example of the tight nature of a diddly tune’s centre. For starters, lets look at the Csharp. It might be in the Key signature but there a no Csharps in the tune at all. But no Cnats either. “Ah ha”, you say, “another axample of the tunes ambiguity” but this is not the case. The tune is teasing you with its centre. By starting with the Bnat (Gmaj chord), the tune laughs at us, pronouncing it self to be in Gmaj. And the lack of the Csharp intensifies this subtifuge. We expect to hear the Cnat, but it never comes.
Then the cheeky blighter resolves to the Dmaj, but only for an instant.
Then off we go into the second part with an Enat (Amaj) that again only fleetingly resolves to the D before coming back round to the start and its Gmaj again.
What a belting little tune it is. A cheeky little tease of a tune that each time I hear, puts one of those fixed botox style grins on my face.
A tune finds its own centre and you are not free to impose yours upon it.
Michael,
I apologize for calling you smug. You often bring sound and interesting arguments to the Session, and I appreciate your doing that. I get (rather too quickly) irritated when people speak in absolutes, and I thought it unfair to say “that’s the problem with strummers” when, clearly, it’s a problem with some strummers and not others.
And how much of a problem is it? If backers are really ruining a tune’s center, well, you are right to protest. Your assessment of the Earl’s Chair and its center is brilliant, but I don’t think the alternative chords as Mark (Dow) described them really mess with the center. First off, I don’t think anybody was saying that the G-chord approach was wrong, that the tune had to be in D or Bminor. I think people were suggesting that such approaches could be used without ruining the tune’s charm. I don’t know; I’m no expert. All I know is, I strummed through it, accompanying my own dismal humming, and I found that I liked a straightforward G-chord approach best in the A-part, but that some of the alternative chords that Mark suggested for the B part seemed to accentuate the charm of the A-part without sacrificing the B part. I got one of those deep, pleasant thrills as the tune just seemed to swell in power. I wouldn’t look at it as imposing my center on the tune. I would look at it as the tune’s center imposing itself on me.
Heh Cuch
Sounds like you’ve got it. I agree that Mark’s chords for the second part do sound pretty good and I love the sweel back into the G major (where you expect the resolve of the D).
It’s when the tune is forced with Bminor or even an Fsharpmin that I find the problem. It’s so weak. Alternatives would be to play a G6 or Gmaj7. This would give you the top E or the Fsharp you wanted, but you’s have to ground the voicing thoroughly with some low Gs and Ds.
Hmmm…I happen to play a Earl’s Chair with a C# in the B Part, at least once in the course of three or four times through the tune, based on an old Sligo setting. Also, I like hitting those opening B’s in the A part with a double stop--sometimes with the open D string, sometimes holding the E on the D string.
I agree with the notion of a tune having a center, but not that it can be definitively determined by simply looking at some “standard” melody line as Michael has tried to do. These tunes aren’t set in stone--different players incorporate different notes without making the tune unrecognizable (in fact, often getting to the heart of the tune), and so alter the modality of the tune. Being dogmatic about a given tune’s modality seems fuitless to me because it can be shifted by the person playing the tune, and the tune is no less authentic for doing so. A simple example. Play The Blackhaired Lass with C#’s. Now play it with Cnats. It is still The Blackhaired Lass, and yet it has completely changed modes. This kind of exploration of modes is central to Irish music over the long haul, whether or not we try to cement tunes in place for our session or our short individual spans on the planet.
Michael,
We are saying exactly the same things. The thing you describe as being the “tonal centre” is your key - i.e. 2#’s. The “spacing of the notes around the centre” is what the modes are! I’m pretty sure we’re all agreeing with each other, but just using different terminology (some of the terminology does not exist because modern theorists have shown no interest in exploring it, perhaps because they think the music is “simple” or not worth exploring). By the way I also prefer the G option for the A-part of “The Earl’s Chair” so I agree with you on that one too. Also I never suggested that the tune modulates. Modulation involves a change of key, where sharps or flats are added or taken away. Since in this case the key remains unchanged, you are not modulating. I don’t think anyone ever said either that it was our job to enlighten you, and I never meant to even imply that. I think also that “impose” was a bad choice of words. Perhaps “imply”, “refer to”, “suggest”, “subtly quote from” might have been more appropriate. My reasons for writing in this thread were to communicate to others exactly what aspects of ITM I love and enjoy. I might be enjoying it and finding it rewarding in a different way from other people at a session, or it might be the same. I don’t know, but certainly this isn’t the sort of stuff you can talk about in the pub during a session - it would be considered inappropriate would it not? I think that this website is a useful opportunity to discuss stuff like this and share ideas…
Will
I’ve heard the version with the Csharps and don’t like it as much. I’ve also heard it double stopped with the D the E and the Fsharp. Giving a G chord, Emin and Bmin respectfuly. I think you would enjoy playing this particular tune with Mark rather that I. But heck, if I was playing the tune with you and Mark, I’d join in and play like that too, and enjoy it. That’s another good thing about diddling, “When in Rome …”
Mark
I have no formal education in music so my terminolgy comes second hand, gleened from conversations such as these. I’d heard of modes but didn’t really know about them in any detail before this discussion. I appreciate any correction of my terminology, and appreciate being told when I’m talking bull.
Modulation:
I always thought that meant changing a tunes centre. I stand corrected.
But, I’ve never really paid much attention to what “key” a tune is in either. I’ve found that a lot of tunes don’t really follow that principle. Two sharps? Why is it writen like that whether the notes appear or not? Then what of those tunes that have a floating major/minor third, Csharp/C for example? Do you write the Csharp in the key signature and mark up the natural as an accidental? Or mark the sharp as an accidental? Does the tune modulate from G to D when the C sharpens? Or more likely as far as a strummer is concerned: Amin to D maj.
You could say these questions are not relevent to diddly music, and I’ve certainly said this in the past. But talk of these modal theories opens up again this can of worms. You could also say that these questions are more relevent to the strummer than the tune player, but Will’s talk of which notes he double stops squashes this.
Either I don’t understand all this, or these existing theorys are lacking. I like to explore this stuff, and you guys are a great help. (that sounds sarcastic, it wasn’t). You say modern theorists have no interest in it. Are we not the modern theorists?
Ditto on the key signature limitations when applied to the tchunes. To me, the key signature is just a convention you need when writing the tune down (rather than a clear-headed way of thinking about the scale or mode of the tune itself when you’re playing it), and I nearly always base my decision on what notes are actually played. When a trad tune vascillates between cnat and C#, or Fnat nad F#, etc., I arbitrarily and capriciously look at what note each half of the tune resolves to and then mark the overall key signature accordingly, considering the “other” note to be an accidental. Also, to me, the term “accidental” implies something gone amiss, and that’s just not the case in these tunes. If it had been up to me, back in the neonatal days of music theory, I would have labeled such changes in pitch as “serendipitals”….
And it’s not just the double stops that beg a melody player to think about modes. Simply choosing which intervals to play or emphasize also implies mode, as in my Blackhaired Lass example above. Going back to Earl’s Chair, you can take the C’s out of the second half by hanging on the D’s (rolling them, say), or you can play some d^cd phrases to “set” the mode a bit.
I just think that most tunes are open to interpretation--that choosing a mode can be fairly subjective, as with most decisions about this music. Kevin Crawford plays Humours of Trim with c nats, but I learned it off the Cheiftains with all c sharps. I’ve commonly heard Buried My Wife and Danced on her Grave with either c nats or c sharps, and versions with both incorporated. If anything, this penchant for tossing in seredipitals and toying with chameleon pitches, never settling on a mode, seems to be a hallmark of Irish trad music and one of its central charms.
Written music seems to require some kind of choice of key signature, and I think the process is like Will explains it -- you choose to put the sharp in the key signature and mark all accidentals as naturals or vice versa, depending on the number of ’em or on your assumptions about the likeliest mode of the tune. It’s a little like weather forecasters declaring that it’s going to be “mostly sunny” versus “partly cloudy.” It leaves a little wiggle room.
fidicen, here are some examples that may give you food for thought:
1-Definitely phrygian:
The Cloud Crown (posted by gian marco) https://thesession.org/tunes/4522
2-possibly a B-phrygian modulation within a tune in Eminor:
The Butterfly (the ‘c natural’ (as opposed to d) version of part2) https://thesession.org/tunes/10
3-phrygian ‘colour’ in the first part of The cock and the Hen https://thesession.org/tunes/93
4-locrian leanings in Hardiman the Fiddler https://thesession.org/tunes/48
5-as for the Lydian mode, if you listen to Sliabh Luachra fiddle master Pádraig O’Keeffe’s recordings or to the ‘pitching’ styles of many other fiddlers and fluters of an older trad mould, you’ll find that their renditions of (G) major tunes often lean on the lydian side (probably only partially due to fingering constraints). Moreover, not only the Irish and Scottish pipers of old would have had such ‘leanings’ (or if it wasn’t a leaning, it’s clear they weren’t bother by a raised 4th or two) but the older generation of Highland bagpipes were mostly ‘sharp in the d’ and show that our collective ear has changed a lot in the last 30 to 300 years.
As an illustration of what I just said, try to play Johnny Loughran’s reel https://thesession.org/tunes/1643 with a c sharp and see if you still find it to your taste. (You can try that trick pretty safely on other pentatonic tunes in G major tunes in the ITM repertoire.)
Personally, I tend to like it. I even have, among other Lydian tunes I play, a G version of the Frieze Breeches that goes like that:
X:1
T:The Frieze Breeches
R:slide
M:12/8
L:1/8
K:Glyd
G2A B2c d2g fdc|d2d edc ded d2d|
G2A B2c d2g fdc|B2d c2A G3 G2d:|
|:g2a bag|a2g fdd|d2d edB ded ded|
g2a bag a2g fdc|B2d c2A G3 G2d:|
In addition, the Phrygian mode is/was common in SW Brittany (a Celtic cousin) and the Lydian mode is still prevalent in the instrumental and vocal traditions of Norway (a Nordic cousin), if that can lead you to better & bigger troves…