Mostly Major and Minor? This is not true! Most Rock and Blues songs use the Mixolydian mode. There are thousands of pops songs that use the Dorian mode. And in Jazz the Mixolydian and Dorian modes are absolutely vital.

 

While some popular songs make use of these modes, Im afraid I don't agree that the majority of songs in the key of C major use the B flat. The key of C major is known to anybody who has been taught by Fraulein Maria in The Sound Of Music.

 

Totally agree, and where would many of our favourite guitarists be without their passion for Lydian and Phrygian modes.

But now something else to think about...
When you want to describe the chords that you're using in Mixolydian, or Phrygian or any other mode,
you'll find them annotated as though they are mutated from the Major scale.
So you'll be discussing the thirds, sevenths, ninths, etc, as though they have been flattened (or sharpened)
from what they would have been, if they had been in the Major scale. - why describe them like that?
It's just a standard notation system set by tradition!

Do I like that? - yes and no - I understand the need for that standard notation system, but I don't have to use it.
If I'm playing a chord in Phrygian mode, I just know the mode and then prefer to just think of 1,3,5,7,9,11,13
as available notes from the mode. It's like my palette for generating any chord within the mode.
I won't waste my brain describing them as flattened or sharpened relative to a Major scale (Ionian mode)
that my Phrygian mode is currently not interested in at all.
But I have to accept that all the literature will still boringly describe those chords with flats and sharps,
i.e., the Major scale 'prevails' as the basis for our notation system.
I prefer to ditch that from my thinking and just 'know the modes' in their arpeggiated palette form 1,3,5,7,9,11,13.
Just one more way to remove yourself from the useful but restricted Major - Minor tyranny.

 

Last edited: Aug 25, 2020

Exactly, Using Black keys and calling them accidentals on Piano for sharps and flats is unnecessary and unintuitive. All the notes are Equal and the design of the Piano caused Players to apply more impoortance and focus on the White Keys. My whole point is that calling Sharps and Flats Accidentals is unintuitive and diminishes their use by musicians who avoid them instinctively. This is a direct result of the Piano's Design, and has nothing to do with when scales were invented or by who. Pythagoras worked out every Scale possibility in ancient times before we even had tempered tuning. The Piano's Design and the effect that design had on Western Music and notation has been the bane of every Guitarist studying theory, because terms like accidentals have no place music theory. There are no accidental notes, but the piano has implanted the thought that sharps and flats are accidentals and should be avoided into generations of music students. So, I give a big Finger to the Piano, but it does get serious props for putting the the C major scale right in front of you for constant reference. Making it easy to see and understand the intervallic relationship of the Major Scale. Whole Step-Whole Step- Half Step Whole Step-Whole Step-Whole Step- Half Step. The Piano gets the blame for western music being so Major and Minor mode Focused, especially C major and A minor.

 

There are an infinite number of notes on one string of a Cello. Your Honour, I rest my case.

 

Very uneducated post.
Dude, all notes are equal only since last century and mass piano production.
Meantone tuning was the dominant paradigm for several centuries. Before that it was Pythagorean tuning, which is schismic until 665 equal where the schisma becomes a step. Schismic, Meantone, their difference - Diaschismic - are all supported by 12 equal, but require different understanding of accidentals. Standard notation is based only on Meantone.
2-5-1 sequences (that are so often seen in jazz, but are absent in early music like Medieval chants) are possible only in Meantone, because in other tunings there are two types of tones that are called major and minor whole tones.
About modes - all of them were fair game for a long time. I think the dominance of only 2 modes is mostly because of practical education in classical music styles, which can be traced easily to Neapolitan school several centuries ago.
Still, modes never went out of fashion in folk music of Europe and many modal songs were written down in 19th and 20th century when there was interest in such music by musicologists.
In opera there were sometimes used non-diatonic scales, mostly to evoke "exotic" locations and native music.

 

do you really understand the meaning of equal temperament ?

 

When my wife reminds me to take my valium?

 

The piano's black and white keys are an ingenious design that allows one to have 12 notes in the space that 7 white keys take up.

I've only ever heard the black keys on a piano refereed to as sharps and the white's as naturals. But I don't think its the term accidental you mean? Accidentals are just notes that are outside of the mode or scale of the current key signature. Like a C# in a C Scale.

 

No, I don't understand anything about Music Theory Oh Wise One. So, why don't you fill us in why the Major and Minor mode came to dominate western music? Seems to me, you are just a blowhard regurgitating info. At least I have an informed opinion. What is your opinion? And, are you sure you play musical instruments and study Music Theory, cause you come off as someone who just reads about it, and has no practical real world experience.

 

Scales and modes are no more than basic theory. Also they are useful for practice, co-ordination and technique. When you evolve beyond that, and start having musical conversations, then they don't really apply any more than you would think about how to spell words, or grammar or puntuation when you're having a spoken conversation. Be mindful of them sure. But they aren't rules. And they aren't music. They are just building blocks. Obviously if you are doing music notation, they are important to the reader.

 

I understand what you are saying, and that did occur to me, but the term accidentals is used for sharps and flats, in Music Theory Curriculum. The term should be removed from the canon as should all unintuitive and/or ambiguous nomenclature. So, what is your theory on how the major and minor mode came to dominate western music?

 

I think thats a pretty fair and legit question

We have to look at the historical context, it would be definetly wrong to say that major and minor only prevailed because you could easily make a counter-argument that tonality itself got abolished by 20th century composers (and reintroduced by the culture industry but thats a topic for another day )

The composers of the pre-baroque era were experimenting alot, and came up with interesting concepts such as clausulas which later became cadences, thats a progression at the end of a musical sentence that emphasizes in which key we are.
Look at a IV - V - I and ii - V - I progression on your keyboard, you will see that every note of the scale will be played at least once, plus we use a descending fifth (the strongest root motion) at the end which further stabilizes the key.

In the baroque period, equal temperament was introduced so instrumentalists had access to all the intervals at once, which meant you could play whatever you wanted without retuning your instrument so the call for stability and not getting lost in music was pretty big.
The solution for composers back then was to introduce a so called center of tonality, in previous homophonic modal music everything came back to a final note (literally called finalis) and now we come back to a final chord to end a section or entire piece.

Another aspect is the dominant seventh chord, which is the most important harmonical device of the baroque period, a four note chord that has a tritone between the 3 and b7 that resolves in the strongest of all motions (strong in terms of nothing makes two voices more independent of each other), contrary motion (F and B go to E and C after a G7 in C major).
Previously, tritones were purposefully avoided, and then it was the most important interval ever, because this movement from dissonance (tension) to consonance (release) stabilizes our tonic way more than modal music did with its finalis, and hence the tonality was born.

The ionian scale has the perfect conditions for this to happen since the internal tritone allowed for a V7 without changing any notes so the construction of major was obvious, for minor we had to add 2 extra notes to make everything go smooth like in major.

Now we come back to the cadences which were important for stabilizing a key, so musical form relied much on them.
Like Ibnv said, only ionian and aeolian had the property of having all 3 functions as the same quality, I IV and V are major in ionian and minor in aeolian, plus we introduced a few extra notes to give us a V7 in that key.

So thats roughly how the major and minor tonality came to existence, and there are several reasions why it became outdated later:
First it was the musical form, the entire reason why tonality was invented, which started to change severely in the romantic period (Beethoven was already constantly pushing the limits),
harmony became more of an individual trait of composers rather than anonymous, publicly available material (compare Wagners late operas to Brahms entire music).

Finally, somewhere around the early 20th century, modality was reestablished by radical composers who wanted to distance themselves from previous generations like debussy, and soon after tonality was completely abanoned in favor of other thinking experiments from second viennese school composers.
20th century music was generally all over the place, its a topic for another time for sure lol

TL;DR: Bach did it so other composers followed his example, now people don't give a shit no more.

 

Last edited: Aug 25, 2020

That is what I wanted to say in two phrases.

You have give us a very good abstract, a little compendium about cultural and historical circumstances that influenced the western musical conception.
I'd like to introduce a conjecture: DNA molds the sensibility of certains sounds.
People of various cultures and races have sensitivities and tendencies for other sounds, rhythms, structures ... In one way or another, the ruling classes make a taste prevail, which tends to be inherited. First the aristocracy, then the bourgeoisie, set the guidelines to be followed in the academic music financed and mainly consumed by them on Europe. Historical and socials changes influences on musicians (and all artists) have been eroding this trend since the 19th century (actually, tonality had a short period of preponderance, and never in a static way).
Other cultures (DNA) have established other musical systems, more or less pyramidal, be it India, China, Japan, Maghreb, Middle East, African peoples, Americans, flamenco, etc.
I think this question about major/minor has a certain cultural and temporal bias, and it would not be asked that way in other parts of the world, and not in this present moment when such diverse music is made outside the commercial musical circuits (or even in them) where tonality is not the predominant pattern.
Maybe pentatonic is the most common and ancestral pattern in all cultures, (black keys matter).

 

Last edited: Aug 26, 2020

The Iommian Mode is the only one that matters anyways, just throw on your Black Sabbath records and party.

 

I do not think it is as you said.

In ancient times, there were different sexes of humans, and males and females had not yet formed and overcome other sexes. The names of music modes have been taken from the those primary sexes.

Over time, two sexes, male and female, emerged and overcame the other sexes, and as a result, the modes also decreased and initially assigned the names of male and female to these modes.

At first, everything was fine and justice was done between males and females, but males dominated females during operations that are not yet known to scientists, calling themselves major and the other sex minor. Again, the names of males and females were removed from the two dominant modes and the names of major and minor were placed on them, respectively.

In the twentieth century, with the rise of feminist movements, the minors revolted against the majors and challenged and overthrew their rule. But because the minors were not interested in forming a government, they left the society without a ruler.

 

420 blaze it

 

That would have been funny to put in this thread!:
https://audiosex.pro/threads/which-...nced-a-change-to-your-life.55225/#post-497882
I'm with the Blue Dream & Lemon Kush atm.
Oh, and Star Dog last month.

 

If I admit, due to no musical education, that I know next to nothing about music theory, does that make my compositions invalid? I thought Ionian were ancient Greek columns and Mixolydian was like Mixomatosis which killed rabbit overpopulation in Australia. And the Phrygian is where I keep my beer.

 

A musician is one who understands the ontological nature of music. The ability to perform or compose is secondary.

Aristotle says there are 3 causes for objects:

1. Final cause
2. Formal and material cause
3. Efficient cause

The instrumentalist, vocalists and producers know only the efficient cause of music (the mechanical production of sounds, like a worker who builds a house).

The composer, however, knows the material and formal causes of music, what a composition is made of and how it is put together (much as does the designer or architect of the house).

But only the true musician understands music’s final cause: its ultimate nature, purpose and function - the reason, why the house was built in the first place.