Talking about music theory is difficult because we mix aspects of historicity, subjective understandings inherent to theory and musical perception and hermeneutics itself, which helps to de-subjectivize the topic, but yes, I agree with you, regardless of the reasons for possible difficulties in communication, we may make mistakes, omit important information, fail to make ourselves clear enough, or simply because the other person has difficulties in understanding due to their current life circumstances. Really tough...

 

The word ‘mode’ comes from the Latin for ‘manner, or method’ but musical modes all originated in ancient Greece, so they have Greek names.

Any scale and its modes in their simplest answer, are based on scale to harmony correlation, with each mode representing in an over-simplified description, the mode that works best with the chord/harmony that it pertains to.

This principle is also applied to the melodic minor modes and harmonic minor, though the harmonic minor uses 1st mode of, 2nd mode of etc.... rather than ancient Greek names.

It might easily seem like unnecessary repetition because they all contain the same notes, but it is not. For example:
The Phrygian mode is one of the darker sounding modes as so many of the notes are flattened (lowered a semitone). The more notes in the scale that are minor intervals the darker the sound and the more that are major the brighter the sound. It’s also very similar to the natural minor scale except the 2nd note which is minor rather than major.


I get what you are asking because it seems that all anyone is doing is starting the identical scale from a different starting point withing a basic C major scale. That is not incorrect, but where you start from provides a different tonality and the reason they were given separate identities.

 

In so many ways that is not just profound, but also as true as it is funny.
I have seen some music threads that are labelled as discussions over many years better resemble a proctology examination where anyone has to wade through a pile of shit to find one thing that provides a tiny degree of comfort.

 

Play an A major scale, then an F# minor scale. If they sound the same to you then maybe you should go into visual arts.

 

I am now ready to concede that I do not understand notes.

 

Don't beat yourself up. Music theory is like any form of discovery like Mathematics, Science and derivatives. Sure, there are principles and rules and while it is good to have a thorough understanding of the rules and principles, ground-breaking innovations in every discipline were discovered by learning the rules then breaking them. Whether this is the musicians who people hold in the highest regard, or people like Stephen Hawking who discovered things nobody knew were there.

If music was not a perpetual work-in-progress, nobody would ever try and write something new. Yes, I get that lately it seems that way due to a saturation of tunes that seem to all sound the same, but that has happened for centuries until something new comes along and changes it.
Any musician worth their salt, knows that no matter how much they learn, they do not have enough time in their life to learn everything there is to know about music, or do everything they hope to do.



P.S. They need to put the above icon where the like/dislike/love it etc... icons are as a further option.

 

It's funny you disagreed with what I said because it is the origin of the naming convention used, accepted widely. Considering you are so adamant that the naming conventions and origins never came from Ancient Greece, please elucidate and enlighten everyone where it did come from, keeping in mind the Ancient Greeks were around before many of the Europeans were delineated by older terms such as Germania or Gaul.

You have called it a myth. It's even funnier that so many modern Europeans think they invented it before anyone else thought of it. If you know Latin and Greek you'll know that they are the languages the names are derived from both even though Latin is a dead language. Sure, Ancient Greeks are European by A.D. cartography, no argument. What are you going to say Europeans invented jazz next?

If you look even deeper the Middle east Maqamat goes back before the birth of Christ. It too has modes.

 

Last edited: Mar 11, 2025 at 10:08 PM

No, it’s not. The term mode comes from the Latin word modus, as you yourself pointed out. None of the ancient Greek music treatises mention any word remotely similar to it. The first mentions of the term modus appeared in ecclesiastical liturgy around 850 CE, describing a musical system that had no direct connection to Greek music. Although, as with many things in the Middle Ages, it may have been inspired by Greek traditions.

I said that modern and contemporary modal music—our current understanding of modal systems—has nothing to do with what we know about ancient Greek music. And that’s simply true. If we were to trace the origins of our current understanding of modes back to antiquity, we’d arrive at the later developments of the Octoechos. However, the Octoechos has little in common with ancient Greek music beyond being a collection of organized sets of notes to some degree.

You could argue that the Octoechos was inspired by Greek literature and scholarship—and you’d be absolutely right! That's why they have greek names. In much the same way that Christian metaphysics was heavily influenced by Aristotle and Plato. But it wouldn’t make much sense to go around saying that Christianity originated in ancient Greece, would it?

I’m not even addressing what came before the Greeks here—it’s simpler than that. Our current understanding of modes has its roots in the Catholic Church, not in ancient Greece. And even if we set aside my initial claim and simply attempt to pinpoint a general historical origin, it would still be inaccurate to say that modal music as a concept originated in Greece. 'Modal' structures have emerged independently across various cultures, some of which are just as thoroughly documented and systematically organized as the Greek ones.

 

Last edited: Mar 11, 2025 at 11:52 PM

That is much clearer. The Ancient Greeks definitely had music as a huge part of their culture even though they were Lyres and other labels that we call them by... we both know there are plenty of libraries under that name of ancient Greek instruments. They did have modes.

Thanks for replying. I can see clearly you have done study too. Keep in mind that only certain hymns and phrases are permitted in the Catholic church system and that is not conjecture. Some are more liberalised than others but they are restrained, which makes what you are suggesting seem oxymoronic. I am not saying you are wrong but honestly, because both of us are a very long way from being stupid, there is so much conjecture on this.

There is definitely evidence to support what both of us said and if we both wish to go into semantics, evidence to refute some of it. The guaranteed truth is neither you nor I were alive the day the person who got the epiphany did invent it and nobody knows who that was. That said, I have also heard it mentioned that Pythagoras discovered the harmonic sequences we all take for granted. Considering neither of us seem to trust any single source, here is the map circulating, almost too much, and while it certainly makes logical sense, neither of us were around when it was created. For all we know it might have been created by his assistant and Pythagoras took credit for it, or he stole someone else's ideas (unlikely).

The point being neither of us were alive when modes and harmonic sequences were created to say 100% for sure.
We can only connect the dots.

EDIT ADDITION:
The proposed Pythagorean theorem suggested by the image below anyone could say it might just be some random Internet person's theory, regardless of how much logic is in it.

 

Last edited: Mar 11, 2025 at 11:25 PM

Maybe I didn't explain myself well. I wasn't saying ancient Greeks didn't care about music or write about it (they definitely used different terms, but yeah, we can kind of see it as modal music, with some caution). They absolutely did, and their musical tradition is actually one of the best documented from ancient times.

What I'm getting at is that even though I totally recognize how important it was, I just don't think it makes sense to say modal music started in ancient Greece, or that our current Western idea of it comes directly from there.

Look at Aristoxenus' stuff on the Teleion - that's some wild shit! Completely alien. We don't even really agree on what this music sounded like or how common it was in Greek society. For all we know, it could be like someone 2,000 years from now finding George Russell's Lydian Chromatic book and making huge assumptions, haha! But sure, I'll give you that ancient Greece could be considered one of the grandfathers of Western modal music.

 

What really bothers me, tho, is how often I look at music theory books, especially guitar methods, and see endless yapping about "Greek modes" this and that. It's like reading a grammar book that treats Shakespearean English as the oldest ancestor of the English language. It's simply misinformation that potentially closes the door to the discovery and investigation of the actual Greek musical systems (which are really cool and psychedelic)
Maybe I'm exaggerating, but in my defense, every niche discussion sounds like some expression of exaggeration and pedantry. When you're passionate about something specific like this, it's easy to come across as overly fussy.

 

Totally agree. On a variant of the word 'alien' - I actually dismissed one scientific journal speaking of music in scientific terms, after half a paragraph when the article got to "I believe I have uncovered evidence that aliens created..." I shuddered and thought..... no, don't make people believe this, they have a hard enough time connecting the dots already

back at you

 

Totally agreed. It's unnecessary. If they said instead "named from..."

When comes down to the simplest summary and I am confident you will agree, all of this is great to know and we both obviously found it interesting along the way, but it is more important what anyone does with it that matters, not where it comes from, as useful as it potentially can be to know the background.

 

What? Are you for real? lol

I agree. For someone just trying to play some licks, perform and notate music, it doesn't really matter (those modes could be called Joe, Steve, Jessica, etc, for all they care, haha!). But getting the facts right can really facilitate things for those interested in connecting the dots, like you said, and prevent misunderstandings like the one expressed by OP.

At least that was my experience studying medieval music at the university and learning Gregorian chant at church. I'd be pretty happy with "Byzantine modes" or "Church modes" (which I've already seen in theory books a couple times). Anyway, I'm sure the jazz guys aren't reading all of this, so I'll quit for now. Nice chatting with you!

 

I wish I wasn't - I followed the link to the article because I initially thought it was going into depth about the Pyramids. I was always fascinated as a kid how complex and imaginative the inner Pyramid design was. I knew a little bit, but my motive was to learn more about something so intricate for its time.
It started fine about the design, then the author went into the realms that Egyptians couldn't possibly have built it, and the music glyphs inside pyramids indicated that.... and then to the statement I said above. If it was a seminar, I would have ran not walked out of the room.

 

I'm not, I'm conceding to Foster

 

I studied both sides so as impossible and unlikely as it may seem these days, if someone presents logic I respect it, acknowledge it and discuss. I learned long ago that each of us can learn from each other no matter what it is we learn, as long as we try , and chuck the ego aside so the information can enter. It is difficult but like anything with a little practice, any human will do what comes with any practice, get better at it.

 

Djord Emer, I looked into it and saw that you are correct: your statements are well-founded and reflect a very coherent understanding of the subject: 1) Modern and contemporary modal music is fundamentally different from what we know about Ancient Greek music; 2) The Octoechos is indeed a later development, tied to the practices of the Christian Church, which shares little with Ancient Greek music (besides the conceptual idea of organizing notes); 3) The framework of modes as we know them today has its roots more in the practices and theoretical developments of the medieval Catholic Church; and 4) "modal" structures exist in many cultures independently of Ancient Greek music. When I mentioned Greece, I cited it as a model of a widely known musical culture characterized by a strong presence of modalism, which occurred similarly and derivatively in the practices associated with the medieval Catholic Church.

Again, modal systems have had a profound influence on contemporary music, offering 1) harmonic freedom (modal systems prioritize specific scales and tonal centers without strict adherence to functional harmony); 2) revival of ancient sounds (by drawing inspiration from modes, musicians create atmospheres that evoke different frames of reference—era, culture, place, etc.); 3) improvisation and exploration (jazz musicians, in particular, have relied on modal systems to foster improvisational creativity); 4) cross-cultural influence (modal systems create a bridge between Western music and non-Western traditions, such as Indian ragas, Middle Eastern maqams, etc.); and 5) compositional flexibility (modes allow composers to transcend conventional tonal structures, seeking new flavors and sensations).

 

Last edited: Mar 12, 2025 at 4:08 AM

Respectfully, could I ask you to explain the inference because everyone tends to highlight in pink indicating the old Pink Panther of the same name. Additionally, jazz musicians all know their modes as well as many other scale structures from many disciplines, the good ones i.e. and having performed all over the world in many jazz festivals off and on for decades and other festivals, I can tell you that is almost like saying the earth is flat.

Modal jazz in jazz history books has it's own unique place, just like dixie, swing, Bebop , hardbop, free jazz so on and so forth. That is like saying classical musicians cannot solo and only play one thing when they try to improvise because they do not know how to swing or do anything that is not strictly diatonic which is absolute bullshit....i.e. They only rely on diatonic notes to foster improvisational creativity, which we both know is untrue. I have met and played with many purely classically trained musicians on stage and in studios who do both. Granted there are many who cannot and certainly the door swings the other way.

The issue has always been the same things.
Tarring anything with the same brush or trying to put something elaborate into a square box always fails. Believing only one source could possibly be responsible for everything good is the very reason behind what everyone is witnessing in the world now.

 

Last edited: Mar 12, 2025 at 5:53 AM

Expanding on the riff...Believing only one source could possibly be responsible for everything bad is the very reason behind what everyone is witnessing in the world now. Blame is the game.