Talk:Mode (music)

Mystic nonclassical mode (it has 3 submodes)

Please include it, make all proper files (if you have a different Mystic mode, name that one Sigil mode, otherwise keep it Mystic)

• do, re#, mi, sol, sol#, ti
• do, do#, mi, fa, sol#, la
• do#, re, fa, fa# la, la#

mood: mysterious

Evil Shaolin nonclassical mode (it has 2 submodes)

Please include it, make all proper files

• do, re, re#, fa, fa#, sol#, la, ti
• do#, re, mi, fa, sol, sol#, la#, ti

mood: horrorish (not pure horror; to horrorize it add chromatic ornaments and off-scale the semitonal intervals: 0-13, 0-11, 0-1, 0-6, 0-3, 0-4 (zero means starting note, and number means semitonal steps backwards or forwards)

Lock Fridge Door Mix Lid

In order Locrian (weird), then Phrygian ('heavy minor'), Minor, Dorian ('light minor'), then Mixolydian ('folky major'), Major, Lydian ('spacey major').
Mnemonic: Lock fridge (min) door, mix (maj) lid.
Lock fridge - door, mix + lid.
Acorrector (talk) 18:27, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Modifications to the article

I begin modifications to the article. These I think must be justified here.

• I added a mention of medieval rhythmic modes. These would deserve a section in the article, but that will be for later. I also indicated that the term had denoted intervals, or qualities of notes.
• I removed the phrase saying that musical modes "were inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music", because that is not true (even if it has at times been believed).
• I also removed the mention of "ancient Greek octave species called tonos (τόνος) or harmonia (ἁρμονία)" which, unless I am mistaken, are not in Powers 2001.
• And I reworded the rest of the phrase: "Harold S. Powers proposed mode as a general term but limited for melody types [...], with "most of the area between ... being in the domain of mode" seemed somehow incomplete. I completed Powers' quotation.
• I removed "This synthesis between tonus as a church tone and the older meaning associated with an octave species was made by medieval theorists for the Western monodic plainchant tradition (see Hucbald and Aurelian)" because I don't understand which synthesis was alluded to (certainly not that of Powers just mentioned), nor what "older meaning" (of "mode"?) is meant, nor why Hucbald and Aurelian are mentioned in this context.
• I remain puzzled by the following mention and the reference to Wellesz (and by the idea that musicologists "generally assume"...). Wellesz may have had an ideological position in all this. I have first to check that and I'll stop there for the time being.

But any comment about all this will be welcome. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 16:32, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I continue my rereading and rewriting of the article, this time of the section "Mode as a general concept."

• I removed this sentence: "Musicologists generally assume that Carolingian theorists imported monastic Octoechos propagated in the patriarchates of Jerusalem (Mar Saba) and Constantinople (Stoudios Monastery), which meant the eight echoi they used for the composition of hymns" and the reference to Wellesz that followed. After verification, Wellesz' article in vol 2 of the New Oxford History of Music never mentions Carolingian theorists. In addition, neither Mar Saba nor the Stoudios Monastery are mentioned in the whole volume.
• I modified the phrase "Since the end of the 18th century, the term "mode" has also applied to pitch structures in non-European musical cultures, sometimes with doubtful compatibility" in order to better reflect what is said by Powers in the New Grove.
• I added precisions to the early mention of mode in polyphony.
• And I moved from the lede the references for rhythmic modes, mode denoting intervals and mode denoting quality of notes.

I am not sure that this section must survive, under this name at least. But that is for later. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 13:42, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvements!

The lede is really inadequate as it now stands. It might be rewritten to take account of tonoi and distinguish diatonic modes ("a type of musical scale") gregorian modes ("with characteristic … behaviours"), rhythmic mode, modus in mensural notation. Or, the article might be renamed diatonic modes with mode (music) more of a disambiguation page. Sparafucil (talk) 21:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see a fork already: Diatonic scale. Sparafucil (talk) 21:32, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

@Sparafucil:, you are right that the lede is inadequate as it stands, and I should perhaps not have begun there. It seems to me however that the title "Mode (music)" is the most general: the article deserves more than being reduced to a disambiguation page because it has to say things that concern modes in general – and, on the other hand, the matter of "mode" may perhaps not deserve being distributed in many different articles.

It would seem to me more reasonable that sections be devoted to "Rhythmic modes", to "Modes as intervals" or "Modes as qualities of notes", also to non European modes (which are only alluded to in the section on Analogues in different musical traditions), and should link to other articles only if these already exist. For instance, there are general things to be said about non European modes, which hardly could be said in separate articles concerning any of them.

You write that the lede should take account of tonoi: don't you mean tonus, which is not the same? Modes have little if anything to do with Greek tonoi, while the Latin tonus has been used as a name for modes (but this is not for the lede). Diatonic modes are but a special case of modes. Etc. There's a lot of work to be done on this article. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 10:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I at first took your tonus for the singular of tonoi rather than psalm tone. I don't think it can be excluded from lede, and wish I had worked in Octave species as well. Sparafucil (talk) 23:02, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Jumping Images

Even with autoplay disabled, the list of example modes jumps about as the page loads in Firefox. 138.88.18.245 (talk) 21:36, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

This behaviour happens when a page has both sound output from <score>...</score> and from mw:Extension:TimedMediaHandler. There's a discussion at phab:T245377. A resolution might be some time off. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:34, 23 November 2021 (UTC)