Locrian mode

The Locrian mode is the seventh mode of the major scale. It is either a musical mode or simply a diatonic scale. On the piano, it is the scale that starts with B and only uses the white keys from there on up to the next higher B. Its ascending form consists of the key note, then: Half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step.

History

Locrian is the word used to describe an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the three regions of Locris. ^[1] Although the term occurs in several classical authors on music theory, including Cleonides (as an octave species) and Athenaeus (as an obsolete harmonia ), there is no warrant for the modern use of Locrian as equivalent to Glarean's hyperaeolian mode, in either classical, Renaissance, or later phases of modal theory through the 18th century, or modern scholarship on ancient Greek musical theory and practice. ^{[2] [3]}

The name first came into use in modal chant theory after the 18th century, ^[2] when Locrian was used to describe the newly numbered mode 11, with its final on B, ambitus from that note to the octave above, and semitones therefore between the first and second, and between the fourth and fifth degrees. Its reciting tone (or tenor) is G, its mediant  D, and it has two participants: E and F. ^[4] The final, as its name implies, is the tone on which the chant eventually settles, and corresponds to the tonic in tonal music. The reciting tone is the tone around which the melody principally centers, ^[5] the term mediant is named from its position between the final tone and the reciting tone, and the participant is an auxiliary note, generally adjacent to the mediant in authentic modes and, in the plagal forms, coincident with the reciting tone of the corresponding authentic mode. ^[6]

Modern Locrian

In modern practice, the Locrian may be considered to be one of the modern minor scales: The natural minor with the step before second and the fifth scale degrees reduced from a tone to a semitone. The Locrian mode may also be considered to be a scale beginning on the seventh scale degree of any Ionian, or modern natural major scale. The Locrian mode has the formula:

1, ^♭2, ^♭3, 4, ^♭5, ^♭6, ^♭7

The chord progression for Locrian starting on B is B_dim 5, C^Maj, D_min, E_min, F^Maj, G^Maj, A_min. Its tonic chord is a diminished triad (B_dim = B^dim 5
_min 3 = _BD^F, in the Locrian mode using the white-key diatonic scale with starting note B, corresponding to a C major scale starting on its 7th tone). This mode's diminished fifth and the Lydian mode's augmented fourth are the only modes that contain a tritone as a note in their modal scale.

List of Modern Locrian scales

Major Key	Minor Key	Key Signatures	Tonic of the locrian scale	Locrian scale
C♯ major	A♯ minor	7♯	B♯	B♯ C♯ D♯ E♯ F♯ G♯ A♯
F♯ major	D♯ minor	6♯	E♯	E♯ F♯ G♯ A♯ B C♯ D♯
B major	G♯ minor	5♯	A♯	A♯ B C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯
E major	C♯ minor	4♯	D♯	D♯ E F♯ G♯ A B C♯
A major	F♯ minor	3♯	G♯	G♯ A B C♯ D E F♯
D major	B minor	2♯	C♯	C♯ D E F♯ G A B
G major	E minor	1♯	F♯	F♯ G A B C D E
C major	A minor	-	B	B C D E F G A
F major	D minor	1♭	E	E F G A B♭ C D
B♭ major	G minor	2♭	A	A B♭ C D E♭ F G
E♭ major	C minor	3♭	D	D E♭ F G A♭ B♭ C
A♭ major	F minor	4♭	G	G A♭ B♭ C D♭ E♭ F
D♭ major	B♭ minor	5♭	C	C D♭ E♭ F G♭ A♭ B♭
G♭ major	E♭ minor	6♭	F	F G♭ A♭ B♭ C♭ D♭ E♭
C♭ major	A♭ minor	7♭	B♭	B♭ C♭ D♭ E♭ F♭ G♭ A♭

Overview

The Locrian mode is the only modern diatonic mode in which the tonic triad is a diminished chord (flattened fifth), which is considered very dissonant. This is because the interval between the root and fifth of the chord is a diminished fifth. For example, the tonic triad of B Locrian is made from the notes B, D, F. The root is B and the dim  5th is F. The diminished-fifth interval between them is the cause for the chord's striking dissonance.^{[ citation needed ]}

The name "Locrian" is borrowed from music theory of ancient Greece. What is now called the Locrian mode, however, was what the Greeks called the diatonic Mixolydian tonos. The Greeks used the term "Locrian" as an alternative name for their "Hypodorian", or "common" tonos, with a scale running from mese to nete hyperbolaion, which in its diatonic genus corresponds to the modern Aeolian mode. ^[7]

In his reform of modal theory, ^[8] Glarean named this division of the octave "hyperaeolian" and printed some musical examples (a three-part polyphonic example specially commissioned from his friend Sixtus Dietrich, and the Christe from the Missa de Sancto Antonio by de la Rue), although he did not accept hyperaeolian as one of his twelve modes. ^[9]

The term "Locrian" as equivalent to Glarean's hyperaeolian or the ancient Greek (diatonic) mixolydian, however, was not used until the 19th century. ^[2]

Use

Use in classical music

There are brief passages in classical, especially orchestral, works that have been regarded as using the Locrian mode:

• Sergei Rachmaninoff (Prelude in B minor, op. 32, no. 10), ^[10]
• Paul Hindemith ( Ludus Tonalis ), ^[10]
• Jean Sibelius (Symphony No. 4 in A minor, op. 63). ^[10]
• Claude Debussy's Jeux has three extended passages in the Locrian mode. ^[11]
• Paul Hindemith's "Turandot Scherzo", the theme of the second movement of Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943) alternates sections in mixolydian and Locrian modes, ending in Locrian. ^[12]
• Benjamin Britten used the Locrian mode for "In Freezing Winter's Night", the ninth song in A Ceremony of Carols .
• Evan Bennett, an American composer, composed his Gnossienne No. 1 in F Locrian in the Locrian mode, in homage to Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1 (ca. 1890). ^{[13] [14]}

Use in folk and popular music

The Locrian mode is almost never used in folk or popular music:

"In practical terms it should be said that few rock songs that use modes such as the Phrygian, Lydian, or Locrian actually maintain a harmony rigorously fixed on them. What usually happens is that the scale is harmonized in [chords with perfect] fifths and the riffs are then played [over] those [chords]." ^[15]

Among the very few instances of folk and popular music in the Locrian mode:

• The Locrian is used in Middle Eastern music as maqam Lami. ^[16] In 24 TET, it is possible to create 12 TET scales, and Lami has the same intervals as Locrian.
• Slipknot's track "Everything Ends" uses an A Locrian scale with the fourth note sometimes flattened. Numerous other tracks by Slipknot use Locrian mode as well such as "The Shape", "I am Hated", "Left Behind", "New Abortion", and "Duality" ^[15]
• English folk musician John Kirkpatrick's song "Dust to Dust" was written in the Locrian mode, ^[17] backed by his concertina. The Locrian mode is not at all traditional in English music, but was used by Kirkpatrick as a musical innovation. ^[18]
• Björk's "Army of Me" is dominated by a heavy bassline in C Locrian. ^[19]
• The song "Gliese 710" from King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's 2022 album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava is in Locrian, following the album's theme of basing each song around one of the Greek modes. ^[20]
• Gojira uses this mode on a few songs such as "From Mars" and "Oroborus", both use an E Locrian scale.
• Locrian mode is used in many places on the album The Last Will and Testament by Opeth. ^[21]

References

1. "Locrian" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
2. Powers, Harold S. (2001a). "Locrian". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London, UK: Macmillan Publishers. p. 158.
3. Hiley, David (2002). "Mode". In Latham, Alison (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford, UK / New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-866212-9. OCLC   59376677.
4. Rockstro, William Smyth (1880). "Locrian mode". In Grove, George, D.C.L. (ed.). A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (A.D. 1450–1880), by eminent writers, English and foreign. Vol. 2. London, UK: Macmillan and Co. p. 158.
5. Smith, Charlotte (1989). A Manual of Sixteenth-Century Contrapuntal Style. Newark, NJ / London, UK: University of Delaware Press / Associated University Presses. p.  14. ISBN   978-0-87413-327-1.
6. Powers, Harold S. (2001b). "Modes, the ecclesiastical". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London, UK: Macmillan Publishers. pp. 340–343, esp. p. 342.
7. Mathiesen, T.J. (2001). "Greece, §1: Ancient; §6: Music Theory". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London, UK: Macmillan Publishers.
8. Glarean, H. (1547). Dodecachordon.
9. Powers, Harold S. (2001c). "Hyperaeolian". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London, UK: Macmillan Publishers.
10. Persichetti, Vincent (1961). Twentieth Century Harmony. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 42.
11. Larín, Eduardo (Spring–Summer 2005). " "Waves" in Debussy's Jeux d'eau ". Ex Tempore . Vol. 12, no. 2 – via ex-tempore.org.
12. Anderson, Gene (1996).  The triumph of timelessness over time in Hindemith's "Turandot Scherzo" from Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber. College Music Symposium. Vol. 36. pp. 1–15, citation p 3.
13. Mair, Nadia (6 March 2024). "Using Modes to Compose: Locrian". The Composer's Life. Retrieved 30 May 2025.
14. "Songs in the Locrian Mode". CMUSE. 17 February 2023. Retrieved 28 May 2025.
15. Rooksby, Rikky (2010). Riffs: How to create and play great guitar riffs. Backbeat. p.  121. ISBN   9781476855486 – via Google books.
16. "Maqam Lami". www.maqamworld.com. Retrieved 2025-01-01.
17. Boden, Jon (21 April 2012). ""Dust to Dust"". A Folk Song a Day (afolksongaday.com). Archived from the original on 3 October 2012.
18. Kirkpatrick, John (Summer 2000). "The art of writing songs". English Dance & Song. 62 (2): 27. ISSN   0013-8231. EFDSS 55987 . Retrieved 23 October 2020.
19. Hein, Ethan (17 November 2015). "Musical simples: Army Of Me". The Ethan Hein Blog. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
20. Anderson, Carys (7 September 2022). "King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard announce three albums dropping in October, share "Ice V": Stream". Consequence (consequence.net) (music review). Retrieved 2022-10-13.
21. Doug Helvering (2025-04-25). Patreon Exclusive: OPETH: THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT | Full Album reaction and analysis | Ep. 947 . Retrieved 2025-06-23– via YouTube. Discussion of locrian mode starts at around 1:32:50.

Further reading

• Bárdos, Lajos (December 1976). "Egy 'szomorú' hangnem: Kodály zenéje és a lokrikum". Magyar zene: Zenetudományi folyóirat. 17 (4): 339–387.
• Hewitt, Michael (2013). Musical Scales of the World. The Note Tree. ISBN   978-0957547001.
• Nichols, Roger; Smith, Richard Langham (1989). Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande. Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Cambridge, UK / New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-31446-6.
• Rahn, Jay (Fall 1978). "Constructs for modality, ca. 1300–1550". Canadian Association of University Schools of Music Journal. 8 (2): 5–39.
• Rowold, Helge (April–June 1999). "'To achieve perfect clarity of expression, that is my aim': Zum Verhältnis von Tradition und Neuerung in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem ". Die Musikforschung . 52 (2): 212–219. doi:10.52412/mf.1999.H2.889.
• Smith, Richard Langham (1992). "Pelléas et Mélisande". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Grove's Dictionaries of Music. London, UK / New York, NY: Macmillan Press. ISBN   0-333-48552-1 (UK) ISBN   0-935859-92-6 (US)

External links

• "Locrian mode for guitar". GOSK.com.