Locrian mode

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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.

Contents

Locrian mode

History

Locrian is the word used to describe an ancient Greek tribe that habited 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 with 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 [ disambiguation needed ] 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 Bdim 5, CMaj, Dmin, Emin, FMaj, GMaj, Amin. Its tonic chord is a diminished triad (Bdim = Bdim 5
min 3 = BDF, 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.

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 ]

Locrian mode

The name "Locrian" is borrowed from music theory of ancient Greece. However, what is now called the Locrian mode 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 a mass by de la Rue), though he did not accept hyperaeolian as one of his twelve modes. [9] The use of the term "Locrian" as equivalent to Glarean's hyperaeolian or the ancient Greek (diatonic) mixolydian, however, has no authority before the 19th century. [2]

Use

Used in orchestral music

There are brief passages that have been, or may be, regarded as being in the Locrian mode in orchestral works by

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]." [13]

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

Related Research Articles

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In jazz, the altered scale, altered dominant scale, or super-Locrian scale is a seven-note scale that is a dominant scale where all non-essential tones have been altered. This means that it comprises the three irreducibly essential tones that define a dominant seventh chord, which are root, major third, and minor seventh and that all other chord tones have been altered. These are:

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The Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different but interrelated subjects: one of the Ancient Greek harmoniai ; one of the medieval musical modes; or—most commonly—one of the modern modal diatonic scales, corresponding to the piano keyboard's white notes from D to D, or any transposition of itself.

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The Aeolian mode is a musical mode or, in modern usage, a diatonic scale also called the natural minor scale. On the piano, using only the white keys, it is the scale that starts with A and continues to the next A only striking white keys. Its ascending interval form consists of a key note, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step. That means that, in A aeolian, a scale would be played beginning in A, move up a whole step to B, move up a half step to C, then up a whole step to D, a whole step to E, a half step to F, a whole step to G, and a final whole step to a high A.

The Phrygian mode can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek tonos or harmonia, sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set of octave species or scales; the medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern conception of the Phrygian mode as a diatonic scale, based on the latter.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hypodorian mode</span>

The Hypodorian mode, a musical term literally meaning 'below Dorian', derives its name from a tonos or octave species of ancient Greece which, in its diatonic genus, is built from a tetrachord consisting of a semitone followed by two whole tones. The rising scale for the octave is a single tone followed by two conjoint tetrachords of this type. This is roughly the same as playing all the white notes of a piano from A to A: A | B C D E | (E) F G A. Although this scale in medieval theory was employed in Dorian and Hypodorian, from the mid-sixteenth century and in modern music theory they came to be known as the Aeolian and Hypoaeolian modes.

In music theory, the half-diminished seventh chord is a seventh chord composed of a root note, together with a minor third, a diminished fifth, and a minor seventh. For example, the half-diminished seventh chord built on B, commonly written as Bm7(♭5), or Bø7, has pitches B-D-F-A:

In music, the major Locrian scale, also called the Locrian major scale, is the scale obtained by sharpening the second and third notes of the diatonic Locrian mode. With a tonic of C, it consists of the notes C D E F G♭ A♭ B♭. It can be described as a whole tone scale extending from G♭ to E, with F introduced within the diminished third interval from E to G♭. The scale therefore shares with the Locrian mode the property of having a diminished fifth above the tonic.

The Ionian mode is a musical mode or, in modern usage, a diatonic scale also called the major scale. It is named after the Ionian Greeks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diatonic and chromatic</span> Terms in music theory to characterize scales

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A Gregorian mode is one of the eight systems of pitch organization used in Gregorian chant.

References

  1. ↑ "Locrian" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. 1 2 3 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.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  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. 1 2 3 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. 1 2 Rooksby, Rikky (2010). Riffs: How to create and play great guitar riffs. Backbeat. p.  121. ISBN   9781476855486 – via Google books.
  14. ↑ Boden, Jon (21 April 2012). ""Dust to Dust"". A Folk Song a Day (afolksongaday.com). Archived from the original on 3 October 2012.
  15. ↑ Kirkpatrick, John (Summer 2000). "The art of writing songs". English Dance & Song. 62 (2): 27. ISSN   0013-8231. EFDSS 55987 . Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  16. ↑ Hein, Ethan (17 November 2015). "Musical simples: Army Of Me". The Ethan Hein Blog. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  17. ↑ 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.

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