Aeolian mode

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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 (or A minor), you would play A, move up a whole step (two piano keys) to B, move up a half step (one piano key) 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.

Contents

Aeolian mode

History

The word Aeolian, like the names for the other ancient Greek tonoi and harmoniai, is an ethnic designation: in this case, for the inhabitants of Aeolis (Αἰολίς)—the Aeolian Islands and adjacent coastal district of Asia Minor. [1] In the music theory of ancient Greece, it was an alternative name (used by some later writers, such as Cleonides) for what Aristoxenus called the Low Lydian tonos (in the sense of a particular overall pitching of the musical system—not a scale), nine semitones higher than the lowest "position of the voice", which was called Hypodorian. [2] In the mid-16th century, this name was given by Heinrich Glarean to his newly defined ninth mode, with the diatonic octave species of the natural notes extending one octave from A to A—corresponding to the modern natural minor scale. [3] Up until this time, chant theory recognized eight musical modes: the relative natural scales in D, E, F and G, each with their authentic and plagal counterparts, and with the option of B♭ instead of B♮ in several modes. [4]

In 1547, Heinrich Petri published Heinrich Glarean's Dodecachordon in Basel. [5] His premise had as its central idea the existence of twelve diatonic modes rather than eight, including a separate pair of modes each on the finals A and C. [6] Finals on these notes, as well as on B♮, had been recognized in chant theory at least since Hucbald in the early tenth century, but they were regarded as merely transpositions from the regular finals a fifth lower. In the eleventh century, Guido d'Arezzo, in chapter 8 of his Micrologus, designated these transposed finals A, B♮, and C as "affinals", and later still the term "confinal" was used in the same way. [7] In 1525, Pietro Aaron was the first theorist to explain polyphonic modal usage in terms of the eightfold system, including these transpositions. [8] As late as 1581, Illuminato Aiguino da Brescia published the most elaborate theory defending the eightfold system for polyphonic music against Glarean's innovations, in which he regarded the traditional plainchant modes 1 and 2 (Dorian and Hypodorian) at the affinal position (that is, with their finals on A instead of D) as a composite of species from two modes, which he described as "mixed modes". [9] Glarean added Aeolian as the name of the new ninth mode: the relative natural mode in A with the perfect fifth as its dominant, reciting tone, reciting note, or tenor. The tenth mode, the plagal version of the Aeolian mode, Glarean called Hypoaeolian ("under Aeolian"), based on the same relative scale, but with the minor third as its tenor, and having a melodic range from a perfect fourth below the tonic to a perfect fifth above it.

Scholars for the past three centuries have regarded the modes added by Glarean as the basis of the minor/major division of classical European music, as homophonic music replaced Renaissance polyphony. Howard S Powers considers this to be an oversimplification, since the key of A minor is as closely related to the old transposed modes 1 and 2 (Dorian and Hypodorian) with finals on A—as well as to mode 3 (Phrygian)—as it is to Glarean's Aeolian. [3]

In modern usage, the Aeolian mode is the sixth mode of the major scale and has the following formula:

1, 2, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭6, ♭7, 8

The Aeolian mode is the sixth mode of the major scale, that is, it is formed by starting on the sixth degree (submediant) of the major scale. For example, if the Aeolian mode is used in its all-white-note pitch based on A, this would be an A-minor triad, which would be the submediant in the relative major key of C major.

Aeolian mode

Aeolian harmony

All harmony Aeolian except for the Picardy third ending this i-v-i-iv-i-v-I progression Picardy third.svg
All harmony Aeolian except for the Picardy third ending this i–v–i–iv–i–v–I progression

Aeolian harmony [10] is harmony or chord progression created from chords of the Aeolian mode. Commonly known as the "natural minor" scale, it allows for the construction of the following triads (three note chords built from major or minor thirds), in popular music symbols: i, ♭III, iv, v, ♭VI, and ♭VII. The scale also produces iio, which is avoided since it is diminished. The leading-tone and major V which contains it are also not used, as they are not part of the Aeolian mode (natural minor scale). However, Aeolian harmony may be used with mode mixture.

For example, ♭VII is a major chord built on the seventh scale degree, indicated by capital Roman numerals for seven.

There are common subsets including i–♭VII–♭VI, i–iv–v and blues minor pentatonic derived chord sequences such as I–♭III–IV, I–IV, ♭VII (The verse of "I'm Your Man"). [11] All these lack perfect cadences (V–I), and may be thought of as derived from rewrite rules using recursive fourth structures (repeated progression by perfect fourth, see circle progression). [11] Middleton [11] suggests of modal and fourth-oriented structures that, rather than being, "distortions or surface transformations of Schenker's favoured V–I kernel, it is more likely that both are branches of a deeper principle, that of tonic/not-tonic differentiation."

Songs that use Aeolian mode

The Aeolian mode is identical with the natural minor scale. Thus, it is ubiquitous in minor-key music. The following is a list of some examples that are distinguishable from ordinary minor tonality, which also uses the melodic minor scale and the harmonic minor scale as required.

See also

Related Research Articles

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In music theory, the term mode or modus is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Major scale</span> Musical scale made of seven notes

The major scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harmony</span> Aspect of music

In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds together in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harmonic objects such as chords, textures and tonalities are identified, defined, and categorized in the development of these theories. Harmony is broadly understood to involve both a "vertical" dimension (frequency-space) and a "horizontal" dimension (time-space), and often overlaps with related musical concepts such as melody, timbre, and form.

In music, the subtonic is the degree of a musical scale which is a whole step below the tonic note. In a major key, it is a lowered, or flattened, seventh scale degree. It appears as the seventh scale degree in the natural minor and descending melodic minor scales but not in the major scale. In major keys, the subtonic sometimes appears in borrowed chords. In the movable do solfège system, the subtonic note is sung as te.

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

In music theory, tertian describes any piece, chord, counterpoint etc. constructed from the intervals of thirds. An interval such as that between the notes A and C encompasses 3 semitone intervals and is termed a minor third while one such as that between C and E encompasses 4 semitones and is called a major third. Tertian harmony principally uses chords based on thirds; the term is typically used to contrast with quartal and quintal harmony which uses chords based on fourths or fifths.

In music, a hexachord is a six-note series, as exhibited in a scale or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial theory. The word is taken from the Greek: ἑξάχορδος, compounded from ἕξ and χορδή, and was also the term used in music theory up to the 18th century for the interval of a sixth.

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.

Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek harmoniai or tonoi, based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; or a modern musical mode or diatonic scale, related to the medieval mode.

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.

The modern Lydian mode is a seven-tone musical scale formed from a rising pattern of pitches comprising three whole tones, a semitone, two more whole tones, and a final semitone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinrich Glarean</span> Swiss music theorist, poet and humanist

Heinrich Glarean also styled Henricus Glareanus was a Swiss music theorist, poet and humanist. He was born in Mollis and died in Freiburg im Breisgau.

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. Its ascending form consists of the key note, then: half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step.

The Hypolydian mode, literally meaning "below Lydian", is the common name for the sixth of the eight church modes of medieval music theory. The name is taken from Ptolemy of Alexandria's term for one of his seven tonoi, or transposition keys. This mode is the plagal counterpart of the authentic fifth mode.

<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.

A false relation is the name of a type of dissonance that sometimes occurs in polyphonic music, most commonly in vocal music of the Renaissance and particularly in English music into the eighteenth century. The term describes a "chromatic contradiction" between two notes sounding simultaneously in two different voices or parts; or alternatively, in music written before 1600, the occurrence of a tritone between two notes of adjacent chords.

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.

Francis Thorne was an American composer of contemporary classical music and grandson of the writer Gustav Kobbé.

The Hypoionian mode, literally meaning "below Ionian", is the name assigned by Henricus Glareanus in his Dodecachordon (1547) to the plagal mode on C, which uses the diatonic octave species from G to the G an octave higher, divided at its final, C. This is roughly the same as playing all the white notes of a piano from G to G: G A B C | (C) D E F G.

Hypoaeolian mode, literally meaning "below Aeolian", is the name assigned by Henricus Glareanus in his Dodecachordon (1547) to the musical plagal mode on A, which uses the diatonic octave species from E to the E an octave above, divided by the final into a second-species fourth (semitone–tone–tone) plus a first-species fifth (tone–semitone–tone–tone): E F G A + A B C D E. The tenor or reciting tone is C, mediant B, the participants are the low and high Es, the conceded modulations are G and D, and the absolute initials are E, G, A, B, and C.

References

  1. ↑ "Aeolian" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ↑ Egert Pöhlmann, Olympia Psychopedis-Frangou, and Rudolf Maria Brandl, "Griechenland", Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart , second, newly compiled edition, edited by Ludwig Finscher, part 1 (Sachteil), vol. 3 (Eng–Hamb) (Kassel & New York: Bärenreiter; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1995), 1652, ISBN   978-3-7618-1101-6 (Bärenreiter); ISBN   3-7618-1101-2 (Bärenreiter); ISBN   978-3-476-41000-9 (Metzler); ISBN   3-476-41000-5 (Metzler); Thomas J. Mathiesen, "Greece, §I: Ancient", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001), 10:339. ISBN   0-333-60800-3; ISBN   1-56159-239-0; ISBN   978-0-333-60800-5; ISBN   978-1-56159-239-5; ISBN   0-19-517067-9 (set); ISBN   978-0-19-517067-2 (set).
  3. 1 2 Harold S. Powers, "Aeolian (i)", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 29 volumes (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001), 1:[ page needed ]. ISBN   0-333-60800-3; ISBN   1-56159-239-0; ISBN   978-0-333-60800-5; ISBN   978-1-56159-239-5; ISBN   0-19-517067-9 (set); ISBN   978-0-19-517067-2 (set).
  4. ↑ Harold S. Powers, "Mode, §II. Medieval Modal Theory, 3: 11th-Century Syntheses, (i) Italian Theory of Modal Functions, (b) Ambitus." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001)[ page needed ] (Example 5). ISBN   0-333-60800-3; ISBN   1-56159-239-0; ISBN   978-0-333-60800-5; ISBN   978-1-56159-239-5; ISBN   0-19-517067-9 (set); ISBN   978-0-19-517067-2 (set).
  5. ↑ Clement A. Miller, "Glarean, Heinrich [Glareanus, Henricus; Loriti]", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001).
  6. ↑ Clement A. Miller, "Glarean, Heinrich [Glareanus, Henricus; Loriti]", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001); Harold S. Powers, "Mode, §III. Modal Theories and Polyphonic Music, 4: Systems of 12 Modes, (ii): Glarean's 12 Modes." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001).
  7. ↑ Harold S. Powers, "Mode, §II. Medieval Modal Theory, 2. Carolingian Synthesis, 9th–10th Centuries, (i) The Boethian Double Octave and the Modes, (b) Tetrachordal Degrees and Modal Quality." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001). ISBN   0-333-60800-3; ISBN   1-56159-239-0; ISBN   978-0-333-60800-5; ISBN   978-1-56159-239-5; ISBN   0-19-517067-9 (set); ISBN   978-0-19-517067-2 (set).
  8. ↑ Harold S. Powers, "Is Mode Real? Pietro Aron, the Octenary System, and Polyphony", Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis 16 (1992): 9–52.
  9. ↑ Harold S. Powers, "Mode, III: Modal Theories and Polyphonic Music, 3: Polyphonic Modal Theory and the Eightfold System, (ii) Composite Modes," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001)[ page needed ]. ISBN   0-333-60800-3; ISBN   1-56159-239-0; ISBN   978-0-333-60800-5; ISBN   978-1-56159-239-5; ISBN   0-19-517067-9 (set); ISBN   978-0-19-517067-2 (set).
  10. ↑ Alf Björnberg ([ full citation needed ]1985). Cited in Middleton 1990, p. 198.
  11. 1 2 3 Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music (Milton Keynes and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1990), p. 198. ISBN   0-335-15275-9.
  12. 1 2 Gary Ewer, "Dorian Mode, Aeolian Mode, Minor Key... What’s the Difference?", The Essential Secrets of Songwriting Blog (accessed 14 December 2014).
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