You seem to have some sort of an inferiority complex that makes you swear. Perhaps you need to vist the South Pacific sometime. I, personally haven’t been there but a little stint in NZ would do you the world of good. Some fresh air may even unclog your jam infested brain and help you to read between the lines.
For instance:-
My “I have my confidential reasons for having this fife made for me which I cannot mention here because this is the ITM forum.” means
I had the fife made for me for Indian and other exotic music performance and a discussion of that music (even as a point of comparison) is not relevant to the ITM forum as I have been brusquely told by many esteemed members here some many months ago.
My " However, incidentally, I am curious about there being any songs in harmonic minor scale in ITM or associated/corollary Celtic traditions." confirms
my interest and love of ITM (including ancient forms that may have been buried on account of British Imperial dominance) and my wish to play these on my fife. In fact this sentence of mine from my first post sounds very much like your suggestion, “are there any songs in harmonic minor scale in ITM?”
There you go, Gary. You can always take many meanings from my posts. Why not take the meaning that doesn’t sound supercilious or insulting?
Thanks for not swearing at me any more, abbreviated or not. Ta.
<<You seem to have some sort of an inferiority complex that makes you swear. Perhaps you need to vist the South Pacific sometime. I, personally haven’t been there but a little stint in NZ would do you the world of good. Some fresh air may even unclog your jam infested brain and help you to read between the lines.>>
Hmm. I have relatives and friends in both Oz and NZ who are always trying to get me to go to sample the life “out” there because it would do me the world of good. Perhaps it’s the lack of imperialist British dominance in the past in that region that’s so refreshing As a matter of fact I shall be in Perth in a month’s time so perhaps I’ll let you know whether the experience has unclogged my clogged-up brain when I get back. It’s good to think I won’t come across much “swearing” your end as well. In the meantime there’s more than enough fresh air in Swindon and Cornwall this weekend with our howling northerly - I can play chords on my harmonica by holding it up in the breeze. Only two, mind you, but that’s two-thirds as good as most ITM guitar accompanists!
…I can play chords on my harmonica by holding it up in the breeze. Only two, mind you, but that’s two-thirds as good as most ITM guitar accompanists!
…
Harmonica? Isn’t that what the Germans call an auto harp?
I’ve spent many a happy time in Auckland and the North Island, thanks very much. The small town of Howick is particularly dear to my heart. You should go there yourself, Kiwis and Maoris share a common and peculiar fondness for ‘Islanders’ which I’m sure you’d find very educational.
And of course I didn’t swear at you, as anyone with functional eyeballs and the ability to read will know. Perhaps you simply read my mind? If telepathy is indeed one of your talents you might consider this:
. Which as you’ll know contained no ‘abbreviations’ either.
Eric answered your question.
And you, Talasiga, responded with your characteristic complete lack of charm, wit, intelligence and common courtesy, and to top it all you then had the gall to demand that eric edit or delete his post! Well, I refer you to my ‘unabbreviated’ message above, which are my last words on the matter.
Yep that’s exactly it…it’s a “scale” that results from an alteration to the harmony, hence the term “harmonic minor.” It is also noticeably absent in most western art music. The “melodic” form of minor is often the basis for the melody (hence the name for this scale as well) in western art music…in the melodic minor, the 6th and 7th scale degrees are raised to push the way up to the tonic pitch…on the way back down they’re lowered back to their natural positions in order to push back down to the dominant note.
The seventh of the scale is the third note of the dominant chord, which is the chord built on the 5th note of the scale.
It might be easier to say that the seventh of the scale is three tones above the note the dominant is built on. To try to clarify…every major and minor chord is made up of three notes. A root, which is the basis of the chord (i.e. if we say C major, the root is C…in a B minor chord, the root is B), and a note three tones above it (three tones above C would be E, counting the C as 1…so C = 1, D =2, E =3)…and another note that is five tones above the root (five tones above C wouold be G, again counting C as 1…so C = 1, D = 2, E = 3, F = 4, G = 5)…so when we put those together our root (C), third (E) and fifth (G)…make up our C major chord (C E G). So when one talks about the THIRD of a chord, they mean the middle note of the chord…in the case of C major, they mean E.
I hadn’t noticed that this thread had revived. Crys, you’re right, “third note” is confusing. I meant the note that is the third, or three tones up from the tonic. Thanks.
“imports the raised seventh into the minor scale” is what I wrote. Minor scales (before you make them harmonic or melodic by importing the raised seventh) have a lowered seventh. If you prefer other terms for raised/lowered, I’m okay with that. It’s good to know that the major scale is the referent for all other scales.
You say, … > the dominant chord > …
And which do you consider is the dominant chord in, for example, G harmonic minor scale:-
G min; A min; C min; D maj. ; D#/Eb maj. or F#/Gb maj. ?
And why?
Look up tonic, dominant, and subdominant.
You say, …> the > major third > in the dominant chord > …
None of the chords obtained in a harmonic minor scale result in the 7th being the third note in the chord. What do you meamn by this?
Take the dominant. Build a triad on it. Make the third a major third. That note will be the seventh of scale. As an example: C-minor. The dominant is G, dominant chord is G-Bb-D. Raise the third to make it a major chord: G-Bnat-D. Bnat is the major third of the dominant chord and the (raised) seventh of C-minor, and by a wild and unexpected coincidence, it is also the leading note into the tonic and makes the cadence work.
You say, …> I don’t believe that ITM is built on western-art music and its cadence structure (although many people try to impose the cadence structur on ITM, including such low forms as piano accompanyists). > …
And do you believe that ITM is built on a chord based system or is it, rather, modal (plainsong) in origins and development (before many people imposed the chordal emphasis in their interpretation, including such forms as guitar accompaniment)?
I believe that ITM is neither chord-based, nor that originates in plainsong. Which is not to say that there is no harmonic structure to it. I think there is, but this harmonic structure is difficult or impossible to explain in the terms of cadence-based Western art music.
You say, … > the absence of cadence-based harmonic structures explains why harmonic minor doesn’t make much sense [in] ITM and isn’t of much use > …
Can you use this rationale to explain why Dorian Scale is not or little used in ITM? Or should I start a separate topic for that?
The Dorian Scale is not used in ITM because there is no such thing as a “Dorian Scale.” (Please note that the major scale is the referent for all other scales.) As for the dorian mode, you can use its presence in ITM as indicator that ITM isn’t cadence based. Because, for instance, a dominant chord in D-dorian does not contain a major third (but a minor one), and for this reason doesn’t lend itself to a I-IV-V7-I cadence structure, which requires the leading tone (which happens to be the major third of the dominant chord and the raised seventh of the tonic).
P.S.:
I think it is going to be difficult to cross these hurdles without understanding the cadence. That requires understanding the circle of fifths. You can read about both but until you do a considerable amount of writing out four-part harmony, it’s going to be hard to understand.
this might be a bit over the top here but there again it also may be of some help.
it is based on Brendan Breathnach’s analysis of the structure of itm.
Irish music, tunes and airs, do not always close on the note expected by someone trained in the classical art music of the west, because of this it is difficult to fit Irish melodies into the strict major and minor divisions of this music. Itm may end on any of four notes. These notes are do, re, so, and la, and these give rise to four scales or modes. The names of the corresponding church modes are given in brackets
Do mode c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c (Ionian)
Re mode d-e-f-g-a-b-c-d (Dorian)
So mode g-a-b-c-d-e-f-g (Mixolydian)
La mode a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a (Aeolian)
the important thing here is to look at the positions of the semi-tones (in bold) in these scales.
transcribing the four scales to end on the same note these scales will look like this (alterd notes in bold)
Do mode c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c
Re mode c-d-eflat-f-g-a-bflat-c
So mode c-d-e-f-g-a-bflat-c
La mode c-d-eflat-f-g-aflat-bflat-c
something like 60% of Irish music belongs to the Do scale.
around 15% belongs in the So mode
the Re mode accounts for some 10%
and the La mode is the most infrequently met
there are a few tunes which mix two modes usually the first part in the So and the second part in Do.
these are all heptatonic, or 7 note, scales, but hexatonic(6 note), and pentatonic(5 note) scales also occur in irish music.
hep. c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c
hex. c-d-e-f-g-a-(b)-c
pen. c-d-e-(f)-g-a-(b)-c
the notes in brackets are the notes which do not occur in these scales.
most traditional tunes are played in keys with one sharp or two sharps so by applying the principles outlined above to the music
last note of melody
one # mode two #’s
G Do D
A Re E
D So A
E La B
the final notes D, E, and A occur on both sides of the table, if the note C is missing from a tune ending on D it is difficult to say to which scale it belongs, similarly with E and A, the absence of a C or C# in an accented position makes it hard to allocate the tune to a definite mode.
there has not been anything yet about accidentals, but there are two such notes which occur in irish music C# and F-natural . C# falls usually on a weak position in any of the melodies in the G or one sharp series, in the D or two sharp series it is always sharp no matter its position.
F-natural occurs only on accented positions in tunes of the G series. the actual note is sharper than the equal tempered F-natural and is played by sliding up from E towards F#.
C-natural in an accented position belongs to the G series and on the pipes is halfway between B and C it is not quite the note that occurs on the piano keyboard..
these two notes are of course the two notes absent from the pentatonic scale and this could account for their ambiguous character.
Ó Canainn offers the following rules for inflection in ITM
the 7th is the most commonly inflected note, the 3rd and occasionally the 4th may also be inflected
if the infectible note rises stepwise it is sharpened.
if it is the highest note of a group it is flattened.
in the group of notes 875 it can be either but is more often sharp.
now i don’t know if this will help anyone play better but it should go along way to demonstrate that the flute in question is not the best one for the job.
Scale and mode have many different meanings and some of them meet. It is this co-alescence of meaning that allows me to interchange the expression Dorian Mode with Dorian Scale.
Mode - Any scalewise arrangement of pitches; more generally, the term refers to the patterns upon which medieval music was structured, the patterns which preceded the development of major and minor scales and tonality.
QED (unless you are trying to tell me that the Dorian Mode does not contain a series of notes spaced 2:1:2:2:2:1:2 which is by definition scalewise)
All you are saying here is that the minor chord which uses the perfect 5th (the dominant) as its root can be made into a major chord by raising its second note (which you call the third) by a semitone. This is the same for all the chordal triads. The root note and the 3rd note of the triad are 7 semitones apart (the tonic/dominant relationship) and the note between them is 4 semitones from the root in the case of a major chord and 3 semitones from the root note in case of a minor chord.
Then you say that, even though a natural minor scale has a diminished 7th, we can utilise a major 7th in its dominant chord for the purposes of your cadence. Well you could do the same with the ready made dominant major chord in the harmonic minor scale also. So you rationale for the absence of the latter scale in ITM is inconsistent.
It is not that I don’t belive you that the harmonic minor is not there in ITM, its your reasoning that I am finding unhelpful.
I am trying to tell you that there is a reason why there is a raised seventh in harmonic minor, it’s meant to achieve something. I am further trying to show that this reason does not exist in ITM (to the same degree).
I wonder whether it’s meaning or ignorance that co-alesces here. After all, even the dictionary you quote distinquishes between scales and modes.
Seriously, though: did you see that “… which precedes the development of major and minor scales and tonality”? What do you think they mean by that and why wouldn’t tonality have existed during the age of modes? Perhaps tonality means more than “pitch”? I might even hazard the guess that it has to do with the (beloved) cadence, harmonic movement, and all that stuff you find unhelpful.
I have been wondering about the use of the words mode and scale. I have read what has been said and understood bits. I wonder if someone could tell me if what I am saying in my own words would be correct even if very crude. I wouldn’t be able to understand anything complicated, so just tell me to read more if this is way off. So is this roughly right:
“Scale” is a term only used when discussing Western European classical music and the particular things they do with the scales they use. These scales are what enable them to do these things because of how the scales are built.
“Mode” is used when discussing non-Western European music. Even though some of the modes (like Ionian and Aeolian, I believe) are the same arrangement of intervals as the major and minor scales in Western European music, these notes are not used in the same way as they are in Western European music, and so they are referred to as modes.
One book I have said that the modes were modes used in the Catholic Church and that is how they came to be used in Irish music.
I must say that eric helped me a lot in answering someone’s question about transposing from one key to another. He spent a lot of time on his answer and didn’t seem the least bit gruff to me.
Would you use the word “key” when talking about modes----what do you say to indicate the note that the mode starts on? The key of D Ionian? Is “key” a word that should only be used with scales?
Sorry about the low level of understanding here, but I am going to try to read more about this.
I think you have it basically right. I don’t know about “non-Western European music,” though. What I do know is that modes derive from old Greek tetrachords (notice that the modes bear the names of Greek regions: Dorian, Phrygian, Ionian, etc.) and that they belong in medieval church music.
The problem in this particular thread is that, in order to understand, it’s not enough to count full and half steps in a series of seven notes. Once you have a musical piece, you are forming chords and progressions and these relate to each other. Second, intonation matters a lot, and to understand the difference between modes and scales you have to understand intonation. For example, if you take D major (just intoned, that is not like your piano), and you build E Dorian on it, the second step (F#) is going to be rather flat compared to what you find on your piano. If you take C major (again just intoned), and build a Phrygian mode on it (that is, the mode starting on the third note of a major scale, in this case again E), you are going to get a different F#.
Of course you can just ignore all that and use your piano; but the modern piano tuning is significantly younger than the modes, and so are the scales on your piano produced by the modern tunings. I’ve hinted at this before, but I think you have to even be careful in speaking about Dorian mode etc in ITM. It’s a convenient shorthand, for sure, but it should not be taken to mean that ancient choral music developed into the Old Bush and the Hag at the Churn, somehow. Musical meaning works within the parameters of the tradition or style you’re operating in. “Harmonic minor” means something, and it is this meaning more than a series of steps and half-steps that sheds light on the question whether “there is a harmonic minor scale in ITM.”
Thank you. I definitely need to do some reading. I think I will concentrate on the idea that there is more to it than whole and half steps and that the method of tuning instruments practiced within a tradition of music will affect how these series of notes actually sound.
After all, even the dictionary you quote distinquishes between scales and modes.