Chord Functions in Modes

[steve jones]

Do chords function the same with in modes other than major / minor?

I mean, the dominant probably wont have its 7th, and in some modes the tonic doesnt even have a perfect fifth! How can these chords function properly?

Or that part of the fun? 

SJ

[cfortunato]

Do chords function the same with in modes other than major / minor?

I mean, the dominant probably wont have its 7th, and in some modes the tonic doesnt even have a perfect fifth! How can these chords function properly?

Or that part of the fun? 

I think it's part of the fun.  Form triads within the mode and see what happens.  The most common is the Dorian Mode 1-4-5 of D minor GMAJOR and A minor.  I think it sounds neat (and I think Wayfaring Stranger and The Drunken Sailor both do this).  Another is the Phrygian - Em Am Bdim.  Sounds really creepy.

[steve jones]

I used to like using the Mixolydian mode when I was into blues guitar, as you get the dominant 7th on the tonic. Mixes well with the ole blues pentatonic aswell!

SJ

[prometheus]

Compared to tonal music chords have no function at all in modal music. To rephrase it, they do not have a harmonic function. Modal music is static.


So chords 'function' very differently. There is no tension resolved. There is no harmonic pulse. I am not sure if you use the word function in a technical way or in a every day way.

Part of the fun? Well, it is part of the quality. It is just a very different way to use harmony. You must understand that western music is unique in its way of using chords.

Take the olders musical tradition in the world, that of India, which goes back 6000 years. If you look at it in western terms a whole half our improvisation has only one chord.

[steve jones]

Ah, apologies for the confusion, Im talking more about modes when used in tonal settings. NOT modal music in the 'bc' sense of the word 

SJ

[cfortunato]

I used to like using the Mixolydian mode when I was into blues guitar, as you get the dominant 7th on the tonic. Mixes well with the ole blues pentatonic aswell!

One of the weirdest notes I've seen in sheet music was in Okun's transcription of the Beatles "I Feel Fine," which has no sharps or flats and a notation that says "Mixolydian mode, not key of C."   I'm sure John Lennon had no idea - here he thought it was just a G blues, and it was the "Mixolydian mode."

[prometheus]

Ah, apologies for the confusion, Im talking more about modes when used in tonal settings. NOT modal music in the 'bc' sense of the word 

SJ

What? bc?

[steve jones]

Before Christ... as in VERY old (way before the top appeared on Sunday radio  ).

SJ

[prometheus]

Well if you are going to use the abbreviation BC do so in caps, otherwise no one will understand it. Especially out of context like here.

I am not talking about very old music. I am not talking about churd modes in gregorian prayers. I am not talking about any musical tradition that gave birth to western classical music. I am talking about other types of classical music and other forms of traditional or folk music.

There is a reason for why the church modes evolved into major and minor. I mean, church modes weren't kept pure. They were modified to make cadences possible. They wanted to have harmonic function so that is why we got major and minor.

Now if you harmonise every degree of the major scale into a triad and use those seven chords to form a progression then this can only mean that the first degree of the major scale is the tonic. It can be the only note that is at peace, at home, resolved. Any other note and chord and there is a tendency to move. The harmony will move, pulse, forward until the tonic chord is reached.

A mode means making another note the tonic. But this is something 'unnatural'. You have to force the first degree out of its role and put another into it. When you do that the intervals are going to sound different. This is the nature of our musical system. It is hierarchical. One note will be the most important, then another will be the next most important, and so on. No note will be equal to another. Because of this each note will have it's own role, position, function in the tonality.

So when you have C major then the note C is the king. All other notes are compared to C. Their function is determined by their relation to the king, their interval with C.

But because this scale is assymetrical we can turn it into a mode. So let's take the second mode of C; D Dorian. Now D is the king, by definition. So all the functions of all the notes change. All notes gain their function from their interval with D. D dorian is much more similar to D minor and D major than to C major. Eventhough the notes are the same, the relations are totally different.
For example, the fifth is naturally the second most important note. In the case of C major the note G is the second most important. But in D dorian G is not that important. In this case A is the fifth.

So a mode is forcing notes into roles they would not naturally have. This also means that in a piece in D dorian the C will always have a tendency to take over and turning the piece into C major. This means that in any mode of C major the note C has to be handled carefully. One can even say that the chord C must be avoided. Any G chord followed by a C chord means the end of any mode of C major. There cannot be a cadence in a modal piece. There cannot be chords with fifths between them, like in the case of G to C. This is forcing functional harmony and then the C will take over and turn it into C major.


So what does all this mean? That you cannot play G mixolydian in C major. I mean, that is just a wrong usage of words. There is no G tonic so no G mode can ever exist. Furthermore, so the G mixo scalse here is just plain old C major anyway.

But, if we take a C major chord and play C lydian over it we do have a modal sound. But, only in the case where C is and stays the tonic. The natural tonic in this piece would be F  C lydian is a mode of F major. So F major is the natural hierarchy, it is closer to the natural overtone rows. So if this progression ends on an F chord we just have a plain progression in F major. Talking about C lydian when comparing the C chord with the scale is just a temporary way of seeing it. You could say that C is the local tonic. The moment the C chord sounds in the key of F then C has a strong presence. But the global tonic will be F.

So there are two ways to use the concept of modes. The first case is purely modal music. Static harmony, few chords, etc.

The second way is that what I hinted at in the last bit. It is used in bebob jazz, where scales, tonalities and chords change very quickly, to describe the relation between a particular chord and the scale used to solo in. Because the music modulates so fast you really have to approach each chord individually. So then it is often easy to use modes. But other people find this more confusing. This is very deceptive because the music isn't modal at all. Modal music cannot even modulate, well not in the conventional sense. And we have tonalities changing every two or three chords. Often not even establishing tonality at all. So this is why modes are used to describe how a particular scale works over a particular chord. Every chord is a new tonic, at least from the way of thinking while talking about what scale to use.

[cfortunato]

Before Christ... as in VERY old (way before the top appeared on Sunday radio  ).

Just to clarify, because I get the impression that people are talking at cross purposes, the word "mode" can be used to describe more than one thing.  REAL modal music certainly doesn't use chords.  But sometimes the word is used to refer to any music using a modal scale, whatever style it's in.  Whcih is why I mentioned "Drunken Sailor," and really old folk song that's usually strummed on guitar, but uses the Dorian scale for its melody.

[prometheus]

Uuh, modal music does not have chords?

[steve jones]

Prom,

I am aware of how modes have been used in the past, and 'cfortunato' is quite correct that this is not what Im refering to. The BC (better?) was intended as jest, though I fear Prom may not be a man to willing partake in such trivialities, lol. So with that in mind, back to business. I will elaborate a little further:

Back in my teens, I used to be into jazz guitar and did a little improv. And I did use modes quite a bit in solos (opps, starting a sentence with 'and', tut tut). The stuff that I would write to play over would often be modal (quite often using Dorian, Mixolydian, Phrygian and something Phygian dominant as the scale basis). An old teacher of mine actually set ideas for new prime chords within each of the modes, and experimented with new functionalities (not dependant on the traditional harmonic concepts).

So I was interested to know if anyone had experience of such practices. For example...

"...the 5th degree (I guess we cant really call it the dominant in this context) of the Dorian (A in the case of D Dorian) is now of minor quality! How bizarre, I wonder how we can use this in new contempary progressions? What about the Locrian mode, no perfect fifth in the 1st degree, tonal ambiguity here I come!"


This is clearly what my old teacher was thinking. Its certainly not tonality in the traditional sense, but being from both classical and contempary backgrounds, I am open to such suggestions (even welcoming them!). Sometimes it good think outside traditional Western heritage. Indeed, there are times when I like to forget everything that I know interms of theory, and just place something!

SJ

[prometheus]

I wasn't sure if you didn't know this. But I just felt like typing all that out because modes are often very confusing. They used to be to me.

But this is also not black and white.


You are right that when you have a Dom7 chord as your tonic chord you have the mixolydian mode. But it would be wrong to call this tonal. Mixolydian is the strongest of the modes, well actually you can treat Ionan as a mode differently than a ordinary major tonality but lets ignore that, so you can do more that weakens the tonic than usual. But you cannot have progressions without moving harmony. So you can have several chords, they aren't progressions since they do not progress. The moment they do the modal quality is weakened. Now because mixolydian is quite strong you actually have some possibility but very little. You can have a cadence on the Dom7, for example Dm7-G7. But of course the Dom7 chord itself is dissonant. So it is still limited.
But do note that blues music is not tonal. And it is not purely modal either. Like I said things are not black and white. Blues music is ambigious. In a blues you would have G7 D7 C7 and then in the famous 12 bar blues pattern. It clearly isn't C major or G major or G mixolydian. It stays ambigious. And that is why a turnaround is used.

As for the locrian mode. It is by far the weakest mode. You need to have a diminished chord at the resting point of the music. Of course a diminished chord both dissonant and restless so this is problematic.


So to answer your original question a bit more. Yes, the dominant does not exist, the fifth degree does not function as a dominant. But you do not use it. You do not use harmonic progression or movement. You establish the tonal center and then use the modal scale over it, a scale with different intervals than the major or minor scale.
So really, the function of chords is not only different. It is basically non-existant. In tonal music it is clear what the tonal center is. Then you move away from it and back. You can challenge it, using the dominant. That's what tonal music is about, having a clear hierarchy and then playing with it by challenging it, and then moving back.
In modal music you do not do that. You can use more than just the tonic chord though. But the general idea is not to use more than one chord. I mean, using chords is not the point of modal music.

[m1469]

There is a reason for why the church modes evolved into major and minor. I mean, church modes weren't kept pure. They were modified to make cadences possible. They wanted to have harmonic function so that is why we got major and minor.

What is that reason ?  I had somewhat recently come to the conclusion that it is most appropriate to call "major" and "minor" scales by their mode names "Ionian" and "Aeolian".  What I gather is that you are saying that it is more appropriate to call them by "Major" and "minor" -- I know it's just a name, but I wonder if it is indicative of a system that is more informed ? I don't think I grasp the reason based solely on your three sentences following your initial comment in this paragraph.

A mode means making another note the tonic. But this is something 'unnatural'.

Why is it "unnatural" ?  What quality, specifically, makes it unnatural ?

You have to force the first degree out of its role and put another into it. When you do that the intervals are going to sound different. This is the nature of our musical system. It is hierarchical.

Do you mean, when you say "force the first degree out of its role and put another into it" that its placement  in the whole step/half step structure of the Major scale is different ?  That is a difficult question to word properly, I think.  But, I will leave it at that for a moment. 

And, what do you mean by "the nature of our musical system" -- what is the nature of our musical system besides something man-made ?  "We" (mankind) forces a hierarchy onto tones, don't we ?

One note will be the most important, then another will be the next most important, and so on. No note will be equal to another. Because of this each note will have it's own role, position, function in the tonality.

Where does this importance come from ?  Where does it originate ?  Where does this inequality come from ?  And, I get where "function" would come from in terms of there being a system, but it seems that is the only way anything can have a "function" -- it's placement and use within a system.

So when you have C major then the note C is the king. All other notes are compared to C. Their function is determined by their relation to the king, their interval with C.

Okay, fine.  But why is this different in any other mode other than "us" being trained to think this way ?

I think from here my questions are more or less redundant, so for now I will stop :p. 

Hey, I am a lady full of curiousities.  For anybody who thought I was full of questions based on what I have been on the forum up until now, you really only know a fraction of what is going on inside of me ... hee hee.  I apologize if this drives you bananas, but these questions are needing to come out despite my fear that the world will disown me ...  .

Thanks,
m1469

[m1469]

(...) well actually you can treat Ionan as a mode differently than a ordinary major tonality but lets ignore that (...)

Actually, I cannot ignore this and would really like to know more about this, if you (or somebody else) wouldn't mind explaining a bit.  What makes them function or get treated differently ?  I have thought they are the same things but with two different names (sort of like the fact that the treble clef and bass clef each have other names ...).

Thanks again,
m1469 

[steve jones]

Actually, I cannot ignore this and would really like to know more about this, if you (or somebody else) wouldn't mind explaining a bit.  What makes them function or get treated differently ?  I have thought they are the same things but with two different names (sort of like the fact that the treble clef and bass clef each have other names ...).

Thanks again,
m1469 

I think that he means you can view the major key as one of seven modes, which I assume means taking emphasis away from the tonic - dominant key relationship in preference for model relationships. But Im not sure if this is what he meant though. I dont know too much about the old modal style.

My question was more focused towards contempary use of modes. I was interested to know if any composers / academics had theorised a system when each mode had functional 'plans' like that found in the major / minor keys.

Indeed, I always found iv - I to be a convincing cadence. Particularly with the right voice leading. Im talking about new ways of establishing tonality aside from the V - I. Perhaps with a great emphasis on voice leading?

SJ