Sunday, 18 December 2011

Incomplete Tonic Parallel Naming

One day I was thinking to myself. Why do we only speak of major and minor keys? Why not appreciate that there are 7 different modes and call them by their names when using a particular key signature?

Earlier we discussed the meaning of modus and outlined the different diatonic modes. A tonic parallel means that a song that goes in Eb-major uses the same notes (i.e. has the same key signature) as C-minor.
But I also explained that ionian is what we usually refer to as major and aeolian is usually referred to as minor. This is further complicated by the fact that out from the 7 modes there are 3 modes with major character and 3 modes with minor character and there is one with diminished character. But right now, lets major and minor be synonymous with the first and the sixth mode respectively.

So, say we have 2 sharps in our key signature. Then you either say it is a D-major (the tonic) or a B-minor (the submediant). So why not say it is a song in E-dorian, F#-phrygian, G-lydian, A-mixolydian or C#-locrian? These are valid modes as well. They will all use the same notes without having to explicitly flatten or sharpen a note. Maybe it is too complicated? But what if I really want to indicate that this song is in fact a flamenco style song in F#-phrygian? In fact most flamenco songs are based upon the phrygian mode. Then you would find that the song uses F# as a root (or tonic, however it is not exactly the same thing) instead of a B even though the song still sound "sad".

I think it would be a start towards a more flexible tonal system, or at least a better description of the meaning of the given key. I just don't like it when you only use two of the modes instead of only one or all of them. In my eyes this is annoyingly inconsistent!

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