Dorian mode

Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different but interrelated subjects: one of the Ancient Greek harmoniai (characteristic melodic behaviour, or the scale structure associated with it), 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 this.

Greek Dorian mode

The Dorian mode (properly harmonia or tonos) is named after the Dorian Greeks. Applied to a whole octave, the Dorian octave species was built upon two tetrachords (four-note segments) separated by a whole tone, running from the hypate meson to the nete diezeugmenon.

In the enharmonic genus, the intervals in each tetrachord are quarter tone–quarter tone–major third.

In the chromatic genus, they are semitone–semitone–minor third.

In the diatonic genus, they are semitone–tone–tone.

In the diatonic genus, the sequence over the octave is the same as that produced by playing all the white notes of a piano ascending from E to E,[1] a sequence equivalent to the modern Phrygian mode.

Placing the single tone at the bottom of the scale followed by two conjunct tetrachords (that is, the top note of the first tetrachord is also the bottom note of the second), produces the Hypodorian ("below Dorian") octave species: A | B C D E | (E) F G A. Placing the two tetrachords together and the single tone at the top of the scale produces the Mixolydian octave species, a note sequence equivalent to modern Locrian mode.[2]

Medieval Dorian mode

The early Byzantine church developed a system of eight musical modes (the octoechos), which served as a model for medieval European chant theorists when they developed their own modal classification system starting in the 9th century.[3] The success of the Western synthesis of this system with elements from the fourth book of De institutione musica of Boethius, created the false impression that the Byzantine octoechos was inherited directly from ancient Greece.[4]

Originally used to designate one of the traditional harmoniai of Greek theory (a term with various meanings, including the sense of an octave consisting of eight tones), the name was appropriated (along with six others) by the 2nd-century theorist Ptolemy to designate his seven tonoi, or transposition keys. Four centuries later, Boethius interpreted Ptolemy in Latin, still with the meaning of transposition keys, not scales. When chant theory was first being formulated in the 9th century, these seven names plus an eighth, Hypermixolydian (later changed to Hypomixolydian), were again re-appropriated in the anonymous treatise Alia Musica. A commentary on that treatise, called the Nova expositio, first gave it a new sense as one of a set of eight diatonic species of the octave, or scales.

In medieval theory, the authentic Dorian mode could include the note B♭ "by licence", in addition to B♮.[5] The same scalar pattern, but starting a fourth or fifth below the mode final D, and extending a fifth above (or a sixth, terminating on B♭), was numbered as mode 2 in the medieval system. This was the plagal mode corresponding to the authentic Dorian, and was called the Hypodorian mode.[6] In the untransposed form on D, in both the authentic and plagal forms the note C is often raised to C♯ to form a leading tone, and the variable sixth step is in general B♮ in ascending lines and B♭ in descent.[7]

Modern Dorian mode

The modern Dorian mode (also called "Russian minor" by Balakirev[8]), by contrast, is a strictly diatonic scale corresponding to the white keys of the piano from D to D (shown below)

or any transposition of its interval pattern, which has the ascending pattern of whole steps and half steps as follows:

whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, whole

Thus, the Dorian mode is a symmetric scale, since the pattern of whole and half step is the same ascending or descending.

The modern Dorian mode can also be thought of as a scale with a minor third and seventh, a major second and sixth, and a perfect fourth and fifth, notated relative to the major scale as:

1, 2, ♭3, 4, 5, 6, ♭7, 8

It may be considered an "excerpt" of a major scale played from the pitch a whole tone above the major scale's tonic , i.e., a major scale played from its second scale degree up to its second degree again. The resulting scale is, however, minor in quality, because, as the D becomes the new tonal centre, the F a minor third above the D becomes the new mediant, or third degree. Thus, when a triad is built upon the tonic, it is a minor triad.

The modern Dorian mode is equivalent to the natural minor scale (or the Aeolian mode) but with a major sixth. The modern Dorian mode resembles the Greek Phrygian harmonia in the diatonic genus.

Notable compositions in Dorian mode
Dorian mode in Ernest Bloch's "Chanty" from Poems of the Sea, mm. 1–8.[9] Play 

Traditional

Medieval

Romantic

Jazz
  • "Born Under a Bad Sign" written by Booker T. Jones and William Bell. The song is a simple but atypical I7-V7-IV7 12-bar progression with a key signature corresponding to C♯ major but with every B♯ and E♯ lowered to B♮ and E♮, making the song C♯ Dorian.[22]
  • "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles[23] is often cited as a Dorian modal piece, and while the melody line in places uses the major sixth scale degree, the chord progression is in Aeolian (I–♭VI and ♭VI–I).[24]
  • The chord sequence i–III–VII–IV is sometimes used in pop songs, where the harmonic rhythm leads the listener to think of it as a minor song. In the final chord of the sequence, however, the third is a major sixth above the tonic, as in the Dorian scale. Examples include: "Mad World" by Tears for Fears.[25]
  • "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams[26]
  • "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" (1973) by Vicki Lawrence
  • "Rapper's Delight" by Sugarhill Gang is often written in E minor with a persistent C♯ accidental,[27] but is actually played in E Dorian.[28] It shares a key signature (F♯, C♯) with its relative key, D major.[29]
  • "Tick Tock" by Clean Bandit (and Mabel) sounds heavily pentatonic, but is in fact in the 'D' Dorian mode.

Anthem

See also

References
  1. Thomas J. Mathiesen, "Greece, §I: Ancient: 6. Music Theory: (iii) Aristoxenian Tradition: (d) Scales". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
  2. Thomas J. Mathiesen, "Greece, §I: Ancient: 6. Music Theory: (iii) Aristoxenian Tradition: (e) Tonoi and Harmoniai". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
  3. Harold S. Powers, "Mode, §II: Medieval modal theory, 2: Carolingian synthesis, 9th–10th centuries", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publications; New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 2001). ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5
  4. Peter Jeffery, "Oktōēchos", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publications; New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 2001). ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5
  5. Harold S. Powers, "Dorian", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, 29 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001): 7:507. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5
  6. Harold S. Powers, "Hypodorian", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, 29 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publications, 2001): 12:36–37. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5
  7. Felix Salzer and Carl Schachter, Counterpoint in Composition: The Study of Voice Leading (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989): 10. ISBN 0-231-07039-X.
  8. Richard Taruskin, "From Subject to Style: Stravinsky and the Painters", in Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist, edited by Jann Pasler, 16–38 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1986): 33. ISBN 0-520-05403-2.
  9. Bruce Benward and Marilyn Nadine Saker, Music in Theory and Practice: Volume II, eighth edition (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009): 243–44. ISBN 978-0-07-310188-0.
  10. Ger Tillekens, "Marks of the Dorian Family" Soundscapes, no. 5 (November 2002) (Accessed 30 June 2009).
  11. "Noel Nouvelet – French Noel". www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
  12. The Benedictines of Solesmes (eds.), The Liber Usualis, with Introduction and Rubrics in English (Tournai and New York: Desclée & Co., 1961): 1259–61.
  13. The Benedictines of Solesmes (eds.), The Liber Usualis, with Introduction and Rubrics in English (Tournai and New York: Desclée & Co., 1961): 780.
  14. The Benedictines of Solesmes (eds.), The Liber Usualis, with Introduction and Rubrics in English (Tournai and New York: Desclée & Co., 1961): 880–81.
  15. Michael Steinberg, "Notes on the Quartets", in The Beethoven Quartet Companion, edited by Robert Winter and Robert Martin, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994): 270. ISBN 978-0-520-20420-1; OCLC 27034831.
  16. Brian Rees (1999). Camille Saint-Saëns: A Life (1st ed.). London, UK: Chatto & Windus. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-85619-773-1. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  17. Lionel Pike, "Sibelius's Debt to Renaissance Polyphony", Music & Letters 55, no. 3 (July 1974): 317–26 (citation on 318–19).
  18. Ronald Herder, 1000 Keyboard Ideas, (Katonah, NY: Ekay Music, 1990): 75. ISBN 978-0-943748-48-1.
  19. Barry Dean Kernfeld, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 2002): 785. ISBN 1-56159-284-6 OCLC 46956628.
  20. Wayne Chase, "How Keys and Modes REALLY Work". (Vancouver, BC: Roedy Black Publishing, Inc.). Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  21. Richard Lawn and Jeffrey L. Hellmer, Jazz: Theory and Practice (Los Angeles: Alfred Publishing, 1996): 190. ISBN 0-88284-722-8.
  22. Transcription in "R&B Bass Bible" (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2005). ISBN 0-634-08926-9.
  23. Alan W. Pollack. "Notes on "Eleanor Rigby"". Retrieved 2008-08-11.
  24. Bill T. Roxler. "Thoughts on Eleanor Rigby" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2012-08-25.
  25. Anthony Pacheco. "Mad World Deconstructed Anthony Pacheco". Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  26. "YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-07-12.
  27. Nile, Rodgers; Bernard, Edwards; Gang, Sugarhill (2007-11-12). "Rapper's Delight". Musicnotes.com. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  28. Letsch, Glenn (2005). R & B bass. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 978-0-634-07370-0.
  29. The Sugarhill Gang - Rappers Delight (Bass), retrieved 2020-08-31
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.