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Subject:
From:
Stuart Frankel <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 23 May 2007 18:18:59 -0400
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turpin d'isigny-ffytche wrote:
> Am 23. Mai 2007 um 10:41pm schrieb John Howell:
> 
>> as passed on by Boethius in the early 6th century, but Boethius 
>> screwed up the information and they ended up inventing a brand new 
>> system that worked for THEIR music.)
> 
> I think it was only the names that got confused(?) The modes themselves 
> persisted - ie there was no new divisions of the scale 

2/3 right - actually, the classical Greeks had more
divisions of the scale than their successors. Octaves were
divides into two tetrachords, and there were 3 types of
tetrachord: diatonic (e f g a), chromatic (e f f# a), and
enharmonic (e E f a; where the 2nd note is between e and f).
These could be combined in various ways, and there was some
play allowed in the interior notes. This is all according to
Aristoxenus. Other writers had additional divisions and
combinations. Gradually, the enharmonic and the chromatic
died out (in the order); by Roman times, pretty much
everything was diatonic.

Proto-harpsichord content: ancient writers say that the
lyres weren't tuned quite accurately.


> Am 23. Mai 2007 um 11:33pm schrieb Diez Eichler:
> 
>>> For "primus modus" (D mode, "authente") "teneur" is A.
>>> For "secundus modus" (D mode, "plagal") "teneur" is F.
>> Secundus modus "teneur" should be G, isn't it?
>> -> authentic goes with the fifth,
>> plagal goes with the fourth, am I right?


turpin d'isigny-ffytche wrote:
> check in a book - this is just terminology - and so not interesting, 
> but with the effect of making the uniniated feel that modal music is 
> something very confusing and recherché

But that's the whole point - the medieval (and later modes)
*are* just terminology. They evolved as a way of classifying
Gregorian and - later - other chant. They were only
partially successful at pigeonholing pre-existent chant (for
example, sequences, which seem to have been put into only
two modes, for some reason). Later chant was written with
the modes in mind and the classification works well for
them. Much later, they were used for other things - ballads
and other folksongs, for example, where they don't mean
anything at all except, as you said, just terminology. And
not interesting.



-- 
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http://dustyfeet.com

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