mode

mode, in music, any of several ways of ordering the notes of a scale according to the intervals they form with the tonic, thus providing a theoretical framework for the melody. A mode is the vocabulary of a melody; it specifies which notes can be used and indicates which have special importance. Of these, there are two principal notes: the final, on which the melody ends, and the dominant, which is the secondary centre.

Ancient Greek modes

The modes of Greek antiquity were placed by theorists in orderly fashion within a larger context. Although the modes were a series of seven-note diatonic scales (i.e., containing five whole tones and two semitones), the nucleus of the tone system was the tetrachord—a group of four consecutive notes (as, from C to F on the piano) comprising the interval of a fourth. Except in late antiquity, the notes were always arranged in a descending order, the basic tetrachord consisting of two whole tones and one semitone: E–D–C–B. Two such tetrachords, separated from one another by a whole tone, formed the so-called Greek Dorian mode: E–D–C–B A–G–F–E. The Dorian mode was taken as a basis for the construction of the larger system. Its single-octave range was extended by the addition of a third tetrachord, A–G–F–E, on top and of a fourth tetrachord, E–D–C–B, at the bottom. In contrast to the two inner tetrachords, which were separated by a whole tone, each outer tetrachord was linked with the neighbouring inner one by a shared note:

A G F E D C B A G F E D C B.

Because the combination of the four tetrachords yielded a range of two octaves minus one whole tone, a low A was added by theorists to achieve the following diatonic two-octave system: A G F E D C B A G F E D C B A. This two-octave row, or disdiapason, was called the Greater Perfect System. It was analyzed as consisting of seven overlapping scales, or octave species, called harmoniai, characterized by the different positions of their semitones. They were termed as follows (semitones shown by unspaced letters):

Although the names of the harmoniai were identical with those of the Greek modes, the harmoniai were instead projections of the modal patterns into the more extensive Greater Perfect System. The modes proper were termed tonoi, their essence being their interval pattern. On the kithara or lyra (the two basic plucked stringed instruments of ancient Greece) the tonoi were produced either by the basic tuning or by the raising or lowering of one or more of the strings by a semitone.

Greek theory distinguished three different genera of tetrachords, producing an additional variety of modes. The previously described tetrachord (two descending whole tones plus one semitone) was called diatonic. There were also chromatic and enharmonic genera. The two tones bounding the tetrachord were fixed and always formed a perfect fourth; the two inner tones were movable. The chromatic tetrachord consisted of a minor third (encompassing 11/2 whole tones) plus two semitones, the enharmonic tetrachord of a major third (encompassing two whole tones) plus two approximate quarter tones:

Also prominent in Greek music was the concept of ethos, which ascribed certain ethical characteristics to the different modes. The Dorian mode was preferred because of its strong and virile character; the Phrygian mode was ecstatic and emotional, the Lydian mode intimate and lascivious. In the Republic Plato stressed the educational values of the Dorian mode and warned against the softening influence of the Lydian ode.

In early Greek antiquity a system of modal categories developed, referred to as nomoi (singular, nomos, “law”). The nomoi represented modes in that they were characterized by distinctive melodic formulas suited to different song types. The performers were free to improvise within the boundaries of those modal formulas.

Jewish and Eastern Christian chant

Ancient Hebrew music followed well-established modal patterns. According to Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, a musicologist whose comparative research conducted during the early decades of the 20th century established modern understanding of the Hebrew modes,

A mode…is composed of a number of motives (i.e., short music figures or groups of tones) within a certain scale. The motives have different functions. There are beginning and concluding motives, and motives of conjunctive and disjunctive [i.e., convergent and divergent] character. The composer operates with the material of these traditional folk motives within a certain mode for his creations. His composition is nothing but his arrangement and combination of this limited number of motives. His “freedom” of creation consists further in embellishments and in modulations from one mode to the other.

The modal Hebrew music strongly influenced early Christian chant. This correlation can be illustrated by comparing a plainchant Kyrie, in the third mode, with a Babylonian Jewish melody for a phrase from Exodus:

Syria played an important part in developing early Christian chant by integrating both Hellenistic and Hebrew elements. The Syrians devised a musical system called oktōēchos, a term suggesting a classification into eight ēchoi. The Syrian ēchoi are modes, although there is no consensus on whether they represented modes in a specifically technical sense, comparable to the Greek tonoi, or melodic formulas, comparable to the Greek nomoi.

Byzantine chant molded the features of early Christianity with Hellenic and Eastern traits, including the Syrian oktōēchos, and achieved a brilliant and distinctive style that served as a prototype for the chant of the Greek Orthodox Church. The eight ēchoi of the Byzantine oktōēchos were divided into four authentic and four plagal (derived) forms. The most common classification of the Byzantine modes was in terms of typical initial and final notes of melodies in a given mode, with the characteristic distinctions as follows (the orderly progression of notes in each series should be observed).

The above classification reflects only two of various characteristics (not all completely clarified by modern scholars) that gave the modes their identity.

Even before the foundation of the Byzantine Empire, Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion (303 ce). Although the early Armenian chant did not survive, the arrangement of the hymns of the Armenian Church in the comprehensive collection, known as the Sharakan, indicates that Armenian chant used an oktōēchos classification the modal characteristics of which seem to have been defined by melodic formulas rather than by scalar distinctions.

Another variety of the oktōēchos occurs in Russian Church chant. Although a concept of eight ēchoi points to the Byzantine system, the Russian ēchoi show a different structure. The melodic motives characteristic of the ēchoi are called popievki; but similar popievki could be employed in more than one ēchos. The use of some popievki is limited to the beginning, the middle, or the end of a chant. Occasionally, two popievki are merged into a compound popievka.