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http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?14679-What-is-modal-music-And-what-isn-t
JonR
07-01-2008, 08:05 AM
Modal music as opposed to key-based music.

 There is a lot of overlap between the two styles - even in the same song sometimes. But IMO the distinction is useful.

 (I'm sure I've posted the following before here, apologies if you've read it before...)

 Key-based = major-minor key system = functional harmony = chord progressions, where each chord is a link in a chain, moving from consonance to dissonance and back, usually in a fairly predictable way. Each chord has a meaning in the sequence, a role to play. This kind of music "tells a story".
 It's the system that classical music was based on for (very approximately) 300 years, up to about 100 years ago.
 It's the system that jazz was based on up to around 50 years ago - and much of it still is.
 It's the system that all pop music is based on, all country music, most folk music.
 Most rock is also key-based.

 Modal music = non-functional (static) harmony. Can consist of one chord throughout, or one chord for a long time. If there are chord changes, they are often to unrelated chords, with no (or little) sense of "resolution".
 Dissonance is used, but as a way of adding "colour", not as a way of setting up tension that needs resolution.
 Instead of "telling a story", modal music creates a single mood. It's often meditative, but can be groovy dance music as well.
 The best example of this kind of music today is Indian raga.
 It's the system European church music was based on for around 1000 years, from roughly 600 AD. They used 4 modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian. Late in the day (around 1550), they added Ionian and Aeolian, which evolved into the modern major-minor key system.
 Jazz today usually combines modal ideas with key ideas.
 Rock does too, but less consciously.
 Blues is a modal music at heart, but with key-based harmonisations.

 In modern modal music, chords are usually quartal (built in 4ths) rather than tertian (in 3rds). (In ancient modal music, there were no chords, as there are none today in Indian music.)

 Miles Davis (with a lot of help from classically-trained Bill Evans) brought modal concepts to jazz in 1959.
 Modal concepts in rock/pop began (noticeably) in the early/mid-1960s. "Hard Days Night" opens with a famous modal chord. Martha and the Vandellas "Dancing in the Street" has a mixolydian verse. The Doors "Light My Fire" has a dorian keyboard solo. The Stones "Satisfaction" is a classic mixolydian riff, as is "The Last Time".

 A good example of the distinctions between the two is the Beatles "Norwegian Wood". This spends 16 bars on E mixolydian; then moves to E dorian for 12 bars (Em-A-Em); then the last 4 bars are a ii-V in E major, resolving back to the mixolydian groove.
 The Beatles wrote a couple of pure mixolydian tunes: "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Within You Without You".
 There's a lot of mixolydian vibe in classic rock. Any song based on E, using A and D chords in passing (instead of A and B) is essentially E mixolydian. (I'm sure you can think of dozens...)
 Often, you get mixolydian verses, going into major key choruses. Examples of this are:
 "Sweet Child o Mine"
 "Sympathy for the Devil"
 "Hard Days Night"
 Mixolydian means "good rock groove". Key means "singalong chorus".

 Van Morrison's "Moondance" is an example of a dorian verse, going to a minor key chorus.
 Santana's "Oye Como Va" is a pure dorian song (as are many Afro-Cuban tunes).
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JonR
07-01-2008, 01:31 PM

However, just re. blues - it's often said that blues doesn't fit within normal music theory, meaning it contradicts theory in some ways. But is that contradiction just limited to the practice of playing minor scales against major chords, or more generally minor thirds in the melody against major 3rds in the harmony?

 Are there other ways in which blues breaks the normal rules?

 You said "blues is modal at heart, but with key based harmonisations". But in what sense is it modal? All the blues tunes I know, seem to be straightforward key-based progressions with melodies using the obvious/expected major and minor scales?

I guess blues isn't technically modal in the classical or jazz sense. What I meant was - to me at least - it's basically a one-chord music, at least in origin. The earliest/most primitive blues is based around one chord.
 Even when chords are added, the IV chord acts merely as a kind of altered version of the I. (Blues melodies don't go up a 4th - they often repeat exactly the same line on the IV chord.)
 The V chord does indeed perform its usual functional role (as a dominant), but this is often coloured by a following IV (plagal IV-I cadence), and by melodic lines which only marginally reflect the dominant harmony.

 It's always seemed to me as if blues is an ancient, free-wheeling vocal music - with African roots - using melodic inflections (bends, swoops, etc) to add variety to the tonic pentatonic scale. The chords seem like something grafted on to it by trained western musicians, a crude way of trying to express the common melodic variations in each of the 3 lines.

 So I think of it as "modal" in the broadest sense - a tonic note and a scale, and the attached chords are often arbitrary. There's barely any chord "progression" in the blues - it all revolves tightly around the tonic.

 (The African music which most closely resembles blues - that of Mali and North Africa - only uses one chord, a classic folk modal music. Obviously in the US blues evolved way beyond any ancient African influence - as modern African music probably also has. But I can still hear those African roots in the melodic style.)

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JonR
07-02-2008, 07:00 PM

'Modal' just describes music in which you can hear the effect of a modal scale.

 Highly functional progressions use altered scales and root movement, but have no perceivable modal aspect. For instance, "Something" by The Beatles goes..

 (C)something in the way she (Cmaj7)moves (C7)attracts me...

 The m7 is like a modulation to Mixolydian in a way, but there is no real Mixolydian effect right?..it's because this is a passing functional structure, not a general darkening of the scale as found in bluesy stuff.

 Take in comparison Sweet Home Alabama. It has the effect of I - bVII - IV by producing a D drone, partly via bVIIadd9. In fact, it's really just a vamp of sorts. The m7 'alteration' here is relatively functionless and represents the only occurence of a 7 interval, which is repeated to affirm the Mixolydian intervals. The effect is modal in nature - it just sounds Mixolydian, despite an inability to resolve satisfactorily -remember, this is not functional tonality. A static chord sequence such as I-bVII-IV progresses nowhere. The reason a I 'resolution' feels ineffective is not because the tonic lies somewhere else, but because you're simply stopping a drone rather than resolving a progression!

Uh-oh...
 I really don't want to start the SHA argument all over again (really I don't) - and I largely agree with your posts in general - but I hear it, very clearly, as a V-IV-I in G major. I realise a lot of people hear the D as tonal centre, but I find that difficult. (I can hear it that way, but it's a struggle.)

 It's different from a sequence that would run D-C-G-D, where the D has more presence. (Plenty of rock tunes have that sequence, and are clearly mixolydian.)
 When you have D-C-G-G, I hear it as G major.
 You're right the add9 on the C makes a difference - as does the concentration of the vocal on D - but I simply hear that as the dominant note (V).
 I try ending the song on a D chord, and it just sounds wrong. (Lynyrd Skynyrd used to end the song on G when playing it live, which sounds right to me.)

 I don't mean to suggest I'm right and you're wrong! (you can check out the thread on TheGearPage if you want to see all the arguments...http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=407446)
 I'm only pointing out that hearing a tonal centre is by no means an objective thing. (Most people hear it the way you do, but plenty hear it the way I do too.)

 I would once have said (in any teaching context) Sweet Home was "clearly" G major. I now say it's possible to hear it either way, in recognition of general opinion. It's an example of an ambiguous tonality. (There are others in rock music, tho not many.)
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JonR
07-04-2008, 10:34 AM

Dan, back to your OP...

 Opposed to tonal. Keeping it very simple. The difference in modal and tonal IMHO has to be heard.

You're right it's a simple difference, which has to be heard. But I think you're using the word "tonal" wrongly. The opposite of tonal is atonal.
 Modal music is tonal, because modes are tonalities, with tonal centres. They are just weaker than keys.

 The difference (in the harmony) is between modal and "functional". The chords work differently, in the way you've described.

 ...except you're misleading by calling a dorian vamp "ii-V". If it's modal, it's "i-IV" (in dorian mode). The tonal centre is i (Dm in your example).
 Add the C, as you describe, and Dm-G becomes a ii-V (in C), because the major key is a stronger tonality than dorian mode.