Mode (music)

Lore & Background

The term mode has been used since the Middle Ages, where modus described intervals, individual notes, and rhythms. Modal rhythm was an essential feature of the modal notation system of the Notre-Dame school at the turn of the 12th century. In mensural notation, modus specifies the subdivision of the longa. Outside Western classical music, 'mode' is sometimes used to embrace similar concepts such as Octoechos, maqam, pathet, etc. 'organic songs', most probably meaning 'polyphony'). Authors from the 9th century until the early 18th century (e.g., Guido of Arezzo) sometimes employed the Latin modus for interval, or for qualities of individual notes. In the theory of late-medieval mensural polyphony (e.g., Franco of Cologne), modus is a rhythmic relationship between long and short values or a pattern made from them. Related to the diatonic modes are the eight church modes or Gregorian modes, in which authentic and plagal forms of scales are distinguished by ambitus and tenor or reciting tone. Although both diatonic and Gregorian modes borrow terminology from ancient Greece, the Greek tonoi do not otherwise resemble their medieval/modern counterparts. Early Greek treatises describe three interrelated concepts: scales (or 'systems'), tonos (pl. tonoi), and harmonia (pl. harmoniai).

Reader's Guide

The concept of 'mode' in Western music theory has three successive stages: in Gregorian chant theory, in Renaissance polyphonic theory, and in tonal harmonic music of the common practice period. In all three contexts, 'mode' incorporates the idea of the diatonic scale, but differs from it by also involving an element of melody type. This concerns particular repertories of short musical figures or groups of tones within a certain scale so that, depending on the point of view, mode takes on the meaning of either a 'particularized scale' or a 'generalized tune'. Modern musicological practice has extended the concept of mode to earlier musical systems, such as those of Ancient Greek music, Jewish cantillation, and the Byzantine system of octoechoi, as well as to other non-Western types of music. By the early 19th century, the word 'mode' had taken on an additional meaning, in reference to the difference between major and minor keys, specified as 'major mode' and 'minor mode'. At the same time, composers were beginning to conceive 'modality' as something outside of the major/minor system that could be used to evoke religious feelings or to suggest folk-music idioms. Harold S.

Did You Know?

• The term mode has been used since the Middle Ages to describe intervals, individual notes, and rhythms.
• Modal rhythm was an essential feature of the modal notation system of the Notre-Dame school at the turn of the 12th century.

The Twofold Identity of Mode: Scale Meets Tune

In Western music theory, the term "mode" carries a dual identity that Harold S. This distinction matters because, across all three major historical stages of Western modal thinking—Gregorian chant theory, Renaissance polyphonic theory, and the tonal harmonic common practice period—mode always incorporates the diatonic scale while adding an element of melody type. That melody type involves particular repertories of short musical figures or groups of tones within a given scale, meaning the same set of pitches can produce different modal characters depending on how they are melodically shaped. Modern musicology has since extended this concept far beyond its original Western context, applying it to Ancient Greek music, Jewish cantillation, the Byzantine octoechoi system, and various non-Western musical traditions.

Greek Foundations: Scales, Tonoi, and Harmoniai

Early Greek treatises laid out three interrelated concepts that would later feed into the medieval notion of mode: scales (or "systems"), tonos (plural tonoi), and harmonia (plural harmoniai). The Greek scales in the Aristoxenian tradition bore names drawn from cultural subgroups like the Dorians, small central-Greek regions such as Locris, and Anatolian peoples including Lydia and Phrygia—groups not ethnically Greek but in close cultural contact. Within these seven octave species, three genera could be distinguished by how interposed tones were spaced within tetrachords: the diatonic genus built from tones and semitones, the chromatic genus from semitones and a minor third, and the enharmonic genus featuring a major third and two quarter tones. Aristoxenus himself criticized earlier "Harmonicists" for diagrams showing 28 consecutive quarter tones, dismissing them as lacking any genuine musical basis. Unlike the medieval modal system, these Greek scales and their associated tonoi and harmoniai lacked hierarchical relationships among notes that could establish contrasting points of tension and rest, though the mese, or middle note, may have served as a central returning tone for the melody.

Modus Before Mode: Rhythm, Intervals, and Polyphony

Before "mode" became primarily a pitch-scale concept, the Latin word modus carried a rich array of other meanings across the medieval and early modern periods. From the ninth century through the early eighteenth, theorists such as Guido of Arezzo used modus to refer to individual intervals or to the qualitative character of specific notes. In the rhythmic theory of the Notre-Dame school at the turn of the twelfth century, modal rhythm was an essential feature of the notation system, and modus described rhythmic relationships between long and short values or patterns constructed from them. When mensural notation later emerged, modus specifically designated the subdivision of the longa, most often into three or two breves, as theorized by figures like Franco of Cologne. This legacy persists in modern scholarship, where Carl Dahlhaus coined the phrase "modale Mehrstimmigkeit" and Bernhard Meier identified "Alte Tonarten" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both describing Western polyphony before the common practice period.

Mode Beyond the Western Canon

The concept of mode does not belong exclusively to Western music. Outside the classical tradition, the term is sometimes applied to analogous systems in other cultures, including the Byzantine Octoechos, the Arabic maqam, and the Russian pathet, each embodying similar principles of scale coupled with characteristic melodic behavior. Within Western practice itself, Olivier Messiaen developed his modes of limited transposition, which are strictly a type of scale rather than a broader modal system. By the early nineteenth century, "mode" had also acquired the narrower meaning of distinguishing major from minor keys, labeled "major mode" and "minor mode." Simultaneously, composers began to conceive of modality as a resource outside the major-minor framework, deploying it to evoke religious sentiment or to suggest the idioms of folk music, thereby keeping the concept alive as a creative tool rather than a purely historical category.