Phrygian mode

“ Possibly the lowest note (d) is the key-note; if so the scale is of the Phrygian mode (in the modern sense) . In the Hypo-phrygian octave there is a similar objection to regarding the Mesê kata thesin (c) as the key-note, and some probability in favour of the lowest note (g) . If the Pythagorean division of the tetrachord g-c were [Pg 87] replaced by the natural temperament, which the language used by Ptolemy [37] leads us to regard as the true division, the scale would exhibit the intervals—
which give the natural chord of the Seventh. ”

“ This elided tone was probably the Lichanos of the Phrygian scale ( [Greek: harmonia] ) , or f, if we take the octave from d to d ́ on the white keys of the piano. The Phrygian was naturally the scale used by Olympus, whose home was Phrygia, but he is also said to have introduced this ‘enharmonic’ type of melody into the Dorian mode. When the full octachord came into consideration (originally the scale was limited to seven [Pg 113] notes) the omission of the upper tone of the higher semi-tone interval (from b to c) followed as a matter of course. ”

“ But a mode ought to have a distinct moral or emotional character (eidos echein ethous hê pathous) , as the Locrian, which was in use in the time of Simonides and Pindar, but went out of fashion again.' The Phrygian and Lydian, as we have seen, were said to have been brought to the Peloponnesus by the followers of Pelops. ”

“ But on the other side we have the repeated complaints [Pg 62] of Aristoxenus that the earlier theorists confined themselves to Enharmonic octave scales. We have also the circumstance that the writer or compiler of the pseudo-Euclidean treatise, who is our earliest authority for the names of the species, gives these names for the Enharmonic genus only. Here, once more, we feel the difference between theory and practice. To a theorist there is no great difficulty in the terms Diatonic Phrygian and Enharmonic Phrygian meaning essentially different things. ”

“ Yet while the 6/4 cadence most completely expresses finality and rest, it would seem that the plagal and other cadences above enumerated as preferred by Mr. Paine have a certain sort of superiority by reason of the very incompleteness with which they express finality. There is no sense of finality whatever about the Phrygian cadence; it leaves the mind occupied with the feeling of a boundless region beyond, into which one would fain penetrate; and for this reason it has, in sacred music, a great value. ”

“ We may make suppositions as to the mode in which friction is connected with the texture of bodies; but little can be gained for philosophy, or for speculation of any kind, by such conjectures respecting unknown connexions. If, on the other hand, we consider this property of friction, and find that it prevails there, and there only, where the general functions, analogies, and relations of the universe require it, we shall probably receive a strong impression that it was introduced into the system of the world for a purpose. ”

“ If phenomena were things in themselves, no man would be able to infer from the succession of the representations how this manifold is connected in the object.... The phenomenon, in opposition to the representations of apprehension, can only be represented as the object of the same, distinct therefrom, if it stands under a rule, which distinguishes it from every other representation and which renders necessary a mode of conjunction of the manifold. ”

“ The initial difficulty of the first kind, which naturally strikes the reader, concerns the possibility of performing the synthesis. The mind has certain general ways of combining the manifold, viz. the categories. But on general grounds we should expect the mind to possess only one mode of combining the manifold. For the character of the manifold to be combined cannot affect the mind's power of combination, and, if the power of the mind consists in combining, the combining should always be of the same kind. ”

“ The mode in which any one of the motions produces the next, may possibly be susceptible of explanation by some general law of motion; but the mode in which the last motion produces the sensation of color cannot be explained by any motion; it is the law of color, which is, and must always remain a peculiar thing. Where our consciousness recognizes between two phenomena an inherent distinction; where we are sensible of a difference, which is not merely of degree; and feel that no adding one of the phenomena to itself will produce the other ”

“ For these comparisons we substitute what would seem to correspond better with the real state of affairs by saying that an energy occupation is displaced to or withdrawn from a certain arrangement so that the psychic formation falls under the domination of a system or is withdrawn from the same. Here again we replace a topical mode of presentation by a dynamic; it is not the psychic formation that appears to us as the moving factor but the innervation of the same. ”

“ Hence the modal distinction was simply called real, without further examining whether it had a physical or a metaphysical character; the more so as it was assumed that real modes were physical entities—which would convey the idea that real modal distinction is of a physical nature. But the assumption is not to be admitted, because, as we have remarked in another article, modes cannot be styled “physical” entities, as they have no possibility of separate existence. This being premised, let us briefly examine the three aforesaid opinions. ”

“ Now, that music can heal diseases, Theophrastus asserts in his treatise on Enthusiasm, where he says that men with diseases in the loins become free from pain if any one plays a Phrygian air opposite to the part affected. And the Phrygians are the first people who invented and employed the harmony which goes by their name; owing to which circumstance it is that the flute-players among the Greeks have usually Phrygian and servile-sounding names, such as Sambas in Alcman, and Adon, and Telus. ”

“ By some they are thrown into a kind of mournful or grave mood, e.g., by what is known as the mixed Lydian; by others a sentimental turn is given to their thoughts, for example, by languid harmonies; while there is another kind that especially produces balance of feeling and collectedness. This effect is confined to the Doric harmonies. The Phrygian harmonies rouse enthusiasm. These are correct results arrived at by those thinkers who have devoted their attention to this branch of education,—results based upon actual experience. What is true of harmonies is true also of rhythms. ”

“ I merely hold to the idea that the activity of the first ?-system is directed to the free outflow of the quantities of excitement, and that the second system brings about an inhibition of this outflow through the energies emanating from it, i.e. it produces a transformation into dormant energy, probably by raising the level. I therefore assume that under the control of the second system as compared with the first, the course of the excitement is bound to entirely different mechanical conditions. ”

“ Players on the water-organ (hydraulai) use only six modes (tropoi) , viz. Hyper-lydian, Hyper-ionian, Lydian, Phrygian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian. Players on the cithara tune their instrument to these four, viz. Hyper-ionian, Lydian, Hypo-lydian, Ionian. Flute-players employ seven, viz. Hyper-aeolian, Hyper-ionian, Hypo-lydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Ionian, Hypo-phrygian. Musicians who concern themselves with orchestic (choral music) use seven, viz. Hyper-dorian, Lydian, Phrygian, Dorian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian, Hypo-dorian. ”

“ But the axes themselves being in an immoveable position, evolve the spheres, give them a circular motion, and a revolution round their own abiding nature. And the poles of the spheres, which both terminate the axes, and bind in themselves the other convolutions, do they not perspicuously evince, that points are endued with demiurgical and capacious powers, that they are perfective of every thing distant by intervals, and are the sources of union, and an unceasing motion? ”

“ If we have a becoming and convenient mode, why not retain it for centuries, and save all the discussions about square-toed, round or peaked—and all the other ad infinitum changes in cut and trimmings? ”

“ But by far the greater number of phenomena in nature are of the irreversible type; with these a definite direction of change is privileged. When we wish to force the phenomenon against its natural trend, work must be furnished. All phenomena entailing friction are of the irreversible sort, for whereas motion generates heat through friction, the heat cannot be used to regenerate the motion. The example of the two powders also presented us with an illustration of the irreversible type of phenomenon, since the natural evolution was from heterogeneity to homogeneity. ”

“ Habits which increase friction can be replaced by habits which lessen friction. Habits which arrest development can be replaced by habits which encourage development. And as a habit is formed naturally, so it can be formed artificially, by imitation of the unconscious process, by accustoming the brain to the new idea. Let me, as an example, refer again to the minor subject of daily friction, and, within that subject, to the influence of tone. A man employs a frictional tone through habit. The frictional tone is an instinct with him. ”

“ In fact, “the normal type is never suited to any but a medium state, more ideal than real, around which effective existence ceaselessly oscillates, so long as the deviation does not go beyond the limits which are compatible with the duration of the system. ”

“ But a house as a synthesis of a manifold cannot be a synthesis of spaces, or of times, or of sensations. Its parts are bodies, which, whatever they may be, are neither sensations nor spaces nor times, nor combinations of them. In reality they are substances of a special kind. Again, the relation of cause and effect is not a relation of sensations or spaces or times, but of successive states of physical things or substances, the relation consisting in the necessity of their succession. ”

“ If an unsurmountable resistance occurs, the causality moves off in another straight line, and the result is a straight-lined angle. Causality in curved lines occurs only mediately and with considerateness, according to a rule: for instance, around a given centre; whereas the straight line breaks out immediately and without any considerateness, being indeed the very outbreak of free construction. Curvedness is the exact opposite of freedom, or its limitation; for which reason, indeed, universal space is necessarily figured as a globe. ”

“ If we let a string run through our closed hand, we immediately construct as the cause of the friction and its duration in such an attitude of the hand, a long cylindrical body moving uniformly in one direction. But never out of the pure sensation in the hand could the idea of movement, that is, of change of position in space by means of time, arise: such a content can never lie in sensation, nor come out of it. ”

“ And so the apparent irreversibility of nature does not come from the irreversibility of the fundamental physical laws; it comes from the characteristic that if you start with an ordered system, and have the irregularities of nature, the bouncing of molecules, then the thing goes one way. ”

“ Not only may it be turned upon a center but inverted upon an axis. Being inverted, the inversion may be turned upon a center and made to take another series of attitudes, and this second series of attitudes will be different from the first series, except in cases of axial symmetry in the outline or area. It must be clearly understood that a change of attitude in any outline or area is not a change of shape.
115. What has been said of Harmony, Balance, and Rhythm in the attitudes of a line applies equally well to outlines and to the spaces defined by them. ”

“ But in the parallelism between entropy-gradient and “becoming” the subjective and objective seem to have got on to the wrong sides. Surely “becoming” is a reality—or the nearest we can get to a description of [Pg 95] reality. We are convinced that a dynamic character must be attributed to the external world; making all allowance for mental imagery, I do not see how the essence of “becoming” can be much different from what it appears to us to be. On the other side we have entropy which is frankly of a much more subjective nature than most of the ordinary physical qualities. ”

“ The seventh mode has reference to distances, and position, and space, and to the objects which are in space. In this mode one establishes the fact that objects which we believe to be large, sometimes appear small; that those which we believe to be square, sometimes appear round; that those which we fancy even, appear full of projections; those which we think straight, seem bent; and those which we believe to be colourless, appear of quite a different complexion. Accordingly, the sun, on account of its distance from us, appears small. ”

“ In that matter three guṇas exist in equilibrium, and it is the breath of the Logos that throws them out of equilibrium, and causes the motion by which our system is brought into existence. There must be a throwing out of equilibrium, for equilibrium means Pralaya, where there is not motion, nor any manifestation of life and form. When life and form come forth, equilibrium must have been disturbed, and motion must be liberated by which the world shall be built. ”

“ PLANCK reminds the physicists who object to the hypothesis of elementary disorder because they feel it is unnecessary or even unjustifiable, that the hypothesis is already much used in Physics, that tacitly or otherwise it underlies every computation of the constants attached to friction, diffusion and the conduction of heat. ”