Mode (music)

“ Of the many possible modes only two are used in our present system of music, the major and the minor. There is only one form of the major mode, and it is the one most people recall when they think of the scale. There are three forms of the minor mode, but of these the harmonic is the most frequently used. ”

“ We live in a three dimensional world, and in its length, breadth, and solidity do we disport ourselves. Music also has its three-fold manner of expression, its rhythm, its melody, and now its harmony. The rhythm is for balance, the melody for the outline, while the harmony constitutes the texture. Here again in other directions we may trace the same essentials: there is a texture of colouring, a style in Literature, and an appropriate technique for harmony in every branch of Art, just as there is an harmonic scheme in Music. ”

“ CONTENTS OF THE PHRASE.—The question may arise, what is it that makes a phrase,—the rhythm, harmony, or melody? Strictly speaking, all three; for music subsists in the ceaseless co-operation of these three primary elements of composition, and no phrase is wholly complete without the evidence of each and all. Generalizing the definitions already given, the function of each of these primary elements may be thus described: The element of harmony regulates the choice of the tones that are to sound together; the upright shafts of tone (chords) which determine the body, or framework, of the music. ”

“ The aspect of importance here, in short, is the varied motion of the music simply, the ups and downs of the harmony or melody, the stream of sound through its degrees of opposition, preponderance, emphasis, acuteness or vivacity, the elaboration of a melodic phrase in every respect that is suitable to the means of musical art, the musician-like fusion of all the instruments as one ensemble of tone, or in their succession, alternation, and emphatic display of themselves and each other. ”

“ In the
fusing of melody and words into an utterance of song—at last into a strophe—music worked potently, shaping the composition of the lines, moulding them to rhythm, insisting upon sonorousness in the words, promoting their assonance and at last compelling them to rhyme so as to meet the stress, or mark the ending, of the musical periods. Thus the exigencies of melody helped to evoke the finished verse, while the words reciprocating through their vocal capabilities and through the inspiration of their meaning, aided the evolution of the melodies. ”

“ It will thus be seen that the manner in which we are impressed by Music is enormously complex. First, there is the sensuous appeal, the different characteristics of timbre and tone, of rich harmony and full orchestration, of all those devices which are usually described in metaphors of taste and colour. Second, and inclusive of the first, is the emotional appeal, the exhilaration of rapid movement, the gravity of stately chords and broad diatonic melody, the restlessness of broken rhythm and frequent modulation, the shades of surprise which follow upon a sudden change or an unexpected crisis. ”

“ The second cause for the concreteness of the musical experience I take to be certain emotions and feelings which are aroused by association, not with the rhythmic elements of music alone, but with the tone-color, intensity, and melody also. There is a human quality, a poignancy and intimacy, about much music, which can be understood only through its analogy with the sounds of the human voice. ”

“ The special and phases of this active principle we call emotions; and music, which I hold to be its natural language, has tor its very root and first principle, and is actually born from, motion.
Sound is generated by motion; rhythm is measured motion; and this is what distinguishes music from every other art of expression. Painting, sculpture, architecture, are all quiescent: they address us in still contemplation. But music is all motion, and it is nothing else. ”

“ Thought, emotion, all that we call the spiritual side of music, expresses itself not through sonorous or harmonic effects, primarily sensuous in appeal, but through melody and rhythm and their interplay and elaboration in so-called thematic development. In truly great music we remember, not such and such a bit of tone-color, not this or that sonority, but the soaring or tender curve of the themes, their logical yet ever new unfolding, their embodiment, in the whole composition, of richest variety with completest final unity. ”

“ The word rhythm is here used to signify the power possessed by lines, tones, and colours, by their ordering and arrangement, to affect us, somewhat as different notes and combinations of sound do in music. And just as in music, where sounds affect us without having any direct relation with nature, but appeal directly to our own inner life; so in painting, sculpture, and architecture there is a music that appeals directly to us apart from any significance that may be associated with the representation of natural phenomena. There is, as it were, an abstract music of line, tone, and colour. ”

“ Although each tone, as separate and individual, possesses its own feeling in its own right, the tonal effects are immensely accentuated by contrast with one another,—the high against the low, the poor against the rich, the loud against the soft—and through the summation, by means of repetition, of the influences of many tones of like character; the full meaning of music depends upon the relations of tones, especially the temporal relations. ”

“ Our scale intervals are the slowly gained triumphs of the human mind. Modern music did not emerge from the darkness of the past until harmony, as we know it, came into active being.
Both melody and harmony are controlled by rhythm. It is the master force of the musical organism. Before man was the ebb and flow of nature had its rhythm. On this elementary rhythm, the one model music finds in nature, the inventive mind of man has builded the wonderfully impressive art rhythms existing in the masterpieces of music. ”

“ Contrasts of timbre and tone are at least as various as contrasts of colour: the complexity of musical rhythm is far beyond anything that language can achieve; while, in the devices of harmony, and still more of polyphony and counterpoint, the composer occupies a position which is virtually unique in human experience. ”

“ The second material which enlists our attention is no longer the physical quality asserted in the sound, but the essential definition of the tone itself, and its relation to other tones. This objective relation, whereby musical tone in the first instance, not merely in its essential and emphatically defined singularity, but also in its fundamental relation to simultaneously persistent tones, expatiates, constitutes the actual harmonious element of music, and is based, regarded under its own original physical conditions, upon quantitative differences and numerical proportions. ”

“ A living flow informs the structure. The clangorous and ironic passages subside naturally into the weeping, dolorous, soft ones. Nor has the music form in the American manner: at the expense of robustness and vibrancy. There is great strength in the movements; powerfully pulsing rhythms; long melodic lines that flow and continue and extend in beauty ”

“ Critics have generally ascribed to this composition the honor of inaugurating a new and important department in the realm of tonal creation—namely, that of descriptive or program music; that is to say, music which attempts to embody in tone something more than mere ideal beauty of metrical form and rhythmic symmetry, and to express something more than vague emotional states, too intangible for utterance in words; music which conveys not only sensuous pleasure and indefinite moods, but a distinct, realistic suggestion ”

“ Even the universally recognized fitness of the interpretation of a common measure in verse by the corresponding common measure in music depends much more on the power and satisfying completeness of the musical form in itself than on any right relation which obtains between words and music under these conditions. Where the poetry has a more elaborated rhythm there are two extremes, between which the musician’s manner of setting must lie. ”

“ As the vocal aria was the result of the simple folk-song combined with the intense craving of song's master molders for individual expression, so instrumental music striving to walk alone, without support from words, gained vital elements through the discovery that various phases of mental disposition might be indicated by alternating dance tunes differing in rhythm and movement, according to Nature's own law of contrasts. ”

“ We know that primitive man, like the animal, [52] is susceptible to tone, sequences of tone, colour of tone, and rhythm; and that, from purely physiological causes, a number of his feelings tend to express themselves in vocal sounds. Now these are all the elements we require in order to construct modern music. The composer feels strongly, and is impelled to find an outlet for his emotions in tone. ”

“ This progress has gone on until the present time, when two particulars of our music are exactly recorded—the pitch and the rhythm. The exact relation of every tone to the key note is ascertainable from our musical notation, and the precise degree of rhythmic importance appertaining to each tone according to its place in measure and in the larger rhythms. ”

“ Properly speaking, "form" refers to the molecular constitution of music, to the ways in which relations of pitch and rhythm are manipulated in melody and harmony; "structure" to the molar constitution of music, the subsequent grouping of the melodies into complete pieces. The difference between a sonata, a fugue, and a nocturne is a difference of structure; the difference between a good melody and a bad one is a difference of form. ”

“ For music, however, the configuration of musical tone as such is the essential end. For although the soul in the course and movement of melody and its harmonic relations presents what is ideal in objects, or its own ideal content, to the emotional life; yet the ideality thus presented is not pure ideality, but the human soul interwoven in the closest way with the musical tone as its expression, and the configuration of such musical expression which confers on music its true character. ”

“ Music, using sound for its material, is a pattern-weaving in tones. The power of music to satisfy and delight resides in the sensuous value of its material and in the character of its pattern as form, the balance and contrast of tonal relations, the folding and unfolding of themes, their development and progress to the final compelling unity-in-variety which constitutes its form and which in its own inherent and self-sufficing way is made the expression of the composer's emotion and musical idea. ”

“ In primitive states of music rhythmic sounds were heard, defined by the pulses but with little or no change of pitch, and sounds varying in pitch without regularity of impulse. A high degree of intellectuality was reached before our modern scales were evolved from long-continued attempts at making well-balanced successions of sounds. As musical art advanced rhythm and melodic expression became united. ”

“ As contrasted with the long line of melody and the regular impulses in time of rhythm, harmony deals in masses. Melody carries the mind from one point to another; harmony strikes simultaneously and produces an immediate sensation. Its effect upon us is probably due to a subtle physical correspondence within ourselves to combinations of sounds that spring direct from nature. The whole history of music shows a gradual assimilation by human beings of new combinations of sounds, and it is probable that only the first chapters of that history have been written. ”

“ But these effects, although often contributing to the total value, are plainly subordinate in music to its more direct influence as sound alone. The difficulties which they raise have such close analogies in painting and poetry that a separate discussion may be omitted. The problem of ‘pure form’ arises, however, with peculiar insistence in music. ”

“ It is, of course, obvious that our analysis has confined itself to the barest elements of the musical experience. Our music to-day, with its many-voiced harmonies, with its procession of chords instead of single tones, with its modulation into related keys, has an infinite wealth and complexity defying description. A large part of the astonishing effect of music is derived from the fact that in a brief space we seem to hear and absorb so much: the careers of multitudinous lives compressed into an instant. ”

“ Let us remember, too, what the scientists tell us, that light and heat radiated from a given center are dissipated in force and intensity in proportion to the square of the distance to be traversed. The same is emphatically true of emotion. If one would stir his audience to a pleasurable excitement, he must himself be shaken as in a tempest; to warm them, he must be at white heat.
Should the question arise, How shall one learn to feel music more deeply and make it more expressive? ”

“ Besides the prosodic variations and subtleties so far discussed, there are a great many peculiar rhythms, that is, unusual but harmonious changes from the set metrical pattern, modulations, adjustments and combinations of different melodies, which enormously en-rich the verse of a poem. As in music the ear at length tires of the familiar harmonies too often repeated, so the precise regularity of the metrical pattern too closely followed becomes tedious and almost demands variety. ”