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Originally Posted by carol m
Morning Fretsource, except its midnight here. Interesting info, but what are 'church' modes? Do you kneel down and pray for guidance?
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Actually, it's the jazz modes that need some prayer if you want divine guidance on using them.
The original medieval church modes that survive today, and which were originally used to classify the scale structure of the church psalms and plainchant, are:
The Dorian mode DEFGABCD
The Phrygian mode EFGABCDE
The Lydian mode FGABCDEF
The Mixolydian mode GABCDEFG
Their Greek names originally and mistakenly came from how medieval monks believed that the ancient Greeks classified their music.
In the 16th century these were expanded to include 3 more modes that the church didn't use, although two were found to exist in secular music. They were:
The Ionian mode CDEFGABC (now our major scale)
The Aeolian mode ABCDEFGA (now our natural minor scale)
The Locrian mode BCDEFGAB (which existed only in theory as it sounded terrible in practice)
As sharps and flats were gradually introduced into music, it became possible to transpose those modes into any key, something that was impossible when the only available notes were natural ones.