Modal frame

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This article is about modal frames in music, for modal logic see Kripke semantics.

In music a melodic mode (van der Merwe 1989, p.102-103) or modal frame is one of "a number of types permeating and unifying African, European, and American song" and melody (Middleton 1990, p.203) including parlour music. "Mode" and "frame" are used in this context interchangeably. Melodic modes allow melodies which are not chord-based or determined by the harmony but instead by melodic features. A note frame is a melodic mode that is atonic (without a tonic) or has an unstable tonic. Examples include:

  • floor note: the bottom of the frame, felt to be the lowest note though isolated notes may go lower
  • ceiling note: the top of the frame
  • central note: the center of mode, around which other notes cluster or gravitate
  • chant tunes (Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues")
  • axial tunes ("A Hard Day's Night", "Peggy Sue", Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get A Witness", and Roy Milton's "Do the Hucklebuck")
  • oscillating (Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash")
  • open/closed (Bo Diddley's "Hey Bo Diddley")
  • terrace
  • shout-and-fall
  • ladder of thirds
  • Upper or lower focus (adapted from Ekueme, Lazarus): portion of the mode on which the melody temporarily dwells
  • Melodic dissonance: the quality of a note which is modally unstable and attracted to other more important tones in a non-harmonic way
  • Melodic triad: arpeggiated triads which appear in a melody but not in the harmony, see non-harmonic arpeggio
  • Level: a temporary modal frame contrasted with another built on a different foundation note. A "change" (as in chord change) in levels is called a shift.
  • Co-tonic: a melodic tonic different from and as important as the harmonic tonic
  • Secondary tonic: a melodic tonic, though different form and subordinate to the harmonic tonic
  • Pendular third (adapted from Nketia, J.H.): Alternating notes a third apart, most often a neutral, see double tonic

Other songs with modal frames indicated are "A Day in the Life" and "My Generation".

[edit] See also

[edit] Example

The modal frame of The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night features a ladder of thirds axially centered on G with a ceiling note of Bb and floor note of Eb (the low C being a passing tone): (ibid)

A Hard Day's Night modal frame

[edit] Source

  • Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.
  • Van der Merwe, P. (1989). Origins of Popular Style. Oxford.
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