More Odds and Ends:

Like history, we have ignored the Locrian mode because of its musical liabilities. But now that you have explored the six accepted modes, we'll show you the one history has thrown away. Once you understand this one, you are no longer a dulcimer musician, but a musician who plays dulcimer.

THE LOCRIAN MODE

The original keytone of the Locrian is B. The Locrian's fixed scale scheme is:

1/2 - 1 - 1 - 1/2- 1 - 1 - 1

Scale	Example
!!	!!

The scale begins on the second fret. Its tuning looks like this:

C#
f#
d
d

(short cut to tone generator?)

Tune to your "normal" Mixolydian first. Now tune the middle (3rd string) to an octave below the unisons (1st & 2nd strings) fretted on the 2nd fret. Finally, tune the bass string to an octave below the 3rd string fretted on the 4th fret.

Now, the odd thing about the Locrian mode is that it has no fifth tone. The bass provides a droning fifth only as an accompaniment. This doesn't help very much when you are looking for a resting place after playing a phrase, or trying to find a strong note from which to launch another phrase.

Since the dominant has been left out, the next strongest possible tone is the subdominant, the fourth. However, the relative minorness of the fourth combined with the octave fifth drones (carried by the other two strings) demands that you move off it quickly and seek a tone of completion. The only tones of completion, or resolve, are the octaves, so here is where you always wind up, which makes you feel as if you haven't gone anywhere at all. Maybe the Locrian should be called the "Sisyphus mode"-- you may find yourself playing in circles.

Chording is a means of breaking out of the Locrian's circle. Yet when you chord a fifth from the middle string you break out of the mode and accomplish very little other than chording some sense into an otherwise very limited mode.

So try to work with the Locrian the way it is. Very quickly you'll employ all the techniques of melody, picking, rhythm and counterpoint-- anything to ease the frustration of not being able to get the Locrian to sound right to your modern ears.

OTHER MODES

Since the time of the Greeks, the heritage of Western civilization music has been essentially the modes and their scales as defined by Pythagoras, but the sound of these modes were not exactly the same as today's. An important fact to consider is that we know the actual root tones of the modes have changed over the course of time. The vibrational note/sound produced by what we now call middle C does not exactly correspond to what the ancients would have called the starting place for the Ionian scale.

Many theories abound concerning this. Perhaps the most relevant of these considerations are the ones which relate to the idea that particular sounds and scales can be used for healing purposes-- asserting there are regenerative tones which correspond to different parts of the body and of Nature.

Along these same lines is the idea of there being an all-pervasive, Cosmic, celestial harmony. Robert Fludd's drawing of the "Divine Monochordum", shown earlier in these pages, is at least one person's attempt to illuminate this belief. Personally, we could not have written this book if at some level we did not accept some portion of these beliefs to be true.

But, music speaks for itself-- there at least is one knowable truth. So, back to the history lesson and we'll let you sort it out for yourself.

The seven, "modern" modes (that is, the six accepted modes and the Locrian) came to life as we know them in the late sixteenth century. Historically, they evolved from four "Ecclesiastical" modes which were reorganized and amended to produce our seven modern ones.

In the Ecclesiastical system there are four authentic modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian), and four plagal modes identified by the term "hypo" meaning "under." All these modes were in use during the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Some were used more in theory than in practice, yet all of them consisted of a pentachord (five intervals) and a tetrachord (four intervals), just like our modern ones.

An authentic mode consists of a pentachord with a tetrachord above it (for example, using the traditional G-Mixolydian: the pentachord G, A, B, C, D and the tetrachord D, E, F, g.)

        G, A, B, C, E, F, g

A plagal mode consists of a tetrachord with a pentachord above it (for example, using a traditional D-Dorian beginning with a DD,-- that is, the D below the G below middle C:

        DD, EE, FF, G, A, B, C, D

Most music theorists agree that plagal modes were devised to allow for melodies extending into the lower ranges. The main differences between authentic and plagal modes are that plagal modes begin a fourth lower than the authentic and that they have a different dominant (reciting tone); however, both modes share the same final note.

The concept of the final became increasingly important in the development of music as the form of Gregorian chanting evolved from emphasizing the dominant (as in responsorial music) to emphasizing the final (as in antiphonal music, a development of melody in the 8th and 9th centuries.)

In authentic modes the dominant is the hinge between the two segments of five notes and four notes; in the plagal modes, it is the perfect fourth that is the hinge-- but the final is most important because it is the tone which resolves the melody. To go further into the development and significance of plagal and authentic modes is beyond the scope of this book on dulcimer playing. Nonetheless, as best as we can determine, this is the way music shaped up at the beginning of the tenth century.

When reading the charts below, remember that the use of capital letters refer to the G- scale that includes middle C and that lower case letters refer to the G-scale that is an octave above.

Ecclesiastical Modes

Because of the development of harmony and the use of chromatic notes, music was changed and secularized. The Catholic Church was losing control not only of the elements of music but also of the concepts behind music. In 1547 Glareanus, a music theorist, stated that there were fourteen possible and twelve usable modes.

New Modes of the Sixteenth Century

Of these six new modes, two were immediately rejected by musicians because they couldn't be used; two others seemed superfluous, so only two, the Aeolian and lonian, were left-- one very minor and one very major in tonality-- and these are the two which today are the models for all modern minor and major scales.

These new modes did not have designated dominants, because by this time music had progressed beyond having one note sung monotonously. Music was becoming fluid, melodic, harmonic, and varied in tone and structure. Most important, music was being composed for enjoyment and was already a part of the fabric of contemporary civilization.

Soon after the disclosure of the six new modes, the Catholic Church decreed that music still was in the domain of the Church and the only modes allowed would be the Mixolydian, the Aeolian, the lonian, the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian-- but few people listened, and that's where it all ended.

So here we sit with dulcimers in hand. If you want simple music, uncomplicated music, here it is. If you want more complicated music, it began within these modes (at least in our culture.) If you want still more complicated music, perhaps the sitar is really your instrument and you'd best go East, where an unbroken tradition of keytones and scales is still passed, master to student.