MODE, in music. Every musical passage is referable to and forms part of a succes sion of sounds having some appreciable relation to one another. This succession of sounds is called the scale, and is a series of steps leading from a given note called the key-note, or tonic (q.v.), to its octave. The steps or degrees of the scale arc of unequal size, and on thcr place of the smaller ones or semitones depends the mode of the music. Taking our natural scale, there are only two notes in it which can satisfy the ear as key-notes -a' ," 0. ..d. • '• It„, 4 _ ._—_-.1--- --• ' :---] Major mode. • Minor mode.
viz., C and A. In the major mode, with C as key-note, the semitone or small interval falls between the third and fourth sounds; in the minor mode, with A as key-note, it falls between the second and third sounds; in the former case, the third of the 'key-note is a major third, in the latter a minor third. The minor mode further requires to be modified by occasionally sharpening its sixth and seventh, in order to be pleasing to modern ears The scale of the major mode is derived from simpler harmonic propor tions than that of the minor. Melodies composed in the latter mode have generally more or less of a plaintive or melancholy character. For the theory of. these modes, see
Music. Ancient musicians admitted of a greater variety of modes. The Greeks had six, designated the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixo-Lydian, Ionic, and radian. The Ionic is the modern major, the .tEolian the minor mode; the others are more or less intolerable to a modern ear. They are used to a limited extent in the music of the Greek church, and in the Ambrosian chant.
MODE (ante), in music, a term applied to the two varieties, major and minor, of the diatonic scale, or series of tones employed in modern music. It is more rarely used for key, as the twelve major and twelve minor modes or keys." In the old Greek music Cad' note could become, as in the modern, the key-note of a new key or scale; but, as there was no introduction of new semitones, this change of key became a change of mode in the same sense as our major and minor. At first there were only four Greek modes—the Dorian, Phrygian. Lydian, and Myxo-Lydian—but later the Ionian and the iFolitin modes were added. St. Ambrose chose the first four for use in the church in the 4th c., and St. Gregory introduced the 'others 200 years later. They were termed ecclesiastical modes, and gave rise to the eight "Gregorian tones" or chants.