MINOR, a musical term applied to inter vals and modes (or scales). I. Interval: For purposes of art certain relative distances of height and lowness have to be definitely deter mined and maintained. The sounds so chosen are notes of the system and the distances be tween them are intervals. Various national scales present great diversity in this rerpect; for instance, the ancient Gaelic and the Chinese scales (the ladder of notes is called a scale), were constructed so as to avoid any :ntervals as small as a semitone. The intervals of the ancient Greeks were calculated to develop the resources of melody without harmony. On the other hand the intervals of modern scales are calculated for the development of the resources of harmony rather than melody. The modern scale system is a product of artistic invention; and the determination of the intervals took many centuries to establish. By the time of Bach it was clearly settled. The interval be tween one note and another is named according to the number of degrees between them on the scale, both notes included; but some intervals, — thirds, for example, — have four semitones and some have three semitones. The former is, therefore,. called a major interval and the latter a minor interval; or in other words, a major third and a minor third.
II. Modes: When the immediate predeces sors of Bach and Handel succeeded in estab lishing a stable key-system, that key-system took two forms, in both of which the three chords of tonic, dominant and subdominant occupied cardinal points. In one form, or
mode, the tonic chord was natural, that is to say, major. In the other form the tonic chord was artificial, that is to say, minor. In the minor mode so firm is the position of the tonic and dominant (the dominant chord being al ways major) that it is no longer necessary to conclude with a major chord as was the custom in the 16th century. The effect of the minor mode is normally plaintive, because it centres round the artificial concord instead of the natural; and though the keynote bears this artificial triad, the ear, nevertheless, has an expectation (which may be intensified into a powerful emotional effect) that the final conclusion of the harmonic scheme may brighten out into the more sonorous harmonic system of major chords. On the modern sense of the identity of the tonic in major and minor rests the whole distinctive character of modern har mony and the whole key-system of classical composers. The minor mode recognizes two forms of scale, the harmonic and melodic.
See SCALE.