The choice of these two modes took many cen turies and must have been made by entirely un conscious perception of their greater value, especially of that of the major scale. A com parison of the major scale with the favorite Dorian mode of the Greeks shows that the mod ern ear desires the half tone at the top of a tetrachord instead of the bottom, as they did. Whether the favor in which the Dorian tetra chord was held by the Greeks is a proof that they thought their music downward and were therefore doing just the same as we do when we think ours upward is very doubtful, though a well-known theorist has advanced this clever idea. It is much more likely that the introduc tion of harmony caused a greatly increased recognition of the true function of the keynote, which, as we understand it, was unknown to the ancients. To us the keynote (in any oc tave) is the only rest point to the ear; all other notes of the scale trend toward it more or less strongly, and in the instance of an ascending mayor scale the seventh note (the so-called leading note) demands it more than any other note. This quality of motion and rest led to the greater importance of the major mode over the minor, the seventh note of which, be ing a whole tone distant from the keynote, lacked the great desire to progress these which is so important a characteristic of the major. Finally, probably by accident at first, the seventh note of the minor was raised so as to be but a half tone below the keynote; this form of the minor key is now known as the Thar monk minor,° and is the only one recognized in harmony.
But the distance from the sixth to the sev enth being thus made a tone and a half, a very difficult interval to sing or treat melodically, the sixth was raised to secure smoother and easier passage upward and as the double change had made the upper part of the minor mode iden tical with the major it was argued that neither leading note nor raised sixth was in descending, so both were restored to their orig inal position in descending. This is known as the ((melodic minor.' (2) A term used in medieval music to indi cate the relative value of the Large, the Long and the Breve. Two kinds of mode existed, great and less, the first deciding the relation of the large to the long and the second that of the long to the breve. Both kinds could be perfect or imperfect. In great mode perfect the large is equal to three longs. In great mode imper fect it was worth but two longs. In less mode perfect the long was equal to three breves, in less mode imperfect it was equal to two breves. During the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th musicians made extraor dinary difficulties in their compositions by means of mode and prolation. See GREEK MUSIC; MEANTONE ; DIAZEUTIC TONE; TEM PERAMENT.