MODE, in ancient music, is the order of the sounds forming what may, in modern language, be called the different scales.
The ancients differed exceedingly among themselves in their defini tions and on the divisions and names of their modes or keys. Obscure on every musical subject, they are nearly unintelligible on this : they all agree, however, that a mode is a certain system of sounds, and it appears that this system or succession is in itself nothing but a given diapason, or octave, made up of all the intermediate sounds, according to the genus.
In the earliest Greek music whereof we have any account there were but three modes, of which the key-notes were at the distance of one tone from each other. The lowest of these was called the Dorian, the highest the Lydian, and the Phrygian was placed between the other two. Subsequently, by dividing the tones into semitones, two other modes were produced, the Ionian and the Salon, the first of which was placed between the Dorian and Phrygian, and the second between the Phrygian and Lydian. At length, by extending the system above and below, now modes were established, which took their names from the former five, adding the preposition hyper ('drip, adore) for the higher, and hype (Grd, below) for the lower. Thus the Lydian mode was followed by the Hyper-Dorian, the Hyper-Ionian, &c., in furcending; and after the Dorian mode followed the Hypo-Lydian, the Hypo• dEolian, ke., in descending.
In the ' Easel cur in Jlusique,' by M. Laborde, is a comprehensive table of the modes, with the Cireek musical characters, eze.; and in the ' Philoeophieal Transactions' (vol. li., part 2) will be found a table of the rnme kind, to "show the tuning of the lyre in every mode," by Sir Francis Styles, an industrious inquirer and a learned original writer on the subject.
Of the then existing modes Plato rejected some, thinking them capable of operating prejudicially on the =inform, and Ptolemy reduced the number to sever ; the latter, therefore, confined all the modes within the compass of an octave, of which the Dorian mode is the centre, so that the Idixo-Lydian was a 4th above, and the Hypo Dorian a 4th below ; the Phrygian n 5th above the Ilypo-Dorian ; the Hypo-Phrygian a 4th below the Phrygian ; and the Lydian a 5th above the Hypo-Phrygian : whence results the following order :— From these seven modes, with the liypo-mixo-Lydian,—added, it is said, by Guido,—were formed the eight emit-sin/56=i modes, or tones. of the Homan Catholic Church.
In modern musical language, signifies the same an Key ; but, though a far more convenient term, Is very rarely used in that sense in 'this country. (KtY.)