Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:40:12.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Simplified Mode Classification for Traditional Anglo-American Song Tunes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

Norman Cazden*
Affiliation:
University of Maine at Orono, Maine
Get access

Extract

This paper might well be subtitled, Why call it Ionian Heptatonic when we mean Major?

In the rosy romantic image invoked long ago by Chappell and Wooldridge, as also on the European continent by Combarieu, the archaic song of the common people has ever been drawn by instinctive tropism towards the musical forms and formulas taught over the centuries by a benevolent Church. These writers, no more alert than many among their modern successors to the observation that their information necessarily went back ultimately to Church-sponsored sources alone, sensed a natural linkage between melodic mode usages in popular tunes and the theoretical classifications that had been ordained, though retroactively, for the ancient sacred chant, and they took this connection to be symbolic and symptomatic of a profound cultural and psychological impulse.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 By the International Folk Music Council 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Footnotes

** Save for nos. 1, 3 and 9, the notated examples that follow have been transcribed by the author.Google Scholar

1. William Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, 2 vols. (London, 1855: reprint, New York, 1965), Vol. 1, p. 13.Google Scholar

2. H. Ellis Wooldridge, ed., in: William Chappell, Old English Popular Music (London, 1893: reprint, New York, 1961), p. ix.Google Scholar

3. Jules Combarieu, La Musique et la Magie (Paris, 1909), p. 208.Google Scholar

4. George Pullen Jackson, “Old Timey Country Singing”, Southern Folklore Quarterly, vol. 1 (1937), p. 24.Google Scholar

5. Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk-Song: Some Conclusions (London, 1907), pp. 36–37; hereafter referred to as 1st edition.Google Scholar

6. Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk-Song: Some Conclusions, 4th ed. (London, 1965), edited by Maud Karpeles, p. 48; hereafter referred to as 4th edition.Google Scholar

7. In: Roger D. Abrahams and George Foss, Anglo-American Folksong Style (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1968).Google Scholar

8. Jan Philip Schinhan, ed., North Carolina Folklore, IV: The Music of the Ballads (Duke University Press, 1957).Google Scholar

9. Peter Crossley-Holland, “The Tonal Limits of Welsh Folk Song”, Journal of the Welsh Folk Song Society, Vol. 5, Part 2 (1968), pp. 46–73.Google Scholar

10. Bertrand Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, II (Princeton University Press, 1962), p. xii.Google Scholar

11. Norman Cazden, “Pythagoras and Aristoxenos Reconciled”, Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 11 (1958), pp. 97–105.Google Scholar

12. Marcus Meibom, Antiquae Musicae Auctores Septem (1652); Anselme Édouard Chaignet, Pythagore et la Philosophic Pythagoricienne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1873); Karl von Jan, Musici Scriptores Graeci (1895); Henry S. Macran, The Harmonics of Aristoxenos (1902).Google Scholar

13. Phillips Barry, “Greek Music”, The Musical Quarterly, vol. 5 (1919), 578–613; Theodor Reinach, La Musique Grecque (Paris, 1926); Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World (New York, 1943), pp. 198–271; Isobel Henderson, “Ancient Greek Music”, in: The New Oxford History of Music, vol. 1 (London, 1957), 336–403; Egon Wellesz, ed., The History of Music in Sound, vol. 1 (New York, 1957), 32–35, with recording RCA-Victor No. LM 6057-1, side 4 bands 2–3. Among extended discussions: David B. Monro, The Modes of Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1894); Louis Laloy, Aristoxène de Tarente (Paris, 1904); W. H. Frere, article “Modes”, in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 3rd edition (1907), vol. 3 pp. 222–229; R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Mode in Ancient Greek Music (Cambridge, 1936); Otto Johannes Gombosi, Tonarten und Stimmungen der Antiken Musik (Kopenhagen, 1939); Willi Apel, article “Greek Music”, in Harvard Dictionary of Music, 1st edition (Harvard University Press, 1944), pp. 301–304; Armand Machabey, Genèse de la Tonalité Musicale Classique (Paris, 1955).Google Scholar

14. Kathleen Schlesinger, “The Harmonia”, Music Review, vol. 5 (1944), 7–39 and 119–141.Google Scholar

15. Antoine Auda, Les Modes et les Tons (Bruxelles, 1930).Google Scholar

16. Aristoxenos, The Harmonics (see Macran in fn. 12 supra), pp. 194–195.Google Scholar

17. Knud Jeppesen, Counterpoint (Copenhagen, 1931), trans. by Glen Haydon (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1939), p. 59.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 70–71.Google Scholar

19. Norman Cazden, Musical Consonance and Dissonance, dissertation (Harvard University, 1948), pp. 565–601.Google Scholar

20. Bence Szabolcsi, A History of Melody (London, 1965), p. 38.Google Scholar

21. Heinrich Glarean, The Dodecachordon (1547), ed. and trans. by Clement Albin Miller (University Microfilms No. 2424, 1950).Google Scholar

22. Joseph Matthias Hauer, Vom Wesen des Musikalischen (Berlin, 1923), p. 14.Google Scholar

23. Paul Hindemith, The Craft of Musical Composition, trans. by Arthur Mendel (New York, 1942), vol. pp. 137, 158, 161; cf. Norman Cazden, “Hindemith and Nature”, Music Review, vol. 15 (1954), 288–306.Google Scholar

24. Hans Kayser, Ein Harmonikaler Teilungskanon (Zürich, 1946), p. 36; Lehrbuch der Harmonik (Zürich, 1950), passim.Google Scholar

25. Heinrich Schenker, Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln (Wien, 1932).Google Scholar

26. Norman Cazden, “Folk idiom vs. synthetic language for the composer”, American Music Teacher, vol. 1 no. 5 (1952), pp. 2–7.Google Scholar

27. Peter Crossley-Holland, “Secular homophonic music in Wales in the Middle Ages”, Music and Letters, vol. 23 (1942), pp. 135–162.Google Scholar

28. Donald Ferguson, A History of Musical Thought (New York, 1935), pp. 40–45.Google Scholar

29. Sidney Harrison, Music for the Multitude (London, 1940), p. 65.Google Scholar

30. Peter Crossley-Holland, “rGya-gLing Hymns of the Karma-Kagyu”, Selected Reports (University of California at Los Angeles Institute for Ethnomusicology), vol. 1 no. 3 (1970), pp. 79–114.Google Scholar

31. Eric Werner, “The origin of the eight modes of music (Octoechos)”, Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. 21 (1948), p. 211.Google Scholar

32. Edmond de Coussemaker, Histoire de l'harmonie au moyen âge (Paris, 1852), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

33. cf. also: Rutland Boughton, The Reality of Music (London, 1934), p. 97.Google Scholar

34. Edward Lowinsky, “Awareness of tonality in the 16th century”, International Musicological Society, Report of the Eighth Congress, New York, 1961, vol. 1 p. 52; Bence Szabolcsi, op. cit. p. 47.Google Scholar

35. Eric Werner, op. cit. p. 212; Gustav Reese, Music in the Middle Ages (New York, 1940), pp. 74 ff.Google Scholar

36. Bronson, op. cit., vol. 1 (1959), pp. xxiv–xxviii; cf. Harold Powers, “An historical and comparative approach to the classification of ragas”, Selected Reports, vol. 1 no. 3 (1970), p. 46.Google Scholar

37. Charles Seeger, “Versions and variants of the tunes of ‘Barbara Allen',” Selected Reports, vol. 1 no. 1 (1966), pp. 120–163.Google Scholar

38. Bronson, op. cit., vol. 3 (1966), pp. 449–450.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., vol. 1 p. xxvi.Google Scholar

40. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. 2 (1900), p. 95.Google Scholar

41. A. L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England (London, 1967), pp. 48–49.Google Scholar

42. Edith Fowke, Lumbering Songs from the Northern Woods (University of Texas Press, 1970) [Publications of the American Folklore Society, Memoir Series, vol. 55], p. 66.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 69.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 178.Google Scholar

45. Sharp, 1st ed., pp. 21–22; 4th ed., pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

46. Bronson, op. cit., vol 2, p. xii.Google Scholar

47. Fowke, op. cit., p. 206.Google Scholar

48. Norman Cazden, The Abelard Folksong Book (New York, 1958), Part 1, pp. 4–5; Norman Cazden, “Catskill Lockup Songs,” New York Folklore Quarterly, vol. 16 (1960), p. 100; Edward B. Ives, Larry Gorman (Indiana University Press, 1964), pp. 103–104.Google Scholar

49. Fowke, op. cit., p. 150.Google Scholar

50. Lloyd, op. cit., p. 50.Google Scholar

51. Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk-Songs from Somerset (Taunton, 1904), Vol. 1, p. 68.Google Scholar

52. Fowke, op. cit., pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

53. Jeppesen, op. cit., pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

54. Sharp, 4th ed., pp. 66–67.Google Scholar

55. Joseph Yasser, A Theory of Evolving Tonality (New York, 1932).Google Scholar

56. Curt Sachs, “The Road To Major,” Musical Quarterly, vol. 29 (1943), p. 389.Google Scholar

57. Arthur von Oettingen, Harmoniesystem in dualer Entwicklung (Dorpat, 1866).Google Scholar

58. Alain Daniélou, Introduction to the study of musical scales (London, 1943); Jacques Handschin, Der Toncharakter (Zürich, 1948); Alain Daniélou, Traité de musicologie comparée (Paris, 1959); Hugo Kauder, Counterpoint (New York, 1960); Mieczyslaw Kolinski, “The Wellsprings of Music – A Review Essay,” Ethnomusicology, vol. 7 (1963), pp. 272–286).Google Scholar

59. René Lenormand, Étude sur l'harmonie moderne (Paris, 1913); A. Eaglefield Hull, “Scriabin's scientific deriviation of harmony versus empirical methods”, Proc. of the Musical Association, London, vol. 43 (1916–1917), pp. 17–28; Henry Cowell, New Musical Resources (New York, 1931); Jacques Chailley, Traité historique d'analyse musicale (Paris, 1951).Google Scholar

60. Franklin Robinson, Aural Harmony Revised (New York, 1936).Google Scholar

61. Mieczyslaw Kolinski, “Barbara Allen's Tonal versus Melodic Structure,” Ethnomusicology, 12 (1968), pp. 208–209.Google Scholar

62. Curt Sachs, op. cit., and his The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, pp. 295–311.Google Scholar

63. The Camp Woodland Collection of Folk Music of the Catskill Mountains, ms. [contents list in: Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 72, no. 286 (1959), pp. 328–330], No. 94.Google Scholar

64. Fowke, op. cit., p. 37.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., p. 87.Google Scholar

66. The Camp Woodland Collection, No. 73.Google Scholar

67. Frere, W. H., “Key-relationship in early medieval music”, Report of the Fourth Congress of the International Musical Society (1911) (London, 1912), pp. 116–118; cf. Reese, op. cit., p. 158.Google Scholar

68. The Camp Woodland Collection, No. 103, No. 155, No. 120.Google Scholar

69. Chappell, Old English Popular Music, pp. 119, 146, 154.Google Scholar

70. Norman Cazden, Dances From Woodland, 2nd ed. (Bridgeport, Conn., 1955), pp. 35,44.Google Scholar

71. Norman Cazden, American Folksongs for Piano (Stamford, Conn., 1962), p. 27.Google Scholar

72. Szabolcsi, op. cit., pp. 21, 31–32.Google Scholar

73. Foss, op. cit., p. 207.Google Scholar

74. Bruce Jackson, Wake Up, Dead Man (Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 81.Google Scholar

75. Kenneth S. Goldstein, “The ‘Texas Rangers’ in Aberdeenshire,” in: Mody C. Boatright et al, ed., A Good Tale and a Bonnie Tune (University of Texas Press, 1964), p. 191; Edward D. Ives, “Folksongs from Maine,” Northeast Folklore, 1 (1965), p. 64.Google Scholar

76. Walter Piston, Harmony (New York, 1941), p. 39.Google Scholar

77. Robert Wienpahl, “Zarlino, the Senario, and Tonality,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 12 (1959), p. 29.Google Scholar

78. Gioseffo Zarlino, L'istitutioni harmoniche (Venetia, 1558), Cap. 31, p. 222.Google Scholar

79. The Camp Woodland Collection, No. 95.Google Scholar

80. Johann Sebastian Bach, Werke (Bachgesellschaft Edition, Bd. 14): “Das wohl temperirte Clavier oder Praeludia und Fugen durch alle Tone und Semitonia sowohl tertiam majorem oder Ut Re Mi anlangend, als auch tertiam minorem oder Re Mi Fa betreffend. Zum Nutzen und Gebrauch …” etc.Google Scholar