I see the whale, and the waves keep coming. DAMN THIS PEG-LEG!

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

verizon is my doppleganger

if i were in the key of a harmonic minor and i began on the dominant, what mode would i be using?

3 comments:

Herr Vogler said...

Are we talking church modes here? I don't know that there's a specific "mode" for that. If it were natural minor I think you're thinking of something like a hypo-lydian mode (I think; it's been a long time since I've had to think modally).

There is however a mode that roughly corresponds to what you're referring. It's common in Jerry Goldsmith's music (and Bartok; don't even get me started on how much I love his music!) which is called a double harmonic minor scale (e, f, g#, a, b, c, d[#], e; think J.G.'s love theme from The Mummy and you've pretty much got it).

Is this the sort of thing you're thinking of? It's an extremely cool scale used in a lot of eastern European, middle Eastern and north African indigenous musics.

Ah theory. It brings a tear of nostalgia to my eye (sniff, sniff).

the warrior bard said...

Same as Hava Nagila, isn't it?

Herr Vogler said...

Yeah, I think so. At any rate it's damn cool. With regards to Mr. Goldsmith, that was one of the hallmarks of his thematic writing was that there was this flat-2 element all over his scores (particularly decending to tonic) that I think probably would have been reminiscent of growing up hearing a lot of temple cantoring (if that is indeed the case).