An Aeolian Christmas?
December 20, 2009 3:37 PM   Subscribe

Music theory meets Christmas filter: I have been a good musician in my day, but my training was long on how to do it and woefully short on theory. I'm curious about the Christmas music that sounds like it's in a minor key (i.e., "Watchman Tell Us of the Night," "We Three Kings," "O Come, O Come Emanuel"). I have read that these pieces are written in Aeolian mode, but that source was quite brief and unhelpful. Can someone walk me through these songs? This question is interesting but doesn't go far enough in my direction.
posted by bryon to Media & Arts (24 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Aolian mode is basically the "natural" minor as opposed to "harmonic" minor - so the leading note seventh is not raised by the semitone.

The differences between each note on the scale:

Natural Minor (Aolian): Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone

Harmonic Minor ("Normal" Minor): Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone-and-a-half, Semitone

Like, on the piano, you start on A and play a scale with just the white keys. That's the natural minor or Aolian mode. If you raise the seventh, play a G sharp instead of a G, then that's the "harmonic" minor.

Harmonic minor is the "traditional" minor sound. When you use natural minor it has a "modal" sound which is sort of like the sound you hear in these songs.
posted by moorooka at 3:46 PM on December 20, 2009 [1 favorite]


There's a danger here at looking at older (or older-style) harmonizations through a modern analysis lens. For the last 300-ish years music has been analyzed using a system that presupposes a major-minor dichotomy. This only works because (roughly speaking) Monteverdi once ended a madrigal with an F major chord, followed by G major, followed by a final C major (aka IV-V-I in modern notation), and everyone else thought it was so cool that he was copied until around Shonberg's birthday.

When a piece is writen using the aeolian mode, it just means that it's... written in the aeolian mode. The mode only sets up the "home" note and the scale pattern; it doesn't say much directly about harmonization.

What's opened up by writing outside of major & minor is the old systems of writing harmonies. You'd want to look at, for example, fauxbourdon, a system that went out of favor ca. 500 years ago.
posted by range at 4:12 PM on December 20, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm no expert but I would guess that the Aolian and Ionian modes were "naturally selected" as minor and major in Western music due to the fact that they best accord with the overtone series and hence create the most "natural" sounding harmonies. So if they were copying Monteverdi it wasn't because he was cool, but because what he did actually sounded cool, and still sounds cool and always will. And it still forms the template of most popular music today. Shonberg's cleverer-than-thou type of music just doesn't sound musical to the average person, because what makes music sound musical is the alternating consonance and dissonance of overtones.
posted by moorooka at 4:51 PM on December 20, 2009


The Teaching Company has a really great lecture series if you want to learn more about music theory: Understanding the Fundamentals of Music. There are several lessons
posted by smackfu at 4:57 PM on December 20, 2009 [1 favorite]


on major and minor modes.
posted by smackfu at 4:58 PM on December 20, 2009


The best explanation of modes I've ever seen was this one by 80's guitar dude Vinnie Moore:
Vinnie Moore on modes.

(not that I know my modes from a hole in the ground, but I showed these to my dad, who's played classical piano since he was 4 years old -- he's 61 now -- and he said he wished he'd had them explained so well to him.)
posted by smcameron at 7:13 PM on December 20, 2009 [2 favorites]


I should add, that link is just to part 1, there are multiple parts, and it gets better.
posted by smcameron at 7:21 PM on December 20, 2009


Yeah, so keep in mind that music theory is just that - it's a way for us to try and organize and understand musical events and structures. It will be dependent on historical context, etc. But generally:

When we talk about modes in music we are simply talking about the arrangement, as moorooka correctly point out, of tones and semitones - or whole steps and half steps, as they are often called. There are seven unique notes to a scale in traditional western music (ignoring, for now, things like the pentatonic scale and such), 8 total notes counting the octave of the tonic note. These 8 notes can be arranged into one of seven different modes by varying the order of tones and semitones.

The easiest way to think about this is to look at a keyboard: if you start on any note and play only white keys up one octave, you will have played one of the seven modes - one mode for each note, essentially. They are:

C to C: Ionian (what we think of now as the Major key)
D to D: Dorian (like natural minor - see above - with a sharp 6. This mode was made famous as the revolutionary mode employed on So What, the first track off Miles Davis's Kind of Blue.)
E to E: Phrygian (strange and uncommon mode, basically a natural minor with a flat 2).
F to F: Lydian (also fairly uncommon, like ionian with a sharp 4, giving it a sound I personally really like).
G to G: Mixolydian (ionian with a dominant seven instead of a leading tone. this is a pretty common mode, especially in jazz).
A to A: Aeolian (this is, as has been mentioned, the 'minor' key. It has three forms: natural (dominant 7, no leading tone), harmonic (sharp 7 for the leading tone - this is the most common form in Western classical music), and melodic (sharp 6 and 7 when ascending, natural when descending).
B to B: Locrian (a very rarely used mode).

Basically you can think of most Western classical music up until Debussy or so as being composed primarily from the Ionian and Aeolian modes: aka Major and Minor keys. In late Romantic music and early 20th century music, modes became common practice in concert music. And in the late 50's they entered jazz. This is not to say that one could not find possible ninstances of modal events in earlier music, but it's likely that there would be a better, more fitting way to think of that kind of enigma within the work.

The Christmas songs you mention: take We Three Kings, for example. If I remember the tune correctly, it's mostly in natural minor - aeolian mode (no dominant seven - so a whole step between 7 and 8, which gives the tune that sort of 'jazzy' sound.) A lot of blues and rock is based on the natural minor, as opposed to more classical music which frequently use the harmonic minor (which makes the dominant - or 5th chord - major, and thus sort of really roots you, if you will, in the key. Natural minor, generally, will have a minor 5 and the 'key' is a little more ambiguous).

tl;dr - modes are essentially keys. The Major key and Minor key are simply two of the seven modes - Ionian and Aeolian. They are certainly the most common. Different modes deliver different harmonic textures to a piece of music, and can be useful when thinking about certain melodic arrangements in music.
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:37 PM on December 20, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm no expert but I would guess that the Aolian and Ionian modes were "naturally selected" as minor and major in Western music due to the fact that they best accord with the overtone series and hence create the most "natural" sounding harmonies. So if they were copying Monteverdi it wasn't because he was cool, but because what he did actually sounded cool, and still sounds cool and always will. And it still forms the template of most popular music today. Shonberg's cleverer-than-thou type of music just doesn't sound musical to the average person, because what makes music sound musical is the alternating consonance and dissonance of overtones.

Well, as you might expect, the story is more complicated than this. The overtone argument is a frequently employed one, and there is truth to it, but it gets complicated when we start talking about non-Western musics, or temperament and how pianos aren't actually true to the overtone series, etc., or how the overtone series past about the 5th tone gets a bit wtf. There's defo something to the notion that our brains process certain alignments of wavelengths better than others (2:1, 2:3). But this question is a very deep and complex one with roots in history, science, philosophy and sociology. Keep in mind that certain sounds we love today - parallel fifths, for example (which are the basis for pretty much all punk music, a lot of metal, pop) were not so long ago considered ear bleeding. Or the ninth chord - we've built an entire industry (adult contemporary) on the 9th chord (or 'sus2'), a chord that, had Mozart used it, would have caused quite a fuss.

And be careful with the Schoenberg thing: what Schoenberg was trying to do was to create music that was atonal, i.e. it did not favor any one note above another, in the way that traditional Western music does in its hierarchical fashion. It is still very musical, and if it sounds a bit off-kilter, well, that is certainly part of the point.
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:56 PM on December 20, 2009


I know it's quite complex once you start looking at it, but as a first approximation music IS overtones. Equal temperament is basically a compromise that allows you to approximate the same set of overtones no matter where you start on your instrument.

And it goes for non-western music too. The pentatonic scale is found all around the world, and not due to random chance. It essentially amounts to the basic overtone relationships.

C D F G A

gives you
9:8 between C and D, F and G, G and A
4:3 between C and F, D and G
3:2 between C and G, D and A
5:3 between C and A
6:5 between D and F
5:4 between F and A
put it together in a bunch of metal tubes and hang them up, the wind blows and you hear lovely chords. It's all just numbers and it's absolutely beautiful.

Add an extra 5:4 above C, and a 5:4 above G and you have the Ionian mode (a 6:5 above G will give you Myxolydian), then you could start from the D and you'd have a Dorian...

Of course you could start that on A...

A C D F G

Add another 9:8 and a 5:4 above the A and you have your Aeolian mode

Of course once you add these additional notes to the pentatonic scale you also introduce semitones (16:15 or thereabouts) which can leave you with dissonance.

Lydian mode contains a dissonant tritone instead of a regular fourth, sounds a bit funny, like in the Simpson's opening theme.

Locrian is just nasty.

Now, once you get to 4:7 you can't really do overtones on an equally tempered piano anymore. But jazzy sevenths amount to basically an approximation of this sound. And jazzy ninths are the next step up, basically 4:9. Beyond that it starts getting a bit wtf...
posted by moorooka at 9:58 PM on December 20, 2009


This has been basically answered correctly, but it's really not as complex as some folks might be making it sound. Modes are what you get when you take a major scale and decide to start and end on a different note. The aeolian mode, aka the natural minor scale, is the 6th mode of the major scale. So if you take any major scale and then decide to begin with the 6th note instead of the first, you've got the aeolian mode.

A piece in the aeolian mode will stick to the 7 pitches of the related major scale, which means the 7th note will be a whole step below the root note. A piece in a minor key will include some altered notes or accidentals, in particular a raised or major 7th, also known as a the leading tone, which is a half-step below the root note.

So when you look at this PDF of the melody for O Come, O Come Emmanuel, we see that there is an F# in the key signature. This is the key signature for G major or E minor. The melody is centered on E, not G. However, in a typical piece in E minor there would be a D# somewhere which would lead to the E. The D# would usually be harmonized with a B7 or D#dim chord. In this melody all the Ds are natural, hence it's in the aeolian mode.

So that should answer your question.

That being said, I have to disagree with some of what Lutoslawski has posted.

A to A: Aeolian (this is, as has been mentioned, the 'minor' key. It has three forms: natural, harmonic, and melodic.)

The minor scale has three forms, of which aeolian, aka natural minor, is one. A piece written in a minor key will often use all three forms of the minor scale. A piece in the aeolian mode will use only the "natural" form.

Basically you can think of most Western classical music up until Debussy or so as being composed primarily from the Ionian and Aeolian modes: aka Major and Minor keys.

modes are essentially keys. The Major key and Minor key are simply two of the seven modes - Ionian and Aeolian.


This is not right. Western classical music typically used the minor key, not the aeolian mode. The aeolian mode is not the same as the minor key.

Or the ninth chord - we've built an entire industry (adult contemporary) on the 9th chord (or 'sus2')

A 9th chord and a sus2 chord are not the same thing. C9 is C E G Bb D, Csus2 is C D G.
posted by ludwig_van at 10:49 PM on December 20, 2009


The pentatonic scale is found all around the world, and not due to random chance.

There is a LOT of debate about this. Essentially, it's a bit obtuse to even think about a lot non-Western musics in this way. There is also a lot of debate about what intonations and what ratios should be used in dividing scales, etc.

Modes are what you get when you take a major scale and decide to start and end on a different note.

No, this isn't right. This will get you different modes, but this is not a helpful way of thinking about how they function theoretically, imo.

modes are essentially keys. The Major key and Minor key are simply two of the seven modes - Ionian and Aeolian.

This is not right. Western classical music typically used the minor key, not the aeolian mode. The aeolian mode is not the same as the minor key.


Hence 'essentially.' And yeah, it is kind of right. No, modes are not keys. But it can be a helpful way to think about them since the aeolian mode does generate the equivalent to a natural minor scale. You can play something, or compose something, in, say, D dorian in the same way you can in A ionian, or whatever.

A 9th chord and a sus2 chord are not the same thing. C9 is C E G Bb D, Csus2 is C D G.

hurf durf. ok.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:43 AM on December 21, 2009


I think also that, in Western music, Aeolian modes have historically been associated with having an exotic Indian or "Oriental" feel, which may explain why the mode was used for "We Three Kings of Orient Are."
posted by jonp72 at 9:47 AM on December 21, 2009


A piece in the aeolian mode will stick to the 7 pitches of the related major scale, which means the 7th note will be a whole step below the root note. A piece in a minor key will include some altered notes or accidentals, in particular a raised or major 7th, also known as a the leading tone, which is a half-step below the root note.

And this is also not true, sorry. First, it doesn't make any sense to think of a related major scale to the aeolian mode: these are entirely different things with completely different functions. A piece in a minor key may or may not include altered pitch classes - this was addressed above (the minor scale has three forms, two of which include a raised 7th, making the V major when functioning harmonically. You can have a piece in a minor key that uses primarily the natural minor, which is, for all intents and purposes, the aeolian mode. In traditional Western classical music, it's more common to see the harmonic minor used, but this does not at all mean that something in natural minor is not in a minor key).
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:55 AM on December 21, 2009


No, this isn't right. This will get you different modes, but this is not a helpful way of thinking about how they function theoretically, imo.

Sure, there are different ways to look at modes, but it is right. C major, D dorian, E phrygian, etc., all share the same pitches. Dorian is the second mode of the major scale, Phrygian is the third mode, etc.

Hence 'essentially.' And yeah, it is kind of right. No, modes are not keys. But it can be a helpful way to think about them since the aeolian mode does generate the equivalent to a natural minor scale.


This question is essentially about the difference between the minor key and the aeolian mode, which are distinct. A mode is like a scale, and the aeolian mode is the same as the natural minor scale, but it is not the same as the minor key.

A piece in A aeolian mode will only use the pitches A B C D E F G. A piece in the key of A minor will have the same key signature (no sharps or flats), but it will have a G# as an accidental somewhere, and it will often have an F# as well.
posted by ludwig_van at 10:01 AM on December 21, 2009


C major, D dorian, E phrygian, etc., all share the same pitches. Dorian is the second mode of the major scale, Phrygian is the third mode, etc.

Yes, I know what you're saying, and I essentially outlined this in detail above. I was just pointing out that, because in theory there are often many technically correct ways to analyze some component of a work, the ways in which we think about functions and relationships is of equal importance, and I think trying to think of modes as variations on a major scale obscures their ontological status.

A piece in A aeolian mode will only use the pitches A B C D E F G. A piece in the key of A minor will have the same key signature (no sharps or flats), but it will have a G# as an accidental somewhere, and it will often have an F# as well.

Again, a piece in A minor will not necessarily have a G#. It can, and often does, but not having a leading tone does not make it not in a minor key - at all. Natural minor and aeolian are basically two sides of the same coin. If I have a piece that employs primarily the natural minor, I might think of it as being aeolian or simply in the natural minor. I've found that often how this is thought about will depend on the context of the work.

This question is essentially about the difference between the minor key and the aeolian mode, which are distinct. A mode is like a scale, and the aeolian mode is the same as the natural minor scale, but it is not the same as the minor key.

Look - modes are not keys, no. But just as, say, a major scale can be used to generate the harmonic vocabulary of a piece of music, so can modes.

Here's the tricky thing I think we're getting caught up on: it's very often, especially in pop music and the like, that a piece in a minor key will employ various forms of the minor scale. You'll often find the aeolian mode/natural minor scale used for melodic lines, bass grooves, that sort of thing, while the leading tone will then make a grand appearance harmonically in the V in a cadence or the like. In other words, there's a lot more complexity and ambiguity to the issue than simply 'a song in a minor key will have a semitone between the 7th and 8th pitch classes' or transversely, 'if the 7th is raised the piece is in a minor key.'

Consider Billie Jean: if we think of the piece in e minor, it looks first like it's in e natural minor, or e aeolian. The opening base line uses the dominant 7 (e d e g e d b d) - the chords on top also represent an aeolian structure, with e minor, f# minor, and G major (*not G diminished). The tune then moves to iv (a g a c a g e g), effectively making the base line also in aeolian (though in a aeolian) while remaining a function in a harmonic structure around e. But then then after the pre-chorus (a little em to C thing), we get B Major - and here is our #7 of the melodic minor, rooting us firmly in e minor.

The point is, there is no simple cut and dry answer to this question. As I said above, there are many ways to think about how sonic events in music relate to one another, and there are many terms and ideas which can be used to describe these relationships.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:36 AM on December 21, 2009


Again, a piece in A minor will not necessarily have a G#. It can, and often does, but not having a leading tone does not make it not in a minor key - at all.

I think you're mistaken here. The i chord is not tonicized without the V chord or the viidim chord. If there is no leading tone, the piece is modal, not tonal. This wikipedia entry agrees that the leading tone is one of the defining aspects of tonality.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:33 AM on December 21, 2009


Again, a piece in A minor will not necessarily have a G#. It can, and often does, but not having a leading tone does not make it not in a minor key - at all.

I think you're mistaken here. The i chord is not tonicized without the V chord or the viidim chord. If there is no leading tone, the piece is modal, not tonal. This wikipedia entry agrees that the leading tone is one of the defining aspects of tonality.


Incredibly, I disagree with Wikipedia (and I believe you're misunderstanding the article a bit - even if we are to give credence to Wikipedia, the article lists those traits as possible elements of tonal music. And while I do not doubt that Cope would make this sort of assertion (though it is not cited), I am willing to bet that there is way more to Cope's explanation, as I doubt Cope would leave something so without nuance). Simply having a leading tone in the piece or not is not nearly enough information to make any kind of defense-worthy assertion regarding the underlying harmonic fabric of a musical work.

Tonality is not such an objective term. One might even go so far to say that a work is tonal if is based on any sort of hierarchical system. Modality and tonality are not mutually exclusive characterizations...at all.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:54 PM on December 21, 2009


Look, there may be edge cases and for the uses of these terms. But my assertion is that, in common practice theory, one of the things necessary for a piece to be "in a minor key" is the V -> i cadence. If the V chord never appears and the natural minor is used to the exclusion of the melodic or harmonic minor, we say a piece is in the aeolian mode.

I really can't figure out what you're trying to say based on your comments in this thread. "Aeolian mode" and "minor key" are not the same thing, which is what you said in your first comment. If you disagree with my definition I'd like to hear yours.
posted by ludwig_van at 3:30 PM on December 21, 2009


There is a LOT of debate about this. Essentially, it's a bit obtuse to even think about a lot non-Western musics in this way. There is also a lot of debate about what intonations and what ratios should be used in dividing scales, etc.
I don't see what's obtuse about recognizing the basic physics that underlies all music. People choose particular notes because they sound good, not because they do the math, but ultimately it is the math that makes them sound good. The basic reason any two notes sound better/worse/different when juxtaposed is the relationship between their sound waves, just like colors come down to light wave frequencies. Of course it's much more complex than just small integer relationships. There are many ways of tuning that allow you to approximate the overtone series and they all have their own particular virtues. If you want to be able to start your scale on more than one note then you need to start using approximations (e.g. a perfect fifth (3:2) plus a major second (9:8) to get a major sixth (5:3), you are aiming for a 15:9 but what you actually get is a 15:8.88888 - it's an approximation but it still workable). Pythagoras realized that you can approximate a twelve note scale by multiples of octaves and fifths only, so all the notes are approximated by ratios in powers of two and three. Then if you want to be able to modulate freely you have to start using equal temperament, raising your tonic to multiples of the twelfth root, which is the distinguishing feature of Western Music but leads to quite impure sounding chords compared to some Eastern instruments.
posted by moorooka at 6:34 PM on December 21, 2009


The basic reason any two notes sound better/worse/different when juxtaposed is the relationship between their sound waves, just like colors come down to light wave frequencies.

As a universal proposition, the statement that humans display a physiological preference for intervals composed of small integer relationships is false. It is disproved by the well-known counterexample of Javanese gamelan, among others; Jay Rahn and others argue that the pitch relationships in the Javanese pélog scale are best understood as drawing from a source collection that can be roughly approximated by a nine tone, equally tempered pitch collection.* Intervallic preferences are best understood as culturally conditioned, as the only physiological response to pitch that we can depend on is the phenomenon of octave equivalence. 'Purity' is a myth. fourcheesemac could probably explain this better, as it's his field of study.

As for modality, the distinction can be complicated. Nonetheless, the definitions of tonality and modality have no overlap. That a piece of music communicates a tonal center is a necessary but insufficient precondition for it to be called tonal, because realistically a tonal center can be communicated without the use of the leading tone. A tonal piece in a minor key will obey certain harmonic restrictions (namely, the use of functional harmonic progressions to delineate phrase, which in a minor key will necessarily end with a V-i cadence) and certain melodic restrictions (the use of melodic minor in lines that ascend to the leading tone, and the use of either melodic or natural minor in descents from same**) that embody the syntax of 'tonal' music. Modal music will tend away from functional progressions, and in the case of a piece written in the Aeolian mode, the leading tone and raised sixth degree will see rare use, if any, so as to prevent identification with a tonal sound on the part of the listener. It's been a while since I've looked at these pieces in any depth, but I think that Ravel's Sonatine and one of his Valses nobles et sentimentales will back me up here.

The leading tone is more likely to appear in minor-like modes that are by definition distinct from any collection you might find in a minor key tonal piece. An example can be found in the beginning measures of the first movement of Debussy's String Quartet, which is written in the phrygian mode but employs the leading tone to intensify motion to the tonal center.

The reality of the situation is that you'll be able to find modally-tinged music written in a minor key, with frequent use of the natural sixth and seventh degrees (though rarely will they approach the tonic as a goal), but you won't find much music written in the aeolian mode that uses leading tones. It's just going to sound tonal.

So, bryon, basically I agree with what others have said above: if you can play a natural minor scale, then you can play the Aeolian mode. You can also find it by starting from the sixth scale step of the major scale and going up until you reach that note again. Pieces that are written in A Aeolian, for example, will emphasize the note G, and often won't contain the note G# at all (which a traditionally tonal, classical piece would). You'll hear the chord progression E min -> A min a lot, as well as G maj -> A min. A lot of rock and pop is modal by this definition. Hope you're not put off by the nerdery!

* Rahn, Jay, 'Javanese Pelog Tunings Reconsidered,' Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, Vol. 10 (1978): pp. 69-82

** This was going to be an example of an instance of the use of the melodic minor scale in a descending 8-7-6-5 figure over an extended dominant harmony from some Brahms I was JUST LOOKING AT, but now I can't find it. Oh well. It exists, trust me.
posted by invitapriore at 8:05 PM on December 21, 2009 [1 favorite]


descending 7-6-5 figure*, not 8-7-6-5. Also, to summarize my argument in one sentence: tonal music in a minor key relies exclusively on the leading tone for cadential articulation, modal music in a minor-like mode does not.
posted by invitapriore at 8:41 PM on December 21, 2009


As a universal proposition, the statement that humans display a physiological preference for intervals composed of small integer relationships is false.

It may not be universal, you might find the exception that proves the rule, but anyway it's close enough to universal to persuade me. Not just humans but birds as well. I don't believe it's a random coincidence that what most people find to be the most harmonic sounds (and which light up specific areas of the auditory brain) match up with small integer ratios.
posted by moorooka at 9:02 PM on December 21, 2009


By the way, I hope everyone who reads this appreciates the hilarity of Lutoslawski and Ludwig van duking it out over a music theory question on AskMefi.
posted by invitapriore at 2:42 PM on December 24, 2009


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