The term "Celts," from a historical perspective, is quite ambiguous, since, in a general sense, it refers to all the civilizations in Europe that, from the Iron Age onward, spoke Celtic languages, which are a branch of Indo-European.
In a stricter sense, the Celts are the tribes (we speak in the plural) that, according to historians such as Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484–425 BCE), considered the father of history, and Hecataeus of Miletus, were located around the central and northern Alps. They were the first to coin the term Celts, based on the phonetic transcription into Greek of indigenous terms such as keltoi or keltiké.
Today, many historians, linguists, and archaeologists advise us to use the term Celts with caution, as we are referring to a group of different ethnicities whose only commonality is language.
This explains why, as a variety of tribes scattered across Central Europe, Celtic cultures were so widespread in the West.
Today, Celtic cultures remain relevant, both in folklore (crafts, music, etc.) and in classical music (as in the piece we are presenting today).
Donna Mitchell presents her piece entitled Celtic Dreams, Study in F Dorian.
The piece, whose Dorian mode lends it an exotic character, is divided into two dream sections. The first, "Resolved," with a subsection called "Even More Resolved!", presents a lively and cheerful theme, like a dance.
In contrast, the second dream, "Drifting and Unclear," is slower, more measured, and mysterious.
A third section would be the recapitulation followed by a coda, reminiscent of the second section.
So what exactly is the "Dorian mode"?
To explain, let's understand how we organize musical sounds:
Most of us know that in music we use seven natural notes, which coincide with the white keys on the piano, (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) and five altered notes (we'll delve into this later), which are repeated throughout the entire spectrum of sounds we are capable of hearing (our hearing isn't infinite, and there are animals, like dogs and cats, that have a greater auditory capacity than we do).
We organize these sounds into scales: imagine a seven-step staircase, with the bottom step called C, the next D, the next E, and so on. Upon reaching the B step, another seven-step staircase follows (C, D, E, etc.).
We won't go into the reasons why the seven notes are repeated, because this explanation would be much longer, as we would have to touch on topics in the physics of sound, which isn't really relevant to understanding what modes are. Returning to our staircase, let's imagine that each step is 10 centimeters high, except for steps F and C, which are 5 centimeters high. Therefore, each time we lift our foot to climb a step, it will travel a distance of 10 centimeters, but between steps E and F, the distance will be 5 centimeters, and between steps B and C on the next scale, it will also be 5 centimeters.
As we can see, there are some distances that are "longer" and others that are "shorter".
In music, we use a system of measurement to determine the distance between two musical notes, called a tone (for the longer distance), which we will represent with a "T," and a semitone (for the shorter distance), which we will represent with an "S." If we are observant, connecting this information with the previous example of the steps, we can infer that the tone refers to those notes that are 10 centimeters apart, and the semitone to the notes that are 5 centimeters apart.
Let's reconstruct our seven-note scale by adding the first note of the next, resulting in eight notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Next, we'll outline these notes with whole tones and half tones between them. For pairs of notes with a greater distance (C - D // D - E // F - G // G - A // A - B), we'll write T, and for those with a shorter distance (E - F // B - C), we'll write S. Thus, our scheme would be T, T, S, T, T, T, S. This scheme corresponds to the Major Mode (or Ionian Mode) scale.
However, if we take a scale with different notes, for example, starting on the note A, which would be: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, we will obtain the following scheme: T, S, T, T, S, T, T, which is the archetype of the natural minor mode (or Aeolian Mode).
Before we continue, we want to clarify that we will not be discussing the differences between Major and Ionian modes, or between Natural Minor and Aeolian modes. This is neither the time nor the place to delve into that topic.
We can deduce, then, that a mode is a type of musical scale, that is, an organization of musical sounds.
So far, we have seen two, the Major Mode and the Minor Mode (which has four variants) and they are the most used modes in art music between the 17th and 19th centuries, with certain rules of hierarchical relationship between their sounds that lead us to what is called tonal music.
However, traditionally, we can determine a mode for each scale built on each natural note. Thus, on the C major scale, the mode is Ionian; on the D major scale, the mode is Dorian; on the E major scale, the mode is Phrygian; on the F major scale, the mode is Lydian; on the G major scale, the mode is Mixolydian; on the A major scale, the mode is Aeolian; and on the B major scale, the mode is Locrian.
Let's recap and reflect for a moment. We just said that the mode of the D major scale is Dorian. If we follow the ladder analogy, its pattern would be W, H, W, W, W, H, W. On the other hand, the mode based on the F major scale, the Lydian mode, would have a pattern of W, W, W, H, W, W, H. However, the composer indicates that the piece is in F Dorian, but the pattern of the F major scale (Lydian) doesn't match. How is this possible?
Let's emphasize that this scheme is formed by counting the scales only with natural notes (white keys on the piano), but, returning to our staircase, let's imagine that we can move each rung or step as we please, according to the distance of 10 (T) or 5 (S) centimeters, for which there are altered notes (black keys on the piano). That is, focusing on the Dorian scheme (T, S, T, T, T, S, T) and knowing, from the staircase example, the distance between each note, we know that from F (natural) to G (natural) there is a whole tone (T) and the Dorian scale requires a whole tone (we're on the right track), from G (natural) to A (natural) there is a whole tone (T), but the Dorian scale requires a semitone (S) and this is where I have to change the distance of the steps. I can't raise the G step because it's a whole step above F, which is correct, but I can lower the A step so that it's a half step (S) below G. Therefore, there's a black key between the white keys G and A, which, in this case, we'll call A flat (Ab). Every time the note A appears in the score, the corresponding black key Ab will be played. We would make all the necessary modifications in this way until our scale on F matches the pattern of a Dorian mode.
Finally, it is worth noting that these modal scales were used in music long before our era; however, the fact mentioned earlier that art music between the 17th and 19th centuries, as well as the traditional music of many current Western civilizations and current popular music, are based solely on the major and minor modes, makes us perceive the other modes as "strange", "exotic", "distant" (in time and space), creating in the listener a natural curiosity for this type of music.
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