Re: Name that Mode!(Re: Jewish music connection w/ old jingle?)

[Nikolai <jacobs...>]

Hello, I have been a "lurker" on this list for some time and have enjoyed the
discussions immensely. I have a link which might be of some help in this 
question:

http://www.ece.concordia.ca/~nestor/music/bouzouki/scales.htm

this is a discription of the various Greek "dromi". The one called "houzam" is 
close
to the one you're describing

Nikolai Jacobs

Joshua Horowitz wrote:

> > Josh, I'll have to confess that I'm not at all familiar with the makam 
> > Nikriz.  Can you spell it out?
>
> Hi Owen,
>
> sure: N - I - K - R - I - Z
> bad joke.  The scalar form of Nikriz is,
> starting on C:  C D Eb F# G A Bb C
>
> > As for the mode I'm trying to pin down here, it is most resolutely makam 
> > Rast.
>
> I'm equally convinced it's not Rast. When the Cairo Congress convened in
> 1932 on the subject of standardizing the Turko-Arabic Makamat, they
> divided them into 3 categories according to how their tetrachords or
> pentachords begin. The 3 categories are:
>
> 1) diatonic (using whole tones and semitones)
>
> 2) Chromatic (using augmented seconds and 2 smaller intervals within the
> same tetrachord)
>
> 3) Special (those that fit into none of the above, some of which have
> trichord structures)
>
> Rast was put into the diatonic category because it has a diatonic
> primary tetrachord (C D Eb F G, whereby the Eb is raised a quarter tone)
> It's actually a fairly bland makam, not as colorful as the makam we're
> looking at here.
>
> The makam you're talking about has as it's main characteristic the
> augmented 2nd in it's first tetrachord. That would immediately put it
> into the category of a chromatic makam. In fact there is one Arabic
> chromatic makam called sipahr, which has this pentachord exactly:
>
> C D# E F G
>
> which could actually be the makam you're talking about.
>
> I have no idea what the Greeks or Romanians call it. They probably call
> it something like the *Makam that we use to see Grandma off when she
> drives the diesel truck to church on Sundays*. Josh
>
> As used in Greek music, it has a definitely major tonality.  The flatted
> third is an accidental or ornamental tone which always resolves to the
> major third.  The same
> > applies to the minor fifth.  By the major seventh, I mean not the 
> > hypotonic, but the note immediately below the octave, which again is an 
> > ornamental rather than a scalar tone.  You could make a case that the 
> > skeletal mode is (in C for piano
> > people):
> > C (Eb) E F (Gb) G A Bb (B) C D
> >
> > Note that the D is missing from the lower tetrachord. This mode is much 
> > used in Smyrniot music.  A wonderful example is  Roza Eskinazi's 
> > tsifte-telli "Ksanthi Evraiopoula (the Blonde Jewish Girl)."  The overall 
> > feel of the mode is light and
> > playful, you might even say sexy, as opposed to the heavy and miserable, or 
> > even shockingly stark tone that so often characterizes Greek song.  (Which 
> > I guess is why I love it so.)
> >
> > Joshua Horowitz wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Owen,
> > >
> > > > That's the one!  I was put off at first by the wide interval between 
> > > > the first and
> > > > second degrees, until I played with it for a while.  I think of that C# 
> > > > not as the
> > > > second degree of the mode, but the flatted third.
> > >
> > > But if you stick a C in there, what do you do with the D that follows? I
> > > think when you interpolate the C, you create another mode (Mi Shebarakh
> > > or Nikriz, or Altered Dorian, as you wish) with a different set of
> > > parameters (In the Mi shebarakh mode you have a sub-tonic tone group
> > > which in this case would be: F G A Bb. This tone group doesn't exist in
> > > the mode in question whereby the scale starts with Bb-C# but there seems
> > > to be no sub-tonic group.
> > >
> > > > Greek music also sometimes uses the major
> > > > seventh degree as another melodic "stepping stone," though the actual 
> > > > seventh degree
> > > > of the mode is quite clearly the minor seventh.
> > >
> > > Yes, if, by the major seventh note you mean BELOW the tonic, that's what
> > > I mean. But that's Makam Nikriz, isn't it?
> > >
> > > >  Since the mode, in a scalar sense,
> > > > remains the same across all the borders, physical and cultural, but in 
> > > > terms of melodic use, is distinctly different in each ethnic group, it 
> > > > seems logical to use each groups terminology when referring to it.  
> > > > Pretty convoluted sentence, huh?
> > >
> > > I totally agree there on both counts, we should use local terminology
> > > and your sentence was convoluted, but what if there is no Romanian term
> > > for the mode? Josh
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Owen Davidson
> > Amherst  Mass
> > The Wholesale Klezmer Band
> >
> > But in the Wine-presses the Human grapes sing not, nor dance
> > They howl & writhe in shoals of torment; in fierce flames consuming,
> > In chains of iron & in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires.
> >
> > Wm. Blake
> >
>

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