THE NOSTOS PROJECT
The Road from Dorian to Minor:
Western Melancholy History
Meta Title: The Road from Dorian to Minor - The Evolution of Greek Modes & Origins of the Western Minor
Meta Description:
This journey examines how the ancient Greek musical tradition evolved into the Western minor key. In this journey, we will examine the influence of Plato and Aristotle on philosophy through music and through literature; examine the impact of the Greek tragic theatre on Western theatre, and Christianity’s effect on the minor key; and ultimately explore how the minor key now represents the need for individuals to find peace and joy within.
The Use of The Minor Key for Sadness in History
For many centuries, before we had music that reflected our inner emotions, music was a powerful force of creation. Rather than mirror our inner emotions, music helped create who we are. In ancient Greece, music was not simply sound; nor is music a form of entertainment; music is a living force that influences the development of character, virtuousness, sense of order, habitual development, moral fibre, and the soul.
Our story begins with the notion of music being used as a tool for developing us as human beings, rather than simply reflecting how we feel. Let me take you down the winding path across history, from the sunlit stones of ancient cities to the dark, quiet rooms where you may be sitting alone, listening to music. Once upon a time, when the voice of the entire society was reflected in the sound of the whole society, the minor key had not yet been realised to belong to isolation. It was the sound of the whole society coming together to create unity. Today, the minor key is silent and hidden inside you, full of sadness and ultimately providing evidence that you are not alone in your need to hear it. The history of music offers us a way to follow the path from the harmony of many to the solitude of self.
The music of the ancient Greek philosophical traditions (Plato and Aristotle) is seen not as an expression of our individual selves (music is private) but as being part of something larger than ourselves (the world of the state) and as an important element in bringing people together. In Plato’s Republic (Book III, 398-401), we see how any change to musical modes (i.e., the sounds of music) would affect the state itself. Believing that music connects people to each other and provides a means for individuals to express how they fit into a world that can sometimes be without definition, Plato’s account of how citizens of Athens would gather in large numbers upon the Acropolis at dawn is illustrative of this.
In the early morning hours, before it is light, and as they begin to ascend to the sacred sites (the marble temples and stones), the movement of their feet creates an echo that reverberates in the stones of the Acropolis, and with the music (a Dorian hymn) that accompanies this, the citizens of Athens are connected as they ascend and demonstrate that although they are individual, there is an order to their activity; and as a consequence of their connection to the music, the state has established an understanding of how the world works.
Dorian mode = standing firm.
Ethos = character;
Therefore, when Plato wrote his admonition in The Republic regarding the impact of changing musical modes on the laws of the state, this was taken literally. Changing the intervals that were represented by the letters of the musical scale was, in essence, to change the character of the entire state. The Dorian Mode did not have a definition of “minor sadness” during its time, but there is still an objective presence and an aspect of definition of gravity for the Dorian Mode within context. Essentially, the Dorian Mode is upright, and like our moral code, is an extension of that uprightness of the balance of who we are.
When putting together a Traditional System for the Dorian Mode, we would organise it as follows:
D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D
Due to the nature of the minor third that exists within the Dorian Mode, this prevents a downward motion within the Dorian Mode.
The added sixth (raised) note allows the melody a sense of breathing as if air were actually moving through the music and opening up the music. For example, if you sing the first lines of “Scarborough Fair” in this manner, the overall sound appears much brighter and more open compared to singing them as you normally would. Therefore, while this melody has a minor quality to it, the Dorian melody would always return to its natural motion. The characteristics of Dorian are clarity, balance, and temperance, and are the domain of Apollo. Think about standing at
Delphi, underneath Mount Parnassus, and having all of the hills and rocks shape the sound of your note before you play it. The curve of the earth is present in the shape of the theatre, and the horizon and sky meet at the temple. This landscape of Dorian is balanced, calm, serious but not heavy, and grave but composed.
Aristotle believed that Dorian would be the best educational mode due to its stability or balance, rather than being excited or producing excitement. When a person uses this Dorian Mode, the person they train becomes a citizen standing with their bodies in an upright manner.
The Phrygian Mode, on the other hand, has heat/fire.
When you play the half-step interval, there is an immediate tension created from the half-step interval in relation to its context. The Greeks viewed it as being associated with Dionysus, the God of ritualism and ecstatic release. At the Theatre of Dionysus, music activated tragedy — it was not used to accompany it — triggering what Aristotle referred to as “catharsis.” To picture how this worked, imagine the whole chorus suddenly erupting into a line like: “Oh Bacchus, shake this city with your fierce fire!” Their combined voices surge and swirl, spiralling upwards in passionate tempos that intoxicate the audience as much as the god himself. It is the Phrygian mode’s persistent energy that propels the crowd to a collective emotional climax — the cathartic cleansing flame made audible through sound and movement.
By joining together in the city for a performance, the choir sings, creating Echoes of each space opening and closing with the sounds made and a common emotion made audible through sound.
The Greeks had a unique understanding of the subtlety of tonal geometries, providing different sound worlds for the listener; the Dorian hymn, constant and metered, with a consistent form, presents a steady calmness; meanwhile, the chaotic rush of a Phrygian dithyramb has a dramatically different presentation. The emotional experience of the space created is melded there through the listener's physical body using the logic of musical intervals.
Some have a stabilising effect.
Some create an igniting effect.
When the Christian system took hold, music's personality changed; it shifted in both function and in shape, from the binding agent of a city, resonating in the city's collective consciousness through ritual into the spiritual experience of the individual — a dialogue for the soul of the solitary believer. Music was no longer used as a tool to guard the city wall; it had become an aid to assist in the inner journey of the spirit. The monks' chants still contained the old modes, but they had been altered and no longer served as protection to the city; they had taken on the role of personal private expression of prayer, devotion and contemplation.
Envision a monk sitting in a cool, dark place in a cloister; he is all alone, singing, and his voice reverberating off the arched stone walls. The sound of his chant extends through vast, empty corridors, filling a space filled with longing. The music he is creating is totally different from anything that has ever existed—the music he is singing is an expression of his own private thoughts and feelings about his relationship with God. It is sound praying to God, a personal bridge from earth to heaven, meant for the use of one person, one heart at a time.
Before the advent of music in the world, there was one approach to building a community of believers, which was before God.
The focus/place/time of the meaning has shifted toward the centre.
Therefore, music had shifted toward the centre.
What was created within the music for the community is now compared to music within each individual believer.
The Creation of Minor Modes
The modal system that existed before the time of Claudio Monteverdi and the time of
Johann Sebastian Bach had changed significantly from a modal system of music to a unique and separate system of music, decreasing the modal music from two extremes (the major system and the minor system). The ancient modes were no longer identified as an unrestricted, open-ended relationship with music; but had been transformed into a rigid and quantifiable structure of tonality(music) which served as a defining point of tonality for a musical piece as a whole by establishing both the identifying tone of the piece at the bottom of any scale (the tonic) and the tone leading back to the tonic(identified as the leading tone of the scale). The emergence of functional harmony transformed the meaning of music by establishing a new and different kind of tonality or tonal experience as compared to the modal finalis because tonalities anchored the meaning of music. The introduction of augmented seventh chords, the pull of the fifth degree of the scale towards the tonic or "tonal home", the desire or expectation of conjunction — all played a huge role in creating a significant difference (to the awareness of that difference) experience between the major and minor keys; that difference exists both sonically and psychologically.
The lowering of the fifth degree in the minor key, in relation to the Doric key, will make, by itself, the complete sound larger, longer or more complete than the sound would be without that particular change to the note.
The sound would be more internally directed.
The minor would not collapse; it would fold.
This experience will foster self-reflection in a complete and total experience.
The minor creates shadows.
Melancholy redefines distance.
(Include image strip: A print by Albrecht Dürer; candlelit atmospheric scene of church; romantic landscape or portrait of a place; portrait of Beethoven).
By the Renaissance period, melancholy was no longer something described by humour; it had become defined and rationalised as a result of artistic expression, i.e., Melancholia I: a print by Albrecht Dürer depicts Melancholy with instruments for geometric measurement and the geometric consideration of thought.
Later, in the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven:
The minor key does not depict defeat, in fact, if anything, it depicts the victory of overcoming difficulty, struggles and responding positively to/overcoming difficulties; anyone is part of the environment where they exist; every person has a combination of struggle and calm.
In this manner, the minor scale becomes the sound of an emotional geographical state.
The shift from Doric to minor is racial in history; this is how human beings have defined their identity in this period. The Greek community has identified itself through the state/citizenship relationship, while the medieval community identified itself through its religious similarities. In the modern period, human beings have come to see their identity from a psychological basis.
The Doric ideal is one of protecting each other; the minor scale illustrates individual difference.
The decline/transformation from the Doric ideal to the minor represents a transformation in how we identify as human beings. Our identification as individuals within a community is parallel with how we identify ourselves with respect to place as individual people.
Once more, standing at Delphi
(Insert image strip: image Zeus/Apollo layout of the Temple of Apollo; the general appearance of Mount Parnassus from Delphi; the general layout of the Delphi theatre; a picture of a kithara statue).
Once again return to Delphi, from Eastern Persia, while standing under the mountains, and now see the balanced appearance of what resides outside.
To gain a better understanding of the nature of Doric, one must view each of its characteristics (stone, sky, and proportion). It does not simply represent the community, but also represents tranquillity or calmness.
In so doing:
When you play a minor chord, let your fingers remember its shape as you continue to feel the stability of the notes being played. Smell the quietness of blue shadows at the edges of a still room; feel the scent of rain or candle wax in the air; hear the minor sounds of velvet as you feel its softness with your fingertips or in the warmth of the late afternoon sun shining through old glass. The minor sound calls to you, even though it may have come from a place where words are no longer able to go.
The Doric ideal can also help us align ourselves with one another.
Can we complete the journey of the West from strength to sorrow? Or alternatively, from an outer balance to an inner depth? Finally, can we create a state of integration?
The Sound we inherit:
Each minor chord will contain all of its cumulative histories:
1) Dorian modal theory
2) Christian interiority
3) Renaissance humanism
4) Romantic selfhood
A profound minor chord will produce more than a feeling of sadness.
Profound minors thus have the ability to recall how we remember and sound the recreation of the previous layers of history.
As a consequence, I encourage the rediscovery of Dorian through the use of the minor and not the rejection of it.
Balance through depth/light through shadow.
Listen to both the Doric and minor music. As you listen, feel the uprightness of the Doric; feel the reflection of the minor. Notice how you experience a shift in your sense of balance with the music carrying you from strength to depth. In this way, you become part of the long history of music; experience it yourself, and discover its meaning deep within yourself.