Re: SHA key?

Read the whole thing I wrote about So What, not 8 words taken out of
context.
I did.

By the way, and I stand open for correction on this, but I believe
"modal" only refers to the fact that there are virtually no, or very
few, chord changes in the tune.
Yes and no. When Miles came up with his concept of modal music the tunes
_did_ stay in one key or just a couple of keys. But a modal piece can hop
about between a number of different keys: Aebersold has some examples in
his playalongs.

If I'm right, then your use of the
word modal in this context has no bearing on the key of the song and
is irrelevant.
You don't seem to realize that 'modal' has several meanings. Gregorian
chant, for instance, was modal: it was based on the relationship of a
scale or mode to the finalis, the ending note (what we now call the
tonic). So a piece of Gregorian was in a particular mode: Dorian,
Phrygian, Mixolydian or whatever. What note (C, D etc.) it ended (and
usually started) on was unimportant: that would be selected to match the
singers' range.

Later on in Western music history counterpoint and chordal writing
developed. The practice of musica ficta meant that the leading note (for
example F leading to G) was not notated with a sharp, but the singers
sang an F# all the same. In the 20th century people started studying and
performing this music again but didn't know about musica ficta, so they
thought the cadence in my example was | Dm | G (ma or mi) and called it a
'modal cadence' - meaning that the leading note was not sharpened - and
composers started writing music with those 'modal' cadences.

Jazz musicians in the 50s were listening to all sorts of modern
'classical' music - Ravel, Stravinsky etc. - and would have heard that.

I doubt if you'll find a professional jazz musician who doesn't recognize
that keys can be modal, that you can write and play a piece in e.g. B
Phrygian. It's a sound, and it simply doesn't make sense to say that it's
actually in G major because that's the key signature. The fact is that it
ends on a Bm sound (and in most cases will start on that sound), and all
the intervallic and chordal relationships relate to the B tonic.

-Keith

Portable Changes, tips etc. at http://home.wanadoo.nl/keith.freeman/
e-mail only to keith DOT freeman AT orange DOT nl
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: SHA key?
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