David, this is brilliant and so funny! Though I had really never thought about this question before, what you say makes a lot of sense. But I do have more questions.... that take us to the older generation of syllables. So.... tonus primus (mode one, Dorian) begins on re, right? Why didn't that number one position propel re (or at least D) to something like the popularity of C? I guess your argument would point out that D is surrounded by C and E, each a whole tone away.... compared to the semitones under C and F..... and maybe that's the main story. I guess I am coming back to ask why major mode became so big about 1600? or was it around all the time, in the background....?
Thank you, Peter! Dorian has always been number one in my book. And it has a symmetrical distribution of intervals in either direction from Re, so it's kind of at the center of the diatonic order. Your question makes me wonder what about Dorian had established it as the major mode of the older generation, though? An aesthetic quality related to that symmetrical structure? I had also wondered if Ut Queant Laxis was a strange kind of evidence that major had always been there, somehow, in the background. But its final is Re as well. I have to imagine the leading tone was the single most important factor in the rise of major, and then a leading tone that's also the major third of the dominant chord. Figure in the second, and that's a pretty compelling mix of polyphonic tensions pulling to tonic before they were ever labeled together as a chord. Although I imagine no single explanation could capture how it happened. The idea that the clefs were a way of orienting to the small spaces in the diatonic order was really the biggest thing I learned from "C" when we talked. But I do think it may be high time for Dorian to make a comeback...
David, this is brilliant and so funny! Though I had really never thought about this question before, what you say makes a lot of sense. But I do have more questions.... that take us to the older generation of syllables. So.... tonus primus (mode one, Dorian) begins on re, right? Why didn't that number one position propel re (or at least D) to something like the popularity of C? I guess your argument would point out that D is surrounded by C and E, each a whole tone away.... compared to the semitones under C and F..... and maybe that's the main story. I guess I am coming back to ask why major mode became so big about 1600? or was it around all the time, in the background....?
Thank you, Peter! Dorian has always been number one in my book. And it has a symmetrical distribution of intervals in either direction from Re, so it's kind of at the center of the diatonic order. Your question makes me wonder what about Dorian had established it as the major mode of the older generation, though? An aesthetic quality related to that symmetrical structure? I had also wondered if Ut Queant Laxis was a strange kind of evidence that major had always been there, somehow, in the background. But its final is Re as well. I have to imagine the leading tone was the single most important factor in the rise of major, and then a leading tone that's also the major third of the dominant chord. Figure in the second, and that's a pretty compelling mix of polyphonic tensions pulling to tonic before they were ever labeled together as a chord. Although I imagine no single explanation could capture how it happened. The idea that the clefs were a way of orienting to the small spaces in the diatonic order was really the biggest thing I learned from "C" when we talked. But I do think it may be high time for Dorian to make a comeback...