# Technique, Theory, Playing Tips and Tricks > Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks >  Major Scale with Flat Seven?

## Brent Hutto

Two-part question...

What do you call the mode that's just like major except for the flatted seventh degree?

And is this a commonly used mode in Irish music?

I've been listening to some of fiddler Martin Hayes' stuff and if I noodle around on my mandolin while he's playing that flat-seven scale seems to fit under a lot of tunes. It certainly has an "Irish" or "Celtic" kind of sound to it, to me.

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## Jordan Ramsey

Mixolydian. I do not play Irish, so I'm not sure, but a lot of those tunes that crossed over to the bluegrass realm tend to use this mode...  Ol' Joe Clark, Red-Haired Boy, June Apple, etc.

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## Jim Broyles

For those who don't care to look it up, mixolydian corresponds to 5 to 5 in the major scale. Ex. : C major scale, G A B C D E F G. It's called G mix, not C mix.

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## Brent Hutto

Ah, that's why it sounded so familiar. It love those "A to G" fiddle tunes.

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## mandroid

Mix Scale.. Isn't flatting the 7th another half step a Maj 7th..  2 half steps to the tonic, rather than one.

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## Mike Bunting

The maj 7 chord contains the natural seventh note, in this case, an F#, which is a halftone to the tonic.

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## Jim Broyles

> Mix Scale.. Isn't flatting the 7th another half step a Maj 7th..  2 half steps to the tonic, rather than one.


The confusion comes in when you call the natural 7th degree of the major scale a "major 7th" which it is, but in naming chords, the word major _usually_ means it has the major third and is a major rather than a minor chord. The exceptions are when you want the major 7th included, therefore Xmaj7, Xmaj9, Xmaj13 - these are major  chords containing the natural 7th of the major scale of the root. You can also have a minor major7, which is a minor triad with the natural seventh of the major scale of the root. In the theory of naming notes in a chord, the numbers always refer to the degrees of the MAJOR scale of the root of the chord, even if it's a MINOR chord. Add in the fact that a Minor7 chord is a minor triad with the_ flatted_ 7th degree of the major scale of the root and you can  be thoroughly confused!

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## Steve L

The mixolydian scale is used quite extensively in Irish music.

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## Jon Hall

For some time I've thought that I understood the mixolodian mode but while reading this string it occured to me that I couldn't explain why a E major chord is in the progression for Red Haired Boy. The chords I've always played are A maj., D maj., G maj. and E maj. In A mixolodian the V chord should be a E minor. 

I'm assuming someone combined the mode with the harmonic minor???

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## Jim Broyles

Maybe it is supposed to be Em. I'm no expert on Irish tunes, but the few I have learned to play along with my tin whistling buddy often use the v minor.

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## John Soper

I think it's E major because it's really E7- acting as the dominant to bring us back to the I (A).

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## Steve L

The reason you will often find "other" chords in tunes is because someone thought they sounded good and someone else agreed.  The rules come from the sounds, not vice versa.  They're more tendencies than laws.

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## Pete Martin

> The reason you will often find "other" chords in tunes is because someone thought they sounded good and someone else agreed.


Very well said.

The E or E7 resolves stronger to A than Em resolves to A.  Like Steve said, it is what our ear likes.

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## Brent Hutto

I discovered yesterday there's a name for the scale used on one of the cool "Balkan" tunes I've bee working on. It's called the _Ahava Rabbah_ scale. I'm not making this up. It's the first scale I've run across with the second degree flatted. 

*A Bb C# D E F G A*

Oh, and the song I'm playing also has a couple of F#'s just to keep me on my toes!

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## Jim Broyles

Phrygian dominant scale?

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## D C Blood

Way to go Brent (post #4)...I'm glad somebody put something on here I can understand... :Smile:

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## Mike Bunting

One I learned from Radim Zenkl, but I can't remember it's name but it goes A Bb C# D E F G# A.

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## Doug Hoople

> The confusion comes in when you call the natural 7th degree of the major scale a "major 7th" which it is, but in naming chords, the word major _usually_ means it has the major third and is a major rather than a minor chord. The exceptions are when you want the major 7th included, therefore Xmaj7, Xmaj9, Xmaj13 - these are major  chords containing the natural 7th of the major scale of the root. You can also have a minor major7, which is a minor triad with the natural seventh of the major scale of the root. In the theory of naming notes in a chord, the numbers always refer to the degrees of the MAJOR scale of the root of the chord, even if it's a MINOR chord. Add in the fact that a Minor7 chord is a minor triad with the_ flatted_ 7th degree of the major scale of the root and you can  be thoroughly confused!


Chord names have to be short in order for them to fit neatly in small spaces on the page. They have to convey information using the least amount of characters. So quite often, the essential information about what they mean is spelled out by what's *not* written.

There are more major chords than minor chords, so a "D" chord is a major chord. The most important information about it, namely that it has a major 3rd in it, is omitted because it's simply understood. 

A "Dm" chord is a minor chord, and the "m" in minor is there because it needs distinguished from its more common peer, the major chord.

From there, it's safe to assume that a "D7" chord is a major chord with a "regular" 7th, a "Dm7" is a minor chord with a "regular" 7th. 

A "regular" 7th is the flatted 7th (aka dominant 7th). It's only that way because it's the most common 7th, that's all. It appears more often than other kinds. 

And that, dear people, is the whole basis for decoding chord symbols. Everything else is an exception. 

For example, the "maj" in Dmaj7 refers to the 7th and not the 3rd, because there's already a way of representing a major chord (namely, the use of no symbol at all). The "maj" indicates an exception to the most commonly used 7th. 

If you start with the simple principles above, you're a long way toward being able to figure them all out.

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## Brent Hutto

> Way to go Brent (post #4)...I'm glad somebody put something on here I can understand...


Wen it all gets too confusing and your head starts to spin the Doctor prescribes four verses of _June Apple_ and call me in the morning.




> One I learned from Radim Zenkl, but I can't remember it's name but it goes A Bb C# D E F G# A.


Yeah, there's a name for that one. When I was trying to figure out the scale on _Hasapikos_ (the song I'm working on) I kept wanting to play the one you just spelled, instead. That G# seems more natural. Sorry, bad pun.

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## GRW3

If you are playing a flatted 7th Modal tune play the notes for the scale of the 4th for the key in which you are playing. If it's G flat seventh modal it will be C (the forth) scale notes G to G. For D it would be be G scale notes. For A it would be D scale notes. Etc, etc.

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## SternART

> Phrygian dominant scale?


That one is also found in Klezmer music........sounds like Andy Statman when I use it!

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## Rob Gerety

I like reading these threads because usually, not always, I have it right in my head.  One thing I can never keep in my head is what they mean by "modal" in Celtic speak. And I still don't really have that in my frontal lobe.  Anyone care to help?

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## Coffeecup

Based on when I've heard the word used at sessions it seems to be a vague word used to tell the guitar strummer why his chords aren't working with the tune.  They'll point out that the tone centre note isn't the same as the key signature and say "see, it's modal".   Dorian and Mixolydian are the most common modes in Irish music but the tune players don't really need that much information.

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## Brent Hutto

Generally speaking, it's any song that's in a certain key signature (let's say one sharp) whose tonal centre is other than the 1st or 6th degree of the corresponding major scale. 

So with one sharp if the tonal center or root note is G you'd be in "G major". If it's E you'd be in "E minor". Otherwise, let's say A is the note everything leads back to, I'd say you're in the key signature of G but "modal". In this case "A Dorian" if my memory is correct but the names sometimes escape me.

But there's a whole family of tunes in that specific mode, which I think is called "A Dorian", in the so-called Celtic or Old-Time America fiddle tune genres. They have been colloquially referred to as both "modal" and "A to G" tunes. That's a specific idiomatic use of the term "modal" not quite the same meaning as its technical music-theory usage.

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## Randy Smith

> For some time I've thought that I understood the mixolodian mode but while reading this string it occured to me that I couldn't explain why a E major chord is in the progression for Red Haired Boy. The chords I've always played are A maj., D maj., G maj. and E maj. In A mixolodian the V chord should be a E minor. 
> 
> I'm assuming someone combined the mode with the harmonic minor???



One choice:
Play string combinations using only E and B notes, which make the sound neither major nor minor--just an E sound.  One way the guitarist can do this is to play an E major chord but bring his index finger up from the third string (G# note) to mute the note.  If the third string is muted, neither the open G note or the fretted G# note will sound, and the resulting two notes will be only E and B. Together those notes are neither a major or minor chord.  But they substitute for either chord in this instance.  (P.S. All of this assumes the guitarist is playing in the key of A without a capo.  There's another way to do it if the guitarists wants to use a capo.)
       If you're playing mandolin, same difference in "Red-Haired Boy." Just play E and B note combination.  Or play Emajor or E minor if you like that.  It's all good.

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## Brent Hutto

This is all a very timely discussion. I've just started mandolin lessons and last night we were working on _Congress Reel_ which is written with one sharp and the root note is A. That makes it "A Dorian" and I asked about the harmony to be used with that melody.

The answer was to do A+E chords for the same reason Randy describes. The tune itself is neither major or minor (though if I had to pick one it would be A-minor before A-major, certainly) so don't put the 3rd degree in the accompanyment at all. I learned a neat rhythm pattern alteranting between A+E and G+D notes on the wound strings along with open A and E strings. It's pretty cool stuff, for a beginner it's sort of a brain-full!

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## Coffeecup

> The tune itself is neither major or minor


At a workshop that I attended recently the presenter suggested that, based on the third note of the scale, the various modes can be considered to be major or minor, or at least they sound that way to our ears.  
For example, Mixolydian having a natural third and a flat 7th can be considered a major scale, while Dorian having a flat third and flat 7th can be considered to be a minor scale.

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## Jim Broyles

I would say that there are definitely major and minor modes, based on exactly what Coffeecup said. I would also say that "Congress Reel" is minor.

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## Jon Hall

This subject came up in a lesson I was teaching yesterday.We explored playing Red Haired Boy with the chords of A mixylodian and it sounded right to substitute G maj for E maj. The G - B - D are notes of this mode. We tried Em in place of the Emaj but it didn't work for us.

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## Jim Broyles

> This subject came up in a lesson I was teaching yesterday.We explored playing Red Haired Boy with the chords of A mixylodian and it sounded right to substitute G maj for E maj. The G - B - D are notes of this mode. We tried Em in place of the Emaj but it didn't work for us.


Well, if you check the sheet music for that tune, the next to last note, while the accompaniment calls for an E chord, is a G natural. Thus a G chord or more likely, if it supposed to be E something, an E minor would be very appropriate.

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## Mike Bunting

> Well, if you check the sheet music for that tune, the next to last note, while the accompaniment calls for an E chord, is a G natural. Thus a G chord or more likely, if it supposed to be E something, an E minor would be very appropriate.


 I checked the sheet music out and found that it is set in A with a normal G# included. What they don't do is indicate that the G# is flattened as an accidental over the the G chord as would be usual. Anyhow, that second last note is indeed a G# so the E or E7 would be the correct chord. That's how I read it anyhow.
Red face,  :Frown:  I just went to verify and of course, realized that I misread the time signature! It does call for a G natural. Do think that it might have been better to put it in A and then use accidentals to change the G#'s as required?

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## SincereCorgi

All these fiddle tunes are subject to a great deal of variation, and a tune can be made more or less 'modal' according to individual (or regional) taste. The old time/bluegrass groups around here use the E major in Red-haired Boy and Kitchen Girl, for example, but I wouldn't be surprised if the more Irish-sounding ones favor the G major.

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## Jim Broyles

> I checked the sheet music out and found that it is set in A with a normal G# included. What they don't do is indicate that the G# is flattened as an accidental over the the G chord as would be usual. Anyhow, that second last note is indeed a G# so the E or E7 would be the correct chord. That's how I read it anyhow.
> Red face,  I just went to verify and of course, realized that I misread the time signature! It does call for a G natural. Do think that it might have been better to put it in A and then use accidentals to change the G#'s as required?


No, because I played along with a bunch of versions, and I strongly prefer the Em to the E there.  The melody note is very definitely a G, not a G#.  A mixolydian (2 sharps) it is, and I believe that it should be played with either a G or an Em for that particular chord.

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## Brent Hutto

If we want things to get really tricky someone could always bring up _Greensleeves_...

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## mandocrucian

There seems to be misconceptions that a _"modal tune"_ *must* be _exclusively modal_ throughout. 

As far as 'The Session' version of _"Red Haired Boy",_ it is apparent (to me) that the G#'s in bars 8 and 16 were _accidentally omitted_ (pun intended, _nyuk nyuk nyuk)_ notationally, because the ABC notater went to the effort to include the chord changes, and those measures were E7>A.  It's a lot easier to inadvertently leave out the accidental typing ABC than to put in the wrong chord (speaking from experience as I've done my share of typing tunes directly into ABC code).  Besides, the momentary shift back to the A major scale and the G#s notes are to strengthen the end resolution back to A. E > A (V-I) is a lot more "resolved" than using the subtonic (bVIII), G > A, or the Vm (Em > A), and is the most common and "standard" way of playing this tune (but I have heard strict minor, and exclusively modal renditions as well).  One can play/adapt the tune to any "pitch sets" and still have something that is still recognizable as that tune; for example, on Jerry Rockwell's *The Blackbird & The Beggarman* CD, I incorporated into the whole arrangement an Okinawan/Shoukichi Kina-style version (using the "Oki-pentatonic scale": 1 3 4 5 7), which followed Jerry's Celtic opening and before it all drifted into acoustic SF pyschedelia (ala It's a Beautiful Day/Dead).

Terms such as "modal", "mixolydian", "dorian", "pentatonic" etc., as applied to the context of tunes, are *after-the fact descriptives*, rather than the generative "law" producing said tune(s).  A lot of time, when you hear an exclusively modal tune, it is probably been the result of having been played (or being played on the recording) by a strictly diatonic instrument where there is no option to use a major 7th or the  flat 7. (Or other potentially variable pitches). You'll hear this on Highland pipe versions, or on Cjaun accordion etc.  Sometimes these versions (or those instruments) become so dominant, that the other instruments play to the scalar limitations of those instruments to avoid pitch clashing.

Tunes just _"are what the are"_ and shouldn't be forced into some preconceived theoretical expectation (trying to hammer the round peg into a square hole), and this applies not only to scalar pitch choice(s), wobbling tonality, extra or missing beats in a measure or a non-standard form structure (one part is 7 bars long, or is 9-1/2 bars) ("crooked tunes").  Nordic music has all that - the tune may oddly wobble between minor and parallel major, have extra beats now and then, or use an assymetrical structure (A part is 6 bars in length, B bar is 8), different meters (polska 3/4, 5/4 etc.) have short transitory phrases between sections, extra parts.....  As long as your mind expects/insists on trying to hear things in the context of  _8 measure sections in 2/4_ (which most folks have unkowingly been programmed to do), the stuff will remain confusing. The tune _is what it is_ and you should listen to on those terms and let it go wherever it wants to without fighting it with preconceptions.

Niles Hokkanen

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## Coffeecup

Great post Niles.  Along that same line of thinking, it's my understanding that the key signature of the staff that a tune is written on is purely a matter of convenience or choice.  For example if a tune based around A, as we've been discussing, contains both C and C# notes it could just as easily be written on a staff with key signature A with some notes having the natural sign, or written on staff with key signature D and some notes written with the # sign.  It may be that one method requires less accidentals to be written, or the other way may emphasise the variations.

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## Jim Nollman

This discussion makes me wonder about a tune like Kitchen Girl. The A part is clearly mixolydian. But the B part is clearly minor. So is there a single musical word or phrase to describe such a tune? 

Also, there's an entire genre of southern Appalachian breakdowns in A, which the members in my own band always refer to as modal. As the mandolin player, when something gets called a "modal tune", it suggests to me a specific way of playing it within an ensemble. I will often play either the A part or the B part (but not usually both) as a partial drone. By that, I mean that I get a crosspick going, playing the melody in parallel with the fiddle on the D and G strings, while alternately striking the open A, as every other note. 

Musically, can someone tell me what is it about these breakdowns that makes them get referred to as "modal", and likewise makes them sound so compelling when the A is constantly droned?

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## Coffeecup

I'm not familiar with Kitchen Girl but the notation on thesession.org doesn't show anything to make me think that it changes to a minor key in the B part.  C# is used throughout the tune but that would drop to C natural in a minor key wouldn't it?
Irish tunes have so many variations though that maybe you have something different.  But addressing your question; I've never heard of a single term to cover the situation, only heard it spelt out e.g. A major changing to A dorian.

My feeling is that when somebody refers to a tune as "modal" it's because they recognise that it isn't major (no degrees are flattened or sharpened) or our familiar natural minor (flattened third) but haven't looked further to find just what the scale is.  To a melody player it seems that the definition isn't overly important, just follow the tune.  It's only once chord or harmony playing is introduced that a definition is more valuable because "normal" chord progressions don't work.

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## Pete Martin

A mixolydian to A dorian is how I would describe it.

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## Brent Hutto

FWIW, I love _Kitchen Girl_ it's one of my favorite old-time tunes. I find it hard to play on mandolin, though. It's one of those that loses something in the translation away from the fiddle although I've heard at least one killer flatpicked guitar version.

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## Bob DeVellis

Seems that some Irish tunes are hard to classify with respect to key/mode.  Some, I've noticed (can't think of an example offhand) play the differently when ascending then when descending the scale.  One will be a half-step below the octave while the other is a full step.  So, a tune more or less in D will use both the C and C#, depending on whether the phrase is traveling up or down the scale.  This isn't a key change, just a different note when ascending vs descending.  I can't be certain that this is an orthodox pattern as opposed to some sort of local variant but it sure sounds right when it happens.

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## Jim Broyles

Maybe they use the melodic minor scale.

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## Coffeecup

> A mixolydian to A dorian is how I would describe it.


Wouldn't A dorian have C natural not C#?  This makes me think again that you guys have a version different to the one I'm looking at.

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## Coffeecup

> Seems that some Irish tunes are hard to classify with respect to key/mode.  Some, I've noticed (can't think of an example offhand) play the differently when ascending then when descending the scale.


Lanigan's Ball is one that comes to mind.  The 6th can change from sharp ascending to natural descending, in the manner of the melodic minor but it retains a flat 7th like the natural minor/Aeolian.  so yes, hard to classify I think.

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## Rob Gerety

So I take it that "modal" in Celtic speak means that all or part of the tune has a tonal center other than the root of the major scale?  I'm familiar with modes but I've never heard that particular term in other settings and it always throws me. I don't want to sound dumb by asking - Which mode?  I guess I am just supposed to hear the tonal center change - and sometimes I do. But I must say deep down I suspect that part of this might be rooted (no pun intended) in the fact that some of the folks using the terminology don't have a clue what they mean precisely either - all they know is that the tune is unusual in some respect so the call it "modal".  To my way of thinking all music is "modal" and the term is pretty much meaningless.  

So, I guess I'm still unclear about what they all mean when they call out to me - "Its modal".

Signed "Confused in Vermont".

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## Brent Hutto

Rob,

It is often a very loosely used term. Not uncommonly it means simply "Doesn't sound major or minor to me" with no specific mode implied. That said, there are a couple of very common modes that show up in numerous Celtic/Irish/Old-Time/Fiddle tunes and they all share a distinctive sort of tonality. But most people are using the term generally even if it's one of those specific tonalities they have in mind.

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## Jim Nollman

Amazing how many variants exists for so many old tunes. Until I took a look at that chart, I had never heard any version of Kitchen girl with the major third in the B part. 

Heres' something to prod more discussion. I'm a music producer of sorts, and I am currently recording a CD of jazz-inflected fiddle tunes, done with piano, mandolin, drums and bass.  But with no fiddles.  Last week I laid down a mandolin track to Kitchen Girl. I have access to a lot of digital effects, including software called Melodyne that automatically corrects pitch. The software lets the user choose just about any scale from a list of 30 or 40 different modes. Because my version has two parts, one with a major 3 and and another with a minor third, I simply left it as a 12 note scale. 

Although the mandolin had sounded accurately intonated to my ear, I fed the track into the software, where it displays notes as blobs on a staff. I could see right away  that one of the passing notes was in the middle between two "correct" pitches. So I corrected it, moving it down on the staff a quarter tone. Yet when I played it back, it sounded horribly flat. I thought i must have made a mistake so I tried it both up and down on the staff several times. The fact is, there are a few notes in this tune that only sound correct as quarter tones. 

The real surprise is that I was not aware of it while playing the tune, (which I learn by ear) although now I notice that I do bend the notes in question while sliding my finger halfway over one fret. I am well aware that Indian ragas play havoc with western scales, but I had never realized that an Appalachian  fiddle breakdown, for instance this  the half-mixolydian Kitchen Girl, might do the same thing. I feel kind of naive, since, after all, fiddles don't have frets. The result is that fiddle tunes  possess melodic subtleties that demand extra technique to play correctly on mandolin.

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## Brent Hutto

Jim,

I wonder if that's why _Kitchen Girl_ sounds so dead and uninteresting when I try to mandolin it. Lots of fiddle tunes, including some "modal" ones sound perfectly cromulent on the mandolin but to my ears not that one.

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## Jim Nollman

May be. It's always been one of my favorites. That change from major to minor is quite powerful. When I get my own version of the tune better complete, I'll post it here as part of my signature.

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## Pete Martin

> Wouldn't A dorian have C natural not C#?  This makes me think again that you guys have a version different to the one I'm looking at.


Oh yes, fiddle tunes can be extremely different player to player and region to region.  The same tune name can be a either a distant relative or even a different tune entirely.

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## Brent Hutto

> Yes, A dorian is C natural.  The way I've heard the tune played, the "A" part of KG is A mixolydian (with a C#) and the "B" part is A dorian (C natural).
> 
> Of course you may play a different version...


That's the way I've most often heard it. The B part to me sounds not unlike _June Apple_ or _Salt Creek_ or whatever "modal" tune you prefer. But I like the extra brightness and what I'd call "urgency" that those C#'s bring to the A part. To me that basiic "A to G" groove is kind of laid back (but insistently rhythmic) whereas the A Mixolydian isn't laid back but a little more in your face.

Or something like that. Those different modes all have their place, especially on fiddle.

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## Albee Tellone

As far as the term "modal" goes, I find that a lot of people use it loosely to describe a tune that doesn't fit strictly into a major or minor scale. I agree with Niles in that these are after the fact descriptions of the tunes not the rules in making them. After all, we're talking about "traditional" or even "folk" styles of music. Our forefathers didn't give a darn about music rules outside of the classical guys. I don't teach my students any music rules in this kind of stuff, just to play the notes they hear or see on the tablature.

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## Martin Jonas

There's a somewhat useful (if a bit academic) article on scales used in Irish traditional music here:

Link

Martin

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## Coffeecup

Interesting, thank you.

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