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 The Steel Guitar Forum
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 Definition of a "modal tuning"
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| Author | Topic: Definition of a "modal tuning" |
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Greg Vincent Member From: Los Angeles, CA USA |
posted 05 March 2004 02:24 PM
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Hi folks! Can someone out there please define for me what a "modal tuning" is? Is it a tuning based on a scale rather than a chord? Also as a secondary question: Thanks! -GV |
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chas smith Member From: Encino, CA, USA |
posted 05 March 2004 02:41 PM
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here's a guess, I would expect a modal tuning to be a scale tuning since I'm not aware of any modal chords. I use a tuning, on a non-pedal guitar that I describe as a lydian tuning, C scale with an F#. quote:Other than, the guitar tuning that we all know and love, E minor add 4?; G6, low 9?; A7 sus 9?; It looks to me more like a D or A or E pentatonic. |
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Stephen Gambrell Member From: Ware Shoals, South Carolina, USA |
posted 05 March 2004 05:26 PM
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Greg, have you by any chance been reading the Earl Scruggs banjo book? Earl refers to "modal" tuning, with no thirds, and no IV chord. Real old stuff, like "Pretty Polly." the root-five drones leave room for the third to be major or minor, and there's 4th's all over the place. |
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David Doggett Member From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
posted 05 March 2004 06:25 PM
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What Greg said is the folk/country meaning of the term. A modal tuning was used with the old claw hammer style banjo strumming. It is a stark, emotionally powerful sound that is kin to modern guitar power chords, which also use mainly the 1st and 5th of the scale. That Pretty Polly modal tune was also used by Bob Dylan in the Ballad of Haddie Carrol, with his guitar tuned modally. Modal or power chord strumming was also used in old blues by people like Fred McDowell. I never tried to decide if a modal sound is a chord or a scale or both. I guess if it is only the 1st and 5th, that is technically not a chord to music school folks, although practically speaking usually a chord is implied by mixing the droning 1s and 5s with notes in the melody. I'm sure the music school people can pin this down further. |
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John Kavanagh Member From: Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada |
posted 10 March 2004 07:59 AM
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Usually when people talk about "modal tunings" they seem to mean a tuning with a definite home tonic that doesn't have a third in it. So it would exclude standard tuning or scale tunings, and any tuning based on a major or minor chord, or an extended chord. That, practically, leaves tunings based on fifths and octaves, with or without added fourths or seconds. That description fits any "modal" tuning I can think of. They make it easy, on or two tonics, to play pentatonic scales or modes with major or minor thirds (or tunes that shift between major and minor, or don't emphasize the third). On D, two big ones for 6-string guitar would be DAdgad' and DAdead'. Sometimes I fiddle with Dadegad'e' on my 8-string, and my favourite banjo tuning is a'dad'e'. Standard tuning I'd call fourths-based. Adding one major third to a tuning based on fourths goes back to mediaeval Europe, and makes chords in a variety of keys easier on any instrument with more than four strings. The third used to be between the third and fourth string, but the principle is old. [This message was edited by John Kavanagh on 12 March 2004 at 06:09 AM.] |
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