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Modal Frame - Wikipedia

A modal frame is a melodic structure that defines and generates melodies without reference to harmony. It consists of a floor note, ceiling note, central note, and areas of focus. Modal frames can be further defined by features like melodic dissonance, triads, levels or shifts between frames, and pendular thirds. The modal frame of "A Hard Day's Night" centers around the notes G, Eb, and Bb in a pattern common to blues, circling the dominant G and falling to the minor third Eb.

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115 views9 pages

Modal Frame - Wikipedia

A modal frame is a melodic structure that defines and generates melodies without reference to harmony. It consists of a floor note, ceiling note, central note, and areas of focus. Modal frames can be further defined by features like melodic dissonance, triads, levels or shifts between frames, and pendular thirds. The modal frame of "A Hard Day's Night" centers around the notes G, Eb, and Bb in a pattern common to blues, circling the dominant G and falling to the minor third Eb.

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Modal frame

A modal frame in music[1] is "a number of


types permeating and unifying African,
European, and American song" and
melody.[2] It may also be called a melodic
mode. "Mode" and "frame" are used
interchangeably in this context without
reference to scalar or rhythmic modes.
Melodic modes define and generate
melodies that are not determined by
harmony, but purely by melody. A note
frame, is a melodic mode that is atonic
(without a tonic), or has an unstable tonic.

Modal frames may be defined by their:

floor note: the bottom of the frame, felt


to be the lowest note, though isolated
notes may go lower,
ceiling note: the top of the frame,
central note: the center around which
other notes cluster or gravitate,
upper or lower focus:[3] portion of the
mode on which the melody temporarily
dwells, and can also defined by melody
types, such as:
chant tunes (Bob Dylan's "Subterranean
Homesick Blues")[2]
axial tunes ("A Hard Day's Night", "Peggy
Sue", Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get A
Witness", and Roy Milton's "Do the
Hucklebuck")[2]
oscillating (Rolling Stones' "Jumpin'
Jack Flash")[2]
open/closed (Bo Diddley's "Hey Bo
Diddley")[2]
terrace

0:06 / 0:06
"Chel-sea" football crowd chant: minor
third.

shout-and-fall
ladder of thirds

Further defined features include:

melodic dissonance: the quality of a


note that is modally unstable and
attracted to other more important tones
in a non-harmonic way
melodic triad: arpeggiated triads in a
melody. A non-harmonic arpeggio is
most commonly a melodic triad, it is an
arpeggio the notes of which do not
appear in the harmony of the
accompaniment.[4]
level: a temporary modal frame
contrasted with another built on a
different foundation note. A change in
levels is called a shift.
co-tonic: a melodic tonic different from
and as important as the harmonic tonic
secondary tonic: a melodic tonic
different from but subordinate to the
harmonic tonic
pendular third:[5] alternating notes a
third apart, most often a neutral, see
double tonic

Example
The modal frame of The Beatles' "A Hard
Day's Night" features a ladder of thirds
axially centered on G with a ceiling note of
B♭ and floor note of E[♭] (the low C being a
passing tone):[2]

"A Hard Day's Night" modal frame.[2]

According to Middleton, the song, "at first


glance major-key-with-modal-touches",
reveals through its "Line of Latent Mode"
"a deep kinship with typical blues melodic
structures: it is centred on three of the
notes of the minor-pentatonic mode [on C:
C, E-flat, F, G, B-flat] (E♭-G-B♭), with the
contradictory major seventh (B♮) set
against that. Moreover, the shape
assumed by these notes – the modal
frame – as well as the abstract scale they
represent, is revealed, too; and this – an
initial, repeated circling round the
dominant (G), with an excursion to its
minor third (B♭), 'answered' by a fall to the
'symmetrical' minor third of the tonic (E♭) –
is a common pattern in blues."[6]
See also
melodic motion
tune-family

Sources
1. van der Merwe, Peter (1989). Origins of
the Popular Style: The Antecedents of
Twentieth-Century Popular Music. Oxford:
Clarendon Press. pp. 102–103. ISBN 0-19-
316121-4.
2. van de Merwe (1989), quoted in Richard
Middleton (1990/2002). Studying Popular
Music, p.203. Philadelphia: Open University
Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.
3. adapted from Ekueme, Lazarus. cited in
Middleton (1990), p.203.
4. van der Merwe (1989), p.321.
5. adapted from Nketia, J.H. cited in
Middleton (1990), p.203.
6. Middleton (1990), p.201.

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