(previous stuff snipped because of increasing length!)
Don,
Your exposition is very helpful. Nevertheless, I still have a difficulty:
are you implying that we cannot determine the mode of a melody without
adding harmony? If so, that's an important principle that I was unaware of.
My consideration of the Beatles' tunes was done by taking them away from
their musical settings and dealing with them in isolation, on the basis that
there are many quite different ways of arranging a tune. I quite accept that
the musical settings that the Beatles provided may not have been in the
least modal. But doesn't the same thing happen with folk songs when sung by
pop groups or arranged (say) for orchestra? If you do treat the Beatles
tunes I mention extracted from their harmonic settings I don't see why you
can't consider them as modal. "Yesterday", for example, has no accidentals
in the melody line. - which brings me back to my original question.
Cheers
Simon
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