The Origin Story of the Use of Natural (Raised) 6th in Minor Contexts

[BWV]

I think it’s simpler than that - much of medieval and renaissance music in minor has the raised 6th - what we call Dorian (but they thought in hexachords and tetrachords not 7-note scales). The raised 7th was added in cadences - viola there you have ‘melodic minor’. It probably more productive to ask how the lowered 6th degree became ubiquitous by the baroque

[Christian Miller]

I think it’s simpler than that - much of medieval and renaissance music in minor has the raised 6th - what we call Dorian (but they thought in hexachords and tetrachords not 7-note scales). The raised 7th was added in cadences - viola there you have ‘melodic minor’. It probably more productive to ask how the lowered 6th degree became ubiquitous by the baroque

This guy solfeggios


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

I think it’s simpler than that - much of medieval and renaissance music in minor has the raised 6th - what we call Dorian (but they thought in hexachords and tetrachords not 7-note scales). The raised 7th was added in cadences - viola there you have ‘melodic minor’. It probably more productive to ask how the lowered 6th degree became ubiquitous by the baroque

Yes. This is a whole can of worms I understand quite poorly.

We certainly see strong Dorian influence in the John Dowland extract I posted above, for instance, although by the 18th century it’s pretty subtle.

In terms of solmization, I read that in Nicholas Baragwanath’s book that was common even by the 18th century to build the natural minor scale on Re (Re, Mi, Fa, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La iirc, with Mi Fa for the half steps) which suggests an affinity with the Dorian mode and you often see ‘Dorian’ key signatures in baroque sources. For instance one flat in G minor.

Other schools, as I understand it, started on La.

(Baragwanath assures us that this was a better system for 18th century music, but I haven’t got my head around it.)

I also don’t quite get how this was used to create chromatic alterations. As I understand it these were often sung with the same syllables as the natural ones.

Anyway here’s a blog post by someone else who’s a bit confused.

(Incidentally he points out you get Dorian for substituting the hard hexachord for the soft. So
Re Mi Fa Sol Re Mi Fa Sol
Rather than
Re Mi Fa Re Mi Fa Sol La)

theory - Hexachordal solmization and the melodic minor scale - Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange

Bearing in mind melodic minor as a term was invented in the nineteenth century, but you definitely see this pitch collection in the music. Maybe it was an altered Dorian (hard hexachord.) no idea tbh.

I don’t get the impression that there was one standardised way to do this.

This is one for Early Music Sources….

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk