The Aeolian Mode is the Natural Minor. It is a musical Term
You can hear the Aeolian Mode by playing 8 consecutive white keys on the piano, starting and ending on A.
The Piano was DESIGNED upon the Aeolian Mode, with the other 6 modes fitted in like this: (White Keys only)
Aeolian: Start on A (Natural Minor)
Locrian: Start on B (A Very Weird diminished mode)
Ionian: Start on C (Our Do-Re-Mi Major Scale)
Dorian: Start on D (A minor mode popular in the Middle Ages and Favored by Composer John Williams)
Phrygian: Start on E. A minor Mode with a flat second used by Beethoven in “Turkish March)
Lydian: Start on F (A major Mode with a Raised 4th,)
Mixolyidian: Start on G (A Major Mode with a Dominant 7th)
Brother Guido of Arezzi (12th Cent) was the first person to assign lyrics to the Ionian Mode, giving us the Do-Re-Mi sequence. There is a statue of him in that town in italy and he is credited as being the father of modern musical notation.
He did this because he couldn’t get his choir to sing the right notes.
And THAT my FRiends is where “Aeolian” comes from.
Since it only involves the WHITE Keys, we can assume that the Aeolian Mode is Raciss.
A+++
That was a terrific music lesson!
well aren’t you enlightening us on this in the most fascinating way today@!! thanks!
Really interesting. I love this class. Thanks for the post.
Did you catch my link yesterday to this captivating, ilustrated view of the history of music?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2983096/posts
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If_T1Q9u6FM&feature=youtu.be
Although this appears to be in Spanish, I can understand every word!
BTW, didn’t there used to be a piano manufacturer named Aeolian?
So glad someone brought the musical use into this discussion of all things aeolian.
I will take you to task on only one minor point, your description of the mixolydian mode.
You have used a harmonic function (dominant seventh) for an intervallic function (minor seventh) when discussing the interval between A and G in the context of the modes.
Intervals can be major, minor, perfect, diminished and augmented.
Chords can be dominant 7ths, not intervals.
/pedantic soapbox mode