Talk:Ionian mode

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Hi. I'm not a wikipedian, just someone who came to read an article and found it frightfully bad. I'm a person who knows a fair bit about music, I know what relative minor or secondary dominant are, I can explain to you why one might ever want a double sharp. But I couldn't make head nor tail out of this article. Having read it, I still can't tell you what the ionian mode is, other than that it is apparently quite similar to major mode (but how it differs remains a mystery). I cannot BELIEVE that someone put up an article about a mode without listing one single concrete example of that mode applied to a scale! If C is the tonic, WHAT ARE THE FRIGGING NOTES OF AN IONIAN SCALE????????? This article is apparently written only for people who already know modes inside and out. I am now going to get up and go in the other room and pull out my music dictionary and actually learn what the ionian mode is, since wikipedia has utterly failed me.

Project for Mode Articles: Standardization and Consolidation
The mode articles are a mess when taken together. The articles need to be standardized and some of the general information consolidated into the Musical mode article and removed from all the articles about specific modes.

a few specific propositions:

corresponding information
 * I think all the mode articles should have corresponding information in corresponding sections. For example, the intervals that define the mode should be given at say, somewhere near the top of the article in a section called "intervals" or something (whatever, as long as its standard for all articles and maximally descriptive). Also things like if the scale is "symmetric" or "asymmetiric" or whether its a "minor" or "major" scale should be all in one place (perhaps a table would be best for these things).

Information about modes in general
 * All information that is about modes in general (i.e. applies to all modes) should be moved to the Musical mode article, and not mentioned in the articles about specific modes (all articles should of course be linked to the general Musical mode article). Information about idiosyncratic properties of the modes then will be easier to find that way, and there will be no confused and redundant info (sorta like this paragraph).

''Greek vs. modern terminology confusion'
 * Information about the confusion between the greek and modern terminology should stay in the Musical mode article, with a note at the top of each article--out of the main body--highlighting the terminology confusion (to eschew obfuscation). Perhaps there should be serperate disambiguable articles for the greek modes e.g. a article for Ionian (Greek Mode) and Ionian (Gregorian Mode).

avoiding articl style divergence with later editors not privy to the standardization project
 * As time passes, people who don't know about the effort to standardize the article no doubt will add information to the article in their own style, perhaps causing the articles to diverge in style over time. To avoid this, we can make a template to go at the top of each talk page that tells editors to keep in mind the style standardization (perhaps a project page--"metawiki pages" I think they are called--with a template and style explanation). Although this may not be that much of a problem, if the style is obvious and is suffieciently elegant to begin with.

Am I getting across the idea here? What do you guys think about such a project? I know there is a way to set up a wikiproject for this sort of thing, but I've never done it before. I'll look into how to do it. Any other ideas on how to make the articles fit better together? Any objections or improvements to the above suggestions? Brentt 09:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC) PS please respond and discuss at the Musical mode talk page

Hypionian
The twelfth mode was the plagal version of the Ionian mode, called Hypionian (under Ionian)

Shouldn't it be called "hypoionian", if it means "under ionian"? This is a random passerby's observations... could be a spelling mistake, I dunno... Kareeser|Talk! 03:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Botched article history
This article is older than its history page shows. There was a botched page move in December 2006. The article had more accurate information before the move. I've asked for help repairing the page history, and I have re-added information that was lost. The Greek Ionian mode was a G-G natural scale, when someone changed that to C-C, the article failed to make sense. — Gareth Hughes 17:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, the history has been fixed now. — Gareth Hughes 17:28, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Error corresction and a suggestion
I have changed a blatant error in the passage that says it is- based around the relative natural scale in G (that is, the same as playing all the 'white notes' of a piano from G to G) when it is actually based around the natural scale in C (as is said later in the article).

I think the link to the Major mode should be mention in the introduction, saying something like The Ionian mode is a musical mode of diatonic scale, corresponding to the Major mode in the Major/Minor system. This will give all readers with any musical knowledge a quick understanding of what the scale is. 203.51.33.127 (talk) 03:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * No, the Greek Ionian mode is based around the natural scale in G, while the medieval one is based around the natural scale in C. Double sharp (talk) 15:45, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you will find this is by now a dead issue, Double sharp, since you are responding to a comment that was left more than six years ago. Moreover, what you say is applicable only within the diatonic genus of the Ancient Greek system. In that system "Ionian" was an alternative name for what was more usually called the Hypophrygian, and the relative starting tone and intervals within the resulting octave species depended on the genus. In the chromatic genus, the starting tone (if compared to a fixed overall reference tone arbitrarily assigned to E in the modern notation scheme) is G♭, and in the enharmonic genus that tone is G. Alternatively, if all of the octave species are transposed to begin on the same note, and that note is again arbitrarily made E, different notes result (just as in the modern system a major scale built on A♭ has different notes in it than one built on E. The "fixed center" system is laid out in a table found here, and an example showing the enharmonic genus in the "movable center" system is in the article Hypophrygian mode. When in the middle of the 16th century Glareanus adopted this word (and "Aeolian") for two of his "new" modes, he was not interested in how they might have been used by the Greeks—he just wanted some suitable labels to add to the Greek names already in use for the eight church modes of the medieval theoretical system. I see that this article does not any longer refer to the use of the word "Ionian" in the Ancient Greek system. Perhaps this should be restored, though I think only with the briefest possible mention that it was an alternative for Hypophrygian, and a link to that article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:18, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Is this any different from the major scales??
Looking at Ionian Mode, it seems to have the same pattern as a major scale - base note, W, W, H, W, W, W, H... is it any different from the major scale, or is it an ancestor? This article is very unclear... 70.44.144.56 (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm going to rant about this for a second, and hopefully answer your question. Yes, they share the same scale pattern, and due to some modern subversion due to jazz theory, many people will tell you that the Ionian mode is the same thing as they major scale. However, the difference is that to say "Ionian Mode" as opposed to "Major Scale" implies a certain theoretical style that comes with it. Modal theory (not jazz theory) is highly different from Tonal theory. Clarification really needs to be made between the use of the Church Modes and the jazz modes. Jmclark56 (talk) 06:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This is perhaps the greatest defect of the present article as it now stands. In Medieval/Renaissance theory, a mode is a lot more than just a scale. It is also true however, that "tonal theory" of major keys is much more than a description of the major scale. The essential problem is the confusion of "mode" (or, in tonal theory, "key") with "scale".—Jerome Kohl (talk)