824 
MUSIC. 
totem, of the Doric, our major ; and the foftnefs and beauty, 
venajlatem, of the Ionian. The known effeminacy of the 
long-robed Ionians delighted in the mildnefs of the notes 
which they had adopted as national; whilft the gravity 
and warlike character of the Dorians, Dorica cajlra, 
marched to battle at the found of the mafculine harmony 
of the major mode. On the other hand, the polite and 
well-cultivated people of Phrygia mounted their lyre to 
the delightful and heavenly fweetnefs of the minor key, 
leaving to the Lydians the dithyrambic enthufiafm of 
Bacchanalians and Orgies. 
The progrefs of cultivation in the art foon fuggefted 
the addition of a new tretrachord, and the inhabitants of 
JEolia had the credit of the invention. Inftead of the 
original three, the tetrachords were now live, and moll 
probably difpofed as in Ex. 2. 
The divine art did not long remain there, it went a ftep 
farther towards perfection; for we cannot fuppofe that 
the confined l'pace of the above-noted tetrachords could in 
any manner (known to us at leaft) produce much eftedl 
as to melody or fymphony. (N.B. Among the Greeks 
the w'ords melody and harmony w'ere lynonymous, and 
what we call now counterpoint and accompaniment w'as 
exprelfed by the wo rdfymp/t0ny .) We ought alio to take 
notice of the inffruments, efpecially the flute, which was 
particularly ufed to accompany the voice: and it is not 
improbable that, whilft the flute or lyre w’ere tied to the 
four notes of the tetrachord, the voice had the liberty of 
expatiating upon all the founds which thole baffes ad¬ 
mitted as lymphor.ical below or generated above. What 
thofe founds were, we have already Ihown in lpeaking of 
the harmonics of the monochord. 
Joining now to the firlt tetrachord one of the fame 
power, by taking F as a fulcrum, we find in this union 
the feven tones of the gamut. Ex. 3. And then the 
lyre, inftead of four firings, and the flute, inftead of 
four holes, admitted the complete and myfterioully-har- 
monical number of feven. This conjunction of the te¬ 
trachords could not be performed but upon the three 
fundamental ones; viz. the Dorian, the Phrygian,and the 
Lydian ; the intermixed ones, wanting a lemi-interval, 
were obliged to have recourfe to the help of the lharp for 
the lower of the adfcititious notes above them, in order 
to echo the lower tetrachord in perfeft melody; and 
thence the neceffity of tuning the lyre again, or modu¬ 
lating, by fome means, the fettled tones of wind-inftru- 
ments, as mentioned in feveral authors. See Ex. 4. 
In the fame manner may the tetrachords be placed one 
above another to the higheft pitch ; with this difference, 
that the two firft are conjoined; the third does not join 
with the fccond, but with the fourth ; and thus the fame 
fyftem of modulation, or key, is kept up through the 
whole diapafon. 
Let us remark here, that, in the accidental alterations 
which the intermediate tetrachords. are obliged to un¬ 
dergo, we find, in an inverted polition, the generation of 
the dieze, or lharp : for, according to the rules of modern 
tablature, the firft lharp alights upon F fa; the fecond 
upon C lol ut; the third upon G re fol; the fourth 
upon D la re; the fifth upon A mi la; an indubitable 
probability that the tetrachords, called Ionic and JEolian, 
W'ere, though perhaps obfcurely, the origin of the modern 
nuances, or changes of keys from C to G, from G to D, 
See. in the common way. The fame rules will apply to 
the flat, if the tetrachords are carried on to the higheft 
pitch. Were this curious affinity deeply and fcientifically 
entered into, perhaps we might find a much greater ana¬ 
logy between ancient and modern, melody. No one can 
doubt that the Greeks, owing perhaps to the liquidity of 
their vocal organs, were more nice in the Iplitting of in¬ 
tervals between founds than we are. A femitone with us 
is the interval of either four or five commas; but the 
ancients ufed to divide a tone, or interval, in four parts, 
according to fome intelligent writers on the fubjeft: for 
they men tion the fourth of a tone. We are aware that 
what is called in French note J'enJible, the immediate one 
below the final, or key-note, is much lefs than a femi¬ 
tone, principally when, as in the fourth tone of the Gre¬ 
gorian chant, the fecond, or note above the final, is a 
iemi-tone; (fee the Lydian tetrachord ;) but we have no 
wind-inftruments that can reprefent it. The human 
voice is the only organ properly fit to give an idea of it; 
and, next, the fluffing of the fingers upon the violin, vio¬ 
loncello, and other inffruments of a fimilar nature. 
In the courfe of time new modes which drew their de¬ 
nominations from the original ones, with the addition of 
the prepofitions virsg and into, were inlerted to complete 
the diapafon. Thus the Lydian mode was furmounted 
above by the Hyper-Dorian, Hyper-Ionian, Llyper-Phry- 
gian, Hyper-^Eolian, and Hyper-Lydian ; and below the 
plain Dorian mode defeended the Hypo-Lydian, Hypo- 
FEolian, Hypo-Phrygian, Hypo-Ionian,and Hypo-Dorian: 
thus forming fifteen modes in the whole. 
Thele fifteen different modes, or keys, are mentioned 
and enumerated by Alypius, a Greek rriufician ; but Arif- 
toxenus, according to Euclid, admitted only thirteen 
leaving out the higher ones, namely, the Hyper-ASolian 
and Hyper-Lydian. Ptolemy admitted but feven, vizi 
the Hypo-Dorian, Hypo-Phrygian, Hypo-Lydian ; then 
the Dorian, the Phrygian, and Lydian ; and, to complete 
the let, the Mixo-Lydian or Hyper-Dorian. The diftances 
between ttiefe feven modes were as follows ; from the 
Hypo-Dorian, the loweft of all, to the Hypo-Phrygian, 
one full interval, or tone, as from C to D ; from the Hy¬ 
po-Phrygian to the Hypo-Lydian, another tone, as from 
D to E; from the Hypo-Lydian to the Dorian, a femi¬ 
tone, as from E to F ; from the Dorian to the Phrygian, 
a tone, as from F to G ; from the Phrygian to the Lydian, 
a tone, as from G to A ; and from the Lydian to the Mixo- 
Lydian, a femitone, as from A to Bb ; which conftitutes 
the whole extent of the feven mulical tones, or two tetra¬ 
chords conjoined. And now we come to this interefting 
conclulion ; namely, that the feven keys, or modes, of the 
Greeks, according to Ptolemy, with the addition of the 
Hypo-mixo-Lydian, are preferved, as a molt curious and 
precious relic of ancient melody, down to this moment, in 
the ecciefiaftical plain chant ufed in all Roman-catholic 
churches. 
But of the efteft of thefe ancient modes, or indeed of 
the nature of them, we at prefent really know nothing. 
Butler, however, in his “ Principles of Mulic," publilhed 
16 36, lpeaking of the Lydian mood of the ancients, which 
he feems to have perluaded liimfelf he underftood, fays, 
“ Of this mood is that palfionate lamentation of the muli- 
cal king for the death of his foil Abfolom, compofed in 
five parts by Mr. Thomas Tomkins, now' organift of his 
majerty’s chapel; the melodious harmony of which, when 
I heard it in the mufic fchool (Oxon.), whether I iliould 
more admire the fweet well-governed voices, with confio- 
nant inftruments, of the fingers, or the exquilite inven¬ 
tion, wit, and art, of the compofer, it was hard to deter¬ 
mine.” 
Mr. Kolman derives our modern fcale from the Greeks 
by the following train of reafoning; which, though in 
fome degree it may appear like a repetition, yet it places 
the matter in a new light, and will prove a help to the 
reader in underftanding this obfcure liibjedl. 
That 1110ft ancient tetrachord (or fcale of four notes) of 
the Greeks, called the diatonic'Jyntone, confifts of four 
notes, equal to our B, C, D, E, the loweft 011 the violin. 
If we examine that tetrachord, we find it conlift of the 
belt part of the diatonic octave ill the Icale of nature ; as 
thus, C 8, D •§, E and the lower odtave of B T 8 r . For 
the C is evidently the principal note, as odtave of a 
key-note ; and the E is its major third, which conftitutes 
the belt part of a fundamental major concord. The B is 
the leading note, or major third of the fundamental lead¬ 
ing chord to the C; and the D is the fifth of that chord, 
as well as a diatonic minor between C and E for the tile 
of melody. The characteriftics of that tetrachord, there¬ 
fore, are : a diatonic major third; and a femitone below 
it, as leading note to the principal one. 
Now 
