View other articles in this series... 1. It All Starts with Twelve Notes 2. Major and Minor Modes 3. How To Tell the Key of a Song 4. How to Build Chords 5. Introduction to Degrees 6. The Other Degrees of a Major Scale and the Minor Mode 7. The Perfect Cadence...and More 8. Chord Tones and Non-Chord Tones 9. Stable and Unstable Chords 10. Harmonic Rhythm 11. Leading the Way 12. Chord Progressions 13. More Chord Progressions 14. Chord Substitutions 15. Tritone Substitution and Secondary Dominants 16. Relative Chord and Tonal Exchange Substitutions 17. Modulate It! 18. The Role of Cadence and Characteristic Notes in Modulation 19. Using II-V-I and pivot chords 20. Modulating to neighbor, distant and chromatic keys 21. Enharmonic Modulations 22. Melodic and harmonic motion 23. Consonance and Dissonance 24. Context and first resolution 25. Forced motions and resolutions 26. Indirect resolutions 27. Harmonic suspension 28. Harmonic anticipation and appoggiatura 29. The pedal point and the sus4 chord 30. Introduction to voice leading and voicings 31. My first voice leading 32. Open position chords 33. Voicings and added-tone chords 34. Voicings for the II V I pogression 35. Voicings, important notes and notes to avoid 36. Voice movement in voice-leading 37. Drop voicings 38. Parallel voices 39. Voicings and cadences 40. Voicings and cadences - Follow-up 41. Voicings and cadences - Second-to-last installment 42. Voicings and cadences - Follow-up and end 43. Left-hand voicings for piano 44. Voicings for piano (continued) 45. Voicings for piano (end) 46. Introduction to modes and modal harmony 47. Historical and philosophical perspectives on modes 48. Characteristic notes in the modal system 49. Other methods to identify modes 50. Harmonic rules for the Ionian and Dorian modes 51. Harmonic rules for the Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian modes 52. Harmonic rules for the Aeolian and Locrian modes 53. Modal cadences 1 54. Modal cadences 2 55. Pedal and ostinato in the modal system 56. Introducing altered modes
Getting started Pedal and ostinato in the modal system
By newjazz on 08/02/2018
Overview [hide]
The return of the pedal
The ostinato
In the last couple of articles we started to see how modes work, especially considering their harmonic characteristics and the cadences which support them.
In this article I invite you to follow this exploration with the study of two forms of writing very common in the modal system. As I've explained so many times before, the tonal system rests basically on the resolution of tensions, whereas the modal system is rooted on the idea of stability, or more exactly suspension. Taking these ideas of stability and suspension in consideration, I think it's pretty coherent to come back to something we mentioned in article 29 of this series, namely the pedal, to then move on to the ostinato.
As you saw before, the pedal basically consists in the presence of one or two notes throughout several continuous chords, note(s) which usually remain in the same octave, giving place to the inversion of one or several chords. This form of writing includes in itself the stability required by the modal system. But be careful, this doesn't mean that the pedal is only used within this frame of reference! As you saw in article 29, it is completely adequate within a tonal context, too. However, the repetition of one or several notes during a relatively long time fits perfectly well with the modal system, as you can see in the following C Dorian example:
The pedal is determined in this case by the C in the bass line which is repeated throughout all chords of the progression.
Ostinato is a musical from also based on repetition. It's not for nothing that ostinato in Italian means stubborn: it is basically a motif or phrase that's repeated as long as you like. You can usually use both pedal and ostinato at the same time. And you can also commonly see an ostinato developing on top of a pedal:
However, the ostinato is unlike the pedal in several aspects. First of all, the ostinato doesn't rely on only one or two notes, like the pedal. Next, and more importantly, it can be melodic, harmonic and/or rhythmic, while the pedal is always harmonic. Finally, where the pedal is based on the repetition of long notes, the ostinato is made up of several short notes.
What better way to illustrate the notion of ostinato that to resort to some examples, even if they aren't strictly modal. When it comes to the melodic-harmonic ostinato, Ravel's Bolero is one of the best known examples, repeating the same phrase no less than 17 times. When it comes rhythmic ostinatos, African rhythms are particularly "telling" and they can even evolve into polyrhythms. Finally, in contemporary music, you could say that the audio loop is a good representative of the ostinato, too.
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