In Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Turkish, Persian etc. music, the modal designations are important, because they contain the rules for how a piece is to be played.

By contrast, the modal terms have been applied to our folk music descriptively--the melodies were not consistantly written to conform to modal rules, and, as Mr. Campin illustrates, there are notable occasions where they don't. Furthermore, they are often not played according to any sort of modal rules, and of course, they are harmonized according to the rules of common musical practice.

Complicating the issue even further, there are melodies in use that have been "regularized" using the rules of common musical practice, while essentially the same melodies can still be found in early forms. Even more confounding, there are contemporary melodies that have been back-formed to fit old styles.

It makes it difficult to keep things sorted in an fashion at all.