Okay, I think I understand what you're saying, M.Ted, but fretted instruments like your standard banjo and guitar are even- or well-tempered. We couldn't play in a non-well-tempered-based scale or "mode" if we wanted to.

As for singing unaccompanied in a non-well-tempered-based scale, wouldn't that be something that you have to have an "ear" for, which you could only get from hearing somebody else sing in such a scale? Where can we hoi polloi go to find such a thing?

Alex