Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?

Subject: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: GUEST,oxeyedaisy
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 11:36 AM

I am watching the video "The Waterson Family". Norma tells that when they first went to London, Bert Lloyd heard them. He got them to sing the same song three times over, because he was enjoying it so much, and asked them if they knew they were singing in "mixadilian harmonies". I must have heard this word wrong because I can't find it anywhere ! Does anyone know what it is, and what it means ?

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 11:39 AM

Mixolydian mode maybe?? You can google that and get explanations.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 12:04 PM

Mixolydian it is. I love that mode for my dulcimer, sounds beautiful.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 12:44 PM

as I understand it, it is the major key with a flattened seventheg g mixolydian is gabcde fnat g.
frequently guitarists have truble harmonising it, for example g mixolydian should be harmonised with g major or a g dyad based on the first and fifth, not g minor.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: Tradsinger
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 01:27 PM

You would normally accompany it with major chords, but with an occasional chord which is a tone below the tonic. In other words, if you are in D major, expect to play an occasional C major chord; if you are in G, expect to play an occasional F chord and so on.

Myxolidian tunes that you might know - Blackwaterside, Sullivan's John, Norwegian Wood, Dark Girl dressed in blue (polka).

Does that help?

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 02:52 PM

Hi, daisy. How much do you know about music? Do you play an instrument, in particular a keyboard instrument?

Whatever your answer, I'm sure you have heard of:
do re me fa so la ti do.

To play a song in the Mixolydian mode, you sing that with any starting pitch you want. Then you remember the sound of the fifth note, 'So.' Be sure to keep the same sharps and flats; that's the tricky part. Now make up a new tune which starts on So and ends on So. If you can, have the highest note be a So as well.

(The tune will will seem to 'float' at the end, because we are used to going back to Do to end a song.)

If the scale you chose is C, then So will be G. When you harmonize your tune, you will find that your important G's will want to be accompanied by C chords, not the expected G chords. I suppose that would be would be the "Mixolydian harmony." Another would be using Dm instead of the customary D.

Just between you and me, I don't think we need to make music terminology any more complicated by building Mixolydian harmonies off of the archaic Mixolydian mode.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 04:54 PM

GSS, I harmonize it this way:
Where your main chords in G major would be G, C, D, am and em,
in G Mixolydian you use G, C, F (or dm), am and em. In G major you have access to the bm chord, but you obviously can't use it in Mixolydian because of the f/f# clash. You could try b-dim but somebody has decreed that diminished chords are Not-Folk-Music.
Leeneia's description of the scale is technically correct but hard to sing that way, unless you're really rock solid on your intervals. I think of it more like having an upper leading tone to the sixth, rather than the accustomed lower leading tone to the octave in the major scale. At least that's the way it is usually used in melodies.
Harmonizing the important G's, as Leeneia put it, with C's works sometimes, sometimes G's are better... you have to let your ear tell you what the song wants, I guess. Going with the C really emphasizes that "floating" feeling at the end of phrases.
Cheers
-Glenn

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 05:11 PM

i think you are misunderstanding me, i am referring to tunes that are in a mixolydian mode, for example banish misfortune a tune basically in d mixolydian, its starting point is a d major chord, because the scale of d mix has f# in it it is harmonised with a d major chord not a d minor chord. of course banish misfortune has other chords mainly c major and an occasional g major, I did not mentionthis because I THOUGHT IT WAS OBVIOUS.
but my point is that when the melody in the D mixolydian mode is an f#, it is not harmonised with a d minor, as some clueless session guitarists have tried to maintain, but a d major chord or a d dyad consisting of D and A, the first and fifth of the chord.
chords consist of a series of melody notes, for example tripping upstairs has a run of f#db, a b minor chord [broken up], sorry I do not mean to sound patronising, but a few guitarists i have met just dont seem to hear it.
tone deaf guitarists should take up hang gliding.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: sleepyjon
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 06:07 PM

This touches a lot of chords (oops!) with me - I have this theory (unfettered by any known facts) that there is or was a scale with an "ambiguous" seventh - approximated to by the melodic minor so much loved (ie hated) by struggling pianists in which the seventh is sharpened on the way up, but flattened on the way down. In fact (the theory goes) it should be somewhere between the two in either direction - not easily achieved on a keyboard or fretted instrument) The best example I can think of off the top of my head is "Underneath her apron" ("A fine young girl all in the month of may . . . etc) also used as an alternative tune to "O Joseph being an old man truly". This accounts for the fact that such tunes are difficult to harmonise, and when harmonised sound totally different. In fact the tune sounds totally different when played unharmonised on the piano, which I attribute to the fact that the seventh cannot be ambiguous, exaggerated by the effect of equal temperament and the overtones produced on the piano. But it's all speculative . . .

SJ

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 06:44 PM

There are such scales, but they're not as common in Western music as the mixolydian and major ones, and also less common than scales that simply leave the seventh out.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 09:24 AM

No, GSS, I think we're saying the same thing. My examples were in Gmix, yours is in Dmix. You are exactly right that the root chord of a mixolydian harmonization would be the major for exactly the reason you stated. (Terminology can be a b###h.)
-Glenn

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: Arkie
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 09:58 AM

One of the simplest and most common tunes in the Mixolydian mode is "Old Joe Clark". The one flatted note gives a uniqueness to the melody. Dulcimer builders started adding a fret in the gap between the sixth and seventh frets so that a Mixolydian tuning could play a major scale. That also provided an opportunity for richer chords and led to many players making Mixolydian their primary tuning.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: foggers
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 11:40 AM

Spooky - I was about to name Old Joe Clark as an good example of a mixolydian tune.

At the risk of befuddling the enquirer, I make sense of a mixolydian tune as follows. I will use the contrast between an ordinary G major scale (which has the notes G A B C D E F# G) and a G Mixolydian scale, which has the notes G A B C D E F G.

The root note is still usually accompanied either by it's own major chord made of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale (so in G that is a G major chord made up of the notes G,B and D). Depending on the shape of the melody, there may also be points in the tune where the root note G is also accompanied by the IV chord. In the case of G mixolydian the IV chord is still a C, just as it is in an ordinary G major scale. The notes that make up a C chord are C,E and G.

The bit that gets interesting (and can lead to enthusiastic session players playing the wrong chord) is where the melody goes to a note that in an ordinary major scale of G would want the V chord which in a G major scale is the chord of D (D, f# and A). Here, where a mixolydian melody goes to an A note, rather than accompany that with a D chord you would use an F natural chord (made of F, A and C) or a Dm chord (D F A) because these chords contain an F note rather than an F#.

I play dulcimer and getting to grips with the commonly used modes found in folk music on both sides of the Big Pond has been very good learning for me indeed!

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:10 PM

I think it was NOT a reference to a REAL mode , but a suggestion that their harmonies were sufficiently different to be interesting !

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 02:16 PM

foggers, contrary to your name, I think you have at least partially unfogged the subject. Good explanation, and I think you hit on the spot where guitarists often go wrong and make GSS crazy.
-Glenn

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: foggers
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 03:36 PM

It makes me crazy too! That is why I learned how to explain it !

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[?] harmony ?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 04:02 PM

I would have said the same as Leadfingers, except - it was A.L. Lloyd saying it. He knew what he was talking about.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?
From: IvanB
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 05:16 PM

I'm well aware of the fact that mountain dulcimer players traditionally call DAD (or any other 1-5-8 tuning) a Mixolydian tuning, but if you play a tune with the open melody string as the tonic and the seventh consistently played on the 6+ fret, you are playing in Ionian mode, not Mixo. It's just a happy coincidence that the drones are tuned to notes that work in either mode. I suppose a 6+ could be sneaked into a Mixo tune now and then but I'd suspect it was an Ionian wannabe if very many were used.

The dulcimer tunings used for the four modes mainly used in dulcimer playing were developed before the 6+ fret became a common addition. Adding extra frets has thrown the whole modality question into a wringer, but the truth is that it's the tune that determines the mode, not the tuning of the instrument.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 05:50 PM

I would have said the same as Leadfingers, except - it was A.L. Lloyd saying it. He knew what he was talking about.
Sorry, I have a lot of respect for Bert for his contribution to the Folk revival, but he was very capable of using incorrect terminology[he was probably distracted and overpowered by young female Waterson charisma] who can blame him.
A L Loyd did not always know what he was talking about, especially when his mind was distracted by the Birds and The Bees.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?
From: GUEST,oxeyedaisy
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 06:26 PM

Many thanks, everyone, for your many explanations. I think I have more or less got it, though I am not sure how to detect it in the Waterson singing. As I don't play a chord instrument, it's really just a matter of interest for me. Perhaps just as well. Sorry I've been so long replying, I've been on holiday.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 06:57 PM

Is it because G mixolydian isn't really G, but C? Just think of the key signature. Foggers sets out the scales above. Or do I oversimplify?

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 07:47 PM

I just read the whole thread, oxeyedaisy, and I think it's a bloody good thing you didn't ask directions to the cinema four blocks away.

Subject: RE: Mixadilian[Mixolydian] harmony ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 12:43 PM

g mixolydian, is gabcde fnat g, it contains the same notes as c major, however that does not make it c, it is still g mixolydian, a g major scale with a flattened seventh