Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.

Subject: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 09:51 AM

Howdy y'all - I tried using the search function, but got an error message each time, so I apologize if this is a repeat. Long story short: why is the Lydian mode so prevalent in Scandinavian folk music? How did it get there? Why did it stick? I'm not finding a lot on the Googles but I may not be looking for the right thing, so if anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 10:05 AM

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Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 10:37 AM

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 03:31 AM

I'm no expert in modes, but based on my limited casual listening do you mean more precisely about the Lydian mode being common in Norwegian folk music rather than 'Scandinavian'?

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 05:12 AM

You get a Lydian scale blowing overtones on a pipe with no fingerholes, like the seljeflote. So tunes that had been played on that would preserve the scale.

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 05:47 AM

I've been reading about Geirr Tveitt and his theoretical work "Tonalitätstheorie des parallellen Leittonsystems." Bit of a dodgy guy and dodgy text too. I don't endorse it at all but you might find it interesting in relation to the question of modes in Scandinavian or Norwegian music.

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 07:54 AM

I would suggest that the Lydian mode is not as rare within the British tradition as it has been portrayed. Certainly, there are Lydian influences in a number of well know English Traditional songs. This is relevant to the thread in as much as I am not convinced that there are precise musical divisions between the Folk Music of any country. The early Folk Song collectors searched for the perfect English melody and came up with half an Irish melody that probably originated in Brittany.
That said there are certain modes and singing techniques which are prevalent in areas but they are by no means indicative of a national variation or musical choice. I have personally found that when chasing musical variations, the best that can be suggested is that they came from somewhere else, which is not a lot of use to your original question. Looking at a global view is no more revealing, due to trying to see the wood for the trees. However, we may agree that musically speaking Catch 22 is alive and well and living near the chicken or the egg.

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,Roderick A. Warner
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 11:45 AM

An interesting research project maybe. Identify the Lydian scale in Scandinavian folk music. Or any national folk music? Laborious but relatively easy, I would have thought. Find any tune that has a raised fourth/flatted fifth relative to the key it’s in, a tritone interval. In C, Fsharp/Gflat, for example. Discard accidental passing tones but only use the tunes that consistently contain this tonal relationship. Potential confusion if a tune is in a mixolydian mode and changes key to the subdominant as the original mode would contain the tritone. G mixolydian to C, for example. I have no idea if this is a feature in Scandinavian or any other folk music that might contain Lydian tunes. As to British, no idea, off hand. I’ve played on many informal sessions over the years but don’t remember this scale cropping up in UK/Irish folk musics. I assume this has already been analysed by music scholars and others who have a broader frame of folk musical reference than myself? Common in jazz and the composer/ musician George Russell developed a theory to expand the resources for improvisation and composition based on the Lydian scale that had much influence in the move to modal jazz in the last century. I suspect he knew his Bartok as the octatonic scale maps nicely onto the Lydian and was an expanded melodic resource that he used.

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 11:58 AM

Jazz and heavy rock! The 'Diabolus in musica' so disliked by the early musicologists was put to ear-splitting use by 'Black Sabbath', with the well-tried tri-tone echoed by Hendrix in the intro to 'Purple haze'. Lydian as can be, and not Scandinavian. With reference to the mixolydian, tune after tune in the British tradition has a lydian overtone resolved into the Myxolydian. National characteristic? Probably not.

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,R J M
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 07:19 AM

Danny Boy/Londonderry Air.

Subject: RE: Lydian mode in Scandinvian music.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 07:54 AM

Never noticed that. The second cadence is a lydian inflexion. You get the same with Long Pegging Awl, Harry Cox. Kim we are not really straying from your original enquiry, but no nearer answering it. I think the answer will not be found in Scandinavia. If you agree that art music and Folk Music are branches of the same tree then you may be nearer to an explanation. Better men than I have researched in that area.