Amodal frame inmusic[1] is "a number of types permeating and unifyingAfrican,European, andAmericansong" andmelody.[2] It may also be called amelodic mode. "Mode" and "frame" are used interchangeably in this context without reference to scalar or rhythmic modes. Melodic modes define and generate melodies that are not determined byharmony, but purely bymelody. Anote frame, is a melodic mode that isatonic (without atonic), or has an unstable tonic.
Modal frames may be defined by their:
"Chel-sea" football crowdchant: minor third.
Further defined features include:
Shout-and-fall ortumbling strain is a modal frame, "very common inAfro-American-derived styles" and featured insongs such as "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "My Generation".[6]
"Gesturally, it suggests 'affective outpouring', 'self-offering of the body', 'emptying and relaxation'." The frame may be thought of as adeep structure common to the varied surface structures of songs in which it occurs.[6]
Aladder of thirds (coined byvan der Merwe 1989,[7] adapted fromCurt Sachs) is similar to thecircle of fifths, though a ladder of thirds differs in being composed of thirds,major orminor, and may or may not circle back to its starting note and thus may or may not be aninterval cycle.
Triadic chords may be considered as part of a ladder of thirds.
It is a modal frame found inBlues andBritish folk music. Though apentatonic scale is often analyzed as a portion of the circle of fifths, theblues scale andmelodies in that scale come "into being through piling up thirds below and/or above atonic or central note."[8][9][10]
They are "commonplace in post-rock 'n' roll popular music – and also appear in earlier tunes".[8] Examples includeThe Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night",Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" andThe Who's "My Generation",Ben Harney's "You've Been A Good Old Wagon" (1895) andBen Bernie et al.'s "Sweet Georgia Brown" (1925).
The modal frame ofThe Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" features a ladder of thirds axially centered on G with a ceiling note of B♭ and floor note of E[♭] (the low C being apassing tone):[2]
According toMiddleton, the song, "at first glance major-key-with-modal-touches", reveals through its "Line of Latent Mode" "a deep kinship with typicalblues melodic structures: it is centred on three of the notes of the minor-pentatonic mode [on C: C, E-flat, F, G, B-flat] (E♭-G-B♭), with the contradictory major seventh (B♮) set against that. Moreover, theshape assumed by these notes – the modalframe – as well as the abstract scale they represent, is revealed, too; and this – an initial, repeated circling round the dominant (G), with an excursion to its minor third (B♭), 'answered' by a fall to the 'symmetrical' minor third of the tonic (E♭) – is a common pattern in blues."[11]
