page_title: Modal frame
section_title: Ladder of thirds
hierarchical_section_title: Modal frame / Ladder of thirds
caption_attribution_description: English: CM13, first inversion equals e13(b9), 2nd inversion equals G13... Eventually seven chords along a ladder of thirds. Created by Hyacinth (talk) 14:13, 31 March 2010 using Sibelius 5.
context_page_description: A modal frame in music is "a number of types permeating and unifying African, European, and American song" and melody. It may also be called a melodic 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 by harmony, but purely by melody. A note frame, is a melodic mode that is atonic, or has an unstable tonic.
  Modal frames may be defined by their:
  floor note: the bottom of the frame, felt to be the lowest note, though isolated notes may go lower,
  ceiling note: the top of the frame,
  central note: the center around which other notes cluster or gravitate,
  upper or lower focus: portion of the mode on which the melody temporarily dwells, and can also defined by melody types, such as:
  chant tunes
  axial tunes
  oscillating
  open/closed
  terrace
  "Chel-sea" football crowd chant: minor third.
  shout-and-fall
  ladder of thirds
  Further defined features include:
  melodic dissonance: the quality of a note that is modally unstable and attracted to other more important tones in a non-harmonic way
  melodic triad: arpeggiated triads in a melody.
context_section_description: A ladder of thirds (coined by van der Merwe 1989, adapted from Curt Sachs) is similar to the circle of fifths, though a ladder of thirds differs in being composed of thirds, major or minor, and may or may not circle back to its starting note and thus may or may not be an interval cycle.
  Triadic chords may be considered as part of a ladder of thirds.
  It is a modal frame found in Blues and British folk music. Though a pentatonic scale is often analyzed as a portion of the circle of fifths, the blues scale and melodies in that scale come, "into being through piling up thirds below and/or above a tonic or central note."
  They are "commonplace in post-rock 'n' roll popular music – and also appear in earlier tunes". Examples include The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night", Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and The Who's "My Generation", Ben Harney's "You've Been A Good Old Wagon" (1895) and Ben Bernie et al.'s "Sweet Georgia Brown" (1925).
caption: CM13, first inversion = e13(♭9), second inversion = G13... (About this soundPlay (help·info)). Eventually seven chords along a ladder of thirds.
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