About

Hello,
my name is Azure James. I'm a student and composer, and I made this blog to share my journey of musical discovery and shed a little light on both topics that are frequently discussed and some that seem unjustly ignored.
Music is very important to me, I'm almost always playing, listening, talking about, or writing it, and it forms one of the most important, essential parts of the human experience.
Keep on writing!
Thank you,
Azure

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Contrapunctual vs. Chordal Thinking

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The other day, I clearly realized for the first time that the majority of instrument-players think using chords. Their idea of music, although it may have solos and melodies in it, primarily consists of a chordal vocabulary. (Fux's famous treatise on counterpoint. Try reading it in Latin. (my comprehension= 4%) No, it's not pronounced like a swear word.) The idea of music that doesn't have chords or isn't related to in a chordal way is mostly alien to them. I used to be like that in a way, when I was a little kid taking piano lessons, and I learned some chord based songs (by Michael Jackson) in addition to the very rudimentary classical pieces in my lessons. I remember the feeling of hitting the one bass root note with my left hand and triads in various positions with my right. It was satisfying and simple. But that just didn't work forever, and even though my first composed piece was pretty much based off C, F, and G chords, the little songs I wrote on the
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Psychology of the Dorian Mode

What a mode is The notes of Dorian are from D to D. Or in the key of C, a Dorian scale would be C,D,Eb,F,G,A,Bb,C. Examples of pieces in the Dorian mode are Scarborough Fair/Canticle by Simon and Garfunkel, Bach BMW 538, large swathes of pre-Baroque music, and "So What" by Miles Davis. The character of Dorian is more minor than the Major scale, but less minor than the Minor scales. It's more or less halfway in between. It has a beautiful mystical and somewhat mysterious sound that is a mixture of dark and light, being very suitable for giving a piece a Medieval or Renaissance atmosphere. I would say Dorian is better for melodic or counterpoint-based works more than modern harmony. It can mix well when modulated to from either major or minor. Use of this mode started to decline during and after the Baroque period, as the modes condensed into the now-dominating major and minor keys. Sadly, this has at times had a negative effect on the psychological variety of music. Modes
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