Why did the transition from modality to tonality take place?

Question

I am a musician and one of the things I haven't quite understand yet is why did this transition happened. Isn't modality more diverse? There is ionian (major tonality), dorian, phrygian, lydian, myxolydian, aeolian (almost minor tonality), (locrian) and if we include key changes etc. a composer has a lot more material at his disposal than major and minor harmonic and melodic tonalities. So why did that happen?

Dear piscis, it did happen; late Renaissance, early Baroque. Composers continued using the modes during the following centuries, but only very scarcely. Modality reappeared in the works of composers of the twentieth century like Debussy, Ravel, Vaughan Williams, Bela Bartok etc.

Answer 1

What a fascinating question! If you look back at musical history, you will see that the transition from modal to tonal writing corresponds almost exactly with that of the Renaissance period to the Baroque. Renaissance music was largely contrapuntal and more concerned with chords and shapes than melodies. Quite often, all voices are equal with no one 'melodic' voice being dominant. With the Baroque came a much greater interest in melodies and accompaniments.

It was composers like Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) who straddled this period. Monteverdi's importance in musical history cannot be overestimated; he more or less 'invented' the Baroque style during his long composing career and, without him, things would have been a lot different.

This new style of composition brought with it a new set of disciplines and needs for self-definition. Tonality evolved quite naturally (although quite quickly) along with this new Baroque style. By the 1680s tonality was firmly estbalished (although the actual term 'tonality' wasn't coined until around 1820, oddly enough).

I haven't answered the part of your question that asks 'why'. Well, I'm sure one can often not find a 'why' when these changes take place. 'Why' did the Baroque style develop, through the Rococo style, to Classical music? 'Why' did the Classical era give way so quickly to Romanticism? It's a question of constant evolution and development and one can't always say 'why' it happened. It just did.

Any use to you?

Answer 2

I do believe the popularity of major / minor scale theory was deeply influenced by German composers at that period of time. German folk songs are based on major / minor system. Not only because there were many dominant German composers (Mozart, Beethoven, even Wagner), but also more German scholars were working and studying on theory and methods of major / minor scales. More German composers' work were discovered than any other musicians in 19th century musicology. However, after into 20th century, major / minor faded its way down. Well, I am sorry to say, popular music including Rock, Heavy metals are still using 19th century harmony theory. haha.

Answer 3

this never happened, nowadays musicians use all that scales for playing and composing, but now there are other types of scales as well like the minor harmonic and melodic or the blues scale. the only thing that have changed is the name of each mode, meaning if the mode use to be dorian now its lydian or something like that

Answer 4

Once the discussion moves past pentatonic scales, my eyes just glaze over. Sorry I can't help.