[RICH.J]

I've been learning a few Irish jig/dance fiddle tunes from an advanced finger picking book I bought a few weeks ago.
Every song has a written part explaining some techniques and theory stuff, just to make things a bit easier to understand, it's really good book as it goes...
Anyway, for the fiddle tunes it keeps saying that most old songs were modal. Now I think I know what this means, but I'd like to be sure ("to be sure, to be sure, haha. Irish, geddit?).
From what I can make out in other books I've read, and this one, is that Modal music didn't follow what we consider as modern harmony (I ii iii IV V vi VIIdim etc), and that chord changes are more sort of hinted at in the melody with certain notes.

I've also noticed that lots of traditional English folk music, maybe any folk music, has lots more notes than chords, rather more like supporting every word that is sung in a song, is supported by a note, rather than picked/strummed chords. A lot of Martin Simpson I listen to is like this, he'll play a run of notes for every word he sings, and he'll finish the run with a chord targeting the last note, I think, that's what it sounds like to me anyway. Maybe more like a long solo.

So, is that what modal music is, am I sort of understanding it, am I understanding it? Any help, like usual is greatly appreciated.

[dogpoo]

before key signatures were invented, like for instance, Fmajor has a Bb, people used modes to write pieces.

modes are kind of what i like to think ancient scales were. i won't go into great detail about what modes are, do a search, they've been explained really well before, and modal music is just music written using modes as their "key signature" as such.

[Graeme! Yes, Graeme!]

There's a basic explanation of modes in the lessons section:
http://www.guitartab...showtopic=70931