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ユネスコが「緊急に保護する必要がある無形文化遺産」に記載した音楽の伝統から。地球儀の上では、赤い小さな輪で示しています。
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ユネスコが「緊急に保護する必要がある無形文化遺産」に記載した音楽の伝統から。地球儀の上では、赤い小さな輪で示しています。
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An interactive atlas of 35 musical modes from around the world, laid out without rounding them to the piano, played on recorded instruments and traced to their homes on a globe. Compare the notes a piano cannot play — the three-quarter tones of maqam, gamelan tunings, blue notes — listen to real music through Apple Music previews, and export tuning files and MIDI for your DAW.
The seven-note scale beneath modern European tonal music. Named the Ionian mode by Glareanus in the 16th century, it travelled the world with Western harmony. Every note sits exactly on this chart’s equal-tempered grid — it is the ruler the others are measured against.
The first of the medieval church modes: a natural minor scale with a raised sixth, minor yet strangely open. Common in the folk songs of the British Isles, it became the emblem of modal jazz with “So What” in 1959.
The major scale started from its sixth note: the basic minor. Glareanus named it the Aeolian mode in the 16th century. Without a leading tone pulling up to the tonic, it is the plain minor of much rock and pop.
The natural minor with its seventh raised into a leading tone that pulls hard toward the tonic. An augmented second opens between the sixth and seventh; rounded to twelve notes it matches Arab Nahawand. It carries the harmony of Western minor keys.
Six notes, each a whole tone apart. With no centre of gravity — it looks the same from any starting note — it floats. Debussy made it unforgettable in fin-de-siècle Paris.
Born from African American song. The “blue notes” on the third, fifth and seventh fall between the keys of a piano; voices and guitars drag up into them. They are drawn here as moving notes.
A five-note scale without half steps, heard widely in the Andean highlands on quena and zampoña. Its order matches the Japanese min’yō scale — the same frame grown on opposite sides of the earth.
Flamenco builds on the Phrygian mode, with its second degree just a half-step above the tonic, and raises the third over the final chord (the hollow note). The descending “Andalusian cadence” — A, G, F, E — gives guitar and voice their particular ache.
The prayer mode of Ashkenazi Jews (Ahava Rabbah) and the colour of klezmer wedding music. Its hallmark is the wide augmented second between the second and third degrees — essentially the same frame as Arab Hijaz.
Seven notes with two augmented seconds. Loved in Ottoman urban music and Greek rebetiko, it carries “Misirlou”, first recorded in 1927 and made world-famous by Dick Dale’s surf rock in 1962.
A minor third with a raised fourth. It runs from Ukrainian epic dumy and the Romanian doina to klezmer and Greek rebetiko. Cantors call it Mi Shebeirach, after a Jewish prayer.
A makam of Ottoman classical music. Turkish theory divides the octave into 53 commas and counts the Hicaz tetrachord as 5, 12 and 5 commas (about 113, 272 and 113 cents). It resembles Arab Hijaz, but the width of its augmented second and other steps differ — and practice differs from theory too.
A foundation of Arab classical music. Its third and seventh are “neutral” — neither major nor minor — and cannot be played on a piano. Their height shifts by place and era: lower in Egypt, higher in Syria. Descending, the seventh often drops (hollow note).
A much-loved maqam that opens with a three-quarter-tone step — neither a half nor a whole tone — lending it an earthy warmth. Its frame closely resembles Persian Shur.
Named after a region of western Arabia. A half step followed by an augmented second gives it its tension — and the same shape turns up far away, in klezmer’s Freygish and beyond.
Its fourth degree sinks below a perfect fourth — a diminished fourth — so every climb seems to give way underfoot. It is often described as the maqam of lament and prayer.
A maqam whose tonic itself is “half-flat” — between the piano keys. With a three-quarter step right above it, more than half its notes miss the piano grid when measured from the tonic. No piano can play it from any key.
The most essential dastgah of the Persian radif. The second degree is a quarter-tone low (koron), and the fifth is a moteghayyer — a “changing note” whose height depends on the phrase (hollow). Much Iranian folk music grows from it.
Two neutral steps and two wide, almost augmented, seconds give this dastgah its strength. It is considered suited to epic music, in contrast to the gentler sorrow of Shur and Segah.
A raga for the first hours of night in Hindustani music. Its fourth (Ma) is raised — tivra Ma — giving the same order as the Western Lydian mode. Indian intonation tends toward just intervals, and the chart shows values close to them.
A dawn raga. The flattened second and sixth are held low and slowly swung (andolan), giving its solemn air. Rounded to twelve notes, it matches Hijaz Kar.
A raga that flattens the second, third, sixth and seventh (komal). Beloved as the piece that closes a concert. Rounded to twelve notes, it matches the Western Phrygian mode.
A five-note raga without the fourth and seventh (Mohanam in the south). The same frame as the Chinese pentatonic, Ethiopian Tizita and Japanese yonanuki — sung here with glides and ornaments.
A bright five-note raga of Carnatic music, without the fourth and sixth. Concerts often open with Dikshitar’s “Vatapi Ganapatim”, in praise of Ganesha.
The five-note scale of the Javanese gamelan, dividing the octave into roughly five steps — neither half nor whole tones. Each gamelan is tuned differently, and that difference is its character. Shown here as an ideal five-way split.
The gamelan’s other scale, with large and small steps unevenly spaced. Pieces draw about five of the seven notes (pathet), and many ensembles keep a full set in both slendro and pelog. Shown as an approximation on nine equal steps.
Thai classical tuning has long been described as seven equal steps to the octave. That theory, dating from Ellis’s measurements in 1885, has been challenged with new data — singers and wind or string players pitch more freely. Shown as the ideal seven-way split.
The five tones gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu. Which tone a melody settles on gives the mode — gong, yu and so on — and the system shaped music across East Asia. Shown from gong.
The mournful mode at the heart of sanjo and pansori. Its notes resemble the Japanese min’yō scale, but the mode is really made by its gestures — one note shaken wide, another bent sharply down. Scholars count its pitches differently.
The major scale without its fourth (yo) and seventh (na). From Meiji-era school songs to enka and Shōwa pop, it runs through modern Japanese song — including “Ue o Muite Arukō” (1961), a worldwide hit.
The five-note scale of Japanese folk song and children’s songs. Musicologist Koizumi Fumio explained Japanese scales as pairs of fourths with one inner note (tetrachords), naming four: min’yō, miyako-bushi, ritsu and Ryūkyū. This is the first.
A five-note scale with two half steps, the sound of Edo-period urban arts — koto and shamisen music. “Sakura Sakura” and “Rokudan no Shirabe”, attributed to Yatsuhashi Kengyō, are classic examples.
The scale of gagaku and Buddhist chant. Of gagaku’s six modes, hyōjō, ōshiki and banshiki are ritsu; ichikotsu, sōjō and taishiki are ryo. “Etenraku” in hyōjō is the best-known piece.
Do, mi, fa, so, ti. Where mainland Japanese pentatonics avoid half steps, this one has two — mi-fa and ti-do — and the rise from ti to do is the very signature of Okinawa.
One of Ethiopia’s four basic modes (qenet), named after the song of longing “Tizita”. Its frame matches the Chinese pentatonic, though a minor variant lowers the third (hollow). It runs through the Ethio-jazz of the 1970s.
Sung poetry from northern Vietnam: a woman singer keeps time on a wooden clapper, with lute and drum. Refined in courts and literati salons, it now has few practitioners left.
Unaccompanied three-part male singing from Corsica, passed down by ear and sung in both church liturgy and village life.
Music of the Uriankhai of Mongolia, played on the end-blown tsuur while the throat sustains a low drone at the same time. Many pieces imitate the sounds of nature.
Croatian two-part singing with a distinctive shaking of the voice; the lead singer holds a note for as long as breath allows.
Players of the side-blown limbe breathe in through the nose while pushing out air stored in the cheeks, so a Mongolian long song can be played without a break.
Music and dance of the Basoga: five or more gourd trumpets, each sounding a single note, interlock to make one melody. Traditionally played for the king.
Male two-part singing from western North Macedonia: one voice carries the melody while the other holds a drone beside it. Sung on the spot at weddings and feasts, sometimes with shepherd’s flute or bagpipe.
Cambodian song accompanied by the long-necked chapei lute, drawing on folk tales, poems and Buddhist stories. Many of its masters were lost in the years of war.