31/08/2026
Did you know medieval singers didn’t read music the way we do today? (There’s a free gift for you at the end of this post 🎁)
Instead, they relied on a system of eight “modes”, eight melodic personalities, each with its own home note and its own habits.
Learn a melody’s mode, and you already know how it’s supposed to move, where it’s likely to end, even before you’ve heard the whole thing.
It sounds complicated. It isn’t, once you know the two clues that unlock it:
👉 The 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬, the note a chant almost always ends on
👉 The 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞, the note where the melody “parks” during recitation
That’s it. Those two notes are usually enough to identify any of the eight modes at a glance.
🎁 Here’s your gift: we put together a 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 walking through exactly this, no prior music theory needed. Grab your copy here: https://www.medievalmusicbesalu.com/modes-guide/
IMAGE: Montpellier. Inter-university Library, Medicine Section, H 196, fol.001
