The notes marked + are the keynotes (Mese). It will be seen at once that the positions of the halftones differ in each of these octaves. One cannot help feeling a slight suspicion that some confusion between scale and octave had a great deal to do with the growth of the Ecclesiastical Scales.
One of the latest of the ancient writers on music, Claudius Ptolemy (about 130 A. D.), proposed that all these octaves should be transposed a fourth lower; this made the Dorian Octave E to E (all naturals). One result of this change is that many authorities at the present time call this the Dorian Scale, whereas it is evident that it is simply the Dorian Octave, as given above, transposed a fourth lower. Other scales were added from time to time, called Hyper-Dorian, Hyper-Phrygian, etc., a fourth above the standard scales; but it is very uncertain whether they were in practical use; they were probably purely matters of theory.
Characteristics Attributed to the Different Greek Scales.—The Greeks attributed many fanciful characteristics to the various modes or scales, much as some modern musicians, Berlioz, for example, do to the different keys. But all seem to have agreed as to the Dorian. This was considered the true Greek mode, and was called severe, firm and manly, suitable for martial songs. The Lydian mode was esteemed to be effeminate, suited to love songs, possibly because the Lydian Octave corresponds with the scale of A major, and a major scale was not relished by the Greeks, any more than it was by the early ecclesiastical musicians. A more probable explanation of this attribution of different characters to the different scales is, that it was customary to use certain modes for songs on certain subjects, and the character of the poetry was transferred to the music.
The Greek Chromatic Scale differed altogether from what we call a chromatic scale. It was made by lowering the pitch of the fourth and seventh strings above the keynote a halftone. Supposing the octave lyre to be tuned to the Hypo-Dorian Mode or Scale, it would begin and end on the Keynote (Mese), thus:
Now, by lowering D and G we get the following scale:
This is the scale that was called Chromatic. It is said to have been at one time the most popular of all the scales, a statement we can easily credit, since it contains in itself the two world-wide five-note or Pentatonic Scales, commonly known as the Scotch or Irish Scales, the most widely distributed of all scales in Europe, Asia and America.