A friend and I were discussing the feeling of menace, of doomedness, in The Animals' House of the Rising Sun.  (I just typed "Rising Stone"…surely this has been filked, oh Murfreesboro pals?  You won't find me doing it, as I don't really care for filk, but just curious.)

Anyway, since I have been learning about musical modes, and trying to develop an ear for them, and therefore understand how they impart different moods (moods = modes, get it?), I wondered if the "menace" in Rising Sun might devolve to what mode it's in.

Yes, serious geeking ahead.  Pull on the waders.

Here's the melody of Rising Sun, the refrain, on the piano keys.  (I just picked it out by ear, per the linked video above.)  You'll notice there's two notes missing…I just went back and started the melody from the beginning of the verse, and added a B natural and an G flat.  So the scale is this:

Bb, B, Db, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, Bb

Or maybe it should be expressed in sharps:

A#, B, C#, D#, F, F#, G#, A#

So, let's look at the pattern of half steps and whole steps to figure out what mode it is:

HWWWHWW

Hmm.  Seems like Phrygian.  What's Phrygian's rep?

Wikipedia says:

the Phrygian mode is an important part of theflamenco sound. The Dorian mode is also found in other folk music, particularly Latin and Laotian music, while Phrygian is found in some Central European or stylized Arab music, whether as natural Phrygian or harmonic Phrygian (Phrygian Dominant), which has a raised third (the so-called "gypsy scale").

So part of the "New Orleans" vibe is Spanish, and romantic, so that mode is a descriptive design choice in composing this song.  Cool!

Also cool – Phrygian is a scale starting in E, with no accidentals.  So, I think that means that if I wanted to transpose Rising Sun to a key that I could play on my harp with no retuning, I could use a no-accidentals, ending in E.  So the A# would change to E, I think.  Let me go try that…IT WORKS!!!!

Modes ROCK.

I wonder if mom would let me take the piano when I move?  Though it might be cheaper/certainly easier to just get a cheap keyboard…