Mode

Formal scale systems that a tradition's sacred music is built on, currently represented by the eight Gregorian modes of Western plainchant and the Byzantine octoechos, each assigning a fixed set of melodic modes to points in the liturgical calendar. The category groups by that structural, scale building function rather than by any single piece of music. Excludes ragas, the related but distinct modal system of Indian classical and devotional music, which has its own category.