Tigran Hamasyan – Piano Modes, Armenian – Rick Beato

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dK_5bICW5KQ

What the clip says, in essence

Rick Beato asks Tigran Hamasyan to demonstrate modal music. Tigran says Western musicians often think of modes as scales — Dorian, Aeolian, etc. — but Armenian music is different: it does not work through “tonic equivalence” in the same way. There is one tonic, and the music unfolds through a system of fourths.

In his piano example, he centers everything on A. The mode can contain both a major seventh and a minor seventh against that tonic, plus the tension of a tritone, while also emphasizing fourth-related tones. Rick reacts: “That’s beautiful.”

Tigran Hamasyan Explains Armenian Modal Music: One Tonic, Many Worlds

In a one-minute demonstration, Tigran Hamasyan shows why Armenian modal music is not simply “Dorian” or “Aeolian.” It is a world of one tonic, fourth-based architecture, ancient chant logic, and haunting melodic color.

Tigran Hamasyan’s One-Minute Lesson in Armenian Modal Music

In a short exchange with Rick Beato, Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan gives a compact but profound explanation of Armenian modal music. Beato asks him to demonstrate what modal music is. A typical Western answer might begin with church modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian.

Tigran starts there — but immediately moves elsewhere.

For him, Armenian modality is not merely a menu of scales. It is a system of gravity.

There is one tonic. The music orbits that center. But instead of behaving like Western major/minor tonality, with functional chords pulling toward cadences, Armenian modal music unfolds through melodic centers, fourth-relations, and characteristic interval colors.

In the clip, Tigran places the tonic on A. Around that A, he demonstrates a mode where both the major seventh and minor seventh can appear. To Western ears, that sounds contradictory: is the seventh G or G-sharp? In Armenian modal thinking, the answer can be: both, depending on melodic direction, phrase, ornament, and modal function.

That is the beauty of it. The mode is not just a fixed scale. It is a living melodic field.

———

Armenian Modes Are Not Just “Scales”

Western music theory often reduces modes to scales:

  • Dorian = minor with raised 6th
  • Phrygian = minor with lowered 2nd
  • Lydian = major with raised 4th
  • Mixolydian = major with lowered 7th

That can be useful, but it is incomplete.

Armenian music — especially sacred chant and folk-derived melody — is better understood through modal behavior: how a melody moves, where it rests, which tones are stable, which tones are expressive, and how phrases lean into or away from the tonic.

An useful historical comparison is Armenian sacred chant, especially the oktoechos, the “eight voices” or eight-mode system. The Armenian chant tradition classifies important liturgical repertoire by modes, but these modes are not always equivalent to Western church modes. AKN’s guide to Armenian oktoechos explains that the system is both liturgical and musical, and that each mode can function more like a mode-family than one exact scale formula. (akn-chant.org (https://akn-chant.org/en/modes))

That matters because Tigran is not just “playing an exotic scale.” He is showing a different way of organizing pitch.

———

The System of Fourths

One of the most important phrases in the clip is Tigran’s reference to a system of fourths.

Armenian theorist and composer Komitas Vardapet, one of the central figures in documenting Armenian sacred and folk music, described Armenian melodies as being built from combinations of tetrachords — four-note units spanning a perfect fourth. A Komitas Museum publication summarizes this view:

Armenian modes are based on “interlocking tetrachords,” and Komitas argued that Armenian melodies are formed through combinations of these fourth-spanning units. (komitasmuseum.am
(https://komitasmuseum.am/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/%D5%8F%D5%A1%D6%80%D5%A5%D5%A3%D5%AB%D6%80%D6%84-%D4%B1.pdf))

That helps explain what Tigran is doing at the piano.

Instead of treating the octave as a simple ladder from A to A, he is thinking in modal cells: fourths, pivots, melodic zones. The tonic remains A, but the mode opens outward through fourth-related tones and intervallic colors.

This creates a sound that can feel ancient, suspended, and emotionally ambiguous.

———

Why Both Major and Minor Seventh?

In Western harmony, a major seventh and minor seventh usually imply different harmonic worlds:

  • A–G♯ suggests A major, A major seventh, or harmonic/melodic minor color.
  • A–G suggests A minor, A dominant, Mixolydian, or Aeolian/Dorian color.

But Armenian modal music can allow both colors around a single tonic. The result is not “wrong” or “jazzy chromaticism” in the usual sense. It is modal inflection.

The seventh degree can be flexible. It can intensify upward motion, darken descent, or create a chant-like ambiguity around the final.

That is why Tigran’s example sounds so rich: the tonic is stable, but the surrounding intervals are alive.

———

The Tritone as Color, Not Just Dissonance

Tigran also points out the tritone. In Western classical harmony, the tritone is famous as a dissonance that wants resolution. In jazz, it becomes a dominant-function engine. In metal, it becomes menace.

In Armenian modal color, the tritone can act differently. It does not always need to “resolve” in the Western tonal sense. It can be part of the modal atmosphere — a charged interval inside the mode’s expressive vocabulary.

That is one reason Hamasyan’s music can sound simultaneously ancient and modern. He can use Armenian modal material and make it collide beautifully with jazz harmony, progressive metal rhythms, and contemporary piano technique.

———

Tigran Hamasyan: Ancient Material, Modern Fire

Hamasyan’s music is often described as jazz, but that label is too small. His work combines Armenian folk and sacred sources with improvisation, complex meters, ostinatos, metal, electronic textures, and modern classical harmony.

A Music Theory Online article on Hamasyan emphasizes that asymmetrical meter, ostinati, and cycles are central to his compositional language, not incidental effects. (mtosmt.org (https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.2/mto.21.27.2.schumann.pdf))

His sacred project Luys i Luso also shows how deeply he engages Armenian chant. In an interview about that album, Hamasyan explained that Armenian sacred songs are governed by modal rules and that certain rhythmic or ornamental choices are not appropriate inside that tradition.
(londonjazznews.com
(https://londonjazznews.com/2015/09/26/preview-interview-tigran-hamasyan-with-the-yerevan-state-chamber-choir-union-chapel-october-15th/))

So when he gives this one-minute explanation, he is compressing a whole musical worldview into a few piano gestures.

———

The Big Idea

Armenian modal music is not simply:

“Take a major scale and start on a different note.”

It is closer to:

Keep one tonic as the gravitational center. Build melodic space through fourths, tetrachords, flexible scale degrees, chant logic, and expressive
interval color.

That is why Tigran’s example feels so powerful. The music is not moving through chord changes. It is not trying to “arrive” in the Western harmonic
sense.

It is circling a center.

It is illuminating the tonic from many angles.

And in that space, one note can sound ancient, wounded, ecstatic, and eternal.

———

Tags

Armenian music, Tigran Hamasyan, modal music, Komitas, Armenian chant, jazz piano, music theory, tetrachords, Armenian folk music, Rick Beato

Sources

An ultra simplification (for drummers)

What is “modal music”?

Most pop music is built around major or minor.

Example:

  • Major = happy / bright
  • Minor = sad / dark

A mode is like another “flavor” of melody.

Not just happy or sad — maybe ancient, mysterious, floating, prayer-like, desert-like, haunted, heroic, etc.

———

What Tigran is saying

Tigran Hamasyan is Armenian. He is saying:

Armenian music does not think only in Western major/minor scales.

Instead, Armenian music often has:

  1. One home note
  2. Melody moving around that home note
  3. Special notes that create a very old, emotional sound
  4. Movement by fourths

———

What is the “home note”?

Think of a song like a planet system.

There is one sun in the middle.

That note is the tonic.

If the tonic is A, then A feels like “home.”

The melody can wander around, but A always feels like the center.

———

What does “system of fourths” mean?

Don’t worry about the fancy theory.

A fourth is just a musical jump.

Example from A:

  • A to B = 2
  • A to C = 3
  • A to D = 4

So A to D is a fourth.

Then D to G is another fourth.

So Armenian music often feels like it is built from these strong stepping-stones:

A → D → G → C

Instead of just climbing a normal scale:

A B C D E F G A

That gives it a more open, ancient, chant-like feeling.

———

Why does it sound strange or beautiful?

Tigran says one Armenian mode can have both:

  • a minor seventh
  • a major seventh

If A is home:

  • G = minor seventh
  • G-sharp = major seventh

In normal Western music, you usually pick one.

But Armenian modal music may use both colors.

So instead of sounding simple like:

happy major
sad minor

It sounds more like:

ancient
mysterious
emotional
unresolved
sacred
floating

———

Simple analogy

Western major/minor music is like painting with:

  • yellow = happy
  • blue = sad

Armenian modal music is like painting with:

  • gold
  • ash
  • red earth
  • candlelight
  • shadow
  • mountain air

It has more “old world” colors.

———

The easiest way to understand it

A normal Western song often asks:

What chord are we on?

Armenian modal music often asks:

What note is home, and how does the melody circle around it?

That is the main difference.

———

Tigran Hamasyan’s short explanation of Armenian modal music can be understood like this:

Armenian music is not just major or minor. It often has one central “home note,” and the melody moves around that note in a very particular way. Instead of thinking mainly in chords, Armenian music often thinks in melodic shapes, strong fourths, and special note colors.

That is why it can sound ancient, sacred, mysterious, and emotionally deep.

In the clip, Tigran shows that an Armenian mode can include both dark and bright versions of the same note. To Western ears this may sound unusual, but in Armenian music it creates expressive color. The music does not simply say “happy” or “sad.” It says something older and more complex.

It circles around home.
It bends the light around one note.
That is the beauty of Armenian modal music.

Armenian Modal Music — Explained for Drummers Think of the tonic as the downbeat. It is the place everything comes back to. In a groove, you can play all kinds of fills, ghost notes, syncopations, and accents — but the listener still feels where one is. That is what Tigran is talking about. In Armenian modal music, there is a strong musical “one.”

That “one” is the home note. ——— The Home Note Is Like Beat One If the home note is A, then A is like the one in the bar. The melody can go all over the place, just like a drummer can play around the beat. But the listener still feels:

There it is. That is home.

So instead of thinking:

What chord are we on?

Think:

Where is the one?

That is much closer to how this modal music feels.

———

Modes Are Like Different Grooves

A Western major scale is like a straight-ahead bright groove.

A minor scale is like a darker groove.

But a mode is like changing the feel without changing the basic pulse.

Same kit.
Same drummer.
Different groove.

One mode might feel sacred.
Another might feel tense.
Another might feel ancient.
Another might feel like a mountain song or a funeral march.

The notes create the “feel” the same way hi-hat placement, ghost notes, and kick patterns create the feel in drumming.

———

The “System of Fourths” Is Like Big Anchors in the Groove

Tigran says Armenian music uses a system of fourths.

For a drummer, think of these like big structural accents.

Not little passing notes — more like heavy landmarks.

If A is home, then D is a fourth away.

So the melody may lean strongly between:

A and D

That is like a groove where the kick and snare define the whole pocket.

You can decorate around them, but those big accents tell everybody where the body of the music is.

———

Why It Sounds Both Dark and Bright

Tigran points out that in the same Armenian mode, you can have both a minor seventh and a major seventh.

That sounds technical, but here is the drummer version:

It is like playing a groove that has both:

  • a laid-back, behind-the-beat feel
  • and a sharp, tense, pushing-the-beat feel At the same time. One note gives you shadow.
    Another note gives you tension or light. Together they create a feeling that is not simply happy or sad. It is more like:

ancient, emotional, unresolved, and alive.

———

The Tritone Is Like a Dirty Accent

Tigran also mentions the tritone.

In simple terms, the tritone is a spicy, unstable interval.

For a drummer, imagine a nasty offbeat accent, a flam in a weird place, or a cymbal choke that makes everybody look up.

It creates tension.

But in Armenian modal music, that tension does not always need to “resolve” like Western music expects.

Sometimes the tension is the point.

It hangs in the air.

———

The Main Idea

Western music often thinks like this:

What chord are we on?

Armenian modal music often feels more like this:

Where is home, and how are we circling around it?

That is very drummer-friendly.

Because drummers already understand this.

A groove can stretch.
A fill can go wild.
The accents can shift.
The time can feel loose or tight.

But if the listener still feels the one, the music holds together.

That is what the tonic does in Armenian modal music.

The tonic is the one.

The melody is the groove around it.

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