The word encompasses several additional meanings. It is still heavily used with regard to Western polyphony before the onset of the common practice period, as for example 'modale Mehrstimmigkeit' by Carl Dahlhaus or 'Alte Tonarten' of the 16th and 17th centuries found by Bernhard Meier. As early as 1271, Amerus applied the concept to cantilenis organicis, i.e. In 1792, Sir Willam Jones applied the term 'mode' to the music of 'the Persians and the Hindoos'.

'If one thinks of scale and tune as representing the poles of a continuum of melodic predetermination, then most of the area between can be designated one way or the other as being in the domain of mode'. Powers proposed that 'mode' has 'a twofold sense', denoting either a 'particularized scale' or a 'generalized tune', or both. Regarding the concept of mode as applied to pitch relationships generally, Harold S. (see #Analogues in different musical traditions below). Outside of Western classical music, 'mode' is sometimes used to embrace similar concepts such as Octoechos, maqam, pathet etc. In the mensural notation that emerged later, modus specifies the subdivision of the longa. Modal rhythm was an essential feature of the modal notation system of the Notre-Dame school at the turn of the 12th century. In the Middle Ages the term modus was used to describe both intervals and rhythm. Although both diatonic and gregorian modes borrow terminology from ancient Greece, the Greek tonoi do not otherwise resemble their mediaeval/modern counterparts. ( Olivier Messiaen's modes of limited transposition are strictly a scale type.) Related to the diatonic modes are the eight church modes or Gregorian modes, in which authentic and plagal forms of scales are distinguished by ambitus and tenor or reciting tone. It is applied to major and minor keys as well as the seven diatonic modes (including the former as Ionian and Aeolian) which are defined by their starting note or tonic. Its most common use may be described as a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviors. In music theory, the term mode or modus is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context.

E flat major scale ionian