Scales
Church Modes
The ecclesiastical, or church, modes were the tonal basis of Gregorian Chant and are the origins of western music theory. They are in no way related to the Greek modes except that the names of the first four authentic modes were taken from the Greek. All of the church modes consist of the notes of the C-Major scale but use various notes as the tonal center. There are three characteristics that identify a mode:
finalis
The beginning and ending note, the tonic.
tenor
The reciting tone of the chant, called the dominant. The tenor is often, but not always, a fifth above the finalis.
ambitus
The range of the melody. For authentic modes this was the octave bounded by the finalis plus the note below the bottom finalis. For plagal modes, whose names contain the prefix hypo-, the ambitus is a fourth lower.
This chart shows the finalis of each mode as a whole note, the tenor under a fermata, and the traditional range of the ambitus. The limits of range, especially at the top of the ambitus, and the use of the tenor instead of a modern dominant are generally ignored by composers.

Notice that the Ionian mode is the major scale. Likewise the Aeolian mode is the natural minor scale.

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