In music, any of a variety of concepts used to classify scale s and melodies.
In Western music, the term is particularly used for the medieval church mode s. raga s can be regarded as modes. The concept of mode may involve much more than simply a classification of scales, extending to embrace an entire vocabulary of melodic formulas and perhaps other aspects of music that traditionally occur in tandem with a given set of formulas. The term mode has also been used for purely rhythmic patterns such as those of the Ars Antiqua , which were based on ancient Greek poetic metres.