: Is the history of scales in Cooke's "Mastering Scales" an accurate history? I was using Cooke's "Mastering Scales" just to get piano fingerings. But, I see that it also contains a history of scales. Is this an accurate history,

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Without knowing more than a little bit about the history of Western harmony and its scales, I am comfortable saying you should not look to this author for history lessons.

The reason I write that is because he wrote the words "white" and "Aryan" as synonyms in 1913 which highly suggests his history is racist. There are other aspects of the history he wrote that could be at the very least culturally insensitive, but the use of "Aryan" in this way is too highly suggestive of outright racism and white superiority.

Yes, 1913 is before the Nazis came to power or even prominence, but the history of the word "Aryan" is telling in this case. Originally, it was a "self-designation by ancient Indo-Iranian peoples" (ironically). The word was only adopted as a racial category in the 19th century by an author who believed that "blonde northern European 'Aryans' ... had migrated across the world and founded all major civilizations, before being degraded through racial mixture with local populations". The author, Arthur de Gobineau, did influence the Nazis with his thinking and theories of white superiority.

That's not to say that racists cannot be good historians at the same time, but it's clear that this particular history is laden with racism and therefore cannot be trusted on its face to be accurate or complete. How could anyone feel confident that important details of the history of scales have not been changed or left out because they do not support a worldview of white, "Aryan" supremacy?

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In regards to any person, be it author or any other, pertaining to the exact history or meaning behind the modes is technically and historically impossible. This is due to the fact the original modes developed by the ancient Greeks goes as far back as 300 or 400 B.C.!!! or the Hellenistic period. Greece was then subsequently through the proceeding ages conquered by the Romans then the Byzantines, which had a great impact on Greek culture. most all of the original works, including those of Aristotle and Plato (whom also played an important role in the development of the original greek modes) were already long lost, destroyed or forgotten. It wasn't until the middle ages, through the crusade that the remains of this part of the Greek culture were accidentally re-discovered (1000 A.D.) and brought back to europe. This info was then given to the Gregorian monks (hence Gregorian or church modes) and translated into the northern euro languages. Only one problem, the information the monks were given was gravely incomplete, the monks ended up either completely mistranslating the greek and even having to try an re-invent this system and ended up having to invent a europeanized version loosely based on the little information they had on the original modes. The modern modes, that we know as the "church modes" actually have very little in common with the original. Even the tribal Greek names that represent the modes are not correctly assigned to the appropriate mode type in our western church modal system. The actual origins, meanings, functions-etc., of the original Greek-Modes can only be speculated and or theorized upon.