The Aeolian mode corresponds to the white keys from A to A and is identical to the natural minor. Its hallmarks are a minor third and lowered sixth and seventh degrees; the sound is serious, pensive, often sad. Together with the Ionian (major), the Aeolian became one of the two pillars of classical tonality.
Unlike the harmonic minor, the natural (Aeolian) has no raised leading tone, so its cadences are softer, more “modal,” more archaic. It is precisely the Aeolian colour that predominates in many Ukrainian lyrical and drawn-out songs and in the dumy of the kobzars, lending them that special concentrated longing. In rock and pop music the natural minor is perhaps the most common melodic scale. The Aeolian mode is the voice of inner concentration.
