Medcant bass???🤔

[Dingo40]

Looking at the vintage accordion instruction book lying on the top of the pile of accordion music books in the picture (see below), in the current thread enquiring about the "Regent" accordion by ap88, what we are accustomed to calling "counter basses " appear to be designated as "medcant basses".
Can anyone explain this?
Edit:
OK, panic over!
Even with my new lenses, the print was so small I misread it!
It should read " mediant " basses.
See here:
"The term mediant refers to the third scale-step above and below your point of reference. If we started on the tonic, then scale steps three and six (that's three scale steps down from the tonic) become your mediants. Usually, a major triad has two minor triads as mediants and the other way around."

 

[JerryPH]

Haha... talk about a way to take something relatively simple and explain it in a confusing way... lol
This looks a little like someone took the Stradella system and turned it in to "his" system, and renamed it "Traficante" and then instead of simply referring to the bass and counter bass as being set up in a circle of 5ths, they tried saying something discumbobulating:

"The term mediant refers to the third scale-step above and below your point of reference. If we started on the tonic, then scale steps three and six (that's three scale steps down from the tonic) become your mediants. Usually, a major triad has two minor triads as mediants and the other way around."

Haha... I bet he was a politician!!

 

[JeffJetton]

I actually kinda like the term "mediant", as it more accurately describes their function.

It's a fairly standard term in music theory. If you've ever distinguished a C7 from a Cmaj7 by calling it a "dominant 7" chord, you're drawing from the same vocabulary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(music)

 

[JerryPH]

I actually kinda like the term "mediant", as it more accurately describes their function.

It's a fairly standard term in music theory. If you've ever distinguished a C7 from a Cmaj7 by calling it a "dominant 7" chord, you're drawing from the same vocabulary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(music)

It is common, however, please explain how something can be both above and below the same point of reference at the same time as in the sentence " the third scale-step above and below your point of reference"?

I'm just having too much fun with this... lol

 

[Rosie C]

I actually kinda like the term "mediant", as it more accurately describes their function.

It's a fairly standard term in music theory. If you've ever distinguished a C7 from a Cmaj7 by calling it a "dominant 7" chord, you're drawing from the same vocabulary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(music)

I found the original quoute a bit confusing. "mediant refers to the third scale-step above and below your point of reference" - in my experience the third scale step below is the sub-mediant. Not that I ever go that far myself - tonic, dominant and leading note are the only terms I use regularly.