Rolling Music Theory Thread

So, I am resistant to saying "it's in this mode" when it comes to modern pop music. It's fun to talk about Mixolydian and Dorian and Aeolean scales, and pointing out instances where the song sticks with those pitches, certainly how they're used in jazz... but modes are an ancient compositional idea that has little or no bearing on modern music, aside from composers/songwriters who deliberately wish to write modally as an affectation. So yeah, I agree that the melody for "Dreams" is a "sort of" Aeolian melody, but in my opinion it is more accurate and interesting to describe it as a major-key melody in a song that never arrives at the I-chord.

I said elsewhere (and upthread) that "Army Of Me" exists entirely within a Phrygian scale. I imagine that song is the product of Björk's own "I want to write a song in Phrygian mode" creative decision. But in rereading some threads and comments this morning, I was amazed at how many people also want to describe "Dreams" and "Get Lucky" as Aeolean, or "Pyramid Song" as Phrygian. I simply don't believe these terms have any application in pop music, I think North Americans pop listeners hear music as major/minor/other. I don't think a raised fourth in a scale means a song is Lydian or a bII chord makes something Phrygian.

A song I wanted to talk about with you guys because a) it's really very pretty and b) it kind of explores this issue is Beck's "Wave":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iea-ozFzGzw

What do you think? It does the same not-actually-Phrygian thing as "Pyramid Song"-- the I chord is a major triad, so it is not in Phyrgian mode, but it features a I-bII movements with enough consistency that it leads listeners into thinking it might be modal. And what do you make of those bV chords? What kind of cadence is that? I'm not a particularly advanced theory guy, and beyond mediant-relationships in chromatic harmony I basically just start thinking "now we're getting intuitive". But if there's an explanation for what this is, what it's called, beyond I-bII-bV I'd love to talk about it...

I was amazed at how many people also want to describe "Dreams" and "Get Lucky" as Aeolean, or "Pyramid Song" as Phrygian. I simply don't believe these terms have any application in pop music, I think North Americans pop listeners hear music as major/minor/other.

Sometimes people prefer to describe modern diatonic music as modal because 'major/minor' could tend to imply CPP functional harmony and voice-leading.

I'll try to analyse the Beck when I can get to my instrument but that's an interesting progression, you're right! Off the top of my head, the closest thing I could think of is that a quasi-Locrian line (in terms of root movement) is being harmonized with major triads, similar to what Bartok did with a pentatonic line in Bluebeard's Castle?

Yes, and I contend that the vast majority of popular music conforms to the language of CPP functional harmony. Certainly more so than it conforms to modal forms.

I thought you might say Locrian, and maybe you're right, but I mean, I've never actually heard a piece of actual Locrian music. That is, I've never heard Locrian chant before, or any jazz based on the Locrian mode.

My ear very clearly hears modes as being functionally related to raga. That is, the scale is not the basis for complex polyphony. The mode is describing a set of pitches that must at all times relate to a root, or a drone, or an implication of one-- and a droning root is a consistent feature of chant, Indian classical music, and modal jazz. You see what I mean?

you were the first person itt to describe Get Lucky as "Aeolean"!

Yes! I'm trying to figure this out as I go along :)

Dorian and Aeolean are useful because they describe two different versions of a (typically) minor scale. Mixolydian too, I suppose, for major, though it's use seems to me to be borne out of flexible 7ths (and flexible 3rd for blues and folk). Nobody says Ionian because they just say major. It's Lydian, Phrygian and Locrian I guess that I'm wary of.

And well you should be.

I think the flattened seventh of the Mixolydian mode as used in American music is the convergence of different traditions; in the classical & Christian music traditions it is, as you say, an alteration of the major seventh, but it is also a fixture of the folk music of the British Isles (especially drone-based music, e.g. that produced by bagpipes or uilleann pipes). the relationship of the flattened 7th to the 7th harmonic makes the Mixolydian mode sound just as stable in a folk/rock context as the major/minor scales are in a classical/pop context. to my ears anyway.

I feel like I hear a lot of i-bII progressions with what I hear as Phrygian melodies over them but this thread has made me less and less sure of my capacity to properly identify such things. I agree about Lydian/Locrian though.

Enjoying and agreeing with the recent posts. Maybe later have something to add. Or subtract.

@ Crüt I hesitated to identify bagpipes/uilleann pipes as being "Mixolydian" because traditionally they're exactly not :) I mean, they kind of are, but the seventh isn't fully "flat" and the third isn't fully "sharp". Similar to raga tunings and Hardanger tunings, they have their own unique system that ought not to be defined by trad Western tunings. The Mixolydian tuning you'll hear on harp+LARP renditions of "She Moved Through The Fair" are aberrations. This is nothing new! just bringing it up as a counter-point to my hesitation in application of modal terms

that's very true. I'm being super sloppy w/my vocabulary.

It's a trap, crüt!

Ha, I think I mentioned before that the first part of Rush's "YYZ" is always the (modern) example of Locrian mode that I use in class. It does have a repeated root (with ^1-b^5) in the bass. How would you analyse the pitch collections in Meshuggah songs, if not as Locrian?

I guess my thinking about church modes in modern music is somewhat in line with Persichetti's?

Right you are about YYZ! Damn, I can't believe I never noticed that. (I never have analyzed a Meshuggah song, I just assume w darker metal that flattened-supertonics are required)

What does Persichetti say? I've never studied him.

Perhaps. If you could briefly explain your point of view and that of Persichetti and who Persichetti is then I might be able to judge better.
(Xp)

j/k

Just was in a roomful of jazz guitarists and didn't ask anyone about any of this stuff although I kind of considered it. Then on the way home I ran into a really good piano player and couldn't restrain myself anymore so I asked him "How about that Locrian Mode?" His face fell in the classic smile into a frown maneuver and he said "I don't like to talk to people about modes. That's not the way I like to think about music. I like to use my ear."

Actually now I can recall a few years ago asking one of those jazz guitarists about whether he played a Locrian natural 9 over a half-diminished chord and him reply angrily "a Locrian scale has a flat nine" and around the same time watching a video of one of the other jazz guitarists saying he did play the Locrian natural 9 although "some people play the flat nine." If only I had thought to make them confront each other to see who was right.

Perhaps this is a subject in which you can never win trying to discuss it. As soon as you open your mouth you are fair game to be sonned by a Canadian Conservatory kid on a music theory beef.

So yeah, I agree that the melody for "Dreams" is a "sort of" Aeolian melody, but in my opinion it is more accurate and interesting to describe it as a major-key melody in a song that never arrives at the I-chord.

My problem with this is that there is zero pull to the I chord in this song. None. So, why is it even relevant to consider the I chord?

I mean, to me, the song has as little to do with the key of C major as it does with the Lydian mode. It seems, on the other hand, to have a lot to do with A minor pentatonic melodicism over a home F major seventh chord but I know I already said that.

The B held over in the melody of the Beck song makes the flat two an augmented chord. I'm not sure how you explain the Bb chord other than as a chord you would play after F or F augmented, but I don't think it functions in any way relative to E major.

My problem with this is that there is zero pull to the I chord in this song. None. So, why is it even relevant to consider the I chord?

Because the melody clearly cadences on the I. I dunno what to say. "Call Me Maybe" does the exact same thing in its choruses, so does "Teenage Dream". Your take on this is very singular, "Dreams" iirc is always cited as an effective use of an implied-major. But then again, there are people (incl. the song's authors, apparently, and hilariously) who want to say "Sweet Home Alabama" is V-IV-I instead of I-bVII-IV, when that song is written about as being a textbook example of "Mixolydian", vive le difference

Re: Beck, what is that moment in Holst I am thinking of where he do that I-bII movement and suspends the dominant? "Saturn"? Anyway, I hear that B in the Beck as a suspension, not as a strict augmented chord. He resolves it, don't he? I will relisten when I get back to internetland

Re: "Dreams" ambiguity, what do you hear when you hear "Hyperballad"? Assuming root C, you've got C C/B C/A in the verses with a melody that hangs on the G and trails off (gloriously) on the F. Then, chorus arrives, and just as the melody rises up to a C, the chords change to F G a G F G a bdim. Same deal as "Dreams", no C-chord in the chorus, though the melody outlines a C-major chord and cadences deceptively to IV on "though all this" and "happier". This song plays even more closely on Tim's team because it clearly ends on the a-minor chord. But is it in a-minor (Aeolean)? or C-major? or does it modulate?

"Call Me Maybe" does the exact same thing in its choruses

Yeah, but that melody really outlines the notes of the tonic triad.

The Katy Perry one is really cool. I think the two-note guitar riff dupes you into thinking it's going to be a I-V progression, but it's that IV chord with an implied major seventh again! Nevertheless, the melody feels more rooted in the tonic to me than "Dreams" does. A lot of emphasis on the suspended tonic note over the V chord that contributes to that as well.

OK, found a guy who was cool about answering a question without giving a lot of 'tude

Vincent Persichetti was a 20th-century American composer/theorist. I was referring specifically to his 1961 book Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice. I see that Michael Morangelli has provided a summary of the whole book here: http://www.thereelscore.com/PortfolioStuff/PDFFiles/PersichettiNotes.pdf . Ch 2 under 'The First Half of the 20th Century' is what I was thinking of. The summary begins on p 15 of the linked pdf. Basically, he described modern diatonic music as modal when it does not follow CPP rules of harmony and voice-leading (in the strict sense, i.e. usually), regardless of whether it worked like early pre-tonal modal music at all ("resemblance in construction, NOT usage"). He still analysed and wrote triadic harmonies and harmonic progressions in modern modal music, including the use of 'dominant equivalents' (maj or min triads that include the 'mode-defining note', e.g. bII in the Phrygian mode). He also discussed modal modulation (sticking with the same mode but shifting pitch centres, e.g. going from E Dorian -> A Dorian -> F# Dorian) and modal interchange (sticking with the same pitch centre but shifting the collection, e.g. E Dorian -> E Locrian -> E Lydian).

Persichetti's ideas can be a bit idiosyncratic and I don't think they're useful for all modern tonal/centric music but I do feel that they have some use.

(I've been occupied with a few things that have made it hard to analyse the Beck song with an instrument or even while listening closely.)

That little summary you just provided was plenty useful, thanks.

I'm gone!

From thread? From borad? Why?

Is it cutting people completely out of your life

Feel bad if it was me giving grief about Canada Conservatory because I was only kidding and after I typed it the last time realized it was getting old and was going to try not to do it anymore.

Besides I was meaning Sund4r anyway.

j/k really

Sund4r, that summary you linked to was good too. Although it eemed to me that he went right from the seven modes of the Ionian Scale onto more exotic scales like the Biharmonic Major or Melodic Major, skipping over Harmonic Minor and Melodic Minor modes. Guess he did mention overtone scale somewhere. Maybe I missed something.

Hm, just came across another scale to use over half-diminished 7th chord, Dorian b5, second mode of Melodic Major. Let me try it out. See you later.

From thread? From borad? Why?

Am also confused by fgti's comment.

He'll be back

Here's some stuff I think about.

Generating fingerings for bass and guitar:
Consider breaking scale into groups of three. For modes of (Ionian) major scale there are only three of these- major third, minor third half step first, minor third half step second. Furthermore the same patterns always repeat before changing to the next pattern. For example, if you start a Mixolydian scale, you get three major thirds, followed by two minor thirds half-step first, followed by two minor thirds half-step second. Why is this? Because in each group you are playing a third, next pattern starts a fourth away, you are going around the circle of fifths in the reverse direction,

How can you use this? Well a two octave scale has 7+7+1 =15 beats, which can be broken up into five groups of three.

Maybe I should say circle of fifths. You are moving by fourths within a given key, but a scale starting a fourth away in the same mode is the same except for one accidental.

You could think of the modes of the major scale as one giant loop, with the half-steps coming every fourth or fifth. You always get at least one repeat until it mutates. Whereas for modes of the melodic minor, in which the half-steps are next to each other, meaning separated by a single whole step, you basically get an alteration of major third and minor third patterns except for the point where the two minor third patterns are back to back- the beginning of the sixth mode.

First started thinking about this a while back in terms of four note groupings, tetrachords, in which case you are moving around by fifths and there are four patterns that repeat as follows: two major, two Dorian, two Phrygian and one Lydian.

Sorry, this is just the way my mind works, even if turns out to be only a case of "looking where the light is." Feel free to take it or leave it. I'll spare you my comments on drop-2 voicings for now.

Although it eemed to me that he went right from the seven modes of the Ionian Scale onto more exotic scales like the Biharmonic Major or Melodic Major, skipping over Harmonic Minor and Melodic Minor modes.

I think that he is assuming that the reader is already familiar with common practice theory, where the harmonic and melodic minor scales are standard.

Oh! You are talking about rotating the harmonic and melodic minor scales! Are there many 20th century compositions that do that? (Disregard the previous comment.)

In jazz almost all of the modes of melodic minor are used and a few of the modes of harmonic minor are used as well, mainly the fifth mode.

can anyone name examples of songs in the Lydian mode that don't resolve to (or hint at resolving to) Ionian/Aeolian/Mixolydian?

Found a paper on my phone I must have downloaded during an earlier discussion that may or may not answer this question.
http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=gamut

Which cites this interestingly titled paper: http://www.theory.esm.rochester.edu/temperley/papers/temperley-pm07.pdf

That being: "The Melodic-Harmonic 'Divorce' in Rock," by David Temperley.