Rolling Music Theory Thread

I think there might be, maybe. I think the scale is just the set of pitches plus the starting point and nowadays mode usually means exactly the same thing but in ye olde time Renaissance music the mode meant the, um, ordered set of pitches, plus the various conventional practices that went with them. This is something I feel like I have seen out of the corner of my eye somewhere , I'll have to track down a reference.

As I understand it, the standard modes are identical to major keys except the root note is a different step in the scale.

Mode is closer to key, while the scale is the ordered sequence of notes in the mode or key.

Yes, something like that. There is a discussion of this on pages 158-159 of Lewis Porter's John Coltrane bio. I can't type it in right now so you will have to refer to your own copy.

He refers to a paper called "Three Pragmatists in Search of a Theory" by Harold Powers which I find a brief reference to and quote from here: http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.3/mto.13.19.3.judd.php although I can't quite make head or tail of the quote or the surrounding article yet.

Then there is this

http://www.jazzstandards.com/theory/modal-jazz.htm

One contemporary (and widely-taught) approach to improvisation views every chord as having one or more scales that can be played over it. Although it involves the use of modes, this approach to soloing does not necessarily make a tune “modal.”

The language is too academic for people who're interested in Radiohead, and Radiohead is too easily parsed for people who can comprehend an academic theoretical approach.

I think I actually disagree with the first part of this too (sorry fgti): almost everyone in my PhD program was interested in Radiohead! I'm pretty sure I'm more interested in them than in Brian Ferneyhough.

Anyway, I think that this discussion has been helpful for me. I haven't written a theory paper in years and now I realize that it's because I wasn't actually sure what the purpose/value of it would be. I think that talking about this has helped me clarify what it could be; I actually feel enthusiastic about attempting it this summer.

I've read several rollicking music theory nerd discussions of radiohead songs.

Interested to hear what exactly inspired Sund4r in this discussion but maybe it's best just to wait for the paper.

It was this train of thought, where I started questioning the use of this kind of analytical work, then realized that this doubt was what was holding me back from doing any of it, then started thinking about what its use could be. (The last part is not completely fleshed out in the post below but I think I will articulate it when the time comes):

Where fgti and I might be on the same page is that its not always entirely clear to me what the ultimate goal or purpose is with a lot of academic analysis of popular music, aside from sheer scholarly interest (and lines on the CV, ha). With guitar mags, it's usually clear that the articles are there for people to learn specific techniques from. With the analysis of art music, it's easy for me to see how the work is useful for people who want to compose and/or play art music (who are the usual audience for these journals). While I still disagree with him that Radiohead (or, say, "Close to the Edge") is too easy to parse for someone with art music training, it's not 100% clear to me what the readers are going to gain from the exercise: it does not seem that this is going to have the direct benefit of helping (most) people learn how to write and play rock music. There can still be some value in understanding how the music 'works' or is put together, though, and it is actually possible for it to influence art music composition tbh (because those artists have probably influenced mine!).

Here is a guy talking about a few ideas that I found interesting but haven't fully digested yet in that book Modalogy I have been plugging: http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/22308-modal-cadences-modal-interchange.html

"Get Lucky" doesn't really have a Dorian feel to me. It just starts on the iv chord. B is never a point of resolution for the melody; it tends to resolve to F# ("like the legend of the phoenix"/"we've come too far") or A ("we're up all night to get lucky").

like, I wouldn't say "Get Lucky" is in the Dorian mode for the same reasons I wouldn't say a song with a looping ii-V-I-vi progression is in the Dorian mode

crut otm. nailed it imo.

I mean the "ky" in "lucky" isn't an F#, it's an A, but I agree that generally the song pulls toward F#.

Oh, I very much hear B as a point of resolution for the chorus melody. I hear the melody as a sequence that descends until it gets to B with that A as a blue note lower neighbor.

Where is the pulling toward F#? B minor is the chord that occurs in the strong measure. For me, the song pulls toward that.

http://forum.emusictheory.com/read.php?5,13517

Eg, a while back there was a long-standing (apparently interminable) debate on another site (or two) about whether Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" was in G major (V-IV-I-I) or in D mixolydian (I-bVII-IV-IV). Each camp was vociferous in its own absolute conviction.
The reason was that almost everyone genuinely heard it as definitely one or the other, and couldn't hear it the other way. Those who thought differently were simply "wrong" (and maybe deaf and stupid at the same time).

I'd agree that it's ultimately a matter of perception, but my gut tells me that F# minor is the resting chord. pretty sure the tempo & key of the song are an homage to Billie Jean, which is in F# minor.

I'm used to hearing minor key songs with a VI-VI-i-VII progression & I hear the Bm7 as a substitution for the first VI chord

obv the ambiguity of having two "strong" chords is part of what makes the chord progression infinitely loopable

I hear Sweet Home Alabama as G major fwiw

"Get Lucky" is clearly in Aeolean, but in the comments there are those who think it's in Dorian, and a guy who wrote an analysis for CoS who said it was in A-major (?!), and another guy who thought "Dreams" was in Aeolean???!!!

With the Gaga bit people I think are starting to pick up on the futility of this column I hope. All of the comment arguments we have been having have been about "oh you notated it wrong" or "oh you're writing about this in base-C? why?" or debates about differences between IV7 (classical) and IVma7 (jazz). Because of the disparity of language I can't help but just... feel like it's so fruitless. Even that Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" piece there was a part of me that was like "dude it's called a Neopolitan 6th let me introduce you to Strauss" which is of-course a bullshit response, that modulation is fantastic

I think there's something about Get Lucky that sounds almost like it would be a break or b-section in a song in F# minor, only it just keeps repeating instead of going back to the A-section.

Wait, did somebody day Aeolian?

Say.

(S is next to D, sorry)

Scanning through that blog, it looks pretty good, actually! I don't like the "learn the secrets" kind of angle but I'm all for introducing people to iiis and bVIs and correctly pointing out the link between The Crickets and early Beatles.

Marcello tweeted that it's unfortunate that people talk about "Born This Way" = "Express Yourself" but not "Holiday" = "The Look Of Love", (which I don't hear in the slightest)

With the Gaga bit people I think are starting to pick up on the futility of this column I hope. All of the comment arguments we have been having have been about "oh you notated it wrong" or "oh you're writing about this in base-C? why?" or debates about differences between IV7 (classical) and IVma7 (jazz). Because of the disparity of language I can't help but just... feel like it's so fruitless. Even that Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" piece there was a part of me that was like "dude it's called a Neopolitan 6th let me introduce you to Strauss" which is of-course a bullshit response, that modulation is fantastic

Are you saying that pop music analysis seems futile because there are different systems of terminology?

(But these debates about what the tonic even is in Lynyrd Skynyrd or Daft Punk songs demonstrate my point about why I don't think pop music is too easy for theorists to bother parsing. No one debates what the tonic is in a Bach chorale or Mozart piano sonata, at least most of the time.)

Well Sund4r there's "what do I think" and "what do I feel". I think that the kind of analysis that you read in that "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" piece where it's like "oh! this guy is identifying the most defining trait of this song and probably the cleverest harmony-coup of Elton's career". I think that when I scan through the "Aeolean" blog linked above it's like "oh! how interesting that they started using iii-chords in pop songs at a specific point".

But "what do I feel"? My own ears hear music in the abstract. I hear, say, a I-iii-IV-bII-V-I movement (and most movements that would be contained within pop music) without thinking about what chords or key it's in. My fingers naturally move to the keys, to the guitar chords. Most pop musicians I know work the same way-- even asking somebody "what key is the song in?" you've got a 50/50 chance that the musician knows or cares. I think a lot of pop music + music theory has misidentified the point of translation, if that makes sense? Using numerals and words to describe what's happening in a song is a compromise.

It's not that it's too easy, it's just that it's not that interesting. Only when Marcello mentioned "Holiday" did it occur to me that that song is not in a major-key but in a minor-one, and contains the same denial-of-major-key-tonic as "Teenage Dream". But what does that say about Madonna-songwriter? or Madonna-cultural force? or me, if I wanted to write a song like Madonna's? I dunno.

Though as an interesting note, there is a profession whose job it is to listen to newly-composed tracks for commercials and comment on their similarities to other tracks, the place-holder music, for example. That professional will then comment on what elements need to be changed-- usually getting quite specific, on a theory level, asking for a melody to go further upward or for reharmonizations. That professional will then be required to testify in court if any plagiarism charges are laid. I've only heard third-hand about this occupation actually being a thing, but man I've love to read a "my day at work" with one of them

My understanding is that most music theory and the music it loves to theorize about, both classical and jazz, still basically depends on the major/minor system. Whatever key you are playing in, whatever scale you've got going, sooner or later you are going to have a V7 chord, even if in your original scale the chord would have been v7 and you need to put in a leading tone. Modal jazz doesn't help either because there the harmony is static: you stay on the same scale for 24/32 bars and go up a half-step for 8 bars every once in while, that's it. Actual modal changes or cadences aren't talked about that much except for in that one book I linked to the other day, which actually has a list of "typical" Aeolian cadences and progressions, which includes something close to the GL progression.

Well I think for musicians "using numerals and words to describe what's happening in a song" is not merely a "compromise" but a useful tool for when you're playing with other musicians (if they happen to know the same notative language you know) and when you're writing a song and looking at your options. I think there's kind of an efficiency to knowing some kind of theory or other when writing music, as long as you don't treat it as prescriptive. You know, I liked the way x chord sounds here, but I need to think of a way to get back to the first chord of the A section, here are five ways I know of to do it, rather than just flailing around and playing random chords until something sounds good.

(xp to self) Whenever chords can't be parsed in the usual manner they call it "non-functional harmony," which is kind of a catchall I guess. In one of those Rikki Rooksby books he uses John Barry as an example of somebody who came up with really original chord sequences. When Barry was in the service he took some kind of composition correspondence course with a guy name William Russo who had same interesting ways of thinking about music "out of the box." Topic for further research.

imo the activity that needs to be cultivated most in musicians and composers is the "translation of what you hear to your medium". You hear something and you can play it back, or you can write it down.

"Flailing around playing random chords" is just composing, it's the way Stravinsky did it, Messaien did it, Shostakovich did it. It's actually the way Bach did it too, it's not like he had Rameau around to tell him what he was doing. It's interesting to learn the trade via articles and classes but ultimately, well, for instance, I developed a taste for four-two chords-- a triad with the raised-7th in the bass-- I probably have the terminology wrong but fuck it, it's C# D F# A-- from hearing a Deerhoof song and saying "huh they put a C# in the bass of that D-major chord and it sounds flat, kind of like a Motown bass line but exaggerated". If there's gonna be any "learn the secrets" article, my consciousness dictates that it should say "put away your Guitar Player magazine and learn it by ear"

*conscience, not consciousness

Whenever chords can't be parsed in the usual manner they call it "non-functional harmony,"

There are whole systems of post-tonal analysis btw.

(I'll have a lot to say in response to fgti after I put together my counterpoint class!:P)

I'm all for learning by ear. I've never used tabs in my life fwiw. But you pick things up by ear faster when you have some kind of system for understanding the relationships between notes and chords, whether it's "formal" notated stuff or just knowing what shape something is on the guitar. It's certainly true that you can intuit your own version of "theory" by just doing a lot of close listening and struggling to match the sounds on the guitar. But it can help you recognize things more quickly if you know what a major triad first inversion is or what a flatted fifth sounds like over a dominant 7 chord. I also find knowing some theory particularly helpful on guitar, where "chord shapes" can get you in kind of a rut (as opposed to piano where it's equally easily to play almost any combination of notes).

_Whenever chords can't be parsed in the usual manner they call it "non-functional harmony,"_

There are whole systems of post-tonal analysis btw.

Hurting's last post completely otm.

the Gaga piece is really good btw.

Two 'quick' points:

i)This seems disingenuous, unless I'm misunderstanding it:

"Flailing around playing random chords" is just composing, it's the way Stravinsky did it, Messaien did it, Shostakovich did it. It's actually the way Bach did it too, it's not like he had Rameau around to tell him what he was doing.

Those first three composers all had world-class formal training. Messiaen was a theory professor. Surely Shostakovich had some theoretical understanding of how fugues were put together before he wrote 24 of them. Stravinsky must have been aware of serial methods before he used them, Messiaen knew what an octatonic scale was etc. I would think that Bach was aware of Renaissance principles of counterpoint, Zarlino's rules of dissonance, etc?

ii) I don't think that anyone has an objection to the cultivation of this skill:

imo the activity that needs to be cultivated most in musicians and composers is the "translation of what you hear to your medium". You hear something and you can play it back, or you can write it down.

This is essentially a description of traditional aural skills. But this informs theory and vice versa. Knowing what a IV-V-I progression is makes it easier to identify something by ear.

A simple fact is that different people learn better in different ways. Some musicians have a great ear, intuitively. (My impression is that you fall in this category?) I, for one, don't: ear training was always the hardest part for me. Grasping the logic of how things work in a formal/abstract sense (which came easily to me and not to others) is really useful for me to make sense of things. It did speed up the compositional process tremendously (as I think it does for most composers).

And, again, I'm pretty sure you're aware of these things so maybe this is a devil's advocate sort of deal?

Sund4r's last posts completely otm.

I see Hurting 2 already said part of what I was saying in ii).

My version of what you two guys said might have been a little more defensive -moi? - so I'll just nod in agreement.

Assume by post-tonal Sund4r was talking about stuff like serialism and tone rows but I'll wait until counterpoint lesson is done to find out.

Only when Marcello mentioned "Holiday" did it occur to me that that song is not in a major-key but in a minor-one, and contains the same denial-of-major-key-tonic as "Teenage Dream". But what does that say about Madonna-songwriter? or Madonna-cultural force? or me, if I wanted to write a song like Madonna's? I dunno.

I think acknowledging that it's interesting can be separate from attempts to answer a lot of questions that require more information to answer.

lol "to answer" twice