Rolling Music Theory Thread

Love to hang around and discuss modal cadences in the Renaissance and Rock, Common Practice and Post-Tonal strategies in Classical, but right now I've got to put my Jazz D-hat on.

When you come back, I'm interested to know what you like about the Stephenson book. That "Scalar Shift" article really made me start asking these questions again:

it's 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.

Like, the very recent phenomenon where classically trained musicians with PhDs in music theory seem to be writing about pop music for each other as often as they write about art music IS kind of curious.

(Still wearing the D-hat. Will answer later)

Will see if you can answer you in the morrow.

I'm afraid it is going to take me longer than I thought to answer your question and I am not even sure I am the one to do so.

Ha, I mean, you're probably the only person who can answer the question "what do you like about the book?" But yeah, it's totally all good. I'll keep an eye out.

Oh wait. I thought I was going to have to answer all your other questions:) It's going to take me a while to read that book, there's some stuff that seems interesting I'm not quite getting and don't have a lot of time to focus on it right now. I'll let you know if and when I get somewhere.

Oh, no, the rest of those questions are ones that I am trying to work out for myself.

Finally figured that out this evening:)

Instead of trying to give you a comprehensive review of that book maybe I will drop in now and then with a short post about what I think he is trying to get at at certain points.

Going to have to return that book to the library since someone else -a reader of this thread? - has requested it, so I have to see how far I can get and give you some idea about what's going on.

I guess just about forty days and forty nights have passed since the last big thread revival.

So what did I get out of that Ken Stephenson book, what I was able to read of it?

The big takeaway is that in the music under discussion there is not one clear cut resolution point- the rhythm, the harmonic cadence and the melody may not all resolve on the last bar of a phrase but instead, point to the next phrase. It is a kind of perpetual motion machine, always pulling itself forward. This is why, according to Stephenson, the fadeout is such a popular ending, there is no natural place to end. In a live setting, of course, the band may have to choose a chord and end on it.

By the same token he says that using the cadence to determine the key is like putting the cart before the horse. Instead, he starts by citing the following remark by David Butler: "Any tone will suffice as a perceptual anchor - a tonal center - until a better candidate defeats it." To determine the key, one should listen to the opening triad, and see if it consistently appears at the beginning of phrases, if it is, you are probably done. Also one should listen for a perfect fourth or fifth repeating in the melody. If this occurs these, notes are probably the root and fifth of the tonic chord.

There is an interesting discussion in the first chapter about different types of phrase structures which he classifies as

• The 2 + 2 model
• The 1 +1 model
• The extension-overlap model
• The first-downbeat model
• The elision model

The 2 + 2 model applies to something like "Roll Over Beethoven," two bars of singing, two bars of rest
The 1 +1 model applies to something with a kind of blues call and response, singing in the first bar, which is answered by singing in the second bar- "They call it Stormy Monday... but Tuesday's just as bad."
In the extension-overlap model, the end of one phrase extends into and overlaps the beginning of the next phrase. So, if the phrase length (or "hypermeter") is four bars, the phrase extends into the fifth bar.
The first-downbeat model is something where there is a very short melodic bit at the beginning of the phrase followed by a period of rest, such as "Hey Jude."
The elision model applies to something where some measures are omitted in order for phrases to work out right.

Here is a review of the book: http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/Papers/PubReviews/Stephenson.pdf
There is also a useful recap of some of the material about phrases in the third chapter of Song Mens: Analysing and interpreting Recorded Popular Song, by Allan F. Moore.
The overlap model

There is also an attempt to describe the choice of notes, the palette as it were. Instead of being drawn from triads of one particular tonality, they might be derived some other way- all major triads with roots based on some scale, such as the natural minor scale for example. As Sund4r pointed out upthread, not clear how this kind of thinking improves on the concept of the Modal Mix.

Hm. Bullet points make space go missing in regular zing screen after "The elision model" but space is there if you click through to single post.

That Butler quote led me to the following interesting and relevant paper, which also cites it, on Schoenberg and the Church Modes. http://symposium.music.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2103:schoenberg-on-the-modes-characteristics-substitutes-and-tonal-orientation&Itemid=124

PS The author is a Canadian academic, full professor at the University of Ottawa.

Meant to type "psst" instead of PS

model applies to something with a kind of blues call and response, singing in the first bar, which is answered by singing in the second bar

Anyway, a little of this stuff goes a long way. Maybe more interested in going back to the Tim approach on this thread. Was just trying to figure out the chords to "Superstar" from the Mad Dogs and Englishman version with "the young delta lady" Rita Coolidge on vocals, Leon Russell on piano and his Oklahoma buddy the great Carl Radle on bass. It's pretty clearly in F minor, with a descending bass line. After I got an idea I checked against some of the tab apps and they had usually had the bass note as the root of the chord, and using the misleading enharmonic ( spellcheck suggested some bizarre alternative- enharmoomic!) - D# for E-flat. Anyway think the first four bars after whatever intro are:
| F-min | F-min /Eb | Db | Ab/C |

Then I guess it goes
| Bb-min | Db | C | C |

That's a song where the lyrical material informs the key choice, imo, as bizarre as it seems. Compare to "The Look Of Love", which similarly begins in minor but modulates to its relative major for the choruses. Both songs begin with clear V-i progressions in the intro, establishing without-a-doubt that the verses are minor key. "The Look Of Love" cadences more heavily (and eventually concedes) to the relative major, but "Superstar" does not. But really it's about feeling the lyrical material, and understanding the complete intention of the composition; naysayers can only look to "When I Am Laid In Earth" for similar Glen or Glenda flip-floppiness, the subtle ambiguities are made less subtle by the libretto.

(Xp)
Tab cross check seems to think a Cmin before the C but I don't hear it.

Before the chorus last chord is Ab, since it is going to Db, the relative major. Then the chorus speeds up the descent, going down from Db to the Ab

|Db Ab/C Bbmin | Ab | Ab |

Repeats a few times and finally hits a Gb, the bVII of Ab which starts our favorite cadence Gb Db Ab.

Wait flam seems to say it doesn't go to the relative major. I guess it is going to the chord of the relative major Db, but it is really leading to the Ab, the bIII

In any case was just listening to the Delaney and Bonnie version for the last.

That's a song where the lyrical material informs the key choice, imo, as bizarre as it seems

And here is a paper that discusses that very thing, among lots of other things it discusses: http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.02.8.4/mto.02.8.4.holm-hudson.html

See items 52-54 in particular. Not that I wouldn't have taken your word for it:)

As for your earlier posts, I had longer thoughts when I first read them but basically,

- fade-outs are a functional concern rather than a compositional one. Fade-outs were originally implemented so people didn't have to hear the sound of sequencers being flipped off.
- the delineation of different melody structures is interesting, but ultimately I start to feel hierarchies coming into play, as my favourite melodies (i.e. Nina Simone "Do What You Gotta Do") being either not-included in these models, and I'm not going to think about what that says about Bo Diddley melodies vs. Nina Simone melodies
- the relay-race idea of prolonging a melody over the end of the sequence, that is very cool, and would be something worth pointing out

David Butler's quote, I dunno, I think it's cooler to ensconce in the caveat of "I hear it this way" and accept that you might be incorrect, rather than say "well it begins this way" and then assume that the first four bars are meant to define the harmonic structure of the piece

xp reading the paper now, awesome!

Can I just say
How happy I am to be reading an academic paper about The Carpenters right now

Oh no it's using the 80s and 90s revisionist mixes as text

Think the David Butler quote is usually interpreted as meaning all things being equal, the first chord and first note is the tonic. Unless of course the second or third are. Bet on the favorite.

Don't mind hierarchies if they are meant as "this is how to explain a lot of stuff with a few words but doesn't explain everything."

Wish he'd had the later knowledge of Thurston being a full-blooded asshole to put his performance of "Superstar" into contemporary context

His harmonic breakdown is immaculate, though, a Kevin lecture? would attend

Off topic but "Superstar" is sub a great track, as is the rest of Mad Dogs

"is sub a great track" = not good? I dunno I am recalling the song from memory and it is a great track, but I've never heard of "Mad Dogs"

Assume he meant "such a great track" but as an intranetz typo it's a keeper.

I are an idiot: Ab is the relative major of F-minor.

I have a direction problem: up a third, down a third, whatever.

"A major goes down to see his miner friend"

!

Another directional problem: had trouble hearing the Bb minor chord, perhaps because mind was confused that the bass note is still descending but the chords are on their way back up.

And another paper about the Carpenters and this song in particular , or vice versa: http://www.popular-musicology-online.com/issues/05/jarman-ivens-01.html

- fade-outs are a functional concern rather than a compositional one. Fade-outs were originally implemented so people didn't have to hear the sound of sequencers being flipped off.

Do you have mnemonics for the other keys? All I could find was "Father Charles Goes Down and Ends in Battle" for the circle of fifths which I had never seen before.

Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen is one of the great double live classic rock albums- for some the only one, although I don't think it gets much love around here. The band is filled with great musicians such as the two Jims, Gordon and Keltner, on drums, many of whom had been with Delaney and Bonnie earlier, such as the aforementioned Carl Radle and especially Leon Russell, who was in the Shindig house band with Delaney and co-wrote "Superstar" with Bonnie. George Harrison, who briefly was in Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, as it was called, would also use these musicians, in the recording of All Things Must Pass and for The Concert for Bangaldesh. Eric Clapton, who was part of the "Friends" for longer performed with them as well, particularly in Derek & The Dominoes.

The Concert for Bangaldesh is sub a good movie.

Shoutout to Canadian band KLAATU on that last link.

Wonder if Tim is ever coming back to this thread.

Funny, I just figured out how to play "Superstar" a few months ago. Hear the second chord as an Ab triad in second inversion.

Chords are very different in the original Delaney and Bonnie version, by the way.

Wonder who did the Mad Dogs arrangement and changed the chords.

- fade-outs are a functional concern rather than a compositional one. Fade-outs were originally implemented so people didn't have to hear the sound of sequencers being flipped off.

It's not a compositional concern for "Mind Games" (John Lennon) to fade out rather than end?

Looking at that Jarman-Ivens piece, I think she's got the sequence wrong. The Delaney and Bonnie version was on an album that came out in '72, but it was an older track - had been on a 45 released in '69. It predates the Mad Dogs version.

pop song length started as functional too, became compositional

I dunno! I never listen to John Lennon. Just kidding. I was just thinking about the 80s, when fade-outs were at their most ubiquitous. My ears hear fade-outs differently, to me they do not suggest "cycling onward unto infinity", but rather the feeling of leaving the protagonist caught struggling in a spider's web. Like the end of "Time Bandits". Or the moment the lights come on and they kick you out of the club.