Rolling Music Theory Thread

Fixed Do vs. movable Do, the most endless and tedious debate ever

The first time I read a piece of music described as "cyclical" it was about PiL's "Albatross" and I got really into the idea of chord progressions that work like ouroboroses. My favourite of all of these remains "In September" ('tis the season) and the way it only fleetingly alights on the I-chord and otherwise creates an aural effect of an endless and exciting Mario Kart track

I read an interesting discussion of cyclical chords and structures in a book called, believe it or not, What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis, by Ken Stephenson. Believe I may have posted something about it upthread.

So here's a Q, and I have an answer and an argument for it but I'm curious what others say:

What key is Trenchtown Rock in? Is it in (a) G (b) C or (c) switches between G and C?

Is this a variant on the “Sweet Home Alabama”/“Werewolves of London” conundrum?

in a way, but I think there's a solution to this one

Listening to a Youtube video, C feels like the tonic to me on first listen/playthrough. Although you do have G on strong bars in the verse, the melodic movement feels like it's outlining movement from ^5-^1 in C, with resolution on C. The chorus seems really clearly in C to me, where you have a I-V-IV progression in C, with C in the harmony and melody on strong bars and on the title line. The movement to Am in the bridge makes sense to me as movement to vi.

Yeah, I got C too, and I got t that from the melodic movement in the verse -- on "thing" ("one good thing about music") he sings an F natural over the G chord, which pulls toward C

Trenchtown Rock is in C. The "One good thing about music" line follows the chords V - II (maj) - IV - I. The "verses" could be argued that they're in a-minor.

We're taught in school that in minor keys, the 6th and 7th notes of the scale are variable-- can be raised and lowered. In major keys, the 4th and 7th notes of the scale can be raised and lowered respectively, and frequently are. The effects of these adjustments create what I describe as "tonal ambiguity", but are frequently overzealously discussed as perhaps implying "modes" or "keys the song isn't actually in". In the case of "Sweet Home Alabama", I disagree with anybody who suggests the chord progression is V - IV - I (even the composers themselves) as the melody clearly functions as if it is within a I - bVII - IV progression.

The raised-fourth often misleads listeners (including myself) into believing that the song is in a different key-- historically, a II (maj) chord is a well-worn trick, a "secondary dominant" (i.e. a V in the key of V). It's a wonderful sound. I think of the raised-fourth as the "sound of the mystical".

One of my favourite instances of a raised-fourth are in Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks", where the verses imply "Lydian" mode-- (not actually Lydian mode to my ears, but a play on what I call "skyscraper fifths", when you stack fifths upward: C - G - D - A - E - B - F#, and the resultant chords that are created-- it's the backing vocals "whoa oh oh" that imply these stacked fifths-- tough to describe in text, easy to demonstrate on a piano). The raised fourth is hammered home in the lead vocal: "I told you I would stay," which dumps into a lovely natural-fourth IV chord that begins the verse, where the fourths are consistently lowered.

The BEST instance, though, like, favourite moment ever, is in "This Guy's In Love With You" (Bacharach/David). (Assuming the song is in C), the verses have some harmonic adventures, but mostly with the flattening of specific pitches:

I - IV - IV - bVII (amazing little duck to the bVII there)
I - IV - III (!) - vi (that's a secondary dominant to the vi chord... III - vi in "C-major" is V - i in "a-minor")

Then, fuck a duck, but the root of vi ("a-minor") becomes a Bb 4 2 (conservatory spelling, a Bb-natural7-over-A in jazz-speak I guess)

Which in turn goes to a IV (F) into a iv (f-minor)-- again, classic! (this is "don't let me be the last to know" or whatever)

Then a nice extended cadence with some suspensions into the chorus ("My hands are shaking, don't let my heart keep breaking" etc. whatever the words are)

And then the chorus, best thing ever: I - IV ("I need your love" sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle)-- same shit as the beginning to the verses, melodically too, but with added Liberace.

Again: I - IV ("I want your love")

And then the clouds part and the vocals hit that raised-fourth hits: "Say you're in love". But! The raised-fourth isn't in the chords yet. It goes I - vi7 (!!) - II7 (!) - V - V7 The raised-fourth "in" hits the third of the secondary dominant before the bass moves down to reform the vi7 as a II7 ("A" moves down to "D", and the "F#" takes on meaning as the leading-tone to a cadence in the key of "G").

Suddenly what we thought was so stable is not stable at all. Mystical sound of the raised-fourth! Herb Alpert has a moment of fantasy that the woman he's singing to is, in fact, in love with him-- a different world than this one-- a world where we're in the key of G, not the key of C-- but this moment is fleeting-- the V turns to V7 (which contains the un-raised fourth, an "F", which decisively puts us back in the key of "C")-- the fantasy is over-- "if not, I'll just die" Herb sings-- the literal chords of this song are telling us that this is not a song about triumphant love requited, but a song about love unrequited.

Anyway "Trenchtown Rock" is in C. Debating whether or not it's in C or G is basically just asking ourselves, "Are the 7ths lowered? or are the 4ths raised?" It really comes down to the larger structure of the song, and how the melody is finding its cadence. But yeah: C.

I think that first part of the song is in G mixolydian. The D chord does not sound like a borrowed chord, it sounds like a dominant.

Or maybe I shouldn't call it mixolydian with the D major chord in there. I just think G very much feels like the tonic, so G with a bVII chord. The melodic shape Sund4r mentions could be thought to outline the move to the IV chord instead of outlining the tonic.

It strikes me that if you're going to say it's in C because of the larger structure of the song, then you should also say that the part that seems to be in A minor is also in C.

I would probably do that too, actually, although I wouldn't say you were wrong to analyse A minor tonality there. I would feel differently if there were a clear cadence in A minor.

xp I suppose it is possible, but I still disagree. The "feel no pain" cadence is so textbook plagal. The way that the bg vocals come in for that cadence drives home the point, for me

But it's interesting... the idea that the chord progression on the verses might be I - V - bVII - IV (ie. the song is in G) seems to me to have more precedent than the idea that it's V - II(maj) - IV - I (ie. the song is in C). I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head but I - V - bVII - IV is a very familiar chord progression. It'd be interesting to compare the way the melody functions between "Trenchtown Rock" and another song that is more decisively in (a theoretical) G.

There was a song on the tip of my tongue for like last five minutes and now I'm realizing it's "Bone Machine" by Pixies and that's i - V - bVII - IV (i.e. the song is in a minor key)

Ha, I just listened to and sang/played "Sweet Home Alabama" and heard the tonic as D clear as day during the verses and choruses. I think I probably argued for G upthread.

xp I suppose it is possible, but I still disagree. The "feel no pain" cadence is so textbook plagal. The way that the bg vocals come in for that cadence drives home the point, for me

Yeah. A secondary point but the second line of the first verse also starts on a high C.

Yeah. I was flipping through my mental repository of songs to try and think of a song that had a similar/same chord progression that also began on a I with the melody on the root

And for some reason all I could think of was fucking "Clocks"

The one good thing about Coldplay is when it hits you feel no shame about whatever crap you're calling "music" and putting out into the world

Lol

How about “Lay Lady Lay?”

Oh, I forgot - that one's I-iii-bVII-ii. Close, though!

RIO

(Duran Duran)

Ever used this tool? Pretty cool:

https://www.hooktheory.com/trends#

How do you search for minor keys with that tool?

I learned Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" for a student. It's a bit of an interesting case. The melody definitely points to Eb as the tonic imo, with a strong melodic cadence at the end of the chorus. Harmonically, though, you only really get Eb on the second half of the second bar of a two-bar progression: in the intro, it's Cm7-G(add m13 add m10)-Ab-Eb. In the verse, the first two chords become more triadic; in the chorus, they're all power chords. So it's essentially vi-III (chromatic mediant: V/vi?) - IV-I if you want to use RNs, which on its own feels like maybe it should be i-V-VI-III in C minor.

I... cannot understand why anybody would think "Say It Ain't So" is in a minor key

Let's get whatever about the bridge (which is in Bb) and how the transition back into the guitar solo (which is in Eb-major) is an actual lift from Beethoven

The melody starts on Bb and moves to C and then down to B and back up to C and then jumps down to a F - Eb cadence on the I chord (which is Eb-major)-- as it, we're in and around the proposed "tonic" of c-minor already but... well, the cadence of those verse melodies is always moving away from c-minor to Eb-major (because the song is in Eb-major)

I wonder if the choruses imply any sort of fealty to the key of c-minor beyond the first chord that is strummed? ah no, they don't, at all, they are obviously moving toward an Eb-major chord, but that's probably wise because this song, which is in Eb-major, is in Eb-major

Sorry if I'm being a bit of a c-minor-word about this I just... feel exhausted by the fact that we need to examine every single chord progression from the perspective of queer theory

No, no, the song is definitely in Eb major. I just think it's interesting that you have the major III chord where it is and that you only get the I chord on the second half of the second bar of the two-bar pattern. If I just saw the chord progression by itself, without the melody line, I might assume that it is in C minor; that's all I meant.

I just... feel exhausted by the fact that we need to examine every single chord progression from the perspective of queer theory

This is A+ though.

I just think it's interesting that you have the major III chord where it is and that you only get the I chord on the second half of the second bar of the two-bar pattern.

It is interesting, but maybe we should just not be so quick to think of that moment as being an abnormal resolution point? Because it does feel very much like a resolution point and a natural one.

There have to be a decent number of songs that do that. Every time they go through the progression, you can hear them staying on the tonic Eb chord when they get to the next measure.

Well, the verses in "Trenchtown Rock" worked in that way too, which is why I thought of it. The choruses in that song put the I chord at an obviously accented place in the pattern, though.

Out of curiosity, I just plugged vi-III-IV-I in the form of C: Am-E-F-C into your hooktheory link (which seems to transpose songs automatically since I know several of the results [including "Say It Ain't So"] are not actually in C). Afaict, pretty much all of the results have the I chord at the start of a measure if not at the start of the progression. Some are examples like the one from Muse's "Starlight", where only one section of the song uses this progression.

There's a minor five chord in Don't Go Back to Rockville!

― timellison, Monday, January 8, 2018 12:35 AM (nine months ago)

Strangely, there's one in So. Central Rain, too.

Heading to San Antonio for SMT tomorrow: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.amsmusicology.org/resource/resmgr/files/san_antonio/program-sanantonio.pdf

Ha, I only noticed now that this is included on the that programme: Friday Evening Concert - 7:30 Kansas plays Point of Know Return (Tobin Center)

San Antonio is beautiful - have fun. Is your paper on the whole album or just on the long title track?

The title track

M3lv1n's the Deadhead and wrote his dissertation on them. He's more of a historian/musicologist (as opposed to theorist), though, and asked me to help with the analysis of this tune, which led to this presentation.

I decided to try and figure out how to "Renaissance Fair" by the Byrds, and man, that song is cool. I think it's really a case where the guitar is playing chords but they don't have the normal function, they're not providing the harmony for anything. They're a contrapuntal element.

how to PLAY

A lot of interesting presentations about popular music at SMT that I think would interest you guys, including a whole panel on ambiguous tonality in pop, ha. I'll get back with more details soon.

No, as the supertonic is lowered in the Neapolitan (Bb instead of B in this example), it needs to resolve downwards, usually to the raised leading note (G#), not upwards to the diatonoc supertonic (B).

― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 9:20 AM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*diatonic

― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 9:20 AM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some theorists would say the Bb is actually resolving to A (the tonic) via G#, which is probably more accurate. The key principle is that altered notes resolve in the direction of their alteration.

― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 9:29 AM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Going over some jazz theory and technique today, it occurred to me that it might help JR&tB to compare this movement to the concept of chromatic enclosure of the tonic in jazz playing.

Thanks for that.

Came to post this link about CST:
https://ethaniverson.com/received-wisdom-jeff-goldblum-chord-scales-the-ireal-book-and-kamasi-washington/?fbclid=IwAR0PrHcFLE00BzLATuRF11cJeIx4rnV7DZ10O2HuCLmAFIuIdePLmMn4Kok

Oh, interesting. I have a lot of inchoate thoughts on this, studying and teaching more jazz these days.

(which I will expand on soon)

Cool. I mostly agree with what he says there. Will wait for you to expand before I expand or expound thereupon.

Might not be able to wait too long though ;)

On second and third reading, honestly, it seems more reasonable than I thought on first hasty reading in the grocery store, esp keeping in mind that it was aimed at students. I do find chordscales are good for helping my (below uni level) guitar students break out of rock-based soloing habits. It makes sense that they are a simplified abstraction, in the way that the rule-based method we use to teach 'Bach chorales' is probably different from what Bach was thinking when he was harmonizing hymns (in a language he spoke!) for his church: a useful tool/hack to draw on but not any kind of final word.

Right. Chords scales are a useful first step, as you point out, but often they get taken to a ridiculous extreme, as if there was a one-to-one correspondence between the chord and the chord-scale assigned to it and everybody almost always only ever played that official scale when and only when they saw that chord symbol on the chart, without taking the overall harmonic movement into effect or using chromaticism or even just using other equally valid or perhaps more appropriate scales.