Rolling Music Theory Thread

"Livin' on a Prayer" does almost the exact reverse of this.

I mean, it's not exact but Em-C-D in the intro and verses feels like i-VI-bVII in E minor (when we're hearing about Tommy's and Gina's woes), only becoming recontextualized as vi-IV-V when we get G in the pre-chorus and chorus (when there's the message of hope), which is what the song ends on (after a couple of truck-driver modulations). No modal mixture, though (unlike "Wanted Dead or Alive").

my New Year's resolution is to spend less time on the IV chord

Lol

Discussion of tonality and pitch organization in a Sonic Youth deep cut here: Time takes its crazy Poll... Sonic Youth: Washing Machine

(a song that's never been a favourite for me btw, but which I'm getting more out of because of this)

Here is a theory questions I have been pondering/arguing about with respect to a different tune with a similar progression: https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/21273-theory-question-night-day-key-c-what-function-f-7b5.html

After reading the thread, looking at the chart, and listening to Sinatra's recording once, this response seems pretty good:

I like to think of it as IVmaj to IV min. The F#-7b5 is basically an Fmaj7 with an F# as the root. So whenever I see this #IV-IVmin device it's much easier to think IV maj to IV min....

If I saw something like this written out in a classical score, I would probably read the F# in the lowest voice of the harmony as a chromatic incomplete neighbour to the F in the next bar. You could read the F#m7b5 and the Fm7 as two altered IV chords - basically this is all IV with two apparent chords produced by chromatic voice-leading movement. I would also probably analyse the Ebdim7 as a voice-leading chord produced as a result of passing note movement in the two lowest voices (E-Eb-D and G-Gb-F) between iii7 and ii7. I don't really know that there would be a problem with applying this kind of analysis to this tune.

Thanks. Makes sense and I liked that analysis too. In the tune in which I first came across this sequence, Emily, the Eb7 is an A7, so I think you can safely think of that Eb7 as tritone sub for that A7.

Multiple jazz guys have said it is a tritone sub for the one. There is indeed some trick of subbing a diminished or half diminished I chord for the major I- “Stella By Starlight” is some kind of canonical example of that, I think- but I don’t care for that explanation with this sequence.

I would have definitely analysed Eb7 as a tritone sub for A7 but I believe that the chord is Ebdim7 in "Night and Day", not Eb7? At least it is on the chart I saw: F#m7b5-Fm7-Em7-Ebdim7-Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. As such, I think it is easiest to analyse it as an apparent voice-leading chord.

xp

Oh yeah, you are right.

In “Emily” the tune has modulated to D minor before this, with an A7 leading back at the end of every four bars. So it is interesting that in this case the A7 leads to an F#7b5, which can be used as a D9 no root, so you perhaps you might think there is just some minor/major trick going on.

I usually like this guys explanations: http://brunojazz.com/vt-half-diminished.htm

Guy’s

I guess there are times with songs that ostensibly have key signatures where...you're just not in any key at all. That seems to me to be the case with parts of "Incense and Peppermints." I think it certainly starts out in E minor (with a Dorian aspect), but I'm not so quick to say the chorus - E minor/Eb minor/D/A - is still in that key.

The bridge, to me, seems to start out with a V/I in G, but then goes to an F# minor chord, which strikes me as phrase modulation. Then, it happens again, but seems to resolve on A major.

It still feels like E minor/Dorian at that point to me. The chorus hinges on the chromatic descent E - D# - D - C#. I think the D# minor is subbing in for B major (the V chord).

xp

bridge is in D imo

the F#m - A "should" resolve to D

But that A in no way feels like a dominant chord to me!

I can't hear the D to G as being I to IV either. It settles on the G.

It still feels like E minor/Dorian at that point to me. The chorus hinges on the chromatic descent E - D# - D - C#. I think the D# minor is subbing in for B major (the V chord).

It does to me, too, when it's on the E minor chord and even the chromatic chord, but I can't help feeling that it, again here, seems to rest on that A chord.

that is strange — I don't hear it resolving on the A chord at all!

Plagal cadence on A.

The melody does go to A (over the D chord before it and the A chord).

How would you number that chord? I know it's different because it's modal, but is it a IV chord because E is still the root?

Yikes! Why does chromatic harmony in a pop song move one to question the tonal centre?

Verse
i - IV - i - VI

Bridge
i - vii - bVII - IV

There’s no question the bridge remains in e-minor, the song is defined by i - IV - i movement and the cycle of the bridge continues to reflect that

What I wanna know is what happens on the last bridge into the outro! That part of the song always mystified me

Hm well on another listen, that farfisa’s overtones are just complicating my perception of everything about this song. This actually might be the most subtly complicated song I can think of and it’s weird I don’t know any other songs by this weird band

sorry, when i said "chorus" earlier i meant bridge and likewise "bridge" meant middle 8

Yeah I figured “bridge” meant “chorus”... the actual bridge (or middle 8) is v confusing! The ending too! I don’t have a piano on me rn

Why does chromatic harmony in a pop song move one to question the tonal centre?

I was responding above that I wasn't questioning it relating to the chromatic chord. The D to A that follows it feels like it settles on A to me, though, and there's zero pull back to E minor.

I'm calling that part the chorus, by the way.

The bridge (if that's what it is) - D to G to F# minor - those chords repeated once and then, likewise, feel like they LAND on the A chord to me.

(And I realize it would be A mixolydian)

Ya I get you. I’m hesitant to fall into modal descriptions in chromatic music like this BUT the prevalent open fifths in the vocal harmonies did make me think there was some compositional desire for that manner of interpretation

Alternating E major 7 and D major 7 with that movable bass in the outro?

So, Picardy!

Speaking of this weird band and their other songs, this is their masterpiece:

https://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-strawberry-alarm-clock-pretty-song.html

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

The Coldplay/Chainsmokers hit "Something Just Like This" came up in a presentation at SMT in the fall and it just came to mind now as an interesting case when I was thinking about chord progressions and tonality because of a dumb post about pop chord progressions on a classical music FB group. D is the clear tonal centre imo: the melody is completely centred around D, the song starts with D-A repetition in an upper voice, and there is a pedal point on D throughout the first verse and at times afterwards. (Wikipedia says it's in B minor but this seems very wrong to me.) However, I don't think there are any root position I chords at all until after the 3m mark here. (Second-inversion I chords, which don't classically have tonic function, are sometimes produced when the vocal melody places D and F# over As in the accompaniment, e.g. "Hercules and his gifts".) There are some D major arpeggios in the upper keyboard voice around 2:20. The bass motion for almost the entire song is ^4-^5-^6-^5 and we keep coming back to full-on IV-V-vi-V triads. (I imagine the way Bm works like a kind of tonic substitute harmony is why a Wikipedia author identified it as the key but the melody just doesn't support a tonal centre on B imo.)

I actually like Coldplay and was just really feeling the mashup with that post

Ha, yeah, I just thought it was funny that that was what came up when I searched for "coldplay" on this thread. I'm interested in more examples of pop songs with clear tonics that avoid or significantly delay the I chord. A Katy Perry song was mentioned on a theory forum I used to read some years back - "Last Friday Night", I think?

(If anyone hears the tonic of "Something Just Like This" differently, I'm up for discussing that too but I think it's p clear. I saw an online chord chart that identified the key as G major which no imo.)

it was a common trick for katy perry, i think fgti even wrote something for slate about teenage dream

That is correct, although I used "Teenage Dream" as an example (I think "Last Friday Night" is decisively in a minor key). I also cited in passing iirc EWF "September", Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" and "Viva La Vida"

Ah, thanks.

I probably just misremembered the Katy Perry song.

stevie nicks seems to use that trick a good amount in her songwriting--lots of circular progressions that never really settle in major or minor.

I think it intuitively comes to a lot of songwriters (and that charts and the resonance of particular tracks tend to favour songs that do it)... overall I don't think it necessarily needs to be an outright "denial of the tonic" so much as the tendency of certain songs to avoid it creates a harmonic buoyancy, this kind of not-settling that creates the sensation in the listener of "travelling"

i don't know what thread to put this in so i'll put it here. i am losing my mind over how perfect this contraption is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F-vMXuyE5k&list=PLPYiCOgE6NBTQn3qAZUKeGQN8J8S72wz4&index=1

ugh, let me try that again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F-vMXuyE5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jobhw89wiFc

I think "Last Friday Night" is decisively in a minor key.

I'm curious why! It ends on an F# major chord and I'm not sure that the melodies frame the notes of D# minor any more than they do F# major.

Well like I said, pop songs are strengthened by tonic ambiguity and the main chorus melody is centred around the theoretical tonic of a major that never appears? Instead it keeps dipping to the minor where that “tonic” is the third and suggesting that it’s in a minor key and it works with the content and mood of the lyric