Rolling Music Theory Thread

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

Yeah, I almost feel like the D# minor chord falling on the third measure of the four-bar cycle gives it enough resonance to register as a tonic. That's a weak rhythmic spot for the tonic to fall, but not as weak as the second measure would have been.

it's the Get Lucky progression with the first two chords reversed

the "tonic ambiguity" thing i think is typically pop songwriters loving the IV chord a whole lot. and they'll throw in the ii chord in order to switch up the bass note while keeping that IV feel going.

(VI and iv respectively in minor, obv)

I feel like the reversal of those two chords makes for a more inventive and interesting progression than "Get Lucky." There's no way "Last Friday Night" is resting on B major just because the cycle leaves you there on a downbeat to end the song, whereas "Get Lucky" could easily end on a B minor chord.

Somebody buy this book and report back: http://www.davecreamer.com/TheOctatonicSystem.html

Seems like a lot of it is on Google Books.

There’s some line in there where he describes bebop scales as a “rudimentary approach.”

Recently came across this blog and from what I have read really like the way the guy thinks and explains: https://antonjazz.com/2012/11/dominant-scales/

Andreyev in the house!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLEwuo5R-tQ

This master's thesis seems to have some interesting stuff in it
HARMONIC RESOURCES IN 1980S HARD ROCK ... - OhioLINK ETD

This looks even better
https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/379212/original/Walser+-+Eruptions-+Heavy+Metal+Appropriations+of+Classical+Virtuosity+.pdf

Hm. Maybe not. It is kind of interesting though.

Not a theory question per se but I can’t remember what the relevant thread is so: how do I shot what beat the Hendrix version of “All Along the Watchtower” starts on?

And of 3. It’s confusing because the crash hits, four bars later, on the and of 4, and the band doesn’t hit the 1 very cleanly. Good Q though, it confused me for a second, and I had never thought about it

Here's a dumb question, because I am dumb when it comes to this stuff. In a lot of Latin music a common sound seems to be a minor key but with the major seventh used a lot, like in a montuno. What would you call this? I don't think it's one of the regular modes, right? Is it just always considered a passing tone?

Like say in the melody to this tune. Let me know if I'm mischaracterizing this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_M9Bv1FmwM

On first listen, isn't this mostly just harmonic minor? Or is there a specific harmonic structure or melodic movement going on that you're asking about? The sixth and seventh scale degrees are variable pitches in minor keys in standard functional harmony.

Oh lol I guess it is just harmonic minor, I was just looking for the name of the scale. And I used to be obsessed with harmonic minor! But I think because I don't regularly interface with a melodic instrument (besides the computer), the specifics of scales always leave my head as soon as I'm done writing a part or whatever.

Heh, no worries. I've blanked on stuff like where Dvorak was from in front of a class before.

She is from France

Young Spectralist at today’s event. Didn’t dig too much into his research area but interesting to talk to.

Let me throw out a challenge: I think this guy and his thread are wrong (or at the least am interested in arguing this idea starting from the opposite premise). I'm working out all of the reasons why but I'll put this out here now. This tweet is actually about halfway through his thread but it seems like the core proposal:

Let me throw a challenge out there: The Theory I curriculum should enable a student to be able to understand everything in the Billboard Top 10 at any given moment. That stuff should all be trivially easy to analyze.

— Ethan Hein (@ethanhein) February 20, 2020

Interested to see what you guys make of it.

agree that theory curricula should broaden their foci, but i'mconfused by his analysis of the box. there's a huge string flourish that starts the song that clearly dates back to tension-creating crescendos that have existed in western music for centuries. and the beat seems to follow a fairly straightforward minor-key chord progression.

The point is that it's a modal i-iv-bVII progression, which isn't really part of the standard language of common practice functional harmony, as taught in your average undergrad classical theory course. You would need a raised leading note (i.e. A natural in the key of Bb minor in this case) and a V chord (an F major chord) at a cadence, generally.

That's for the most part how 18th and 19th century European art music works but is comparatively common (but not nonexistent) in popular music since the rock 'n' roll era, unless an allusion to classical music or e.g. flamenco music is intended.

*uncommon

But, out of curiosity, what topics would you drop to make room for the broadening of the Theory I curriculum?

it's been a very long time since i've taken a theory class, but maybe focus less on traditional four-part harmony and spend a bit more time on the use of modes?

That's fair. It is what you would get if you went to a school that offers jazz theory. (Both classical and jazz theory are required classes at my alma mater, for instance.) I think one thing that annoys me about this genre of take (Hein's, not yours) is that they seem to ignore the diversity of curricula that do exist. There are even commercial music programs that are explicitly geared to people who want to make it onto the Billboard charts.

And I think that leads to one of my questions, which is why exactly it should be a goal of every Theory I course to be able to analyse the repertoire of the Billboard top 10 (a repertoire that is constantly changing anyway). What would students be doing with this? Are there enough careers that use that skill? Is there even that much demand from students for this? I'm not convinced.

Starting with in-depth study of standard (classical and/or jazz) repertoires, which are substantial bodies of work with enough of a common language, still seems to me like a good basis from which to go ahead and tackle others, particularly newer and more variable ones.

And I definitely do contextualize what I'm teaching and try to make clear that we are learning the language of one repertoire, not that e.g. V-I is the only way you can resolve tension in any music. I think many more recently published books would do the same, or they should.

Trap Beats 101: find a nice soft sound, maybe a piano or bell tone with some top end rolled off. Write a two bar melody that feels fresh but uses as many half-steps as possible (this is the tricky part?). Then writing a moving bassline using the nastiest 808 sample possible, the notes don't matter so much as how well the frequencies respond on speakers. Add snares and hi-hats to taste.

you joke, but there are hundreds of youtube videos about that lol

that basically say the same thing you do