Rolling Music Theory Thread

*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

Idk that it's necessary to cover this in an academic context, since you can just go on Youtube. And most of the popular Youtube music theory people are pretty aware and open about the ways that doing things 'wrong' is key to the sound of a lot of rap and dance music (like taking a sample of a 7th chord and re-pitching the whole thing in house music for ex.).

xxxxp

Ha, at the last college where I taught, there was a required computers and music course where that would have definitely worked.xps!

I will say that as someone who didn't study much theory and isn't very good at it, I learned just enough in my very stiff & traditional Theory 101 class to make me creatively insecure for a long time. Only recently have I felt more comfortable with breaking the rules or making up my own, and it would have been nice if there was more acknowledgement of this early on.

I do agree that theory should be contextualized in such a way that it is clear that what we are teaching is common stylistic conventions and patterns in order to guide work within an idiom, not ironclad rules and certainly not conventions that are universal outside the idiom.

Bc that does sound really unfortunate and it definitely can happen when we're not careful.:(

This seems odd:

Finally, a REAL BOOK with even *less* authentic chord changes! https://t.co/DNYQczdmE2

— Ethan Iverson (@ethan_iverson) March 2, 2020

Man, I’m trying to hear African Flower in my head with those changes and it...does not sound good. “What if we took an interesting composition and made the chord changes more on the nose and Mickey Mouse?”

I don't even know where to start with this pic.twitter.com/yLtiziEyUC

— Dan Donnelly (@incontrariomotu) March 7, 2020

You can start with middle A.

true confessions: i keep opening this thread just to look at that again. there's something perfect about it i can't get into words.

dancing about architecture i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, you would have to work yo achieve that. The letter name labels for the white keys are all a fourth too high but the black keys are entrancing: the C# and D# labels are a 55th high but the F# is a third too high, which interval becomes an aug2 when you get to G#. Amazingly, the musical notation is actually accurate in terms of letter name but are displaced so low in register that they had to have been done by a troll: I can't imagine anyone beginning to read music over five ledger lines below the bass staff.

*to

*a 5th not a 55th! Damn phone.

Sent that to my daughter’s piano teacher and he was, um, annoyed to say the least.

Usually nothing seems to bother him, aside from certain people in the news.

Talked to a prof who is remotely teaching a rock history course. On the listening exam, she raised each song by a half step so the students couldn’t Shazam. But when students heard “Miss You” by the Stones and wrote “Etta James”, she knew who cheated and failed them.

— Aimee Nolte (@AimN) April 3, 2020

Wait are you following Aimee Nolte? She seems pretty good.

Idk who she idls tbh. Someone retweeted it and I thought it was funny.

I know her because she’s friends with Adam Neely.

Can somebody explain Nolte's tweet to me? sorry idgi

Etta James cover of “Miss You” went through truck driver’s key change?

Hm, I didn't actually listen and check the keys of the two versions. They're both in A minor so idgi either now.

I just asked Aimee Nolte.

First contact!

Maybe the key change thing messed up the algorithm and decided the Etta James version was "closer"?

First became of Aimee Nolte, with this video I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMiCg8sDQh4

Also wondering how often Sinatra sings a whole step down from the sheet music, based on two such examples.

My neighbor - another one! - played in the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra for a while, which features largely in that video.

A bass player told me something interesting John Clayton told him about fingering.

I don't know how much y'all are interested in this stuff, but here's another unusual and interesting one to my thinking!

https://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-storybook-beads-of-innocence-1968.html

Alright, I have a pivot chord question for y'all.

Mamas and Papas, "Words of Love." Key of Ab with some mode mixture.

In the bridge, we have a phrase modulation to the key of F minor, but it moves back quickly. Chord progression is F minor - Bb minor - Gb - Eb.

So, it gets to the dominant of Ab at the end there to modulate back. But what do you call the Gb major chord? Which key is it part of and how does it lead to Eb?

is it the bVII in the original key of Ab major?

Yes! But somehow I don't feel like we're back in Ab yet. bVII is not a dominant prep chord that leads to V.

Maybe the bridge is in Db, not Fm

This type of movement is called "mediant movement" iirc, it's when your chord moves up or down "two steps" to a chord that seems unrelated, but for which there is one (or two) shared pitches.

The best example I can think of is C-major to Eb-major. Sounds like it should make no sense, but it does because of the commonly shared G between the two chords.

Firstly, "Words Of Love" is drawing from all corners of possibility within the key centre (Ab-major)-- there are ab-minor chords, bVII chords, weird implied secondary dominants, Cass is routinely singing the Gb over the Ab-major so it always feels unstable.

The bridge is not in f-minor just because it begins on an f-minor chord. We're still in Ab-major. It's a vi - ii - bVII - V progression, that's all.

The reason why Bb-minor connects to Gb-major so readily is that aforementioned "mediant movement"-- the two chords are connected by the shared Bb. Same goes for the following Eb-major chord. These chords don't seem connected (because they aren't, really) but that shared note connects them.

(What is even more interesting is when you get mediant movement where there are NO shared pitches, C-major to Eb-minor i.e., probably the loveliest dissonance out there)

The verse chord progression on this song is really fucking weird I gotta say. Ab-major - Gb-major - Cb-major - Bb-major (and then either A-major or Eb-major). What is that, I - bVII - bIII - II (bII)?

The trick is that the song is functionally in ab-MINOR, but they always feature the root chord as major. It's the same trick as on "You Keep Me Hanging On" (The Supremes)-- it sounds like for all intents and purposes the song is in a minor key, but whenever it comes back around to the I chord, there it is, we're major-- it's like a perpetually rising sun, or like an abusive partner who keeps treating you shitty and then apologizing

thanks for the analysis, fgti. never knew the name for that.

it sounds like for all intents and purposes the song is in a minor key, but whenever it comes back around to the I chord, there it is, we're major

doesn't 'gimme shelter' pull this trick, too?

Yep. It's a common thing... any major-key song that prominently features a bVI is gonna have this effect (bVI containing the flattened third of the I chord, i.e., creating a minor-major ambiguity regarding the key centre)

Here's the wiki for what I was describing. "Chromatic mediant" is the correct term, it seems. The wiki acknowledges divergent definitions of the term, as to whether or not they should include mediant relationships with no shared pitches, which Allen Forte describes as "doubly-chromatic mediants".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_mediant

So if there are two shared pitches (C-major to e-minor) it's a diatonic mediant
If there is one shared pitch (C-major to Eb-major) it's a chromatic mediant
If there are no shared pitches (C-major to eb-minor) it's a doubly-chromatic mediant

Historically, chromatic mediant relationships are saved for surprising modulations to B-sections in the Classical period-- see the Mozart example on the wiki, or think of Chopin's glorious pivot from Ab-major to E-major for the B-section of the famous Ab-major Polonaise.

More common in historical examples-- and I'm sure there's another term for it, but it's effectively the same thing-- is a more unguent "mediant movement" from a dim-7 where there are TWO or THREE shared pitches: f#dim7 to fm7, or f#dim7 to F7. Because dim-7ths, as a stack of minor 3rds, are "rootless", and can be built on any of the pitches-- f#dim7 = adim7 = cdim7 = ebdim7-- one could interpret the movement from f#dim7 to F7 as being, actually, a mediant movement (adim7 to F7). Check out Chopin's famous e-minor Prelude to see this movement happening literally every two bars.

I do think there's a modulation to F. It could rest there if they'd chosen to. It feels like a new key to me, and this is because of what you say about the home key of Ab, that there's the constant minor third and minor seventh. If it's a minor modality in Ab, then F is not a relative minor.

But VC, I like your thinking on Db as the related major scale to explain the Gb chord.