Rolling Music Theory Thread

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.

For the bridge to be a proper modulation to f-minor, I would need to hear some kind of a cadence in that key, and I don't-- but that's my own interpretation!

Catching up on this now, I definitely agree with fgti that a modulation generally requires a cadence in the new key (by definition). Esp since vi can work as a tonic substitute, and since the singer sings the tonic over it here, I don't see the grounds for hearing a modulation to the relative minor key here. I can see the mediant logic; also bVII is a common modal substitute for the dominant (or a pre-tonic chord anyway) and I hear it that way here - bVII-V sounds like a prolonged dominant to me, particularly with the melody emphasizing ^2 over both chords. The progression could easily resolve to I after the bVII.

The verse mixes modes but I do hear it in Ab major. The first two phrases both start on the major ^3 and the minor ^3 that starts the next one feels like the borrowed pitch to me.

This isn't bad for examples of bVII in 60s pop: http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME22/Magnificent_flat-seventh.shtml

Maybe I shouldn't use the term "modulation" if it's going to be sticky. But here's my issue with it - I don't see what the point is of considering that first F minor chord in relation to Ab. Has the note F even been used in the entire song up until that point?

I was actually trying last night to come up with some other songs where requiring a cadence in order to say that a note has been tonicized is problematic for me and I came up with "See Emily Play." You can say that the chorus has not tonicized E just because that's the first chord, but I don't think that's how it's experienced in real time. When it goes to the A five bars later, then yeah, that E has morphed into the dominant of A, but again, I don't believe that's how it's experienced as heard.

"The verse mixes modes but I do hear it in Ab major."

There's four iterations of the chord in the verse, though, and third one is Ab minor.

And I realized in learning the song how much the third in the vocal melody at the very end feels like a Picardy.

Not sure I follow. The phrase ends with a V-I cadence in Ab and makes perfect sense in Ab. Using vi as a tonic substitute is pretty standard practice - it provides variety and a change of mood for the bridge but I don't know why you would not hear the submediant of Ab there. It doesn't need to appear earlier in the song for listeners to know that it fits in the key. Even if there WERE a modulation to F minor, the new key would still be heard in relation to Ab, as the relative minor, surely: how could you unhear the tonal context? xps

Don't the first two lines of the vocal melody start on C? I'll listen again but it's surprising that you would hear it as a Picardy.

Was typing this as you were posting the last two comments, perhaps it adds context to my thoughts:

"There's four iterations of the chord in the verse, though, and third one is Ab minor."

Sund4r, I know you were acknowledging the mode mixture. I tend to agree with seeing it generally as Ab major with bVII chords. The consideration of the tonic note at the beginning of the bridge is something I consider a separate matter.

I will say the Gb major chord in the bridge does not feel a dominant substitute in the key of Ab for me. It feels like a pivot.

"Don't the first two lines of the vocal melody start on C?"

Oh sure, but at the very end you have that very prominent Cb right before she goes up to the C natural.

Hearing the song in a different key for two bars seems like an overcomplicated explanation to me but I don't know how Gb could work as a pivot chord there even if you did. I mean, it would be a root-position Neapolitan chord in F minor and bVII in Ab but that seems pretty non-idiomatic.