Rolling Music Theory Thread

I have the Yes songbook published in 1981... but none of these sections of the song are included!
The descriptions given here seem right to me, though. But who knows how they would have actually conceived the bar lines, especially before Wakeman was around to give them the "academic" perspective.

I mean, they might have thought of 9 + 8 + 7 as six syncopated bars of 4.

Jordan, sund4r and FGTI are the people I would most expect to be able to answer this, and the fact that even you three don't think there's an obvious/clear way to describe it makes me feel a little better.

One thing that really throws me off too is that when it goes into the very next part in D, they have similar "slide hits" but the slides start on the 1 of the second bar of each two bar phrase, whereas they don't seem to be starting on the "1" during the E guitar part.

Personally I do think they start on the 1 during the first part, partly informed by that next section. But if I've learned one thing it's that even people in the same band might hear things differently, and as long as they're not improvising (or as long their interpretation still enables them to play together) it's fine.

The most extreme example was a bass player who started a song, and heard his part as starting on the 1, whereas the rest of the band heard his notes as a pickup. So he heard the beat as this weird syncopated thing rather than the snare on the 2 & 4, but it all worked out!

I mean, they might have thought of 9 + 8 + 7 as six syncopated bars of 4.

This is p much the same thing tbh, as long as they're hearing the accents in the same place.

That's my point, it sounds the same and it was unlikely to have been written down either way.

iiuc you can already do exactly this in logic if you pick a region and go to 'make groove template' in the quantize dropdown, it will create a quantization preset based on the exact timing fluctuations of whatever midi you give it.

― exist in theory (esby), Monday, March 1, 2021 3:55 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, you just click edit > decolonize software

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epqYft12nV4

I've never heard this version of the song before, or heard this key change. I was talking in the Fav. Chord Change thread about a very similar modulation - this is C minor with an A bass to C♭ major.

The key change is down to Rachmaninoff not Eric Carmen, right?

Think it is down to Celine's producer or arranger if I heard correctly.

David Foster's arrangement, if I understand that video correctly.

Classic producer's trick of pushing the key a bit higher to make the singer work and add emotional impact by having the audience hear a bit of strain, although often done over the whole song and not just a key change. Believe HDH did this with Levi Stubbs, for example.

take away chord scales from jazz education and replace them with repertoire https://t.co/irMEj1yCGY

— Ethan Iverson (@ethan_iverson) August 23, 2021

^thoughts?

Agree? Mostly.

CST kind of like a cheat sheet approach. At least one younger guy who is doing pretty well for himself now once refused to answer my question in that line and said “I don’t like to think of music that way.”

I mean I have used that cheat sheet but I don’t feel good about it, as Jon Stewart said about a certain crossword, although that has since upped its game.

Wonder how many will participate in this discussion?

Wait, I see we almost talked about the same thing two yrs ago here, also bc of Iverson.

Ha, was it the thing he wrote about Jeff Goldblum and the Dorian Mode?

Yeah, I think you linked it.

I really dislike grandstanding statements like these... it tries to codify something that cannot be so easily codified. Learning jazz theory is useful to those who have facility for it and find an application for it in their practice. Others may not find they have a facility for it, and may question the validity of it being taught. Others may have a facility for it, but not find an application for it, and may question the validity of it being taught. I have met too many spectacular musicians who process musical information in jazz theory terms, and generate amazing music while applying jazz theory concepts to say that it is "less important" or "more important" than learning repertoire.

When presented with arguments like these, or the "Western music theory is racist" one from a few months back, my mind tends to get all bifurcated. Of course I agree. Of course I also disagree. I feel like I could provide a wealth of points and counterpoints that prove and disprove either side of such an argument. In my subconscious, though, there's another voice that is screaming: why are we making grandstanding statements like these? Why have I made similar statements, myself, in the past? I feel as if these statements express far more about the individual who is making them, and their private points of concern, and psychological projection, and their own personal frustrations, than they actually do about larger truths about music education and/or music appreciation

I don’t have time to scroll up right now, but I’m sure whatever I type now will be similar to what I typed then. Like a few hours ago I heard “Hit the Road Jack” and thought “I wonder if I should mention The Andalusian Cadence?” but I figured we already must have done it.

Okay, I will reply to fgti and say that CST is not all of or the only Jazz Theory.

One critique of CST is that it divorces the scale choice from harmonic function, it’s simply one scale per chord type. Okay, maybe there is a little more to it but that’s the way it is usually taken. It doesn’t get into the nuances of the different extensions and chromaticisms (chromatics?) that can be used, one size fits all.

I keep thinking about this and why I mostly agree with Iverson but don’t want to post into the void.

… and Lee Konitz too, as far as I know

Was banging out "Keep on Loving You" by REO Speedwagon on piano/voice/guitar tonight and realized it does the same kind of thing as "Man on the Moon" - seems like an F Lydian thing with the chords moving F-G-Am-G over an F pedal point through and a melody line that seems circumscribed by an F arpeggio, and even stays in that space during the pre-chorus with F-G-F-G-Am-G until we finally get C-F-G in the chorus and it's confirmed that F and G are I and IV and the F at the start of the melody is heard as an accented dissonance that resolves down to E.

That was a bit mangled. In the verse, it seems like F Lydian with the chords moving F-G-Am-F over an F pedal point and a melody circumscribed by the F arpeggio and even stays in that space in the pre-chorus. When we get to the chorus, we finally get a C-F-G progression and it's confirmed F and G were IV and V. The F that starts the melody in the chorus is heard as an accented neighbour to E.

The introduction of "Sara" by Fleetwood Mac uses exactly the same chord progression in F Lydian, except it resolves to F major for most of the song (then back to F Lydian for the bridges).

F-G-Am-F

ugh, F-G-Am-G

Interesting re "Sara"; will revisit that

The serious replies to this are lol:

I’m sorry but the UK rhythmic value names make no sense to me pic.twitter.com/Fm5SEIA3Iv

— Robert 🎃 Komaniecki (@Komaniecki_R) October 20, 2021

Tempting:
https://www.7dmedia.com/products/kingcrimsondiscipline

So I never broke down the solo to "Don't Fear the Reaper" (as classic as it is) before but just realized how cool the modulation is. The song is in a modal A minor (Aeolian) but we get that G# sounding like a leading note right under the fermata A minor chord before the solo begins. The G# (Ab) and C get reinterpreted as the two upper voices of an F minor chord in the first arpeggio (F-Ab-C) which then moves to a G7/F (F-G-B) arpeggio, iv and V in the chromatic mediant key of C minor, which becomes the key for the solo (a functional C minor, where the leading note is generally raised).

Good points. Then there's something uncanny about the return to the A minor riff from the G.
Another nice touch in this song is the single E maj chord in the verse (or prechorus), the V of A harmonic minor.

I always get lost metrically (pvmic) during the solo break but still have never gotten around to pinning it down.

Good points. Then there's something uncanny about the return to the A minor riff from the G.

Yeah, it ends on a sustained G (the dominant in C minor), which is the pedal point (on m^7) in the A minor riff.

Is the chord under "the sun" in the pre-chorus E major or E5? I don't hear a third (G#) there and Dharma sings a B in the melody - so it still seems like a modal Aeolian cadence to me. Even if I were to strum full triads there, I think Em would sound more natural than E.

I think it all lines up in 4/4, or at least adds up to multiples of 4, if you count the arpeggios as eighth notes starting on 1, which means the cymbals enter on 1 after four bars and the full band entering on 2 after another four bars + one beat. Pretty tricky because the arpeggio pattern is a three-note pattern accented in 4/4 so the barlines and chord changes always land in different spots in the pattern and it actually runs for a total of 33 eighth notes (eight bars + one beat). Also the drums are a bit unpredictable during the ensemble playing under the lead guitar but I think the bassist mostly keeps the quarter-note pulse.

*full band enters on 2

Thanks, makes sense.

This is too long to watch now but seems like it might be useful for some:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44t2KJQUh3Y

Lots of comments on the order of "I have been trying to understand this stuff for decades with success until I finally saw your explanation. Thanks!"

"Yesterday" by the Beatles and "My Love" by Wings start with the same progression (a fourth apart) of four chords, but because both songs are in F, the harmonic relationship to the respective songs is different:

Yesterday: F -- Em7 -- A7 -- Dm I -- ii of D Dorian -- V of vi -- vi

My Love: B♭maj7 -- Am7 -- D7 -- Gm7 IV -- iii -- V of ii -- ii

(ignoring inversions)

Posting here before possibly posting on the Jazz Thread, written by an old friend of ours: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/barry-harris-obit/

He refers to “Harris’s ‘bebop scale’” but I was under the impression that Barry Harris himself hated that term, despite almost everyone else using it.

Hi dere! Hey Sund4r, are you sure on that G# in the fermata chord on "Reaper?" I hear a G natural in the guitar that's panned a little right (which is kinda cool because it makes it momentarily a seventh resonance on the tonic minor chord).

That F minor arpeggio coming out of the blue feels a little Twilight Zone-ish (although I think actual Twilight Zone riff has a tritone).

The Blackstar thread mentioned Bowie's cover of the Walker Brothers' "Nite Flights". There's something very interesting about these chord changes. Both versions of the song have an intro, one verse and chorus that repeats to fade. Though the melody includes some unusual notes, I would describe the verse as A major and the chorus as D Mixolydian:

VERSE: A C#m F#m C#m I iii vi iii in A major
CHORUS: D C D Am I VII I v in D Mixolydian

Aside from performing the song a tone lower, Bowie changes the chord where the song transitions from verse to chorus ("has hit the bloodlite"): that is, instead of the second iii chord, he uses a ♭III chord (B♭ in his verse key of G).
It's a very different effect; with the Walker Brothers, the C chord coming in three bars into the chorus ("on nite flights") has a dizzying, shifting effect on the harmony; Bowie introducing this chord change at the end of the verse punctuates the start of the chorus, but it's like he shows his hand too soon. He's revealing the harmony of the chorus early, it can't have the same effect as the earlier version.

Are there any good explanations anywhere on the net of modern broadway composition style and where it came from? I just watched Encanto with my kids, and aside from "We Don't Talk About Bruno," which is catchy, I feel like there's this weird modern trend of sort of random-sounding diatonic melodies and chord progressions with a lot of roots and fifths and awkward melodic movement without good voice leading.

Ugh