Keywords: music, popular music,
musicology, music theory,
tonality, modality, melody,
harmony, polyphony,
chords, harmony
For my comrade and colleague
Franco, for his students
—and for mine, too.
EVERYDAY TONALITY
—Towards a tonal theory of what most people hear—
by
Philip Tagg
(Faculté de musique, Université de Montréal)
New York & Montréal, 2009
The Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press
Tagg, Philip: Everyday Tonality
The Mass Media Scholars’ Press, Inc.
New York & Montréal, 2009
iv + 334 pages. 978-0-9701684-4-3.
Typing, layout and editing by the author.
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Why this book? 1; Who’s it for? 2. Title caveat 3
Structure and contents 4; Rationale and reservations 4;
Summary of chapters 6; About appendices 9; Addenda 9; Glossary 10; References 10; Index 11; Cross-referencing and order of topics 11;
Musical source references 12; Accessing musical sources 12;
Chords and notes 13; Timings Footnotes 15; Acknowledgements 15
1. Note, pitch, tone 17
Note 17; Pitch 19; Tonal note names 21;
Tone, tonal, tonality 22; Timbre and tone 26
2. Tuning, octave, interval 29
General systems 29; Extra-octave tuning 29; Intra-octave tuning 31;
Octave 31; Intervals and intra-octave tuning 34; Equal-tone tuning 37; Instrument-specific tuning 40
3. Modes and modality 45
Scales and tonal vocabulary 45; Modality 48; Pentatonicism 48;
Diatonic ‘church’ modes 50; ‘Hypo’ modes 52;
Non-diatonic modes 54; Perceived characteristics of modality 54
4. Melody 57
Defining parameters and general characteristics of melody 57;
Metaphorical nomenclature 59; Typologies of melody 60;
Structural typologies 60; Pitch contour 60; Tonal vocabulary 64;
Dynamics and mode of articulation 65; Rhythmic profile 65;
Culturally specific melodic formulae 67; Patterns of recurrence 70;
Connotative typologies 73; Melisma 76
5. Polyphony 81
Three meanings 81; Drone 82; Heterophony 84; Homophony 86;
Counterpoint 88
6. ‘Classical’ harmony 91
Intro: History and definitions 91; Classical harmony 93;
Triads and tertial harmony 94; Syntax, narrative, and linear ‘function’ 96;
Voice leading, the ionian mode, modulation and directionality 96;
The circle of fifths 98; Cadential mini-excursion 102; The key clock 104;
Circle-of-fifths progressions 105; Dissolution of classical harmony? 108;
Classical harmony in popular music 110; Brief summary 114
7. ‘Non-classical’ harmony 115
Tertial modal harmony 115; Ionian mode and barré 116;
Modal major triads 117; Quartal harmony 125; History and usage 127;
Droned ‘folk’ harmonisation 130; Quartal: past or future? 134
8. Chords 137
Structure and terminology of tertial chords and triads 137
Tertial chord symbols 139; Roman numerals 139; Inversions 140
Recognition of tertial chords 141; Lead sheet chord shorthand 45
Chord shorthand table: explanations 146; Basic rationale 150;
Symbol components 150; Root note name151; Tertial triad type 151;
Sevenths 152; Ninths, elevenths, thirteenths 153; Altered fifths 154;
Additional symbols 154; Omitted notes 154; Added ninths and sixths 155;
Suspended fourths and ninths 155; Inversions 155;
Anomalies 156; Enharmonic spelling 157; Non-tertial chords 157
9. One-chord changes 159
Harmonic impoverishment? 159; Extensional and intensional 161;
The wonders of one chord 162; G: Which G? 164
10. Chord shuttles 173
About the material 173; Supertonic shuttles (I«II) 176;
Plagal shuttles 177; Quintal shuttles (I«V) 182;
Submediant shuttles (I«VI) 185; Subtonic shuttles (I «$VII) 189;
Shuttle or counterpoise sandwich? 195
11. Chord loops 1 199
Circular motion 199; Vamps 202; Loops and turnarounds 202;
Vamp, blues and rock 209
12. Modal loops and bimodality 217
Ionian or mixolydian? 217; Spot the key 221; Aeolian and phrygian 227;
Mediantal loops 235; Rock dorian and I-III 236; Double shuttles 237;
Ionian mediantal ‘narrative’ and ‘folk’ dorian 238
13. The ‘Yes We Can’ chords 241
The four chords 242; Late renaissance and Andean bimodality 243
Four chords, four changes 245; First impressions: from zero to I 246
Harmonic departure: from I to III 248; I - iii - vi - IV 257
I - V - vi - IV 258; IOCM in combination 261
Addenda 265
Accompaniment 265; Antiphony 269; Enharmonics 270;
Hocket 272; Interval counting 273; Mixolydian tune examples 274
Present-time experience 275; Roman numeral triad designation 275
Glossary 279
Bibliography 291
Musical references 297
Index 319
Chord sequence index 334
Preface
Why this book?
In 2006, Franco Fabbri asked me to produce a book based on some encyclopaedia articles I’d originally written between 1998 and 2000. I didn’t respond initially to his request, mainly because I didn’t then see how updating that work could contribute anything new to our knowledge of music. Two things made me change my mind.
The first was when Franco showed me an Italian music theory textbook. ‘Look’, he said, ‘this is all my students have to go by’. Skimming through its pages I soon saw that, like equivalents in other languages, it dealt only with certain tonal elements of European art music and that it paid particular attention to conventional notions of harmony within that tradition. That quick glance through that textbook reminded me of a recurrent problem I had to confront when writing the original encyclopaedia articles: how to talk about common tonal practices that don’t conform to tonal theory taught in conservatories and departments of music[ology]. For example, explaining something as common as the La Bamba chord loop (as in La Bamba, Guantanamera, Hang On Sloopy, Wild Thing, Pata Pata, Twist & Shout etc.) in terms of tonic, subdominant and dominant is, I think, about as productive as using the physics of combustion to explain how computers work. And yet music scholars are still at the same game, some of them even applying Schenkerian notions of directionality to modal configurations in which the existence of dominant and subdominant is at best questionable and where the identity of a single tonic is taken as read.
If restricted notions of tonality were the only problem with institutionalised traditions of musical learning in the West, things would not be so bad. Unfortunately the problems go deeper because that same tradition has focused almost exclusively on tonal issues and tended to steer clear of parameters like metricity, periodicity, timbre and acoustic space which some scholars still earnestly believe to be of secondary importance. There’s no room here to explain conventional European musicology’s predilection for harmonic, melodic and thematic parameters that can be graphically represented on the page as blobs, lines and squiggles, except to say that Western staff notation developed to record aspects of music in the European art music tradition that were difficult to memorise rather than to register the specifics of other music cultures. The implicit argument seems in short to have been that monometric music whose pitches can be arranged in an octave consisting of twelve equal intervals is analysable because it is notatable; other types of music are, so to speak, neither one nor the other. Indeed, even the downbeat anticipations and ‘neutral’ thirds so often heard in English-language popular music from the twentieth century look incongruous and clumsy in Western notation, while aspects of sound treatment essential to the expressive qualities of music we hear on a daily basis —echo, delay, reverb, saturation, phasing, etc.— are conspicuous by their absence. Conventional approaches to music analysis in the West certainly have their use in helping us understand how a sense of narrative works in a classical sonata form movement but they are also largely graphocentric and tend to ignore unnotated elements that are often central to so much music outside the European art music tradition.
This book will right none of the graphocentric wrongs just mentioned; that task would involve several lifetimes of research and result in a book many times the size of this one. Instead I’ll focus on trying to bring some order into terms denoting a few important tonal aspects of musical structuration. I hope to explain concepts like tone, melody, accompaniment and harmony in ways that relate those phenomena not just to the music of certain minorities living in certain parts of a certain continent during a very limited period of its history (the Central European art music tradition between c. 1730 and c. 1950) but to a wider range of musics and people.
Who’s the book for?
This book contains many short music examples, so it’s really for anyone who can decipher Western music notation. Although not totally essential, some acquaintance with the rudiments of music theory, including conventional Western (classical) harmony, is probably an advantage, too. In fact, when writing this book, I’ve mainly had in mind the music students I’ve known as a teacher over the last thirty-eight years, and the conceptual problems they’ve seemed to encounter when they’ve met me for the subjects I teach (chiefly related to ‘popular’ music, including music and the moving image). However, this book should also interest anyone who, with some notational literacy, wants to understand the tonal mechanisms of widely disseminated types of music.
Caveat about the book’s title
The repertoire I draw on for illustration and generalisation must invariably be music that I’m in some way familiar with because there’s no point in writing about things I know nothing about. That means, just as invariably, that the ‘everyday tonality’ in the book’s title could never possibly be everyone’s everyday everywhere at all times. The problem is that Some tonal elements in widely heard music diffused in mainly, but by no means exclusively, English-language cultures in the late twentieth century, i.e. music that Philip Tagg has played, sung or heard is not a good book title. I therefore apologise to readers who feel I have taken the liberty of shortening the book’s title in an untoward manner. However, that abbreviation is, I think for several reasons, not entirely misleading. [1] Significant amounts of the everyday musical fare of individuals in many parts of the world in the late twentieth century was of Anglo-US origin. [2] My notion of everyday music is not stylistically restricted: I refer not only to The Beatles but also to Bach and to popular music from the Balkans and Latin America. [3] With some experience of non-Anglophone cultures, I am probably able to refer to more non-Anglophone music than many other speakers of my mother tongue.
Basic structure and contents
The book proper (13 chapters)
Rationale and reservations
Apart from this preface and the various appendices (addenda, references, index, etc.) which I’ll explain shortly, this book consists of thirteen chapters. The first eight are based on the encyclopaedia articles already mentioned while chapters 9-13 examine everyday harmony in greater detail. That focus might seem odd, given that so many musicologists of the ‘classical’ have already written so much about harmony. But that body of learning, unfortunately, is a major part of the problem because, as it turned out in the hands-on music analysis I had to do to make sense of my ‘everyday tonality’, I just couldn’t apply the theoretical grid of conventional harmony teaching to a significant part of that tonal reality. I had to grapple with preconceived notions about harmonic impoverishment, with assumptions about monotonality (that you can only have one keynote at a time), monodirectionality (that most harmonic motion ‘normally’ proceeds anticlockwise round the circle of fifths) and with several value-laden and often misleading but widely used terms like ‘dominant’, ‘subdominant’ and ‘perfect cadence’. Don’t get me wrong: all these notions and assumptions are really useful if you want to understand how harmony works in a Mozart symphony, even in parlour song or jazz standards, but they can be serious epistemic obstacles when dealing with La Bamba, Sweet Home Alabama, huayno music, The Who, Haris Alexiou, Carlos Puebla or a twelve-bar blues.
I’ve tried to present as much as possible of useful pre-existing ideas. These range from Glarean’s categorisation of modes (early sixteenth century), through Carlos Vega’s concept of bimodality (1944) to Allan Moore’s useful lists of harmonic departures in rock and pop (1992). Even so, I’ve had to come up with a few home-grown ideas in efforts to make some theoretical sense of my ‘everyday tonality’. Those efforts have inevitably led to a few neologisms like tertial (as opposed to quartal), counterpoise (tonal counterweight to a given tonic) and bimodal reversibility (tonal sequences in one mode which, when reversed, become sequences in another mode). All such terms are explained at relevant points in the book and given a short definition in the Glossary.
Despite valiant attempts to fuse useful pre-existing ideas with my own observations, I regret that much remains to be done before a comprehensive theory of ‘everyday tonality’ can be produced. Readers are therefore asked to take this book for what it is: a work in progress that I hope others, reacting to its probable inconsistencies and definite lacunae, will be able to correct, improve and expand. One practical reason for producing this text is that the body of music to be covered in such an undertaking is too vast and that, faced with the choice between risking error or omission and not writing anything at all, I went for the risky option. I am fully aware that the repertoire to which I’ve had access is, for practical reasons and despite the size of the List of Musical References, but a drop in the ocean of all the music that ought ideally to have been at the basis of writing about ‘everyday tonality’. I therefore apologise for omitting reference to all the music with which readers are familiar and which I either didn’t think of or just didn’t know.
I’ve also had to restrict the tonal area I deal with, especially concerning questions of harmony, so that it would fit into a book I could write in just over a year. I chose to focus on ‘one-chord changes’, chord shuttles (two chords) and chord loops (three or four) for several reasons. [1] Since these phenomena are, thanks to their supposed harmonic simplicity, unlikely to provoke much interest among conventionally trained musos, they are in greater need of being seriously studied and theorised. [2] Since the same ‘harmonically impoverished’ phenomena cause little enthusiasm among institutionally trained music experts but are widely diffused and apparently very popular, they are likely to be extremely interesting if viewed from a less conventional musicological angle. [3] Since shuttles and loops are by definition containable within the limits of present-time experience (see p. 275) they highlight short-term tonal processes less commonly studied in conventional music scholarship. Theorising these issues of intensional structuration (Chester 1970; Glossary p. 284) brings to light structural detail of importance to the understanding of ‘groove’ and to the identification of units of musical meaning (museme stacks; see Glossary p. 285) which, in their turn, are useful in the development of music semiotics.
Now, this sort of attention to intensional detail is, I believe, necessary but it does mean that I’ve not been able to pursue my main musicological interest (semiotic analyses of popular music) because —and it’s a vicious circle— I think that better structural theory relevant to the issue needs to be developed. OK, I admit lapsing into semiotic mode on a few occasions, particularly in the last chapter about the Obama election video’s chord loop, but I’ve exercised considerable restraint and tried to focus otherwise on the structural theory of short tonal processes.
This focus means of course that I’ve been unable to consider in any detail longer durational units like the 12-bar blues, the 32-bar jazz standard, or even the 8- and 16-bar tonal units so common in popular music. I also had to abandon my original rash idea to include an overview of what is probably the most widely heard source of everyday tonality: film, TV and games music. All these omissions are in my view regrettable and unsatisfactory but I hope readers agree with 10cc (1975) that ‘4% of something’s better than 10% of nothing’.
Summary of chapters
Chapter 1. There is much confusion about very basic terms in music theory. Note, pitch and tone are three of them. This chapter discusses and defines those terms. Extra attention is paid to cleaning up the conceptual chaos of the words tonal and tonality as they are used in conventional Western music theory.
Chapter 2 continues with notions of pitch, focusing on questions of tuning and the octave. This chapter is the most acoustic-physics-orientated of them all and provides a theoretical basis for understanding how tones (as in ‘tonality’) work.
Chapter 3 deals with modes as tonal vocabulary or ‘pitch pools’. After distinguishing between scale and mode, and after discussing the conceptual problem of modality in a tradition of musical learning whose objects of study are overwhelmingly ‘monomodal’ (ionian), the widespread practice of pentatonicism is presented, as are the equally popular heptatonic ‘church’ modes. This chapter concentrates on melodic aspects of modality. Modal harmony is dealt with in Chapters 7 and 12.
Chapter 4 is on melody. After an exposition of its defining characteristics, melody is presented according to two typologies, one based on contour (different patterns of up and down), the other on connotation. Melodic identity is discussed in terms of tonal vocabulary, bodily movement, spoken language, varying patterns of repetition and, using concepts from rhetoric, its varying modes of presentation. The chapter ends with brief section on melisma.
Chapter 5 starts by trying to clear up another conceptual mess in conventional Western music theory —polyphony. After that, various categories of polyphony are defined and explained, including drone-accompanied music, heterophony, homophony and counterpoint.
Chapter 6, is the first of several on harmony. A brief definition and history of the concept is followed by a presentation of (European) ‘classical harmony’. After tidying up yet another conceptual mess relating to notions like ‘functional’ and ‘triadic’, the essential term tertial is explained and the basic rules and mechanisms of classical harmony, central to many popular styles from parlour song and polka to bebop jazz, are presented. Also included in the chapter are notions of harmonic directionality, as well as the principles of the circle-of-fifths or ‘key clock’.
Chapter 7 Non-classical harmony, deals first with the workings of tertial modal harmony, explaining things like the importance of major common triads in establishing the identity of various modes, the option of permanent Picardy thirds in the tonic triad of minor-key modes, and the link between minor pentatonicism and dorian rock harmony. There’s also a useful chart of typical progressions in each mode and examples of recordings in which they occur. The chapter’s second half is devoted entirely to quartal as opposed to tertial harmony.
Chapter 8 is called ‘Chords’. After the customary definition section, this chapter basically enumerates, describes and explains how a wide variety of tertial chords can be referred to in two complementary and useful ways: roman numeral designation and lead-sheet chord shorthand. The chapter also includes several extensive tables, including a chord recognition chart and a key to over fifty lead-sheet chords, all with the same note as root. The principles of lead-sheet chord designation are explained in detail, complete with anomalies and exceptions.
The title of Chapter 9, ‘One-chord changes’, is intentionally contradictory because it basically shows how one single chord is, in many types of popular music, rarely just ‘one chord’. After refuting prejudices about harmonic impoverishment in popular music and describing the fundamentals of present-time experience, I demonstrate how the single chord of G major becomes, in popular recordings, two or three different chords in sixteen different ways. In this chapter I argue that the tonal elaboration of single chords is an intrinsic part of the ‘groove’ identifying different styles of music.
Chapter 10, ‘Chord shuttles’, increases the number of chords from one to two. Drawing mainly on English-language popular song, a typology of chord shuttles is presented (supertonic, dorian, plagal, quintal, submediantal, aeolian and subtonic). Examination of shuttles in several songs, including ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and the Human League hit Don’t You Want Me Baby (1981), shows that chord shuttles often involve ambiguous tonics and that no overriding keynotes can be established. I argue that chord shuttles are ongoing tonal constellations. They are by definition non-transitional and constitute building blocks in the harmonic construction of form in many types of popular song.
Chapter 11, ‘Chord loops 1’, expands the number of chords from two to three and four. After defining loop, the vamp, one of the most famous loops in popular music is examined. Distinction is made between loop and turnaround. The chapter ends with an explanation of the gradual but radical historical shift from the vamp’s V-I directionality to more ‘modal’ types of harmony in rock-, soul- and folk-influenced styles.
Chapter 12,’Modal Loops and bimodality’ attacks the problem of understanding how modal harmony really works, with how the same chord sequence can be heard in two different modes, etc. Starting with distinction and confusion between ionian and mixolydian, this chapter sets out ways of establishing, where relevant, a single tonic for particular sequences, the role of individual chords within loops, etc. It then examines aeolian and phrygian loops, and proposes a model of bitonal reversibility in efforts to conceptualise harmonic practices quite foreign to what is generally taught to music theory students. The chapter’s final section distinguishes between various mediantal loops like the ‘rock dorian’, the ‘folk dorian’, the ‘narrative ionian mediantal’.
Chapter 13, ‘The Yes We Can chords’, focuses on one single chord loop —that used in the online video supporting Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008— and discusses the connotative value of that chord loop and its contribution to creating the sort of cross-cultural unity that Obama clearly wanted to forge. The main point is that the analysis of music’s tonal parameters should not solely be an arcane technical exercise foisted on music students but, more importantly, a contribution to understanding the basic question of music semiotics: ‘why and how does who communicate what to whom and with what effect?’.
Appendices
Addenda
The addenda are short additions to the book that were difficult to incorporate in chapters 1-13 but which explain concepts that either seem to cause problems for music students I’ve met or that are relatively unknown but useful when studying the tonal aspects of popular music. They are: [1] accompaniment, which not only complements Chapter 4 (Melody) but also highlights the importance of different types of ‘backing’ in creating different styles and connotations; [2] antiphony, which, after its own definition, sorts out related concepts like ‘responsorial’ and ‘call-and-response’; [3] enharmonics, a relatively simple issue which nevertheless seem to cause students inordinate problems; [4] hocket, a compositional device that is not only found in some West African and Andean musics, as well as in motets from medieval Europe, but which also pervades virtually every funk number ever recorded; [5] interval counting, a guide to the arithmetic confusion whereby an octave can amount to 7, 8 or 9, depending on what you’re counting and on what you include or exclude from the count; [6] a list of examples of mixolydian tunes from The British Isles; [7] present-time experience, a central concept in understanding music but one that often needs explaining; [8] roman numeral triad designation, including a complete chart of all triads in all modes.
Glossary
Due to problems in grafting concepts from conventional European music theory on to many types of ‘everyday tonality’, I have had to not only clarify the meanings and implications of those concepts (e.g. functional harmony, leading note) but also, regrettably, to invent new concepts, or to adapt existing ones, to cover categories of extremely common tonal phenomena that seem to have no adequate name in the tradition of tonal scholarship widely practised in institutions of musical learning. Such concepts include, for example, chord loop, chord shuttle, ‘classical harmony’, counterpoise, subtonic and tertial. The glossary also includes short definitions of other concepts explained in greater detail in the main body of text, for example present-time experience, mediantal, leading note, heptatonic, diatonic, turnaround and vamp. In such cases reference is usually given to the pages where each concept is provided with a more expansive explanation.
Bibliography
The bibliography largely follows the conventions set out in Assignment and Dissertation Tips (version 5) at |tagg.org/xpdfs/assdissv5.pdf| §11.2, pp. 77-81 and §12.2, pp. 88-89. To save space, the initial ‘http://www.’ in internet addresses has been omitted. Most URL addresses are delimited by vertical bars (‘|’) to separate them from punctuation in the surrounding text and are, also for reasons of space, printed in the Arial Narrow font. Dates of visits to URLs are formatted yymmdd and placed in square brackets after the relevant URL, for example ‘|tagg.org| [080402]’ for a visit to my home page on 2nd April, 2008.
List of musical references (LMR)
The LMR lists all musical sources referred to in this book. That includes pocket scores, sheet music, phonograms, online recordings, film and TV productions, etc. In-text referencing and the LMR layout follow conventions set out in Assignment and Dissertation Tips at |tagg.org/xpdfs/assdissv5.pdf|§11.3, pp. 82-85; §12.3, pp. 89-90.4 For more about cross-referencing and accessing materials listed in the LMR see ‘Musical source references’ on page 12.
Index
The index includes page references to all proper names appearing in the book. That means it includes reference to authors, editors, performers, composers, etc., as well as to titles of musical works, songs, tracks, albums, films, TV productions and so on mentioned in the pages preceding the bibliography. The index also includes page references to all topics and to important concepts covered in the book’s thirteen chapters, its addenda and glossary.
Formal and practical
Cross-referencing and order of topics
Some parts of this book are, as already mentioned, based on encyclopaedia articles. This means that insights, if any, readers might gain from some parts of this book are more likely to derive from conceptual rather than perceptual learning. That in its turn requires quick access to the meaning of terms other than those under current discussion. That’s one reason why the text of this book includes frequent cross-references.
Another reason is that it’s impossible to introduce all terms and ideas in the right order for all readers. For example, although roman-numeral chord shorthand makes an appearance already on page 36, it isn’t properly explained until page 139, in the chapter on chords. That will cause no problems for those with a basic course in conventional harmony under their belts but others may want to read pages 139-140 and to consult Table 32 (p. 277) before they go on. On the other hand, readers with no knowledge of lead-sheet chord shorthand (E, G#m7, C#m, F#m7$5, B7 and so on) should perhaps read the relevant section (pp. 145-158, also in the chapter about chords) if they are having trouble following those symbols earlier in the book.
Moreover, since I’m unable to predict what readers will and will not know in advance, I’ve generated a detailed index so that they can hopefully find a topic or a term they want to look up. I’ve also included a glossary of special terms (p. 279, ff.).
Musical source references
Reference system
Musical source references follow the same basic system as bibliographical source references. For example ‘Beatles (1967b)’ refers uniquely to publishing details, found in the List of Musical References (LMR, page 297, ff.), for the Sergeant Pepper album (p. 299).
Sometimes it is necessary to refer to a whole string of tunes in the text. For example, instead of writing ‘in tunes like Jingle Bells (Pierpoint, 1857), La Marseillaise (Rouget de Lisle, n.d.) and Satisfaction (Rolling Stones, 1965)’, I would probably choose to lighten up the text by just writing ‘in tunes like Jingle Bells, the Marseillaise and Satisfaction’. In such cases the title of each tune included in those strings will be found in the List of Musical References (LMR), either complete or with at least cross-reference to the complete publishing details elsewhere in the LMR. Complete publishing details are provided so that readers will know, in cases where more than one recording exists of the same work, to which version I am referring. Such information is particularly important when I provide timings pinpointing musical events within recorded works.
Accessing and using musical sources
The majority of musical works referred to have at one time or another been issued commercially as recordings. It would in the 1990s have been absurd to expect readers to have access to more than a very small proportion of those recordings. In 2009, however, it is in most cases a very simple matter if you know where to look. Fearing prosecution for inducement to illegal acts, I can’t be more precise here than to say that there are numerous and vastly popular websites where you can hear the majority of recorded works I refer to in this book. Some of those sites are pay-per-download and legal, some are legal and free, some are semi-legal, while others are free and technically illegal. However, this much I can say: using Google to search for |Police "Don’t Stand So Close To Me"| (with the inverted commas) produced 32,200 hyperlinks [2009-06-13], the first two of which, when clicked, took me to actual online recordings of the original issue of Don’t Stand So Close To Me (Police, 1980). Using the on-screen digital timer provided by the site hosting the recording, I was able to pinpoint the song’s change from E$«Gm to D«A at 1:48 (see p. 188). The whole process of checking a precise musical event in just one of a million songs took me a few seconds. Of course, I have to add that while it is not illegal to listen to music posted on the internet, downloading a pop song without payment or permission most probably is.
I’ve checked many of the recordings referred to in the book to see if they could be heard online. Some I didn’t check at all because I’m certain they’ll be easy to find but others I had to put online myself. These others include: [1] short extracts from recordings under copyright that seemed to be unavailable on line; [2] rudimentary audio recordings I produced using my own equipment to illustrate particular points discussed in the text. These ‘other examples’ can be accessed via my website at |tagg.org|. Click Audio, bottom right under ‘Audiovisual’, then Music examples in “Everyday Tonality†book. Then you’ll see a list of the relevant audio examples on my site (|tagg.org/audio/FFabBkExx.htm|). Click on the relevant title to hear the example you need (all in mp3 format).
Formalia
Chords and notes
I’ve used two systems to denote chords concisely: lead-sheet shorthand and the roman numeral system.
Lead-sheet chord shorthand conventions are set out in Table 14 (pp. 148-149). To avoid in-text confusion, lead-sheet chord root names are in serif capitals (e.g. A, Bm7$5, Cmaj7) while individual note names are in lower-case sans serif (e.g. a, b, c). Intervallically relative tertial chord shorthand follows the usual roman-numeral conventions — ‘I’ for tonic major triad (‘one’), ‘iv’ for minor triad on the fourth degree (‘minor four’), ‘$VII’ for major triad on the flat seventh (‘flat seven’), etc. (see p. 139, ff., p. 277). I’ve selected a HEWN IN STONE sort of font to make relative chord labels a little easier to spot in the text, but I’ll admit there’s not much scribal difference between ‘I’ (first person singular) and ‘I’ (roman 1). A complete chart of all triads in all ‘church’ modes with their roman numeral designations is among the addenda on page 277.
Scale degrees of individual notes are expressed in arabic numerals, e.g. ‘5’ for degree five in relation to a given tonic (‘1’), ‘$3’ for a minor third (‘flat three’), ‘#7’ for a major seventh or leading note (‘sharp seven’) etc.
Note names or chord designations occurring in a sequence are usually separated in the text by hyphens or a simple space (e.g. ‘d g f# a’ or ‘d-g-f#-a’; ‘C Am F G’ or ‘D-Bm-G-A’; ‘I vi ii V’ or ‘I-vi-IV-V’).
When referring to register it is sometimes necessary to indicate in which octave notes are pitched. In such cases I’ve used the midi convention of numbering octaves from a0 (27.5 hz) at the bottom of a standard piano keyboard to a7 (3520 hz) or c8 at its top end (see p. 31, ff.).
To highlight the directional aspect of harmonic progressions I have marked such changes, where directionality is particularly important, with the forwards arrow ‘®’, e.g. ‘ii® V® I’, ‘Gm7® C7® F’. Chord shuttles (to and fro movement between two chords) are indicated by the double arrow ‘«’, e.g. ‘i«V’, ‘Gm7«C’. Chord loops (short repeated sequences of usually three or four chords) are delimited by arrows turning through 180° before and after the relevant sequence, e.g. ‘NI-vi-IV-VO’, ‘NF-Dm-B$-CO’ (the ‘milksap vamp’).
In contexts where confusion may arise between letters indicating major triads and those indicating sections in a piece of music —does ‘A’ mean an A major triad or does it refer to section ‘A’ in the music under discussion?— letters from the end of the alphabet may instead be used as abbreviations denoting musical sections. ‘An Abba song in AABA form with the A section in A’, for example, might instead appear as ‘An Abba song in YYZY form with the Y section in A’.
Timings and durations
Given that most recordings exist in digital form and that most playback equipment includes real-time display, the exact indication of musical events discussed in this book is mainly presented in terms of timing. With ‘0:00’ indicating the start of the recording in question, ‘0:56’ means at a point 56 seconds after 0:00. Durations are expressed in the same form, e.g. ‘4:33’ meaning 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
Footnotes
The software used to produce this book, Adobe FrameMaker v8.0, is very useful but has one irritating bug: if there isn’t enough room at the bottom of the page for the complete text of a footnote, the software puts the entire footnote text at the bottom of the following page, rather than starting the footnote text at the bottom of the correct page and continuing it on the next one. Therefore, if there is no text at the bottom of the page on which a footnote flag number occurs in the main body of text, do not be alarmed. The complete footnote text will appear at the bottom of the next page.
You will occasionally find the same footnote number occurring in the main text twice in succession, like this.6 That is intentional. Both refer to the same footnote.
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to first of all to Franco Fabbri (Milano) for having persuaded me to start on this book and for encouraging me in my struggle with it. I would also like to thank: [1] Simon Bertrand, Audrée Deschesnaux, François de Médicis, Danick Trottier (Montréal) and Bob Davis (Leeds) for taking time to discuss the issues of tonality and harmony I raised in person or over the phone; [2] my postgraduates, especially Dylan Kell-Kirkman, Alison Notkin and Nic Thompson (Montréal), who put up with my rants about the inadequacies of conventional music theory when I should have been discussing their work; [3] Bob Clarida (New York) for musicological input and free legal advice; [4] Allan Moore (Guildford) for having published his useful Patterns of Harmony in 1992; [5] all my popular music analysis students (Göteborg, Liverpool and Montréal) who over the years asked the sort of questions that provoked attempts to explain some of the issues addressed in this book; [5] to my neighbour Mme Ouellet (Montréal) to whom I felt I owed down-to-earth, ‘non-muso’ explanations about work on this book that meant I rarely left our apartment block between early May and late July 2009; [6] my two Swedish mentors, Jan Ling (Göteborg) and Margit Kronberg (Mölndal), without whose encouragement and guidance I doubt I would ever have dared start on a project like this; [7] my daughter Mia Tagg and her cousin Anna Jacob for personal encouragement from the other end of the generational spectrum.
Note, pitch, tone
Many languages have no direct equivalent to the English word music but no culture is without the phenomenon we call ‘music’. In several European languages music, or its equivalent, seems to mean a form of interhuman communication based on non-verbal sound, a symbolic system often associated with other forms of communication like language, dance and drama. Since this book is about the tonal elements of everyday music and since tones are a particular subset of musical sounds, we’ll obviously need first to define tone and tonal but it’s difficult to do that without using two very basic musical terms: note and pitch.
Note
When talking about music, note can mean three different things:
any single, discrete sound of finite duration in a piece of music;
such a sound with easily discernible fundamental pitch ( p.19, ff.);
the duration, relative to the music’s underlying pulse, of any such sound, pitched or unpitched.
According to the third meaning, and as evidenced by German and North American nomenclature, note can be used to refer solely to the relative duration of a minimal musical sound event, for example ganze Note or ‘whole note’ (w , semibreve, ronde, etc.), Viertel or ‘quarter note’ (q, crotchet, noire, etc.). This use of note in the sense of ‘note value’ (value in this sense relating only to duration) is of marginal interest to the definition of tone, so let’s concentrate on the first two meanings of note.
Note in its musical sense originally referred to the scribal marking of a minimal element of articulation on the page, but the word has in English come to denote any discrete minimal sonic event in music without reference to lines, blobs or squiggles on paper. It is this meaning that is used in, for example, midi sequencing where a note is identified by such factors as: [i] the points at which a given sound event will start and end in a piece of music; [ii] the type of sound (timbre, volume, attack, envelope, decay) that will occur at that point in time; [iii] (if the note is pitched) the frequency at which the sound will be articulated.
Sweet Home Alabama (intro extract): partial MIDI piano roll view
(Lynyrd Skynyrd 1974)
The horizontal aspect of Figure 1 shows some variation of note length in all parts except for the drumkit with its regular hi-hat, snare and kick drum hits. Little dots indicate not only those very brief events but also the very short anacrustic notes in the bass and piano parts. Small horizontal bars show the relative duration of normal-length notes, each of which is held slightly longer in the bass than in the piano part. The pitch of each note is visualised vertically for all instruments except for the drumkit, each of whose constituent parts (hi-hat, snare, etc.) is assigned its own ‘pitch’ line with the bass drum at the bottom and cymbals on top. Other encoded note information —volume, timbre, attack, envelope, decay, etc.— is not shown in MIDI piano roll screens.
According to this, the first and most important meaning of the term, a note is, as stated above, any single, discrete sound of finite duration within a musical continuum. It can have any timbre and it can be long, short, high, low, loud, soft, etc. However, although a note may theoretically have any duration, it is difficult to perceive as such if it sounds for less than about thirty milliseconds (y at q=120) or for more than about ten seconds (o wVwVwVwVw at q=120). This seems to be why certain types of ornamentation, which from a technical viewpoint involve more than one ‘note’, are generally perceived as single notes of a particular type (e.g. drum rolls, tremolandi, vibrati, fast trills), while extremely long notes are heard as pedals or drones. Similarly, every note played on a mandolin or twelve-string guitar consists strictly speaking of two ‘notes’ because each string pitch is doubled and because those two strings can never be in total unison. The same goes for several other instruments, including the French accordéon musette whose every note consists of two pitches slightly out of tune with each other to create the instrument’s characteristic sound. In all these cases the strictly speaking two (or more) pitches to each note phenomenon is intrinsic to the identity of the sound as a single entity and should in general be regarded as just one note. In any case that’s how musicians tend to treat those sounds and that’s how we as listeners identify them. Still, it’s really the second meaning of note that relates most directly to the subject of this book: —a single, discrete sound of finite duration… with easily discernible fundamental pitch.
Pitch
In acoustic terms, pitch is that aspect of a sound which is determined by the rate of vibrations producing it and which can be denoted in acoustic terms as a frequency, for example ‘440 cycles per second’ or ‘440 hertz’. 440 hz also happens to be standard concert pitch in the West and is situated four octaves above the bottom note on most pianos (a = 27.5 hz) and three octaves below the instrument’s highest a (3520 hz). Words like ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘top’ and ‘bottom’, not to mention the French and German words for musical pitch (hauteur and Tonhöhe), all indicate that our cultures conceptualise pitch on a vertical axis covering the range of low, medium and high frequency sounds that humans can hear. This metaphor of vertical placement —high-frequency sounds on top, low-frequency sounds down below— is so strong that we use terms like ‘high e’ to designate the guitar string situated lowest in playing position and ‘low e’ when referring to what is clearly the top string when making music on the guitar. This anomaly suggests that synaesthesis may be more important than visual observation in our spatial conceptualisation of pitch. High pitch is in general much more likely to be associated with light in both the ‘not dark’ and ‘not heavy’ senses of the word, not least because small gusts of wind can scatter feathers, leaves, plastic bags and other small, light objects, blowing them up into the air —towards the sky, the clouds and the sun— whereas heavy objects tend be larger, more difficult to move and therefore more likely to stay down on the ground, which is understandably imagined as darker and heavier than air. Indeed, not only do large heavy objects tend to need lots of energy —a tornado or vast amounts of jet fuel, for example— to get them off the ground; their very weight and inertia makes them appear less volatile and less mobile, more likely to be understood as heavy, dark and massive rather than quick, light and small. Besides —and with apologies for the tautology— babies and small children have smaller bodies and vocal equipment producing ‘higher’, ‘lighter’ sounds than grown-ups. The process whereby male voices break and descend an octave or so at adolescence further reinforces the synaesthetic patterning just described, as does the fact that singers tend to use the head register to produce high notes, the chest register for low ones. Moreover, you are much more likely to feel the vibrations of a loud bass instrument in the stomach whereas, for example, dissonant high-pitched sounds are often used in film music as a sort of sonic headache to accompany scenes of madness, relentless sunlight, etc. Whatever the reasons may be for spatially conceptualising pitch vertically rather than horizontally, it is clear that pitch, —low, medium or high— is, along with volume and timbre, an essential element allowing humans to distinguish between sounds, for example between a hi-hat and a big gong struck in the same way or between the top notes of a piccolo and the lowest ones played on alto flute played at the same volume with the same sort of attack for the same duration.
There’s an obvious problem at the end of the previous paragraph because the high or low pitch of flute notes is different from the high or low pitches of cymbals or gongs, even though the sound of a big gong contains a lot of low frequencies and the hi-hat sounds high. We’ll return to that contradiction at the start of the section ‘Tone, tonal, tonality’ on page 22.
Tonal note names
It’s virtually impossible to explain concepts of tone and tonality without referring to notes by name. There are basically two main ways of referring to those ‘single, discrete sounds of finite duration and with easily discernible fundamental pitch’ (p. 17): absolute and relative.
Absolute note names in English, French and German
Absolute note names in English and German use the first few letters of the Roman alphabet. They usually designate notes of previously and unequivocally determined fundamental pitch, like the note a at 440 hz or c# at 554.37 hz. The Latin convention, exemplified by French names in Figure 2, and used in parts of Eastern Europe as well as throughout the Latin world, serves the same purpose but can cause confusion with relative pitch names (Fig. 3) whose actual notes can of course be transposed to B$ minor, D major, G#minor, E major, or to any other tonal centre.
Relative note names (heptatonic)
The problem with the Latin note-naming convention is in other words that it can be difficult to know whether, for example, La means La in absolute terms (e.g. a at 440 hz), or if it means La relatively, as in tonic sol-fa. If La is relative, it can be, for example, a as scale degree 6 in C major or as scale degree 1 (tonic) in A minor, and La can also be f# in A major or in F# minor. In other words we’ll stick to the English-language note-naming convention, not only because this book’s in English but to avoid confusion between absolute and relative note names. With the tonic sol-fa system doh (major) or la (minor) can be set to any of the octave’s twelve pitches, as initial indications like ‘doh = B$’ clearly suggest. The Northern Indian relative note names (sa ri ga ma pa dha ni) follow a similar principle to heptatonic scale-degree indications by number. For instance, sa, like ‘one’, is always the keynote or tonic, pa always the fifth degree (‘five’) and so on, whether or not the tonal material sounds to a Westerner like a minor (la) or a major (doh) mode and no matter with which fundamental frequency doh or sa is identified.
Tone, tonal, tonality
On page 20 I raised the problem of the difference between notions of pitch applied to the flute and those applied to the high pitch of a hi-hat and to the low pitch of a large gong. The difference is of course that flute notes, high or low, almost always have one clearly discernible fundamental pitch while hi-hat, snare drum, bass drum and gong notes in general do not. It is this factor of discernible fundamental pitch that determines whether the note in question is a tone and that is exactly how the word should be defined: a tone is a note of discernible fundamental pitch. Now, some readers, especially those believing in absolute natural-science truths, may object to this definition because of the word ‘discernible’ implying that, despite some grounding in acoustic physics (periodic vs. aperiodic sounds, etc.), awareness of fundamental pitch also relies on culturally acquired patterns of perception. That is certainly a correct observation but hardly a valid objection to the definition since music, even the concept itself, is, as intimated earlier, an intrinsically social and cultural phenomenon whose understanding de facto requires social and cultural consideration. A more serious problem is caused by conflicting meanings of the adjective tonal.
Tonal means relating to or having the character of a tone or tones. However, in conventional Eurocentric music theory the adjectives tonal and atonal, both qualifying ‘music’, are often used in another sense altogether. According to that conceptual dichotomy, music featuring relatively clear tonal centres (tonics, keynotes) is labelled ‘tonal’ and music that doesn’t is called ‘atonal’. Atonal music, used in this sense, doesn’t mean music without tones but refers to various modernist currents, including twelve-tone music, i.e. music that treats each of the Western world’s twelve semitones independently without reference to any intended keynote. The trouble with this use of the dichotomy tonal/atonal is that any music using twelve tones is invariably jam-packed with tones and rarely includes notes that aren’t tonal. After all, neither Boulez nor Webern are known for their use of hi-hat, kick drum or claves. True, the music may feature no intended keynote but the music relies entirely on tones and semitones for its identity as ‘atonal’.
This paradox may be due to the fact that several European languages use equivalents of the English word tonality (tonalité, tonalità , tonalidad, Tonart and so on) to designate what Anglophones usually call key (as in keynote, key signature, etc.). The assumptions seem to be that: [1] it’s perfectly OK to use the same adjective, tonal, to mean both ‘relating to tones in general’ and ‘relating in particular to music with a keynote’, as if music filled with tones but without a clear keynote were not tonal in the first sense of the word; [2] that it’s perfectly acceptable if the abstract noun tonality, deriving from the already polysemic adjective tonal, shifts meaning between (a) the particular system according to which tones are organised in any type of music and (b) just one, and one only, of those innumerable systems: that of the Central European art music tradition of course (c. 1730-c. 1910). This semantic mess has an obvious ethnocentric aspect but it may also be partly due to woolly thinking, linguistic laziness and the inability to recognise that the adjectival suffixes for abstract nouns ending in -ity (English) or -ité, -idad, -ità and -ität (French, Spanish, Italian and German) are -itarian, -itaire, -itario and -itär respectively, as in humanitarian (from humanity), universitaire (from université) or totalitario (from totalità or totalidad). So, just as human and total differ from humanitarian and totalitarian, tonal really needs to be distinguished from a word like ‘tonalitarian’. Or, if that’s no good, why not follow the even more common linguistic practice set out in Table 1?
Adjectival derivatives from root nouns and their abstract noun suffixes
root noun adjective 1 abstract noun adjective 2
centre central centrality centralist
crime criminal criminality criminalistic
form formal formality formalist[ic]
sense sensual sensuality sensualist
TONE TONAL TONALITY ‘TONALIST’
It’s simple: if the adjective centralist derives from central (from centre), socialist from social (from Latin socius), criminalistic from criminal (from crime), sensualist from sensual (from sense) and formalist from formal (from form), why is there no word like tonalist or tonalistic deriving from tonal (from tone)? That would at least get rid of one absurdity and allow us to correctly denote two types of music filled with tones: those with and those without intended keynotes. But that terminological improvement doesn’t help much in the study of everyday tonality where ‘non-tonalist’ music only occurs on a regular basis as underscore for horror and suspense scenes in film, TV and games music.
The main problem with tonal and tonality as they are used in conventional musicology is of course the latent assumption that there’s really only one tonal, only one tonality, that counts. The most absurd expression of that arrogation is the ridiculous but widely propagated dichotomy tonal versus modal. Given that music based on other modes than the ionian (or harmonic minor) is both tonal (contains tones) and tonalist (has a keynote, sometimes even two), there is absolutely no logical (nor moral) excuse for polarising the two phenomena in terms of tonal in a culturally very restricted sense and of ‘something else’. Such ethnocentric conceptualisation makes the study of popular music a very arduous task in seats of musical learning because many received ‘truths’ are uncritically accepted without their validity being verified or falsified on a sample of repertoires much more representative of ‘everyday tonality’ than that on which those ‘truths’ are based. That’s why the only rational course of action is to dump conventionally propagated notions of tonal and tonality. It’s definitely wisest to stick with the idea that tonal just means relating to or having the character of tones (tone as defined on page 22) and that tonality means the quality of being tonal and, by extension, a system according to which tones are organised in any type of music.
Of course, tone means lots of other different things in relation to sound. It can, for example, refer to aspects of speech that express feelings or attitudes, as in ‘I don’t like your tone’. You can even like or dislike the tone of a letter someone has written to you without a sound being uttered. Tone can also refer to particular pitch sequences allowing speakers of languages like Chinese, Ewe, Navajo and Norwegian to distinguish between the meanings of phonetically otherwise identical words or syllables. Tone can sometimes even mean the same thing as timbre, as with the ‘tone’ knob on a Fender Stratocaster, where tone is probably short for tone colour meaning timbre (see below). More frequently, tone is also commonly used to mean not so much ‘a note of discernible fundamental pitch’ as the intervallic distance between two such tones, as in the expression ‘whole tone’, i.e. a major second, where frequency differences between the two notes are in the ratio 9:8. This interval (pitch difference) can also be understood as the step between degrees 1 and 2 or 4 and 5 in the standard Western major and minor scales. Semitone, a pitch step half the size just described, as between degrees 3 and 4 or 7 and 8 in the standard Western major scale, obviously derives from this intervallic sense of the word tone.
Timbre and tone
We already mentioned (pp. 18-19) that single notes played on, for example, mandolins, twelve-string guitars or French accordions, in fact consist of two simultaneously sounded pitches. Those paired pitches are an essential element in the timbre of each instrument. The question here is how to distinguish between timbre and tone. Timbre is, in simple terms, a complex of acoustic features that lets us distinguish between two (or more) notes sounded at the same fundamental pitch. The most important acoustic constituents of timbre are attack, envelope, decay and frequency spectrum.
Attack refers to the initial fraction of a note corresponding to the way in which the note is struck, hit, plucked, scraped, blown, etc. on an acoustic instrument, or ‘attacked’ by the voice. For example, it is easy to distinguish the same note of the same duration played at the same volume in the same position on the same guitar string if the instrument is plucked with the flesh of a thumb rather than with a plectrum. Similarly, hitting the same cymbal in the same way with the same force in the same place using a soft mallet and then a drumstick produces two quite different sounds. Attacks can even be eliminated, either digitally (using audio editing software) or electro-mechanically (using a volume pedal), to produce slightly ‘unreal’ or ‘disembodied’ timbral effects.
Decay refers to the way a note ends. For example, xylophone and unsustained piano notes end more abruptly than piano notes played with the sustain pedal pushed down, or than undamped or unclipped notes on, for example, guitar, French horn or cello.
Envelope refers to the middle or ‘body’ of a note, i.e. to the part of a note that is most likely to be tonal in the sense defined on page 22. An easy way of conceptualising envelope is to see it in terms of onomatopoeias like ding and pling (two small bells?) or dang, twang and blang (three electric guitar sounds?), where the initial consonants represent the sound’s attack, ng its decay and the vowels i and a its envelope. Compared to attack, a note’s envelope has a relatively consistent ‘ongoing’ sound whose timbral specificity is acoustically determined by its frequency spectrum, i.e. by how much of which frequencies it contains.
As already suggested, some musical sounds, like those of the hi-hat or gong, despite being heard as high- and low-pitched respectively, are non-tonal because no unequivocal fundamental pitch is audible. Lack of discernible fundamental pitch is due to an aperiodic frequency spectrum, i.e. to the fact that the various frequencies constituting the specific timbre of the instrument’s envelope are not necessarily interrelated as integral multiples of each other. The frequency spectrum of tonal instruments and singing voices, on the other hand, is periodic in relation to their fundamental (1f). This means that an essential determinant of tonal timbre is how much, if any, of which pitches in the harmonic series is present when a single note is played or sung. As exemplified in Figure 4 with a low c (65.4 hz) as fundamental, the first harmonic is situated one octave higher at twice that frequency, hence the abbreviation 2f (‘two F’), and the second harmonic, 3f, at three times the fundamental frequency which is a twelfth, or one octave plus a fifth, above the fundamental. 4f, four times the fundamental frequency, is of course two octaves higher, 5f two octaves plus a major third above the fundamental, and so on.
Harmonic series based on fundamental pitch c2 (65.5 hz)
Sound waves for flute and clarinet playing the same fundamental pitch.
For example, flutes, whose spectrum contains a strong element at twice the fundamental frequency (2f, one octave higher), have a simpler spectrum than clarinets which lack that first harmonic (2f) and whose sound is characterised by the strong presence of a pitch three times the frequency of the fundamental (3f), one twelfth (one octave plus a fifth) higher. This basic difference in frequency spectrum is one reason why the same note at the same fundamental pitch and volume played on a flute and a clarinet produces two quite different sound waves enabling us to distinguish between the two instruments (Figure 5). The sound of a seriously overdriven guitar, as used in various (rock) metal styles, derives from the very strong presence of higher pitches in the frequency spectrum to the extent that individual overtones can occasionally emerge as if they were fundamental pitches. Of course other timbral traits for other instruments, voices and sounds are determined by other combinations of frequencies specific to each of them.
The aim of this brief excursion has been to distinguish between timbre and tone. The main conclusion is that the simultaneous occurrence of several periodically related pitches, preceded by a particular attack and followed by a particular type of decay, do not in themselves constitute different notes or tones. They are produced and heard as one single unit, as a single note with an identifiable fundamental pitch. In other words those frequencies help define the timbral specificity of a tone.
Tuning, octave, interval
Tune and tuning relate etymologically to tone. In fact, tuning systems are culturally specific conventions regulating how tones are fixed and organised in relation to each other. By tuning is also meant the manner or process by which instruments adjust to those tonal conventions. This second type of tuning is instrument-specific and will be considered after an explanation of the two general types of tuning schemes which, for reasons that will become evident, I call extra-octave and intra-octave.
General tuning systems
Extra-octave tuning
Extra-octave tuning is best exemplified by international concert pitch which was by 1939 established as a fixed frequency rate for one designated note: 440 hz for the a above middle c (a4, see Fig. 6, p. 33). The pitch of other notes can be determined from this single absolute reference point. Previously, especially before the mid nineteenth century when a4 converged on the 1½-semitone range between 410 and 450 hz, travelling keyboard players had to transpose, wind instrumentalists include extra lengths of tubing in their baggage, and string players retune, all in accordance with the local norm. Thanks to standardised concert pitch, musicians can go from one venue to another without having to perform the same music at a different pitch. Two other areas benefitted from the establishment of internationally recognised concert pitch: the mass production of instruments, not least those with some sort of keyboard, and the worldwide dissemination of recorded music.
Extra-octave tuning conventions like concert pitch are used to ensure, for example: [i] that, before a performance or recording session, musicians playing portable pitched instruments in the same ensemble will produce the same pitch (in unison or at octave intervals from that pitch) for the same designated note, or for its sounding equivalent on transposing instruments; [ii] that the overall pitch of non-portable instruments (e.g. piano, pipe organ) matches that of an agreed overall standard, in order to facilitate tuning when such instruments are part of an ensemble; [iii] that unaccompanied vocalists start at a pitch allowing them to reach, with a minimum of difficulty, the highest and lowest notes of whatever they are about to sing.
Concert pitch has helped globalise musical activity but it is of less relevance to musical traditions whose note names are relative rather than fixed (p. 21, ff.), or in which no note names are used, or where participants have no need to interact with musicians who do depend on concert pitch. While concert pitch is useful in music featuring instruments whose overall tuning cannot be radically adjusted from one performance to another (piano, organ, harmonica, accordion, and, to some extent, wind instruments), it is by no means a necessity for other tonal instruments such as banjo, bass, bouzouki, fiddle, guitar, mandolin, saz, ud, or even a synthesiser equipped with the requisite retune, detune or transpose options.
One remarkable side effect of extra-octave tuning is absolute pitch, by which is meant an individual’s ability, based on experience and long-term memory, to identify and/or reproduce a particular pitch independent of musical context. This ability, often called perfect pitch, is useful in standardised tonal situations because it can speed up transcription work, but it can be inconvenient in non-standard pitch contexts, for example if a guitar or fiddle playing patterns characteristic for a particular key (e.g. G, D, A or E) is heard a semitone higher or lower than concert pitch. For example, students with ‘perfect pitch’ will claim that The Dixie Chicks’ Not Ready To Make Nice (2006) is in E flat minor, an extremely unusual pop key, when it is quite obvious to anyone who has ever played the simplest guitar chords that we are hearing E minor guitar chord shapes, whether the absolute pitch of the song’s keynote in octave four is at 311.13 (e$) or 329.64 hz (e8).
Intra-octave tuning
Intra-octave tuning, as the name suggests, regulates pitches internally within the octave which it organises into a number of constituent pitches and intervals. The functions of intra-octave tuning are: [i] to enable any particular pitch included in a performance or recording session to be sounded in unison by all ensemble members designated to play that pitch; [ii] to regulate intervals between the octave’s constituent pitches so that they are sounded in a consistent fashion; [iii] to facilitate the learning and application of tonal conventions. This brief description of intra-octave tuning begs questions about the term interval.
Intervals
In everyday speech an interval is usually understood as the ‘horizontal’ distance in time between one specific event from another. In music theory, however, an interval is the ‘vertical’ distance in pitch between one tone and another. If temporal intervals are quantified in units ranging from milliseconds to millennia, intervals of pitch are quantified in terms of octaves, tones, semitones and cents (hundredths of a semitone, sometimes abbreviated ‘¢’). Intervals are produced and understood in two ways: [i] melodically, as the pitch gap between two notes sounded one immediately or very soon after the other; [ii] harmonically, as the pitch gap between two simultaneously sounding notes. As we already implied, one such pitch distance, the octave, is central to the understanding of all other intervals in music.
Octave
Two tones at the same pitch —in unison— are in a pitch frequency ratio of 1:1. Two tones an octave apart are always separated by a frequency factor of 2. For example, the first note in each of the pairs a3 (220 hz) and a4 (440 hz), or c4 (261.63 hz) and c5 (523.25), or e$3 (155.56) and e$4 (311.13), is each one octave lower than the second (see Figure 6). With its simple frequency ratio of 2:1, the octave is also the interval between a note’s fundamental pitch and that of its first harmonic, which is, in its turn, an intrinsic part of the timbre of every singing voice and of most acoustic tonal instruments. This interval is called an octave because it is the eighth note you arrive at in the heptatonic (seven-note) scale (see Chapter 3) if you ascend or descend one heptatonic step at a time, for example a b c d e f g [a] (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [8], rising) or a g f e d c b [a] (8 7 6 5 4 3 2 [1], descending).
All known music traditions tend to treat two pitches an octave apart as the same note in another register. Men are understood to be singing the same tune as women and children if both parties follow the same pitch contour at the same time in parallel octaves. The octave’s property of unison in another register is also illustrated by the fact that: [1] a common chord consisting of the tonic, third, fifth and octave is treated as a triad, not a tetrad, because it contains only three, not four, different notes (tonic, third, fifth); [2] any single note sounded on instruments like the twelve-string guitar, or using common types of organ registration, produces two pitches an octave apart; [3] parallel octaves are commonly used to enhance melodic timbre in jazz piano and guitar playing, not as a harmonic device (e.g. Erroll Garner, Wes Montgomery); [4] lower octave doubling of bass notes is used timbrally and dynamically in a huge variety of styles (classical, jazz, rock) to boost the power of the bass line, not as a harmonic device; [5] the octave is closely associated with the concept of register.
Music’s range of audible fundamental pitches is often divided into octaves so that register can be referred to in a user-friendly way without having to mention cycles per second (Hertz). A standard piano keyboard spans just over eight octaves from a0 (27.5 hz) to c8 (4186 hz), a normal synth keyboard five octaves from c2 to c6 (see Table 6, p. 33). The average human singing voice usually spans about two octaves. According to this system of labelling octaves the first note of the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction riff is b2, middle c is c4, concert pitch is a4 and the first sung note of Abba’s Dancing Queen (1975c) is c#5.
The piano keyboard’s 88 notes with Hertz values
and divided into octaves
Figure 6 shows a piano keyboard divided into seven octaves plus three extra notes at the bottom (octave 0) and one at the top (octave 8). Octave numbers appear below the keyboard and the identity of the 88 individual notes, each with its fundamental frequency in cycles per second (hz), above it. Table 6 also shows the characteristic pattern of black and white notes and the same twelve note names (seven white and five black) that recur for each of the seven octaves. The eleven intervals inside the equal-tempered octave are set out in Table 2.
Intervals and intra-octave tuning
Western intra-octave intervals (ascending from cn to cn+1)
1. Note name
(doh = c) 2. Semitones
above doh 3. Scale degree
shorthand 4. Frequency
ratio to tonic 5. × > frequency
of tonic (just
temperament) 6. × > frequency
of tonic (equal
temperament)
7. Interval name
(here in relation
to lower tonic)
8.
Scale degree
name
c 0 1 1:1 1 1 prime (unison) tonic
c# 1 #1 25:24 1.042 1.060 [raised prime] [raised tonic]
d$ 1 $2 25:24 1.042 1.060 minor second
or semitone [flat supertonic]
d 2 2 9:8 1.125 1.123 major second or
whole tone supertonic
d# 3 #2 6:5 1.2 1.189 augmented second [raised supertonic]
e$ 3 $3 6:5 1.2 1.189 minor third [flat mediant]
e 4 3 5:4 1.25 1.260 major third mediant
f 5 4 4:3 1.333 1.335 perfect fourth subdominant
f# 6 #4 45:32 1.406 1.414 augmented fourth
or tritone or [raised subdominant]
g$ 6 $5 45:32 1.406 1.414 diminished fifth [lowered dominant]
g 7 5 3:2 1.5 1.498 perfect fifth dominant
g# 8 #5 8:5 1.6 1.587 augmented fifth [raised dominant]
a$ 8 $6 8:5 1.6 1.587 minor sixth [flat submediant]
a 9 6 5:3 1.667 1.682 major sixth submediant
[a#] 10 #6 9:5 1.8 1.782 augmented sixth [raised submediant]
b$ 10 $7 9:5 1.8 1.782 minor seventh subtonic
b 11 7 15:8 1.875 1.888 major seventh leading note
c 12 8 2:1 2 2 (perfect) octave tonic
Table 2 presents all twelve tones included in the Western chromatic scale. Column 1 gives the note names of those twelve pitches in an ascending scale with c as its tonic (see also Fig. 7), column 2 the number of semitones separating each note from the lower tonic (c), and column 3 the heptatonic scale-degree shorthand for each of the twelve notes ($2 = ‘flat two’, #4 = ‘sharp four’, etc.). Column 4 shows, in terms of just temperament (p. 37, ff.), the pitch frequency ratio between each note and the lower tonic, while columns 5 and 6 show the same pitch differences as multiples of the tonic’s fundamental frequency, using just and equal temperament respectively. Column 7 presents the most widely used interval names in Western ‘music theory’. Finally, column 8 lists the same tradition’s names for scale degrees in relation to a given keynote or tonic. The difference between the labels in columns 7 and 8 can be explained as follows.
Although the interval names in column 7 of Table 2 are all given in relation to the lower tonic (c), they can in fact be applied in relation to any note. Indeed, f is situated, as shown in Table 2, a perfect fourth (5 semitones or guitar frets) above c, but it is also a perfect fourth below b$ and a perfect fifth (7 semitones) below c, as well as a semitone or minor second (or a single guitar fret) above e; f is also, for example, a major third (4 semitones) above d$, a major sixth (9 semitones) below d, and a major second or whole tone below g, as well as a minor seventh (10 semitones) above g.
The terms in column 8 of Table 2, on the other hand, are used almost exclusively about music in the European classical tradition and can only be applied in relation to the relevant keynote or tonic of music in that tradition. For example, although six different rising perfect fifths exist within the tonal vocabulary of a C major scale (fäc, cäg, gäd, däa, aäe, eäb), only g, the note situated a perfect fifth above (or a perfect fourth below) the keynote, and tertial chords based on that same scale degree (G, G7, etc. in the key of C), can be called dominant. By the same token, the note f and tertial chords based on f (F, F7, Fm, etc.) can be called dominant only in the key of B$, mediant only in the key of D$, submediant only in A$, supertonic only in E$, leading note only in G$, and subdominant only in C. Although quite useful in the analysis of musics following the tonal habits of European art music, terms like dominant and subdominant can be quite misleading when applied to music based on modal principles of tonality. For example, the common three-chord mixolydian loop heard throughout Sweet Home Alabama (ND-C-GO in D) and repeated at the end of Hey Jude (NG-F-CO in G) is referred to as I-$VII-IV (’one, flat seven, four’), not ‘tonic, subtonic, subdominant’. And that’s not just because the first designation of the same sequence is more concise: it’s actually because the chord on IV (the G in D, the C in G) just doesn’t work like European classical music’s subdominant and because the sequence includes no dominant (V) to which a chord on the fourth degree of the scale (IV) can reasonably be ‘sub’. Another ethnocentric problem with column 8 in Table 3 concerns the scale’s seventh degree: the ‘leading note’. It’s a problem best explained by example.
Subtonic or leading note? (a) Handel: Antioch (‘Joy To The World’);
(b) The Foggy Dew (Irish trad.).
There are seven sevenths in example 1 of which only one is strictly speaking a leading note. Example (a) contains two sevenths, both major or ‘sharp sevens’ (#7), the first one descending from the tonic, the other [2] rising back up to the tonic. The five sevenths in example (b) are all minor or ‘flat sevens’ ($7), two of them [4, 5] descending from the tonic, two [3, 6] ascending to the tonic and one [7] going in both directions. So which of the seven sevenths is definitely a leading note? Well, the seventh degree in the Central European major, ascending minor and harmonic minor scales (see p. 46, ff.) is called leading note because in those modes it is a major seventh (#7) which generally leads to the tonic (scale degree 1) a semitone above, (e.g. b8®c in C, f#®g in G). Yes, that means the only unequivocal leading note in example 1 is number 2.
Leading note can by extension also designate any note that leads by a single semitone step, ascending or descending, to a note contained within the subsequent common triad, e.g. the note f in a G7 chord descending one semitone to the e in a C major triad (see p. 96, ff.). However, leading note usually and primarily means the note situated one semitone below the keynote and which generally leads to that keynote. The terminological trouble is, however, that, as example 1b suggests, widely disseminated styles of popular music often use minor sevenths ($7) which by definition are situated not a semitone but a whole tone below the tonic and which can just as well descend to the sixth or fifth as ascend to the tonic, or arrive from or depart to other scale degrees. And, as the first seventh in example 1a shows, not even a major seventh need always lead to the tonic. In short, the term leading note is misleading if it designates the sort of minor sevenths shown in example 1b since none of them have to lead to any other place in particular. It is for these reasons advisable, when referring in relative terms to the seventh scale degree, to use the term subtonic and to restrict the meaning of leading note to major sevenths alone and where appropriate.
Equal-tone tuning
The most widely accepted intra-octave tuning system for music in the modern world is equal temperament or equal-tone tuning. It divides the octave into twelve equal intervals (semitones) and has been used in the West since the late eighteenth century. It was developed to solve problems caused by discrepancies between certain intervals as constituent parts of the octave and the same intervals in their ‘pure’ form. Pure means in this context the acoustically unadjusted simple frequency ratios of intervals used in just tuning or just intonation (see Table 3).
Intra-octave intervals in just and equal temperament
®
Interval
Tuning
type ¯ Prime/Tonic Minor 2nd Major 2nd Minor 3rd Major 3rd Perfect 4th Augmented 4th/
Diminished 5th Perfect 5th Minor 6th Major 6th Minor 7th Major 7th Octave/Tonic
Just 1:1
1 25:24 1.042 9:8 1.125 6:5
1.2 5:4 1.25 4:3 1.333 45:32
1.406 3:2
1.5 8:5
1.6 5:3 1.667 9:5
1.8 15:8 1.875 2:1
2
Equal 1 1.060 1.123 1.189 1.260 1.335 1.414 1.498 1.587 1.682 1.782 1.888 2
in C c c#
d$ d d#
e$ e f f#
g$ g g#
a$ a b$ b8 c
For example, the top note of three stacked pure major thirds, each at the frequency ratio 5:4 above the previous one, is out of tune at the octave with the bottom note. That means the g# at the top of the pile of pure major thirds a$-c , c-e and e-g# is, in just temperament, one fifth of a tone (40¢) lower than the octave above the initial a$. Similarly, the top a$ in the four stacked just-tone minor thirds g#-b-d-f-a$ is over a quarter-tone (>50¢) lower than the octave above the initial g#. These natural acoustic discrepancies posed particular problems for keyboard players needing to produce, say, both g# (as in an E major triad) and a$ (as in an F minor triad) in the same piece: one or the other would be seriously out of tune. Equal temperament tackled the problem by slightly detuning eleven of the octave’s constituent semitones so that the interval between each of them became identical. As Table 3 shows, the equal-temperament perfect fourths (e.g. c-f ) and fifths (c-g) have virtually the same values as their just-tone equivalents. Thirds, sixths and sevenths, on the other hand, have clearly been the object of more significant adjustment.
Equal-tone tuning is essential in most types of Western music, including classical, romantic, twelve-tone, parlour song, musicals, marches, waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, hymns, evergreens, most types of jazz, bossa nova, choro, symphonic film scores, etc., etc. It is, however, unnecessary in music requiring no enharmonic alignment (between d# and e$, g# and a$ etc.) for purposes of modulation or harmonic colour. Moreover, equal temperament is either unnecessary or inappropriate in, for example, most types of blues, bluegrass, blues-based rock, folk rock, not to mention the traditional musics of Africa, the Arab world, the Balkans, the British Isles, the Indian subcontinent, Scandinavia etc., i.e. in any music whose tonality is modal and/or drone-based (see p. 82, ff.). One reason for the relative incompatibility of such music with equal-tone tuning may be the frequent or constant sounding of tonic and fifth to produce natural overtones inconsistent with equal-temperament intervals. Another reason might be the centrality of each interval’s expressive character in relation to a permanent tonic, as in the raga traditions of India whose aesthetics also often require microtonal pitch distinctions. Artificially adjusting intervals by as much as a quarter-tone, as in equal-tone tuning is incompatible with the principles of such music.
Intra-octave tuning examples
Within the general framework of just temperament there are a wide variety of tunings used in different music traditions. Despite a few exceptions, such as the various pelog and slendro systems of Java (Malm 1977: 45-47, see Table 4), most just tunings include the natural fourth (4:3) and fifth (3:2) scale degrees (see Tables 2 and 4). However, Arab and Indian music theories divide the octave into 16 and 22 unequal steps respectively, reflecting intra-octave tuning conventions which differ markedly from those of the urbanised West. For example, the heptatonic Arab mode closest to our major scale (ionian mode) is called Rast and features a ‘neutral’ third and seventh roughly half way between Western major and minor pitches, while Bayati (similar to our dorian or aeolian modes) contains a ‘neutral’ second and sixth.
The Western adjustment of natural intervals into the twelve equal intervals shown in Tables 2 and 3 has only been in operation for a couple of centuries in urban Europe and America, but it has during that short period managed to replace most earlier vernacular tuning patterns in our part of the world, patterns that can only be heard today in archival recordings from what were relatively isolated areas like the Outer Hebrides or the Appalachian backwoods. It is impossible to say whether the global spread of Anglo-North-American music during the latter half of the twentieth century, together with the equal-tone tuning of piano, organ, accordion and synthesiser keyboards —plus the inclusion of general MIDI in personal computers, plus the overwhelming use of equal-tone tuning in globally disseminated film and games music—, will eventually bring about the demise of other tuning systems. In fact, it currently seems highly unlikely that tonal diversity will disappear because, as we shall see later in our discussion of modes, intra-octave tuning systems are by no means the only factors affecting tonality. Besides, tuning, in the second sense of the word presented in the first paragraph of this chapter, provides plenty of other opportunities for tonal variety.
Instrument-specific tuning
The holes in the celebrated Neanderthal bone flute recently unearthed in Slovenia would have allowed its user, some 60,000 years ago, to produce the pitches of a standard pentatonic scale. Since then, a vast number of other wind instruments have been made using similar or different materials, with holes, mouthpieces, reeds, keys, valves, tube lengths, bell shapes and bore sizes constructed and arranged in an infinite variety of ways. All these factors affect the sound of each instrument and determine its tonal vocabulary, i.e. its range and placement of possible pitches as well as their intervallic relation to each other. For example, a shakuhachi flute doesn’t sound distinctly ‘shakuhachi’ (perhaps ‘traditional Japanese’ to Western ears) just because of its timbre, however important that may be. The fact that its five holes also correspond to the five notes of a standard anhemitonic pentatonic scale and that tonal complexity can be increased by exploiting the considerable amount of pitch bend available for each note are factors determining its tonal identity. Using my MIDI software to assign a rapid run of staccato chromaticism to the best shakuhachi sample bank in the world will not make that lick sound like a shakuhachi any more than 64 quantised kick drum semiquavers in a row can ever sound like a real live drummer. In short, the physical construction of a wind instrument affects the tonal as well as timbral identity of the instrument and of the musical culture to which it is assumed to belong.
Most wind instruments are monophonic and players need, like vocalists, to ensure the notes they produce respect the basic pitch rules of the musical culture to which they belong. A monophonic wind instrument player must also, when part of an ensemble, adjust to a common reference pitch like a=440. Polyphonic instruments (actual or potential) require further internal tuning. Piano and pipe organ tuning is usually carried out by specialists but portable string instruments are tuned by their players. The pitches to which open strings are tuned vary considerably from one instrument to another. Table 5 shows examples of standard tuning variants for some common string instruments. String note names are provided for clarification and do not necessarily indicate concert pitch.
Some common string-instrument tunings
instrument Low string high string instrument
Banjo G D/C G B D Banjo
Banjo – Tenor C G D A C Tenor Banjo
Bass E A D G Bass
*Bouzouki G D A D Bouzouki*
Charango G C E A E Charango
Fiddle G D A E Fiddle
Guitar (see Table 6) E A D G B E Guitar (see Table 6)
Mandolin/Violin G D A E Mandolin
*Saz C/D G C Saz*
*Sitar
(e.g.) sa-1
C-1 pa-1
G-1 sa
C ma
E pa
G sa+1
C+1 sa+2 *Sitar
C+2 (e.g.)
*Ud (Arabian) D G A D G C Ud (Arabian)*
Ukelele A D F# B Ukelele
Several instruments listed in Table 5 have common alternative tunings. For example, a saz can be tuned c-f-c, while a bouzouki can be tuned c-f-a-d or d-a-f-c (2×4-string), or d-a-d (2×3-string, common in rebetiki). Ud tunings vary considerably from region to region (Turkey, Armenia, etc.) and fiddle tunings are often adjusted to the character of the music to be played, typically to create tonic-and-fifth drone effects (g-d-g-d, g#-d#-g#-d#, a-d-a-d, a-e-a-e, etc.). Some common alternative guitar tunings (a.k.a. scordatura) used in Anglophone music traditions are set out in Table 6. All these tunings can be transposed using a capo. It should also be noted that several string instruments used in the Middle East, the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent (e.g. saz, tambur) are provided with ligatures which function as moveable frets allowing the musician to accommodate tunings based on a division of the octave into more than twelve intervals (see Table 4).
Some alternative guitar tunings
Name Low string high string Usage
STANDARD E A D G B E general
Open E E B E G# B E
Delta blues, folk
Open D or Vestapol D A D F# A D
Drop D D A D G B E
folk
Drop double D D A D G B D
D modal D A D D A D
DADGAD D A D G A D folk, esp. Irish etc.
Open G or Taropatch D G D G B D slide, Delta blues
Dobro G B D G B D Delta blues, Country
Open A or Hawaiian E A E A C# E Hawaiian, slide
C sixth C G C G A E ‘New Age’
As mentioned in the section about note, many instruments are provided with double sets of strings, for example the twelve-string guitar (2×6), the bouzouki (3×2) and different types of balalaika, each pair of strings being tuned in unison or at the octave. Moreover, each of the piano’s upper keys is assigned its own triple set of strings. The point of such unison or octave duplication is to create a brighter or richer sound for each note. The ‘bright’ effect is due to doubling at the octave or higher, as in the case of 4-foot, 2-foot and mixture stops, tabs or drawbars on the organ. The ‘rich’ effect, however, more likely relates to unison doubling and works as follows. Two simultaneously sounding strings, pipes or reeds tuned to the same pitch rarely produce that pitch in perfect unison, with the result that a greater number of partials is created for each note than issues from just one of the two. Western music exploits this timbral aspect of tuning in many ways, of which three can be summarised as follows.
The characteristic ‘rich’ sound of the French accordion derives from each note being assigned two reeds slightly out of tune with each other.
Recorded tracks are often doubled, sometimes several times, either digitally or ‘live’, to create an effect of multiplicity. Not only can the copied or repeated tracks be offset from the original by a few milliseconds, they can also be slightly detuned, either naturally or by digital manipulation. The effect of slightly detuning a copied track without simultaneous offsetting resembles the ‘wider’ sound produced by applying chorus or modest amounts of phasing to the same signal source (Lacasse 2000: 126-131).
Digitally detuning a copied piano track and playing it back with the original produces a ‘ragtime’ effect similar to that created by an out-of-tune piano or by one that has been intentionally ‘soured’.
Although, in cases like these, tuning has an obvious timbral rather than tonal function, it should be clear that tones and timbres are interrelated. Indeed, as we shall suggest later, what we hear as two or more separate notes may in another cultural context be perceived as one single sonority. There is in other words a sort of no-man’s-land between tone and timbre where one of the two will attract more of our attention than the other.
So far I’ve tried to explain most basic concepts of tonality —note, pitch, tone, tuning, interval and octave. The next chapter deals with ways of conceptualising tonal vocabulary, i.e. with ways of describing the various tonal constellations that help us aurally distinguish between musical moods, functions and cultures.
Modes and modality
Scales and tonal vocabulary
UK national anthem
The well-known tune shown as example 2 contains all seven notes of the standard Western major scale, numbered as scale degrees in relation to the tune’s keynote, g. The order of their first appearance is, as example 2 shows, 1 (=g) 2 (a) 7 (f#) 3 (b) 4 (c) 5 (d) 6 (e). Example 3 shows the same tonal vocabulary rearranged according to convention in ascending scalar form inside one octave delimited by the relevant keynote (in this case g). Such reduction of a real tune to an inter-octave abstraction of pitches demands that tones registrally outside that octave be included within it. That’s why God Save The Queen’s lowest note, the f # in bars 1 and 5 of example 2, is shown an octave higher in example 3.
Even though, in everyday Western musical parlance, example 3 would most likely be referred to as a G major scale, it is not the sort of hands-on scale that students of European classical music have to practise ad nauseam or that you might hear in a Mozart piano sonata. No, it represents a particular mode containing a particular configuration of seven particular notes. Mode is simply more accurate than scale as a description of example 3 simply because its constituent notes will rarely be heard complete in that scalar form.
Another problem with the ‘G major scale’ description of example 3 is the qualifier major. The trouble here is that while conventional Euro-North-American music theory has in general only had to contend with ‘major’ and ‘minor’, there is, as we shall see later, a broader array of tonal vocabularies in daily operation outside that tradition. Therefore, even if God Save The Queen is conceived within the central European tonal idiom, it is, if we want to consider the tune in relation to other musics, more accurate to name its tonal vocabulary in modal terms. That’s why it’s been labelled ‘heptatonic ionian mode’: it represents a store of seven different notes (heptatonic) with its two semitone steps from third to fourth (3-4) and from seventh to octave (7-8) or prime (1). As we shall shortly see, that particular configuration of tones and semitones (the ‘major scale’) is known as the ionian mode, while the ‘descending minor scale’, also qualified as ‘natural minor’ contains the same notes as the aeolian mode. Using the keys of C and E by way of illustration, example 4 shows the four scales that performers of European art music have to practise starting on each of equal tone tuning’s twelve notes as tonic (first and eighth degree).
European art music’s four scales
The numbers above each mode in example 4 indicate scale degrees in that mode. Only degrees 3, 6 and 7 vary between these modes whereas degrees 1, 2, 4 and 5 (plus of course 8) remain unchanged. Due to its overwhelming presence in the European classical tradition the ionian mode or major scale is, so to speak, default setting. That’s why the sharp signs (#) in front of 3, 6 and 7 in the top line of example 4 are in brackets: the major third, sixth and seventh are, in a manner of speaking, taken as read. The three minor-mode variants, so called because they all contain a minor third ($3 or ‘flat three’) diverge from the institutionally hegemonic ionian mode, not only because of that ‘other’ third but also because degrees six and seven are configured differently: the descending melodic minor variant (aeolian mode) contains both a minor sixth ($6 or ‘flat six’) and a minor seventh ($7 or ‘flat seven’) while the harmonic minor contains a minor sixth ($6, ‘flat six’) but a major seventh (#7, ‘sharp seven’).
As we shall in Chapter 6, the major seventh or leading note is so central to the mechanics of tonal direction in European classical harmony that a ‘natural’ or ‘pure’ minor mode, such as that produced on the white notes of a piano keyboard with a as keynote (the aeolian mode, see p. 51) only exists in descending melodic, not ascending, contexts. Moreover, as the label harmonic minor suggests, the ‘natural’ minor seventh of a minor-mode triad based on the fifth degree of the scale (e.g. an E minor triad containing the note g in the key of A minor) is, in classical harmony, almost inevitably altered to a major seventh (#7 or ‘sharp seven’, g# in A minor) to produce a major chord that can function as ‘dominant’ to the home key (e.g. E or E7 in A minor) and produce the ‘perfect cadence’ E7®Am (V®i) rather Em®Am (v-i). The latter is heard as less directional or less final because it contains no leading note ($7 or g8 instead of #7 or g# in A minor).
We’ve jumped the gun here, rushing into intricacies of classical harmony before explaining how even melody, let alone harmony, can be understood as drawing on modes as sets of tonal vocabulary that contribute to the creation of difference, variation and identity in music.
Modality
Although patterns of rhythm and metre were also treated as modes by medieval and renaissance theorists in Europe, we shall treat modes and modality solely in their tonal guise. Modality, from Latin’s modus (= measure, manner, mode), is a term used to denote certain types of tonal vocabulary which, as we just mentioned, diverge from the major/minor dualism operational in Central European art music (c. 1730-1910) and in forms of popular music using that tonal idiom (e.g. national anthems, hymns, marches, waltzes, polkas, evergreens).
Current usage of mode and modality in music theory derives from two main sources: [1] attempts by medieval European scholars to systematise the tonal vocabulary of liturgical music according to Ancient Greek and Arab concepts —the ‘church modes’ (p. 50, ff.); [2] ethnomusicological classification of tonal vocabulary used in musics outside the Central European art music tradition.
Modes differ from melody types like the Hindu ragas or Arab maqamat, which contain not only modal templates but also basic formulae for the improvised performance of melodic contour, mood and direction. Nor are modes mere scales: they are, as already explained, reductions or abstractions of particular tonal practices to single occurrences of notes used within those practices.
This chapter deals only with the monophonic aspect of modes. Modal harmony is discussed in Chapter 7 (pp. 115-125).
Pentatonicism
The most widely used modes outside the European classical sphere are almost certainly pentatonic. Not only could the 60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute found in Slovenia produce an anhemitonic (= without semitones) five-note scale (see p. 40 and ex. 5); such pentatonic modes also occur today on every continent and constitute the entire tonal vocabulary of melodies in many music cultures. One reason for the ubiquity of this type of anhemitonic pentatonicism may be that all five notes are acoustically related in terms of simple pitch ratios. For example, the frequency ratio between g and c is 3:2, that between g and d 2:3, between d and a 3:2, and 2:3 between a and e. Rearranged in ascending order of pitch, those five notes constitute standard pentatonic scales, either major —c d e g a— or minor — a c d e g.
Common anhemitonic pentatonic modes
For Westerners the most familiar pentatonic modes are anhemitonic and can be easily produced by sounding only the black notes on a piano keyboard, as shown in the right-hand column of example 5, with 1b (in G$) being the major version and 2b (in E$) the minor variant. Those notes are transposed down a semitone in the left column to produce anhemitonic five-note modes in more common keys. The F major (1a) and D minor (1b) variants can of course be transposed to any other tonal centre and are also referred to respectively as doh-pentatonic and la-pentatonic modes. Variants 3a and 3b are the same as 2a and 2b except in descent. They are included because they are heard so much more often with that profile in blues and blues-based rock styles.
The doh-pentatonic mode shown in example 5 includes, in ascending scalar motion, two steps of a whole tone (f-g-a) followed by a minor third (a-c), another whole tone (c-d) and another minor third (d-f). The la-pentatonic mode in D starts with a minor third (d-f), followed by two whole tone steps (f-g-a), another minor third (a-c) and a final whole tone (c-d). Both modes contain the same notes but the two variants sound quite different because they are configured in relation to different keynotes. The only relative scale degrees the two modes share are 1 and 5, the other three being exclusive to each mode on its own (2, 3, 6 for doh and $3, 4, $7 for la). In fact, anhemitonic modes can theoretically be constructed on any one of the five notes, but it is unusual for such modes to lack a third or fifth, for example 1-2-4-5-6 (e.g. c-d-f-g-a in C) or 1-$3-4-$6-$7 (e.g. a-c-d-f-g in A).
Of course, some pentatonic modes are hemitonic while others are not entirely pentatonic. A clear example of hemitonic pentatonicism is the Japanese mode zokugaku-sempô (ex. 6), based on common koto tuning patterns, which descends 8- $6-5-4-$2-1. Among examples of extended pentatonicism are the descending patterns of many blues phrases. As example 6 shows, tonal slides on the third degree are the norm in pentatonic blues modes and the slurred diminished fifth is a common additional feature in minor-mode blues pentatonicism.
As stated earlier, pentatonic modes are very common throughout the world. Popular melody from such widely flung areas as Eastern Asia, the Andes, Subsaharan Africa and the British Isles makes extensive use of the kind of anhemitonic pentatonicism mentioned earlier. Anhemitonic pentatonicism from Subsaharan Africa and the British Isles has exerted particularly strong influence on the development of popular music in North America.
Diatonic ‘church’ modes
Church modes (a.k.a. ecclesiastical modes) presuppose: [1] the diatonic division of the octave into seven constituent pitches, five separated by a whole tone, two by a semitone; [2] a tonal centre, keynote or tonic, which may sometimes be identified as a (real or potential) drone or as the final, or most frequently recurring, melodic note. The seven heptatonic church modes are tabulated in example 7. The left column shows each ‘church’ mode, its tonic as numbers 1 and 8, using only the white notes of a piano keyboard instrument. The right column shows each mode transposed to E, this highlighting each mode’s configuration of intervals. Four interrelated factors determine each mode’s unique sonic character: [1] the position of the two semitone steps (square-bracketed in the left column, shown as numbers in the right); [2] the one tritone interval (marked with a slur in the right column); [3] the relation of these two phenomena to the tonic. Thus, only the ionian mode has its tritone between perfect fourth and major seventh (4–#7), only the dorian between minor third and major sixth ($3–#6), only the phrygian between minor second and perfect fifth ($2–5) etc.
The seven European heptatonic ‘church’ modes
More general distinctions are often drawn [1] between major and minor modes, i.e. those containing a major or minor third in their tonic triad and [2] between those including major and minor sevenths. The major modes are therefore ionian, lydian and mixolydian, the minor modes dorian, phrygian and aeolian. Only two ‘church’ modes —the ionian and lydian— contain major sevenths. The ionian mode, using the white piano keys with c as its keynote, is, as already stated, equivalent to the central European classical repertoire’s ‘major scale’, the aeolian to the same tradition’s ‘melodic minor’. The locrian mode is alone in having no perfect fifth and is seldom used on an everyday basis except perhaps by thrash or death metal musicians with their predilection for the tritone interval ($5 or #4), a.k.a. the diabolus in musica, which, quite appropriately, is also the title of a 1998 album by thrash metal band Slayer.
If you are unfamiliar with any of the modes just mentioned there is an easy way of experiencing their sound. To learn the dorian ‘feel’, for example, go to a piano keyboard and hold down the keynote d with your left hand in the bass register. Repeating that droned keynote once in a while, play short melodic phrases of white notes with your right hand, checking in particular how it sounds when you include e and f or b and c in a phrase that finishes on the keynote or on the fifth (d and a in the dorian mode). You can apply this white-notes-only trick with the e-f and b-c semitones to any of the modes listed in the left column of example 7 (p. 51). The only thing you have to change is the keynote and the fifth (e and b for phrygian, f and c for lydian, and so on).
‘Hypo’ modes
Before leaving the relatively familiar territory of heptatonic, diatonic ‘church’ modes it’s worth taking a very brief look at one aspect of early Renaissance theory about modality: the ‘hypo’ modes. This issue may seem esoteric and out of place in a book about music in everyday urban life but it can, as we shall see in Chapter 12 , help us understand the nature of bimodal harmony that occurs on a regular basis in several types of widely disseminated popular music. Here, though, I’ll just present the rudiments of that old ‘theory’ and refer back, where appropriate, to this subsection when dealing with issues of bimodality and keynote identification.
It was the Swiss German scholar Heinrich Glarean (1488-1563) who, in his Dodecachordon (1547), organised ‘church’ modes into the system with which modern readers of Guitar Player magazine are surely familiar and which I’ve set out in example 7 (p. 51). The dodeca (12) in his Dodecachordon does not include the locrian mode. That leaves the other six —ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian and aeolian— each of which Glarean provided with its ‘hypo’ variant (6 × 2 = 12). Three of those six pairs are relevant to the understanding of bimodality in contemporary forms of popular music.
Three of Glarean’s six ‘hypo’ modes
As we shall see in Chapter 12, popular use of modal harmony can alternate between ionian and mixolydian (1a and 1b in example 8), or between dorian and mixolydian (2b and 2a), or between aeolian and phrygian. In all three cases, Glarean’s ‘hypo’ concept underlines the close tonal link between the two modes set out in the (a) and (b) columns of example 8. Each row of example 8 presents: (a) a given mode (ionian, mixolydian, aeolian); (b) the mode located one fifth above or one fourth below (a) (mixolydian, dorian, phrygian); and (c) the ‘hypo’ mode containing the same notes covering the same range as the (b) mode but with the tonal centre of the (a) mode (hypoionian, hypomixolydian, hypoaeolian). It is, however, important to remember, when discussing modal harmony, that Glarean’s system of modes dealt with tonal aspects of melody and not at all with polyphony.
Non-diatonic modes
Many widespread tonal vocabularies are neither pentatonic nor can they be categorised according to the diatonic framework of heptatonic church modes. Such modes include: [1] the hexatonic whole-tone scale, often used in Hollywood as a mystery cue and by jazz musicians as improvisation material to fit chords containing an augmented fifth (ex. 9a); (2) the octatonic scale which runs in alternate steps of whole and half tones: like the whole-tone scale it is another film music mystery mode, often used by Bernard Herrmann, as well as being a favourite with jazz musicians who need to improvise over diminished chords (ex. 9b); (3) variants of the Hijaz (or Hejjaz) mode (a.k.a. Hicaz, Bhairavi), including the Northern Indian purvi mode (ex. 9c, d). These last two modes each contain three semitone and two 1½-tone steps. Among the more common heptatonic modes containing 1½-tone steps are what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Gypsy’ mode (ascends 1 2 $3 #4 5 $6 #7) and the related European ‘harmonic minor’ scale (1 2 $3 4 5 $6 #7, ex. 4, p.46). Such modes are used frequently in popular melody from the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Southern Spain, the Arab world and parts of the Indian subcontinent. It should be added that much popular melody (e.g. Arabic, Indian, Indonesian) uses modes containing pitches incompatible with the Western division of the octave into twelve equal semitones (see Table 2, p. 34).
Some non-diatonic modes
Perceived characteristics of modality
Mode names often reflect hegemonic identification of tonal vocabulary in ethnic terms like ‘Gypsy’; even the ‘church’ modes are named after ancient Greek provinces. From a contemporary Northern European or North American viewpoint, the phrygian mode is often thought to sound ‘Hispanic’, while other modes, already mentioned, are heard as ‘Arab’, ‘Balkan’, ‘Irish’ etc. US film music frequently uses such hegemonic perception of modality to transmit cultural stereotypes of place. In fact modes are probably just as efficient as instrumental timbre when it comes to establishing cultural location in audiovisual contexts. For example, while the sound of a koto or shakuhachi might in itself conjure up ‘traditional Japan’ to some non-Japanese listeners, it would be so much clearer if those instruments played something in the zokugako-sempô mode (ex. 6, p. 50).
Given that mode and mood are etymologically related it is no surprise to find that different modes are also perceived as connoting different moods. Such connotations are culturally specific, the equation of minor modes with ‘sad’ and major with ‘happy’ being largely valid within the Central European tonal system of art music and related styles but inapplicable to the music of most other cultures. Similarly, rock and pop music using aeolian harmony in a certain way has a tendency to be associated with alienation and the ominous, while mixolydian film and pop music veers more towards a mood of wide open spaces. Within African American music, descending minor pentatonic modes with ‘blue’ fifths are more likely to connect with blues, old times and oppression while melismatic major pentatonic melodies link with the positive ecstasy of gospel music.
During the hegemony of Central European major-minor tonality, music from the continent’s ‘fringe areas’ (Spain, Russia, Scandinavia, the Balkans and British Isles) was often characterised by the musicological establishment as ‘modal’, because, although much music produced in those areas conformed to the central (ionian) norms of tonality, much of it — usually older forms of rural popular music— did not: it conformed to modes regarded as archaic by the European bourgeoisie during the ascendancy of that class. Some of these modes, notably those containing a flat seventh (dorian, mixolydian, aeolian) and the two anhemitonic pentatonic modes are regarded, rightly or wrongly, as typical of rural music from the British Isles. These modes blended with compatible tonal vocabularies of West African origin to contribute to the development of North American popular styles challenging the global hegemony of European major-minor tonality to the extent that the latter may now be more likely than the former to own connotations of ‘the old order’.
Polyphony
Three meanings
The tonal elements presented so far in this book have been discussed either as generally applicable concepts like tone, pitch and tuning, or in terms of monody, modes and melody. One of the definitions of melody was ‘the monodic musical foreground to which accompaniment and harmony are generally… understood as providing the background.’ Both harmony and accompaniment by definition imply that at least two notes are sounded at the same time, i.e. that the music is polyphonic.
Polyphony, from Greek poly (= ‘many’) and fonê (=‘sound’), can mean three things. [1] It is music in which at least two sounds of clearly differing pitch, timbre or mode of articulation occur at the same time. [2] It is music in which at least two sounds of clearly differing fundamental pitch occur simultaneously. [3] It is a particular type of contrapuntal tonal polyphony used by certain European composers between c.1400 and c.1650. The third usage of the term, popular with teachers of European art music history, is incongruous because the type of polyphony alluded to is just one among many. Polyphony in this very restricted sense is often used as the opposite of homophony which, according to definitions one and two, is also unmistakably polyphonic (p. 86, ff.). Indeed, it is wise to abandon the third meaning of polyphony.
According to the first definition, any music featuring the simultaneous occurrence of sounds for which no fundamental pitch is discernible can be called polyphonic, especially when such sounds are produced by different instruments or voices articulating different rhythmic patterns. The notion of a polyphonic synthesiser rhymes well with this general definition since such instruments allow for the simultaneous occurrence of several different non-tonal as well as tonal sounds, whereas monophonic synthesisers cater only for one pitch and timbre at a time. This general definition of the term means that things like drumkit patterns, or solo vocal line plus hand clap/foot stamp (like Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz from 1971), or fife and drum music (e.g. Royal Welsh Fusiliers) can all be qualified as polyphony.
The second definition of polyphony is tonal and is of particular relevance to this book. Polyphony in this sense implies that unison playing or singing without accompaniment is monophonic but that voices singing in parallel intervals constitute polyphony. A single or unison melodic line accompanied by a drone is also, at least strictly speaking, polyphonic according to both definitions [1] and [2].
The degree to which music can be regarded as polyphonic is determined by the cultural habitat of that music’s producers and users. For example, the consecutively articulated notes of guitar or piano accompaniment to popular songs are usually both intended and perceived as harmony or as chords (and thereby polyphonic), not least because the strings of the accompanying instruments are left to sound simultaneously and/or because of reverberation created within the instrument itself or by electroacoustic means, as, for example, in the introduction to House of the Rising Sun (Animals, 1964) or Your Song (Elton John, 1970). On the other hand, the fast descending scalar pattern played on sitar at the end of a raga performance (e.g. Shankar 1970) may for similar reasons of reverberation sound like a chord to Western ears but it is by no means certain that such a cascade of notes is in its original context intended to be heard as a chord or cluster.
There are numerous types of tonal polyphony. This chapter deals only with the basics of drones, heterophony, homophony and counterpoint. Harmony, the favourite topic of conventional music theory in the West, will be discussed in Chapters 6-12.
Drone
As the simplest type of tonal polyphony, drones are basically ongoing notes that sound at the same pitch throughout part or whole of a piece of music. Drones occur in two basic forms, both of which are mainly used as accompaniment to a melodic line, vocal or instrumental, performed either in another register (usually higher) or by another instrument. In its first form a drone is a continuously sounding single note or combination of two notes, such as produced by most sorts of bagpipes. While the first type of drone is uninterrupted and continuous, the second has a rhythmic character in that note[s] of identical pitch are repeated at short intervals. Drones act as tonal reference point and background for the changing pitch of other strands in the music. They are a common feature in many forms of popular music throughout the world and are more usually instrumental than vocal.
Vocal drones can be found in, for example, the antiphonal rhythms of traditional hymn singing from Tahiti (himene) as well as in riffing vocal repetitions heard in some types of gospel singing in the USA (e.g. Swan Silvertones, 1952: 1:15-2:00). Instrumental drones can be produced by the same player on the same (set of) instrument(s) that perform the melody, or by a separate (set of) instrument(s): bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, launeddas (Sardinia) and Jew’s harp belong to the former category; didgeridoo (Australia), komuz (Kirghizstan) and tanpura (India) to the latter. Some string instruments, such as the vina (India) and other members of the lute family, are provided with one or more drone strings to be plucked at appropriate junctures for purposes of tonal reference and rhythmic impetus. Rhythmic drone effects are also produced by fiddlers who make frequent, often percussive, use of open strings (e.g. Robertson 1922; Ståbi et al. 1965), and by guitarists plucking the low strings, often when adjusted to open-chord tuning (e.g. Hooker 1960; Cooder 1974). Drone effects of a more continuous rhythmic character are often heard in the open-fifth guitar or banjo arpeggiations of artists steeped in European and North American folk traditions (e.g. Folk och Rackare 1976; Steeleye Span 1971; Watson 1971; see also p. 128, ff. ).
The connotative charge of drones varies according to cultural perspective and media context. In the heyday of Central European art music drones were often used to evoke pastoral or bucolic settings (e.g. Handel 1741; Beethoven 1808b; Alfvén 1904). More recently, drones have become increasingly common and can be heard in, for example, folk rock, ambient and ‘Celtic mood’ music (bygone rural days, broad stretches of time and space, etc.), as well as in such styles as house, techno and other types of ‘modern dance music’. In the latter case, the drone’s connotations, if any, have yet to be clearly established. However, the connotations of one latter-day drone are quite obvious: the ‘doomsday mega-drone’ underscoring ongoing threat scenarios in such popular TV productions as V (De Vorzon & Conlan, 1983) or Twin Peaks (Badalmenti, 1990).
It seems that the drone has deeper connotations on the Indian subcontinent. For example, Coomaraswamy (1995: 77-80) describes the tanpura, the droned string instrument of much raga music which is heard before, during and after the melody, as ‘the timeless and whole which was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.’ The account continues:
‘The melody itself, on the other hand, is the shifting character of Nature which comes from the Source and returns to It’… ‘Harmony is an impossibility for us, for by changing the solid ground on which Nature’s processes rely we would be creating another melody, another universe and destroying the peace on which Nature rests’.
Heterophony
Heterophony derives from Ancient Greek héteros (‘other’) and fonê (‘sound’). It means polyphony resulting from simultaneous differences of pitch produced when two or more people sing or play roughly the same melodic line at the same time. Heterophony can denote everything from the unintentional polyphonic effect of slightly unsynchronised unison singing to the intentional discrepancies between vocal line and its instrumental embellishment which are characteristic of much music from Greece, Turkey and the Arab world (ex. 64).
Heterophonic cadential formulae in Greek Tsamiko music
The clarinet part in example 64 creates momentary dyads in relation to the melody. Those dyads result from the ornamentation of the vocal line it so clearly follows (f-e-e-d-c-d) and produce tonal differences that are heterophonic rather than contrapuntal or harmonic.
Heterophony is also at the heart of most forms of Indonesian gamelan music in which several layers of heterophony can combine to produce a chordal effect (Hood, 1980). Another type of heterophony can occur in the final chorus of trad jazz performances when instrumentalists improvise their individual variants of the same tune at the same time. Another example of multi-strand heterophony can be heard in traditional ‘home worship’ singing from the Scottish Hebrides where each florid pentatonic improvisation on the same hymn tune is thought to present each individual’s ‘relation to God on a personal basis’.
Hebridean home worship - Martyrdom (Musique des Îles Hébrides, 1968, transcr. Knudsen in 1970)
The five vocal strands of example 65 seem to base their melismatic ornamentations on the first four melody notes of a popular pentatonic and homophonic low-church hymn tune (Martyrdom, ex. 66). The relevant four notes in example 65 are d-g-e-d, i.e. 5ä1æ6æ5, the same scale degrees as the initial e$-a$-f-e$ (‘As pants the heart’) in the soprano voice of example 66.
Homophony
Martyrdom (Congregational Praise, no. 390, b. 1-8)
From the Greek homófonos (= sounding in unison or at the same time), homophony is the type of polyphony in which different strands of the music (instruments, voices, parts, tracks) move in the same rhythm at the same time. Homophony is in other words the polyphonic antithesis of counterpoint. Even if example 66 contains a few passing notes occurring in some parts and not others, it is still basically homophonic because all syllables both start and finish at exactly the same time in all four voices. Example 67, however, is 100% homophonic.
Old 100th (French Psalter, 1551, b. 1-6)
One of the most common homophonic traits in pop music has been singing or playing in parallel thirds or sixths (ex. 63 p.78) but, as the voice profiles in bars 2-3 of example 67 show (at ‘earth do dwell’), contrary motion is in one sense just as homophonic as parallel motion.
In conventional historical musicology, homophony is sometimes opposed to what is confusingly called just ‘polyphony’, as if homophony were not a type of polyphony and is if polyphony only meant a particular kind of contrapuntal polyphony practised by European composers of the late Renaissance (see p. 81). This culturally restrictive use of the term is problematic because no viable label remains to denote the sort of polyphony in which one voice or instrumental part leads melodically while others provide chordal accompaniment. Moreover, chordal accompaniment in many types of popular music is characterised by riffs (bass, guitar, backing vocals, etc.) and thereby, as we shall see, to a significant extent contrapuntal. It would certainly be misleading to call such music ‘homophonic’.
Music can be considered homophonic (or contrapuntal) only in relative terms. For example, although example 68, taken from one of the most popular hymn tunes in nonconformist Christianity, like examples 66 and 67, fulfils the criteria of homophony, it is less homophonic than example 67 because: [1] each voice in example 68 has a clearly melodic character, proceeding often in contrary motion to the tune (soprano); [2] the alto, tenor and bass parts in bars 1 and 2 include passing notes below longer notes in the tune; [3] the excerpt ends with a small contrapuntal intervention on the E7 chord in the alto and bass parts.
Cwm Rhondda (refrain) (John Hughes, 1873-1932)
Example 69 exhibits both homophonic and contrapuntal traits: while lead singer and backing vocalists sing homophonically, their combined, parallel melodic gesture is counterpointed by bass line, drumkit and by flauto dolce ostinato doubled by strings. This mixture of homophonic and contrapuntal elements provides the basic texture for most music in pop, rock and related styles of music.
Abba: Fernando (1975): fade-out
Counterpoint
Counterpoint (adj. contrapuntal), from Latin contrapunctus (originally punctus contra punctum = ‘note against note’) means two things. [1] It is a type of polyphony whose instrumental or vocal lines clearly differ in melodic and/or rhythmic profile. [2] It also means, by analogy, the intentional contradiction in music of concurrent verbal or visual events, especially in the audiovisual media. It is the first meaning that concerns us here.
Counterpoint is often understood as the horizontal aspect of polyphony, harmony as its vertical aspect. The problem with this popular distinction is that since chords, the building blocks of harmony, are usually sounded in sequence and since each constituent note of each chord can often be heard as horizontally related to a note in the next one (‘voice leading’), harmony frequently gives rise to internal melodies, some of which may ‘clearly differ in melodic and/or profile’, i.e. they will exhibit contrapuntal traits. Conversely, the simultaneous sounding of lines with differing melodic profile entails by definition consideration of the music’s vertical aspect — its harmony. Therefore, since melodic profile is as much a matter of distinct rhythm as of pitch, it is more accurate to consider homophony (music whose parts move at the same time in the same rhythm) as a the polyphonic antithesis to counterpoint. Even so, polyphonic music can be considered contrapuntal or homophonic only by degree, never in absolute terms. For example, the final chorus in most trad jazz band performances of almost any number (many instrumentalists improvising different rhythmic and tonal lines around the same tune and its chords, e.g. King Oliver, 1923), though partly heterophonic (p.84, ff.), is more contrapuntal than the preceding solos (one melodic line, a bass line and chordal rhythm). Such final choruses are decidedly more contrapuntal than conventional hymn singing (voices moving to different notes in the same rhythm), much more so than doubling a vocal line at the third or sixth (following the same pitch profile in the same rhythm). In short, the more differences there are between concurrent parts in terms of melodic rhythm and pitch profile, the more contrapuntal the music.
Imitative counterpoint of the type taught to composition students in Western universities is uncommon in popular music, even though a few well-known canons (Frère Jacques, Three Blind Mice, London’s Burning, Row Row Row Your Boat, for example) must be among the most frequently sung songs in the world. Indeed, despite the fact that canonic singing is also widespread in some parts of Africa, the most common forms of counterpoint in popular music are: [1] the simultaneous occurrence of different melodies in the overlap between call and response (ex. 70); [2] the contrapuntal interplay between (a) melodic line, (b) accompanying or lead instrument, (c) bass line (ex. 71).
Overlapping call and response in Please Mr. Postman (Marvelettes, 1961)
Melodic line, lead and bass line in Satisfaction (Rolling Stones, 1965)
Although the lead guitar and bass lines in Satisfaction may superficially look like heterophony in parallel fifths, their timbre and rhythmic patterning are quite different — q q. e h iq q. (guitar) vs. q. q. iiq q. q. iiq (bass). Moreover, both parts contrast with the two-note recitation-tone profile of the vocal line and with its rhythmic pattern q iq q iq eq q. . It’s all a matter of degree. The more differences there are in polyphony between parts or voices in terms of rhythm, melodic profile, start and end points, etc., the more it will be contrapuntal. The fewer the differences on those counts, the more homophonic it will become until we arrive at tunes in parallel thirds, parallel fifths (organum) and parallel octaves (unison).
‘Classical’ harmony
Intro
There are two interrelated reasons for devoting two long chapters to the rudiments of harmony. One is that more words have probably been written about the topic, more hours devoted to its teaching and learning, than to any other aspect of tonality. A sizeable arsenal of terms has been developed over the last 200 years in efforts to put the chordal practices of European art music (c.1730-c.1910) into an internally coherent system allowing students to understand its workings and to emulate (hopefully also sometimes to break) its rules in their own music making. The sheer volume of that body of knowledge is daunting. It demands careful judgement when deciding what to include and exclude from this simple overview of what I think needs to be known about the workings of harmony in various types of popular music.
The second reason is that harmony is one of the most established subjects in seats of musical learning; that is in institutions rarely renowned for serious interest in the tonal elements of everyday life for the popular majority. Such conservatism may have a few advantages but it certainly makes the explanation of music whose chords just don’t follow the norms of the European art music (the repertoire on which the conventional teaching of harmony is almost exclusively based) into an extremely difficult task. That’s why this chapter is devoted mostly to ‘classical harmony’, including ‘classical harmony in popular music’, and Chapter 7 to ‘non-classical harmony’.
History and definitions
Harmony seems, at least in Western musical circles, to be understood in three ways. [1] In general it denotes certain aspects of tonal polyphony, in particular those relating to the simultaneous sounding of several tones to produce chords and chord sequences. [2] Harmony refers to the chordal and accompanimental rather than melodic or strictly contrapuntal aspects of music, as in statements like ‘the harmonies under that tune are very simple’ or ‘this melody is difficult to harmonise’. [3] It also denotes the theoretical systematisation of [1] and [2], e.g. ‘we all studied harmony and counterpoint at university’.
Since chord was mentioned three times in the definitions just given, it needs at least a temporary definition at this point because chords as such are not examined in any detail until Chapter 8. By chord is simply meant the simultaneous sounding of two or more different tones, each with a different note name, by any polyphonic instrument or by any combination of instrument(s) and/or voice(s).
From the Greek armonÛa, meaning a joining, marriage or arrangement, harmonÃa, in both Greek and Latin, came to mean agreement, concord and, in music, whatever sounded good together. At seats of musical learning in medieval Europe harmony initially meant the simultaneous sounding of two notes only (dyads), in much the same way as a backing vocalist singing in parallel thirds with the main tune is said to be ‘singing harmonies’. European theorists of the Renaissance extended the notion of harmony to the simultaneous sounding of three notes, thus accommodating the ‘common triad’, with its third as well as fifth. Since then the teaching of harmony has largely concentrated on the chordal practices of music in the Central European tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, i.e. with European art music and with styles of popular music relating to that tradition.
More recently the notion of harmony has been popularly applied to any music which sounds in any way chordal to the modern Western ear, for example, the vocal polyphony of certain African and Eastern European traditions, or the polyphonic instrumental practices of some Central and South-East Asian music cultures, even though chords and Western harmony may be neither intended nor heard by members of the musical community in question. Moreover, whereas popular English-language parlance may use the word harmony to describe things like a melody plus drone, or two voices singing in parallel homophony, conventional musicology would tend to reserve the word for chordal practices relating to the Central European classical tradition. However, since popular music encompasses a wider range of tonal polyphonic practices than those conventionally covered by Western music scholars, it is not inappropriate to qualify any type of tonal polyphony as harmony. This wider meaning of the term makes it possible to speak of a variety of harmonic practices and thus to treat harmonic idiom as one important set of traits distinguishing one style of music from another.
The two most commonly used types of harmony in Western popular music are classical (see below) and modal (p. 115, ff.). Modal harmony can be subdivided into the general subcategories tertial and quartal. Since most writing on harmony deals with only one or two of these categories or subcategories (e.g. typically classical harmony, chorale harmony and jazz harmony), cardinal problems arise, as we shall see, when terms conventionally used with reference to one category of harmony, usually the classical, are applied to a much wider range of polyphonic tonal practices. Two conceptual areas are in particular need of clarification: [1] classical harmony, [2] triads and tertial harmony.
Classical harmony
Classical harmony is so called because it denotes the most common practices of tonal polyphony found in the globally influential body of Central European art music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Such harmony is also commonly referred to as ‘triadic’ (see below), ‘diatonic’, ‘functional’, ‘tonal’, etc., but these qualifiers are all misleading since they can each be applied to harmonic practices diverging significantly from those of the European art music canon, its immediate precursors and successors. For example, all modal harmony using three-note chords is by definition triadic. It is also diatonic if, as is often the case, its tonal material can be derived from any heptatonic scale containing two semitone intervals. Moreover, virtually all harmonic idioms in popular music are tonal and absolutely none is without function. In short, although many popular music styles throughout the world may follow the basic harmonic principles of the European art music tradition, ‘classical harmony’ is probably the least inadequate way of referring to those principles.
Triads and tertial harmony
Due to the importance of harmonic narrative in European art music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, harmonic theory has been overwhelmingly dominated by terms suited to the description of that particular type of polyphonic practice. Similarly, terms applicable to any type of tonal polyphony (e.g. ‘triad’) have become so identified with phenomena peculiar to classical harmony and to its direct successors as to require redefinition when other harmonic idioms are discussed. Moreover, terms from pre-classical music theory have had to be resurrected and redefined to denote modern modal practices, and a few new concepts have been added to the arsenal to denote phenomena for which harmonic theory previously had no name. One such term is quartal harmony (p. 125, ff.), so called because from the viewpoint of European art music theory its most distinctive trait appears to be chords built on the stacking of fourths rather than of thirds. In fact the stacking of thirds seems to have needed no qualification as long as it was considered the norm from which all other practices were seen to diverge; but such a view is untenable when discussing the variety of harmonic idioms outside the European art music tradition and a general structural descriptor for harmony based on thirds becomes essential. Therefore, if harmony based on stacked fourths is called quartal, harmony characterised by the stacking of thirds will be called tertial (see ex. 72, p. 94).
Triads and tetrads in tertial and quartal harmony
The historical legacy of European classical music theory is so strong in so many institutions of musical learning that such a common phenomenon as the triad, which occurs in several harmonic idioms, is so named as if no triads existed in modal or quartal harmony. If dyad means any combination of two differently named tones, then triad means any chord containing three such notes, tetrad four, pentad five, and so on. However, as the expression common triad indicates, triads built on the superimposition of two adjoining thirds are so common in classical harmony that triadic has, in conventional Western music theory, come to qualify not chords containing three different notes (i.e. triads) but chords built on the stacking of thirds. That is illogical, confusing and misleading. Therefore, when considering music in several harmonic idioms, including those associated with European art music of the classical period, it is necessary to use triad and triadic in their original sense only. Harmony based on stacked thirds will consequently be called tertial, not triadic, and ‘triad’ will mean any chord, tertial or not, containing three different notes.
The tonal polyphony of European art music is often regarded as having developed into a form which by around 1700 crystallised into an established set of practices which were codified after the event to become part of the ‘theory’ taught in seats of musical learning. Its establishment is associated with the transition from contrapuntal to more homophonic types of tonal polyphony in Central Europe, and with the adoption of the melody-accompaniment dualism as a basic compositional device. It is a set of practices in which harmony is generally associated with instrumental or vocal accompaniment to a foreground melody, as is evident in expressions like ‘background harmony’, ‘backing vocals’, ‘underlying chords’, etc. Practically all European art music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries uses harmonic practices which also form the basis of tonal polyphony in such common types of popular music as operetta, parlour song, music hall, waltzes, marches, hymns, community songs, national anthems, romantic ballads, Schlager, evergreens, jazz standards, swing, bebop, etc. This broad tradition of tertial harmony also pervades some styles of Country music and film music. Since this type of harmony, which, for reasons given on page 93, we’ll call classical, has exerted a strong global influence on everyday music making over the past two hundred years we’ll obviously need to explain its rudiments.
Syntax, narrative, and linear ‘function’
Classical harmony is generally thought to encompass the sequential (horizontal, linear) as well as simultaneous (vertical) aspects of chords. It is in other words not solely a matter of instantaneous sonority or of short, repeated chord sequences. On the contrary, one of its most salient features is the implication of tonal direction of notes within chords (ex. 73), such horizontal linearity being instrumental in elemental processes of musical narrative (opening, continuation, change, return, closure, etc.) in the European classical repertoire. The importance of these syntactic functions in the European art music tradition led influential musicologists to qualify its harmony as ‘functional’ (Funktionsharmonik). Although this nomenclature is misleading in that it erroneously assumes all other harmonic practices to be without function, its insistence on syntactic function underlines important differences of expression and narrative organisation between European classical harmony and other types of tonal polyphony.
Voice leading, the ionian mode, modulation and directionality
In conventional European music theory a harmonic dissonance is basically any chord that isn’t a common triad containing a root note, a major or minor third and a perfect fifth. In classical harmony dissonances are usually prepared as suspensions (notes held over from a previous chord) and resolved on to consonances (e.g. Csus4 ® C or ® Cm; see example 73b), while closure is assumed to be effectuated by the perfect cadence V®I (e.g. G7® C in C). In these basic chord progressions the concept of voice leading is paramount in that the perfect fourth in relation to the keynote (e.g. the f of G7 in relation to C) usually descends to the third (e in relation to C) and the major seventh (e.g. the b8 of the G or G7 chord in relation to C) usually ascends to the keynote (ex. 73). These voice leading rules are not arbitrary: they derive from the fact that the most popular array of notes within an octave during the rise and hegemony of the bourgeoisie in Europe was the ionian mode, a.k.a the standard major scale (e.g. c to c on the white notes of the piano).
The ionian is the only heptatonic diatonic mode to feature at the same time: [1] major triads on all perfect intervals of the scale (tonic, fourth and fifth, e.g. C, F and G in C major, see Table 7, p. 106); [2] a dominant seventh chord, containing a tritone, on the fifth degree (e.g. G7, containing f8 and b8, in C); [3] semitone intervals, one ascending and one descending, which adjoin two of the tonic tertial triad’s three constituent notes, i.e. leading note to tonic (#7 ® 8, or b8 ® c in C) and subdominant to mediant (4 ® 3, or f ® e in C). In simple terms, the ionian mode’s fourth is felt to be pulled down to the major third a semitone below, while its major seventh or leading note is so called because it is heard as leading up to the keynote one semitone above. This simple principle of voice leading endows the ionian mode with its unique qualities of tonal directionality.
Ionian mode: leading notes and directionality
Although this ionian-mode directionality is that of the V®I cadence anticlockwise round the circle of fifths (e.g. G7®C, see p. 100, ff.), the ionian mode’s semitones can also pull in the opposite direction because the third degree can rise as leading note to the fourth (e.g. e®f in C, ex. 74a) while degree 1 (or 8) can descend to degree 7 (e.g. c®b8, ex. 74b), which also happens to be major third in a simple triad on V (G). In the first instance (3®4), harmonic direction goes anticlockwise (flatwards) in that degree 3 (e) of the tonic (C) acts as leading note to a triad on IV(7®8 or e®f in F; ex. 74c). In the final instance the tonic becomes a fourth descending to degree 3 of the chord on V (4®3 or c®b8 in G, ex. 74d).6 Clockwise direction round the circle of fifths (e.g. from C to G; see p. 100, ff.) is usually enhanced by raising the tonic’s fourth by one semitone (e.g. from f to f# in the D7 chord of ex. 74d), such alteration making for a clearer direction towards the dominant by introducing a second, rising semitone (f#®g) to complement the falling semitone already mentioned (c®b8, ex. 74b, c). Raising the fourth by a semitone (e.g. f to f# in C) moves the tonic of the ionian mode to the dominant, from I to V (e.g. C ® G), and constitutes a change of key or modulation, especially if a pivot chord is included in the progression (ex. 74d). Conversely, lowering the leading note by half a tone (e.g. from b8 to b$ as in the C7 chord of ex. 74c) will introduce a descending semitone (b$®a8) to underline the subdominantal direction of the semitone rising to the keynote of the new ionian mode (e.g. e8®f, ex. 74a, c). The introduction of accidentals providing ascending or descending leading notes for V-I cadences in other keys than the main tonic is an essential characteristic of classical ionian-mode harmony because such harmonic chromaticism is a precondition for the type of modulation without which the basic narrative of most European art music would be unthinkable.
The notion of narrative linked to the modulatory potential of the ionian mode is important because it helps explain the overriding interest in ‘horizontal’ tonal development that scholars of the European art music tradition have tended to show in the kind of extensional dynamic that characterises much of the relevant repertoire composed in the period between roughly 1730 and 1900. It is an interest that concentrates on the extended development of ideas over time in a piece of music (hence ‘extensional’) at the expense of the more ‘vertical’ or intensional dynamic of simultaneously sounding strands of music whose interest lies more in intricacies of timbre, articulation, voicing, as well as in registral, acoustic and metric or rhythmic placement in ‘present time’.
The circle of fifths
The sort of harmonic directionality just described relies heavily on tonal relationships between a given keynote’s common triad (a.k.a the tonic triad) —‘I’ (‘one’) for short— and common triads constructed on degrees 4 and 5 —‘IV’ and ‘V’— of that same keynote’s major scale. In the key of C, for example, I means a C major triad while IV and V mean the major triads F and G respectively. As shown in Figure 9 (p. 100), the keys of F (IV) and G major (V) are each one step away from the central key of C major (I): F is one step away anticlockwise —‘flatwards’— and G one step clockwise —‘sharpwards’. The note g is located one fifth above or one fourth below c and the note f one fourth above or one fifth below c. In terms of classical harmony, the note g (degree 5 in C) is also called the dominant and the tertial tetrad on that note, G7 (contains g b d f), is often referred to as the key of C’s dominant seventh (V7). Similarly, f (degree 4 in C major) is the same key’s subdominant note and a tertial triad based on that note — F (contains f a c)— is, still in terms of classical harmony, a subdominant triad (IV) in the key of C. The same relationships and terms apply for any of the twelve keys: E$ is V or dominant and D$ is IV or subdominant in A$ (I); B is V or dominant and A is subdominant in the key of E, and so on.
Figure 9 also shows that a minor key is linked to each major key —C major to A minor, E major to C# minor, etc. The basic nature of this link relates to key signature. For example, neither C major nor A minor contain any sharps or flats in their shared key signature, while E major and C# minor both take four sharps, A$ major and F minor four flats, and so on. The operative adjective in this pairing of one minor with one major key is relative, a word which in this context has a very specific meaning: if a piece in C major contains a section in A minor, that A minor section is said to be in the relative minor (relative to C, that is), and if a piece in F minor modulates to A$ major it is said to modulate to the relative major. Relative minor keys are placed three ‘hours’ earlier (flatwards, anticlockwise) on the key clock than the major key based on the same tonic (e.g. A major is at three o’clock but A minor at twelve) while relative major keys are situated three ‘hours’ later (sharpwards, clockwise) than their minor-key variant (e.g. F minor is at eight o’clock and F major at eleven).
Circle of fifths or key clock
The circle of fifths is a central concept of tonality in Western music theory since the advent of equal tone tuning. Its main functions are: [1] to visualise the system of keys and key signatures used in much music of the Western world; [2] to facilitate understanding of harmonic progressions found in such music. The circle of fifths is a tonal concept applied to harmony rather than to melody, not least because intervallic leaps of a fourth or fifth are more common in bass lines than in tunes. It is of particular use in the study of popular music in most jazz idioms as well as in other styles influenced by European traditions of tertial harmony. But why are fifths so central to questions of harmony and tonality?
It has been known since ancient times that an interval of twelve superimposed fifths is, with a minimal margin of error (the Pythagorean comma or 0.24% of one semitone per octave), equal to an interval of eight octaves, i.e. that the frequencies of pitches one fifth apart are separated by a factor of 12:8 or 3:2 (×1.5) when ascending and of 2:3 (×0.67) when descending. The concept also assumes that the interval of a fourth (4:3 or ×1.33 up and 3:4 or ×0.75 down) is complementary to that of the fifth within an octave, so that ascending a fourth and then descending an octave (e.g. c3 ä f3 æ f2 ) will land on the same pitch as just descending a fifth (e.g. g3 æ f2 ). Similarly, ascending a fifth and then descending an octave (e.g. c3 ä g3 æ g2 ) will end up on the same pitch as just descending a fourth (e.g. c3 æ g2 ). Hence, a series of alternately falling fifths and rising fourths, running anticlockwise round the complete circle of fifths visits every note in the twelve-tone chromatic scale within the range of a single octave (ex. 75, line 1). The same applies to a series of alternately rising fifths and falling fourths running clockwise except that you have to cover an eleventh before returning to c (ex. 75, line 2).
Circles c-c of (1) falling 5ths/rising 4ths; (2) rising 5ths/falling 4ths
Although clockwise movement round the circle of fifths traces an arc of rising fifths or falling fourths, Figure 9 is never called a ‘circle of fourths’, probably because classical harmony’s overriding sense of direction towards closure depends entirely on anticlockwise movement that virtually always culminates in a V-I perfect cadence. This statement may seem evident in practice to jazz and classical musicians but that familiarity can cause problems when the V-I anticlockwise pull of classical harmony becomes so ingrained and overtaught, so established and unquestioned, that the ability to hear or perform modal harmony correctly can be seriously impaired. I’ll try to address that issue in the next chapter but it is worth raising briefly here since the centrality of V-I cadences in classical harmony relates directly to the circle of fifths.
Cadential mini-excursion
There are four main cadence types in classical harmony, two of which take one step flatwards, the other two one step sharpwards round the circle of fifths. Having repeatedly underlined the centrality of the flatwards V-I perfect cadence in classical harmony, I feel it needs no further introduction. That leaves the other three types to discuss. The two cadences which proceed clockwise are called the half cadence or imperfect cadence and the plagal cadence. The second anticlockwise type is usually called an interrupted cadence.
The half cadence is so called because it marks the harmonic change from I to V in extremely common harmonic schemes like I V V I (e.g. C G G C in C or A E E A in A over, say, four, eight or sixteen bars) in which V is obviously the halfway house (ex. 76).
Half/imperfect cadence halfway: E viva España (Vrethammar, 1973: chorus).
A typical half cadence, like the one in bars 3-4 of example 76, which proceeds clockwise from I to V is a cadence because it harmonically marks a resting point on a different chord to the tonic; and it is half because it marks that change halfway through a longer harmonic scheme or process, such as the eight-bar period of ex. 76. It is an imperfect cadence because it has no finality. By marking the end of a phrase or smaller part of a larger unit, at least half of which is still to come, it has the opposite effect of the perfect cadence V-I. Put simply, half or imperfect cadences (I-V) serve rather to open up harmonic processes and perfect cadences (V-I) to close them.
Plagal cadences also run clockwise, but not from I to V: they take instead the single sharpwards step from IV to I. Since they end on the tonic, plagal cadences are associated with harmonic closure, as demonstrated by their use as the ‘Amen’ chord formula par excellence (e.g. D ® A in A). That said, it seems significant that medieval music theorists chose the Latin word for ‘oblique’ (plagius, from Greek pl‹gioû meaning sideways, slanting, askance, misleading) to distinguish certain modes, not chords, from their ‘authentic’ variants and it’s interesting to note how the same adjective connoting falsity came to qualify the chordal ‘Amen ending’ from IV to I (e.g. D ® A). Plagal cadences may in other words be endings but European music theory clearly does not consider them true, authentic, direct, complete, full, final or perfect. Those adjectives are of course reserved for the perfect cadence leading from V to I (e.g. E(7) ® A).
Interrupted cadences do exactly what their name suggests: they interrupt a ‘normal’ V-I cadence by substituting I with a closely related chord, most frequently the common triad on degree 6 of the relevant key, V®vi, for example E7 ® F#m in A, where F#m is relative minor; or, less commonly, V® $VI (e.g. E7 ® F in A minor, where F is subdominant relative major). Proceeding from V to vi (or VI) is of course an excellent way of interrupting the inevitable because vi leads anticlockwise round the circle of fifths to ii, which leads to V and, with the final/full/perfect cadence, back to I (in A: E to F#m, then F#m ® Bm [or D] ® E(7) ® A). It is worth noting that the interrupted cadence is also referred to as ‘deceptive’ (trompeuse), ‘avoided’ (évitée), a ‘false conclusion’ (Trugschluss) and a ‘trick’ (inganno).
If anything demonstrates the supposed ‘normality’ of V-I closure in institutionally conventional notions of harmony it must surely be the distinction between qualifiers like, on the one hand, half, incomplete, plagal/oblique, interrupted, deceptive and false and, on the other, perfect/full (V-I). Yes, I’m making a plea here for harmonic cultural relativity; and to state my case as clearly as possible in this mini-excursion, I’ve included example 77 as evidence that there need be nothing remotely interrupted, oblique, deceptive, false, unauthentic, incomplete, or imperfect about a final cadence landing on vi (F# minor), the relative minor triad of the song’s clear tonal centre (I is unmistakably A major). There’s even a ritenuto to underline finality: eq . h instead of the usual eq e_h . To be blunt: classical cadence categories and assumptions about harmonic direction may be fine for the musical-cultural practices on which such conceptualisation is based but it would be absurd to assume that those categories and concepts apply to all types of music circulating on an daily basis in the modern media.
Uninterrupted final cadence on vi: Um Um Um Um Um (Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, 1964: final chorus and ending).
After that stern warning about harmonic cultural absolutism I think it’s safe to return to ‘business as usual’ with the circle of fifths. It’s also necessary because, as I’ve already mentioned, there’s also plenty of classical harmony in the music we hear on a daily basis.
The key clock
In the circle-of-fifths diagram on page 100 keys and their signatures are arranged as the twelve hours of an analogue clock with C major and its relative A minor (no sharps and no flats) at twelve o’clock, and F#/G$ major, with their relative D#/E$ minor and with their six sharps or flats, appropriately at six. Moving clockwise, the number of sharps in each key signature increases (one for G major at one o’clock, two for D major at two, etc.) or the number of flats decreases (five for D$ major at seven o’clock, four for A$ major at eight, etc.). Since movement clockwise is by ascending fifths and since an increase in sharps or a decrease in flats implies upward movement, this tonal direction sharpwards towards the (from I to V, e.g. C to G) can be referred to as rising, while anticlockwise tonal movement flatwards towards the subdominant (from V to I or from I to IV, e.g. from G to C or from C to F) can be referred to as falling.
Circle-of-fifths progressions
Anticlockwise/flatwards
Harmonic progressions based on the circle of fifths are common in many types of popular music (Table 7). Those running anticlockwise or flatwards, (‘falling’) are particularly common in styles using the tertial harmonic practices of jazz or classical music. Two basic types of such progression exist (example 78): [1] real or modulatory; [2] virtual or key-specific. Both these types of anticlockwise progression involve the same final V® I cadence (e.g. G7®C) because all unaltered notes in the dominant seventh chord (V7, e.g. g b d f in G7) are contained in the major scale of the tonic (e.g. C major, containing c d e f g a b). However, as soon as an anticlockwise circle-of-fifths progression contains more than just V® I it will have to be either real/modulatory, for example VI7® II7® V7® I (A7® D7® G7® C in C, see ex. 78a), or virtual/key-specific, e.g. vi7® ii7® V7® I (Am7® Dm7® G7® C in C, ex. 78b). Example 78a constitutes a real circle of fifths because A7 (VI, the chord on the sixth degree) is the real dominant seventh of D (II, on the second degree) and D7 (II) the real dominant seventh of G (V). The progression can also be called modulatory because A7 and D7 both contain notes foreign to the destination key of C major (c# and f# respectively). On the other hand, the virtual circle-of-fifths progression (ex. 78b) is called key-specific because all notes in all chords belong to the same tonic key (e.g. C major). It can be called virtual because neither Am7 (vi7) nor Dm7 (ii7) are real dominant sevenths of subsequent chords in the progression.
Examples of anticlockwise circle-of-fifth progressions in English-language popular song (Types: real, virtual, both [real and virtual])
Song Type Anti-clockwise (falling) chord progression
Sweet Georgia Brown
(Pinkard 1925) real (B7) E7 | E7 | A7 |A7 | D7 | D7 | G
(III)-VI-II-V-I in G
The Charleston
(Mack, 1923) real [B$] | D7 | G7 | G7 | C7 | F7 | B$ G7 | C7 F7
III-VI-II-V-I in B$
Has Anybody Seen My Gal (Henderson, 1925) real F | A7 | D7 | D7 | G7 | C7 | F D7 | G7 C7
III-VI-II-V-I in F
All The Things You Are (Kern, 1939) virtual Fm7 B$m7 | E$7 A$D7 | D$D7 • vi-ii-V-I-IV in A$
Cm7 Fm7 | B$7 E$D7 | A$D7 • vi-ii-V-I-IV in E$
Blue Moon
(Rodgers, 1934) virtual N E$ Cm7 | Fm7 B$7O E$ |
(I)-vi-ii-V-I in E$
Jeepers Creepers
(Warren, 1938)
both (a) Gm9 C9 FD9 (b) Dm7 Gm7 C9 F6 | Gm9 C9 |
(c) Am7-5 D9 Gm7 C9 F6
(a) ii V I (b) vi ii V I | ii V | (c) iii VI ii V I, all in F
Moonlight Serenade
(Miller, 1939) both Bm7-5 E-9 | Am7 D-9 | Gm7 C-9 || F
+iv-VII-iii-VI-ii-V-I in F
Autumn Leaves
(Kosma, 1946) virtual Gm7 C7 | FD7 B$D7 | E7-5 A7 | Dm
iv-VII-III-VI-ii-V-i in D min.
Windmills of Your Mind (Legrand 1968) virtual E7 Am D7 GD7 CD7 F#m7$5 B7 Em
I-iv-VII-III-VI-ii-V-I in E min.
Bluesette
(Thielemans, 1964) virtual [B$] | Am7 D7 | Gm7 C7 | F7 B$7 | E$ v
ii-iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV in B$
Yesterday
(Beatles, 1965a) both [F] | Em7 A7 | Dm | B$(Gm7) C7 | F
vii-III-VI-IV(ii)-V-I in F
Table 7 shows that a certain predilection for real circles of fifths in US popular song from the 1910s and 1920s was superseded by preference for virtual variants in standards and evergreens of the thirties and forties. The virtual or key-specific circle-of-fifths is moreover a distinctive trait of the baroque style (Corelli, Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, etc.) and is also quite common in European popular song showing classical influences.
Flatwise circle-of-fifths progressions are, as shown in Table 7 and example 79, frequently constructed as a chain of seventh chords (sometimes also ninths, elevenths or thirteenths). Example 79 (which assumes the presence of each chord’s root in the bass part) illustrates one way of playing such chains as key-specific circles in [1] C major, [2] D$ major, [3] G# minor. To effectuate any complete key-specific circle-of-fifths one step in the bass line will be a diminished fifth (between vii and IV in the major key, between ii and V in the harmonic minor, e.g. from FD7 to Bm7$5 in C major or in A minor), each of the remaining seven steps either falling by a perfect fifth or rising by a perfect fourth.
Seventh chords in key-specific (virtual) sequence anti-clockwise round the circle of fifths: (i) C major; (ii) D$ major; (iii) G# minor.
Playing circle-of-fifth progressions such as these demands a minimum of physical effort because: [1] stringed bass instruments are tuned in fourths, facilitating leaps of the fourth, fifth and octave; [2] fifths, fourths and octaves are easy to pitch on brass instruments playing a bass line; [3] the constituent notes of any two contiguous seventh chords in a circle-of-fifths progression are, with the exception of the root, either immediately adjacent or the same (see ex. 79), this making chord changes easier in terms of hand and finger positioning for keyboard players and guitarists.
Clockwise/sharpwards: a provisional note
Clockwise (‘rising’) circle-of-fifths progressions may be less common than their anticlockwise counterparts but they do occur quite often in pop and rock styles using certain types of modal harmony, a matter explored more thoroughly in Chapter 11. For example, the mixolydian chord loop N$VII-IV-IO runs clockwise (e.g. NB$ F CO), as do all progressions listed in Table 8.
Examples of clockwise circle-of-fifth progressions in
English-language rock music
Artist: Song (detail) Progression
Kinks: Dead End Street (1966; verse) C G Dm Am — III VII iv i in A minor
Rolling Stones: Brown Sugar (1971; plagal extension of aeolian cadence) (D$)-A$ E$-B$ F-C (ex. 80)
($II-)$VI $III-$VII IV-I in C
Rolling Stones: Jumping Jack Flash (1969a; at ‘It’s alright. In fact it’s a gas.’) D A E B — $III $VII IV I in B
Jimi Hendrix: Hey Joe (1967a; throughout) C G D A E — $VI $III $VII IV I in E
Irene Cara: Flashdance (1983; verse start) B$ F Cm Gm — $III $VII iv i in G minor
Rolling Stones:
Brown Sugar (1971). Clockwise circle-of-fifths progression through plagal ornamentation of aeolian cadence.
We will return later to these sharpwards circle-of-fifths progressions from rock music.17 At this point, though, we need to finish our basic account of classical harmony and of it uses in everyday music.
Temporary dissolution of classical harmony
Historians of European art music tend to agree that the harmonic idiom of influential composers in the latter part of the nineteenth century became increasingly chromatic. Wagner’s constant modulations in the prelude to Tristan and Isolde (1859) and their link with notions of the ‘incessant projection of… longing without satisfaction and without end’ are often cited as an early example of that trend (Newman, 1949). The same discourse about narrative in European art music continues with the idea that, starting around 1910, exponents of twelve-tone composition like Schönberg no longer considered central tonal reference points (‘home keys’) as a valid principle for writing new tonal music. This meta-narrative about dodecaphonic music contributed to a widening of the gap between popular and art styles of music. Jazz harmony also underwent a process of chromaticisation in the 1940s with bebop’s increasing use of chords containing two tritones, the rising augmented fourth (#4) or falling flat fifth ($5) providing yet another leading note to tertial harmony’s ascending major seventh and descending fourth.
There were, however, other European art music reactions to late Romantic chromaticism, tendencies that offered more listener-friendly solutions to the problem, for example musical impressionism (e.g. Debussy, see ex. 106, p. 128), neo-classicism (e.g. Hindemith), and influences from folk music (e.g. Bartók). Debussy often used chords as sonorities in themselves without the constituent notes of each chord requiring voice leading into those of the next one, while music influenced by neo-classicism and interest in folk music outside Central Europe show clear traits of modality, often using quartal harmony (p. 125, ff.) which abandons the leading-note fixation of classical tertial harmony in favour of chords based on the fourth and fifth. Similar developments are found in jazz with the change from bebop into modal jazz forms. Even though twelve-tone techniques were very occasionally used for mystery or horror scenarios in film, it was the non-dodecaphonic art music tonality that was later appropriated by some forms of postwar popular music.
Classical harmony in popular music
Main characteristics
Mendelssohn: Oh! For the Wings of a Dove.
Tertial harmony of the type used in operetta, parlour song, marches, national anthems, musicals, in traditional church hymns (chorales), etc. largely follows the voice-leading practices of European art music: flat sevenths descend, sharp sevenths rise, voices may move in parallel thirds or sixths but never in parallel octaves or fifths. Dominantal modulation (changing key one step clockwise round the circle of fifths), V-I cadences and inversions of tertial triads and seventh chords are other common features in these types of popular music.
Examples 81 and 82, taken from two highly popular parlour songs, start by establishing the home key (tonic, I) by means of an ionian shuttle (I «V, bars 1-2 E$«B$ in ex. 81; bars 1-4 F«C in ex. 82), whence they both modulate to the dominant, ex. 81 directly, using an F7 in second inversion (bar 4), ex. 82 via an initial V-I in D minor (bars 5-6), which then acts as pivot for the double dominant (G7) and a V-I cadence in C (bars 7-8). Note also the frequency of dominant seventh chords containing the ionian mode’s two leading notes a tritone apart and how the major third in those chords ascends as leading note to the next chord’s tonic, while the flat seventh descends to the next chord’s third (see the small leading-note arrows in ex. 81). These traits, including sometimes use of tertial chords in their inversions, form the harmonic core of a global idiom of popular music which flourished during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Those traits can be found, in varying proportions, in such popular tunes as Adeste Fideles, La cucaracha, The Blue Danube, Le déserteur, Giâi phóng mièn nam, Jingle Bells, the German national anthem, L’hirondelle du faubourg, the Internationale, Liberty Bell, Light Cavalry, the Marseillaise, Milord, Onward Christian Soldiers, Rubinstein’s Melody in F, Cielito Lindo, Sous le ciel de Paris, Sancta Lucia, The Star-Spangled Banner, Waltzing Matilda (chorus), We Shall Overcome, When The Saints, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Workers of the World Awaken!
James L Molloy: Love’s Old Sweet Song (1882)
Traits like [1] ionian-mode voice leading via the dominant seventh chord’s minor seventh and major third, [2] dominantal modulation, [3] falling V-I directionality, [4] the frequent occurrence of inversions have in fact become so indicative of European art music that they can be inserted as genre synecdoches in a context of non-classical harmony (e.g. pop and rock) to connote, seriously or humorously, high art rather than low-brow entertainment, deep feelings and the transcendent rather than the superficial and ephemeral (ex. 85).
Subdominant second inversion as second chord: a ‘classical’ move — outline keyboard arpeggiation structure. (a) J S Bach: Prelude in C major from Wohltemperiertes Klavier, I (1722); (b) Elton John: Your Song (1970, transposed to C)
Inversions through descending bass in major key: (a) J S Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite in D Major (1731, transposed to C); (b) Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale (1967); (c) bass line common to both (a) and (b)
Altered supertonic seventh chord in fourth inversion: (a) Mozart: Ave verum corpus, K618 (1791); (b) Procol Harum: Homburg (1967b);
(c) Abba: Waterloo (1974b)
Together with dance styles like bossa nova, jazz has relied heavily on a sense of harmonic direction similar to that of the European classical tradition. Long and sometimes quite complex chord sequences, an increasing amount of chromaticism, and the use of modulation are all key factors in many types of jazz. The popularity of the thirty-two bar standard as basis for improvisation bears witness to the essential role of harmonic narrative in jazz. Put simply, no standard jazz performance will work if musicians do not know or cannot follow the chord changes.
Possible renditions in C of VI-II-V-I sequence in main tertial idioms
of jazz harmony
Jazz harmony can be divided into four main historical idioms: [1] trad. jazz; [2] the swing era; [3] bebop; [4] non-tertial jazz. With the exception of [4], all jazz harmony follows the underlying principles as European art music: flat sevenths tend to fall, sharp sevenths rise, accidentals (alterations) are used for chromatic effect or for modulation, and there is pretty strict adherence to falling, subdominantal (V-I) progressions anticlockwise round the circle of fifths. Trad jazz harmony tends to use real circle-of-fifths progressions, adding sixths or sevenths to basic triads. Swing era harmony tends to favour virtual circle-of-fifths progressions with sixths, sevenths and ninths added to basic triads. Bebop harmony can be regarded as a radical expansion of swing harmony: it features considerable chromatic alteration, typically through tritone substitution which includes the flat fifth as an extra leading note, and by its use of chords of the eleventh and thirteenth. Basic differences between these jazz harmony idioms are illustrated in simplified form in example 86 which shows varying treatment of the NVI-II-V-IO vamp sequence.
Brief summary
The main characteristics of classical harmony, as found in hymns, national anthems and many types of popular song, as well as in most forms of jazz, can be summarised as follows:
chords are constructed by stacking superimposed thirds (tertial chord structure);
default mode is ionian, the only mode in which a tertial tetrad on any degree of the relevant heptatonic scale contains two leading notes in relation to the tonic triad (I); in the ionian mode that tetrad falls on scale degree 5 (V7) and is called a dominant seventh;
voice-leading (how individual notes in one chord link to individual notes in the following one) is important: flat sevenths descend, sharp sevenths rise, voices may move in parallel thirds or sixths but never in parallel octaves or fifths;
inversions of tertial triads and tetrads are quite common, as are conjunct bass lines;
initial outward harmonic movement (harmonic departure) tends to go sharpwards (clockwise) but the majority of chord changes proceed flatwards (anticlockwise) round the circle of fifths, ending with a V-I cadence ([[[[vii®] iii®] vi®] ii or IV®] V®I);
only the V-I cadence is considered full, complete or perfect; classical harmony’s three other cadence types are called [1] ‘half’ or ‘imperfect’, [2] ‘plagal’ (= ‘oblique’) and [3] ‘interrupted’/‘false’/‘deceptive’.
As already stated, there’s still plenty of this type of harmony in what citizens of the Western world hear on a daily basis. But that everyday music contains, as I’ve also suggested, plenty of harmony that works differently. Those differences are the subject of the next chapter.
‘Non-classical’ harmony
Intro
This chapter presents a brief overview of some basic principles in two types of harmony circulating in the modern media: [1] tertial-modal and [2] quartal (p. 125). When trying to unravel how these types of harmony work it is in general counterproductive, if not downright misleading, to think in terms of interrupted and imperfect cadences, of dominants and subdominants, of grand harmonic narrative, flatwards directionality and the unstoppable current of classical tonality sweeping us all to our inevitable date with the final V-I ‘perfect’ cadence. In fact, even the ‘normally’ easy task of identifying an unequivocal keynote can be a futile exercise when dealing with music that seems to have none, usually because it contains, or alludes to, more than one conceivable tonic. The long and short of this paragraph is that it’s pointless trying to force the conceptual grid of conventional harmony lessons wholesale on to music that conventional harmony experts have between them spent countless lifetimes avoiding or trivialising.
Some of the issues just raised are examined more closely in Chapters 10, 11 and 12, while Chapter 9 (‘One-chord changes’) confronts assumptions about harmonic impoverishment in pop by arguing that single chords almost always consist of at least two. However, before addressing those issues, it’s wise to be equipped with some basic concepts that may be of use when actually facing all the popular music that doesn’t conform to the rules of classical harmony.
Tertial modal harmony
By modal harmony is generally meant the use of chords that follow the tonal vocabulary of any of the seven church modes (p. 50, ff.). I’ll not be discussing locrian harmony because its tonic triad is diminished rather than, as in all the other cases, either major or minor, a fact that makes it harmonically unusable in any music including drones or held notes at the fifth, or in music where power fifths are the order or the day (heavy metal styles). Six modes remain: ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian and aeolian (see Table 9, p.117). Of these six the ionian is sometimes regarded as non-modal because it has the same tonal vocabulary as the ‘good old’ European heptatonic major scale, the result being that only the dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian and aeolian modes are considered ‘truly modal’. I don’t agree with this special status granted to the ionian for several reasons. The fact that it has been, as we already saw (p. 96, ff.), a particularly interesting, influential and familiar tonal vocabulary, in both Europe and globally, doesn’t mean that it isn’t just one mode among the others any more than I can kid myself, as a white European male, that the demographic ‘white European males’ isn’t just another demographic group among all the others, no matter how interesting I may want to think I am or how familiar I am with myself! But there are other, less ideological reasons for treating the ionian as just one mode among the others.
Ionian mode and barré
Although sequences of common triads in the ionian mode form the essence of tonal polyphony in many postwar popular music styles, such harmonic practice —for example, as found in Latin American urban styles like cúmbia or son, in urban African musics like high life and kwela, as well as in most pop, rock and soul music— cannot be qualified as classical for two quite prosaic reasons. Firstly, such music rarely conforms to European art music conventions of voice leading because many barré chord progressions involve a sequence of parallel fifths and octaves (forbidden in classical harmony), for example between the triads on IV and V of the ionian La Bamba loop (NI-IV-VO). Similarly, bottleneck guitar techniques rely entirely on chords strung together in parallel motion. Secondly, it is clear that such chord loops, consisting rarely of more than four different chords, function in a radically different way to progressions in the idiom of classical harmony, not least because tertial loops of this type contain little or no chromaticism, nor do they not modulate, nor contribute in themselves to the construction of musical narrative. Although such loops may change from one (section of a) song to another, their main function is to provide a fitting tonal dimension to underlying patterns of rhythm, metre and periodicity. Their function is not to provide long-term harmonic direction but to generate a more immediate or continuous sense of ongoing tonal movement and to act as tonally appropriate accompanimental motor. They are, so to speak, the tonal aspect of groove.
Modal major triads
Characteristic differences in tertial modal harmony derive to a large extent from the unique tonal relationship between the keynote and the major triads of each mode. Table 9 shows that each mode contains three major triads (C, F, G on the white notes of the piano). It also shows that the minor modes (dorian, phrygian, aeolian) all have a major triad on the flat third degree ($III), that the phrygian is alone with a major triad on the flat supertonic ($II), that a major triad on the unaltered supertonic (II) is unique to the lydian mode, that the mixolydian is the only major mode with a major triad on the flat seventh ($VII), that the dorian is the only minor mode with a major triad on the fourth (IV), etc.
Major triad positions in church modes
I $II II $III IV V $VI $VII
ionian a a a
dorian a a a
phrygian a a a
lydian a a a
mixolydian a a a
aeolian a a a
The basic principles of tertial modal harmony can be simply grasped using only the white notes of a piano keyboard instrument. Playing the major triads of F, G and C, as well as the relevant tonic triad (if it is not already based on f, g or c), while at the same time holding down the keynote of the relevant mode in the bass (c for ionian, d for dorian, e for phrygian and so on) will produce familiar but distinctive patterns of modal harmony. This procedure can then be transposed to any of the octave’s black or white notes.
It should be noted that one of the most common alterations in tertial modal harmony is to raise the third of tonic triads in minor modes (dorian, phrygian, aeolian). Such alteration can be understood in terms of a tierce de Picardie used consistently throughout a piece of music as substitute for the tonic minor triad, not just as alteration of the final chord. This major triad substitution practice was commonly used in the modal harmony of Elizabethan popular song and dance (ex. 87, 89; see also Farnaby’s Dreame, Dowland’s King of Denmark’s Galliard, etc.).
Farnaby: Loth to Depart (c.1610): aeolian harmonies with major tonic triad (I iv $III iv [$VI $VII])
Darling Corey (Watson 1963): major tonic triad for minor mode tune
Major third substitution in the tonic triad is widespread in much blues and in some Country music where minor or blues thirds are sung or played to the accompaniment of major triads (ex. 88), or when barré techniques are used to progress between I $III and IV, as in the well-known dorian-mode riff of Green Onions (ex. 133, p. 168) or Smoke On The Water. Dorian harmonies are in other words suited to the accompaniment of minor pentatonic melody (1 $3 4 5 $7) because, with alteration of the tonic, major triads occur on four of five pitches (I $III IV $VII). With the fifth degree triad also altered in the same way, major triads exist on all five steps in the minor pentatonic mode (I $III IV V $VII) but the harmonic mode remains dorian because, as we’ve already noted, it is the only mode featuring the major triads $III and IV (ex. 91).
The fifth degree triad of minor modes was often altered to major in European polyphonic music during the ascendancy of the ionian mode, typically to introduce V®I cadences containing dominant sevenths and their double leading notes. Example 89 (bars 1-2) shows a dorian (I IV $III) and a mixolydian progression (I IV $VII, bars 4-5), each followed by the standard V7-I cadence of classical harmony.
Weelkes: Hark, All Ye Lovely Saints (c.1610)
As noted above, alteration of v to V (changing the triad on scale degree 5 from minor to major) also occurs in blues-related styles, especially when barré, slide or bottleneck techniques are used on guitar. In these cases such alteration relates to tuning and playing practices, not to any predilection for the ionian mode or for perfect cadences, as is evident from the absence of V-I changes (B®E) in example 90 whose guitar strings are tuned to an open E major chord (E B E G# B E). Note how major triads follow the melodic contour in parallel motion at the octave or twelfth (fifth).
Slide guitar chords (opening tuning E) for Vigilante Man (Guthrie), adapted from Cooder (1971)
The logic of this modal practice is, as already suggested, simple. Example 91 shows that placing a major triad on each degree of an anhemitonic minor pentatonic scale produces the chords I $III IV V $VII, i.e. E G A B D in E, or D F G A C in D, or C E$ F G B$ in C, and so on. These observations are pertinent not only to blues with open-chord tuning or bottleneck accompaniment on guitar but also to blues-influenced rock music whose power fifths, using ample saturation, produce strong partials, including the major third.
Dorian blues triads: minor anhemitonic pentatonic scale in D with major triads on each scale degree
There are two distinct types of tertial dorian harmony, both featuring major triads on $III and IV: [1] the blues-based type just mentioned and [2] the ‘folk’ type whose triads on scale degrees 1 and 5 are more rarely subjected to alteration. The second type is illustrated in example 92 with its chords of Dm (i), F ($III), G (IV) and C ($VII).
Poor Murdered Woman (Eng. trad., arr. Hutchings; Albion Country Band, 1971): dorian tune with dorian tertial chords
Table 10 shows the major triads, including, where applicable, the altered tonic (in square brackets), of each mode. Table 10 also presents each mode’s major triads as they would occur ‘in C’ and ‘in E’, along with references to examples of popular music in which each relevant modal tertial harmony can be heard.
Examples of major triads in tertial modal harmony
mode relative
positions on white
notes with E
as tonic
examples
ionian I IV V C F G E A B • La bamba (Valens, 1958) [C-F-G];
• Twist and Shout [D-G-A in D]
• Guantanamera [F-B$-C in F]
(Sandpipers, 1966);
• Pata Pata [F-B$-F-C] (Makeba, 1967).
dorian
(type 1) [I] $III IV $VII [D] F G C [E] G
A D • Green Onions (Booker T, 1962) [F-A$-B$]
• The Girl Sang The Blues
(Everly Brothers, 1963) [E-G-A]
• Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple, 1972)
[E-G-A in E]; ex. 89-90;
dorian
(type 2) i $III IV $VII Dm F G C Em G A D • Greensleeves (Eng. trad; first line);
• Poor Murdered Woman (ex. 92);
• Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel,
1968) [Em-D-Em-G-A-Em]
lydian I II V F G C E F#
B • Eden (Hooverphonic) [C-D-Em-G]
• Terminal Frost (Pink Floyd) [D«E/d]
phryg-ian [I] $II $III $VII [E] F C G [E] F
C G • Che Guevara (Puebla, 1965) [ex. 94];
• E viva España (Vrethammar, 1973: verses),
• Malagueña (Sabicas) [Am-G-F-E] [ex. 93]
• TreiV h wra nucta (Alexiou, 1976) [ex. 95]
mixo-lydian I IV $VII G C F E A D • Sweet Home Alabama (ex. 154, p. 224);
• Hey Jude [G-F-C-G];
• The Magnificent Seven (ex. 99b, p. 124)
See also pp. 221-226.
aeolian [I] $III $VI $VII [A] C F G [E] G
C D • All Along the Watchtower [Am-G-F-G]
• Flashdance [G-F-E$-F in G].
• Cadences in Lady Madonna [F-G-A];
PS I Love You [B$-C-D]; SOS [D$-E$-F]
Brown Sugar [A$-B$-C].
The tertial harmony of each mode is often related to the frequency with which it is assumed by members of one music culture to be used in types of music made by others. Hence, dorian harmony is often associated with certain blues-based styles (ex. 90) and with rural popular music from various regions (ex. 92), while phrygian chord changes are often regarded, at least by non-Hispanics, as distinctive of Hispanic popular music styles (ex. 93, 94). Tertial phrygian harmony is also used extensively in popular music from Greece (ex. 95), Turkey, the Balkans and the Near East, often in accompaniment to melody in the Hijjaz mode (e.g. Misirlou). It’s easy for untrained ears to confuse the intrinsically phrygian cadence $II or $vii ® I with the aeolian-harmonic minor half cadence $VI or iv ® V to the extent that even dedicated students of flamenco can apparently feel obliged to finish a malagueña ostinato similar to that suggested in example 93 on a chord of A minor instead of E major. To set the record straight, Sabicas uses a phrygian tonic to end his malagueña performances, as does Carlos Puebla to end his ode to Che Guevara (ex. 94), and as do Haris Alexiou’s musicians with the phrygian songs on her 1976 album (ex. 95). In concrete terms, NAm G F EO in Hit The Road Jack (Charles, 1961) is in A minor (Ni-$VII-$VI-VO) but the malagueña NAm G F EO is in E phrygian (Niv-$III-$II-IO).
Phrygian harmony (a): popular malagueña figure
Phrygian harmony (b): Carlos Puebla: Comandante Che Guevara
Phrygian harmony (c): Kouyioumtzis: TreiV h wra nucta (Alexiou, 1976)
Just as phrygian tertial harmony has to feature $II or $vii to be worthy of the name, lydian tertial harmony, to qualify as lydian, has to include, apart from a major chord on the tonic, at least either a major triad on the major supertonic (II) or a minor triad on the major seventh (vii). There is no complete triad on the sharp fourth intrinsic to the lydian mode, just as there is none on the fifth in the phrygian, none on the seventh in the ionian, etc. Example 96, a folk rock recording in lydian E of a traditional Norwegian tune, contains plenty of #4s (a#) in both melody and harmony —E F# B is I-II-V
Lydian tertial harmony in E: Vilborg på kveste (Folk och rackare, 1979)
Lydian melodies also occur in the Balkans and numerous ‘sharp fours’ can for example be found in Bartók’s arrangements of Romanian melodies for the piano. However, lydian melody is infinitely rarer in English-language popular musics and lydian harmony is almost totally absent. True, there may be a fair number of departures from I to II but these often proceed to IV, a definite no-no for lydian harmony. In fact, apart from the Scandinavian folk rock recording just cited, I only discovered two tracks, one alternative electronica and the other prog rock, containing unequivocal lydian harmonies: Belgian band Hooverphonic’s Eden (1999) with its C D Em G (I II iii V) and Pink Floyd version two’s Terminal Frost (1987) with its D«E/d shuttle. Even the C«D in the verses of R.E.M.’s Man On The Moon (1992) leads into a chorus so resoundingly in G that after hearing it just once the shuttle sounds much more like a IV«V in G than a I«II in C.
Mixolydian harmony is probably as common in English-language popular music as lydian is rare. The mixolydian is the only mode with major triads on I, $VII and IV. It is often linked with British and Irish or Anglo-American folk music (ex. 97-98), with some forms of rock and Country, with rural popular song from Brazil’s northeastern states, as well as in music for Western adventures (ex. 99). One particular trait of mixolydian harmony, the ‘cowboy half cadence’, from $VII to an altered major triad on V, is familiar enough to have become an object of both pastiche (ex. 100) and parody (ex. 101). We return in more detail to mixolydian harmony in Chapter 11 (pp. 221-226).
The Lamentation of Hugh Reynolds (Irish trad: start): tertial harmonisation of mixolydian tune requires I, IV and $VII (D, G and C)
Rounding The Horn (Eng. trad: end): tertial harmonisation of mixolydian tune requires I, IV and $VII (D, G and C)
Mixolydian shuttles: (a) Tiomkin: Duel in the Sun (1947); (b) Mancini: Cade’s County (1971)
Cowboy half cadences: (a) The Shadows: Dakota (1963)
Cowboy half cadences: (b) Brooks/Morris: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Aeolian harmony seems to have acquired two main functions in pop and rock music: [1] connoting the ominous, fateful or implacable (Björnberg 1995); [2] substituting standard IV®I or V®I cadences with the more colourful and dramatic $VI®$VII®I aeolian cadence, easily performed as barré chords on guitar. We’ll revisit aeolian harmony in greater detail on pages 186-189 in Chapter 10.
Quartal harmony
Structural definition
Quartal harmony is so called because it is based on the fourth and on its octave complement, the fifth. Unlike its tertial counterpart, quartal harmony it is not based on thirds, nor on the ionian mode, nor do its basic chords contain tritones whose constituent notes demand voice leading by semitone steps. The basic structural elements of quartal harmony are set out in example 102.
The first line (a) of example 102 shows: (1) c at the centre of a pile of fourths (d g c f b$); (2) the pentatonic scale resulting from that pile of fourths (1-2-4-5-$7 or c d f g b$); (3) c at the centre of a pile of fifths containing exactly the same tonal material as (a1) and (a2). Whether the notes be piled in fourths or fifths, they still constitute a run of five consecutive positions round the circle of fifths. Lines (b) and (c) in example 102 show (b2, c2) the resultant pentatonic scales when c is shifted flatwards to position 2 (ex. 102-b1) or, sharpwards, to position 4 (c1) in the pile of fourths, and to position 4 or 2 respectively in the equivalent pile of fifths (ex. 102-b3, c3). It is worth noting that: [1] the quartal notes of C in central position (ex. 102a) are the same as those of the G minor or B$ major anhemitonic pentatonic modes; [2] that those of C in sharpward position (ex. 102b) tally with the pentatonic scales of D minor and F major; [iii] that those of C in flatward position (ex. 102c) coincide with C minor and E$ major pentatonic scales. Simple triads and tetrads resulting from C in central quartal position (ex. 102a) are presented in example 103 and are transposable to any of equal tone tuning’s eleven other pitches.
Basic quartal triads and tetrads in C (central position)
Each note of the pile of fourths (or fifths, or of the relevant pentatonic scale) can be used as bass for chords consisting of the same tonal vocabulary. Moreover, all of the chords tabulated can be sounded with any pitch from the relevant pentatonic material as bass note. This procedure occasionally produces tertial chords (e.g. the Gm and B$ sonorities in ex. 103) which, in a consistently quartal idiom, are usually supplied with a bass note foreign to the tertial chord in question. For example, with c in the bass, Gm(7) and B$(6) produce variants of C11, a chord which even in a tertial context contains a fourth and is sounded without third (chords 22, 24 and 25 in Table 14, p.148) . Most of the chords in ex. 103 are, however, unequivocally quartal.
In jazz and pop circles quartal chords are sometimes referred to as suspensions. However, although the second C chord in ex. 103 might, for example, be labelled Csus4, it is apparent from examples 104-108 that quartal chords are consonances in their own right, not suspensions requiring resolution as in example 73b (p. 96). Similarly, the ‘C6/9’ indicated in the sheet music version of Sting’s Seven Days (ex. 109a, p. 129) is neither a C6 chord, nor a C9, nor a C9add6, nor C6/9, but a 1-2-5-6 quartal chord (C in sharpward position, as shown in ex. 102-b2) that constitutes the main keynote sonority of the whole song.
History and usage
Open fourths and fifths, as well as quartal chords, start to appear in modern urban Western music in the folk-influenced work of composers living on the fringes of Europe.
Borodin: (a) Song of the Dark Forest (1868);
(b) The Sleeping Princess (1867), cited by Mellers (1962)
Russians like Mussorgsky and Borodin (ex. 104) are followed much later by composers of the Spanish school (ex. 105, bar 2), but tertial modal harmony was for some time the most common approach to the problem of harmonising music outside with the Central European classical idiom (e.g. Dvorák, Grieg, Rimsky-Korsakov, Vaughan Williams). However, the attitude of classically trained European musicians to music outside the canon did change during the nineteenth century. Whereas the Czech-German symphonist Carl Stamitz had in 1798 deemed Irish tunes incapable of bearing any harmony (Hamm 1979: 50), Herbert Hughes, in his preface to Irish Country Songs (vol. 1, London, 1909: iv), expressed the need for a radical and unacademic approach when dealing with such material, championing the work of ‘M. Claude Debussy’ who, he claimed, had set the trend ‘to break the bonds of this old slave-driver’ [classical tonality, etc.] ‘and return to the freedom of primitive scales’. Indeed, Hughes’s accompaniment to the mixolydian ballad She Moved Through the Fair (more recently popularised by Simple Minds as Belfast Child) resolves its chains of open fifths and tertial triads into a final quartal chord (ex. 105b p. 127).
Debussy is one of the first Western European art music composers to use quartal harmony. Although whole sections of his La cathédrale engloutie (1910), also as arranged by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth in Escape from New York, move in layered parallel fifths, Debussy’s use of quartal chords is generally limited to short passages providing contrasting harmonic colour to other sonorities, such as the whole-tone scale and tertial chords of the sixth, seventh and ninth. Example 106 shows the first three bars of one such brief passage.
Debussy: ‘Sarabande’ (Pour le piano (1901)): start of 5-bar quartal passage
The tertial aspects of Debussy’s harmonic language were adopted by prewar US composers of popular song (e.g. Gershwin, Kern). However, the type of quartal harmony just cited, and practised more widely by Bartók or Hindemith, first found its way into the popular mainstream through composers associated with film or the stage, for example Copland (e.g. Billy The Kid, 1938; Fanfare for the Common Man, 1942, the latter used as title music for the Apollo-Soyuz broadcasts and in a General Motors commercial), Rózsa (e.g. scores for The Jungle Book, 1942; Quo Vadis, 1950), Leonard Bernstein (e.g. On the Waterfront, 1954), Elmer Bernstein (e.g. The Carpetbaggers, 1964).
Quartal harmony was slower to enter the world of jazz. The 1959 Miles Davis album Kind of Blue is often seen as a turning point when the tertial constraints of bebop were abandoned in favour of quartal sounds (ex. 107). Among musicians to follow Davis’s modal lead in the 1960s and 1970s were McCoy Tyner and Freddie Hubbard (ex. 108).
Miles Davis: So What (1959)
Freddie Hubbard: Red Clay (1970), cited in Ingelf (1974)
(a) Sting: Seven Days (1993);
(b) Manfred Mann: I’m Your Kingpin (1964)
Pentatonic improvisation and quartal chords became a cornerstone of jazz fusion harmony (e.g. John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Davis’s 1970 Bitches Brew album), surfacing also as music for TV (e.g. Goldenberg’s Kojak theme; see Tagg, 2000) and later in recordings by jazz-influenced pop artists such as King Crimson and Sting (ex. 109a).
In Anglo-North-American commercial music, early use of bare fourths and fifths resembling quartal chords can be found in Nowhere To Run (Martha and the Vandellas, 1965), in Carole King’s Road To Nowhere (1966) and Manfred Mann’s Kingpin (1964, ex. 109b). While the first two are both modal tunes, their thirdless chords are attributable to word painting the emptiness of ‘nowhere’ rather than to consistent use of a quartal harmonic idiom. Mann, a jazz pianist, on the other hand, uses quartal harmony throughout Kingpin in conjunction with minor blues pentatonicism in both melody and bass. Quartal harmony in pop is in fact most often found in the drone-influenced accompaniment of tunes in the dorian, mixolydian, aeolian and pentatonic or hexatonic modes, for example in many a track by Steeleye Span or the Albion Country Band. How, you may wonder, can drones produce quartal chords, given that they’re usually tuned at the octave or fifth and, by definition, never change pitch as long as the tune they accompany lasts? I’ll try to answer that question in the next subsection which, it should be said, has, through lack of systematic studies of the phenomena, had to be based on my own musical practice and observations.
Droned ‘folk’ harmonisation
The Tailor and the Mouse (after Mrs. O.M. Tagg, c. 1948)
The traditional melody The Tailor and the Mouse (ex. 110) can be accompanied using either tertial modal harmony or drones and parallel fifths. Starting with tertial harmony and sticking to triads whose constituent notes are in the tune’s pitch pool (g a b$ c d f), it’s clear that the tune in bars 1 and 5 (with upbeats) traces a G minor triad (d b$ g: Gm/i), a chord that would theoretically fit all sixteen bars except 2, 6, 11 and 12. However, a D minor triad (d f a: Dm/v) would be better for bars 3, 7 and 15 because they only contain cadential ds and neither the g nor b$ of Gm. Bars 2 and 6 emphasise f and contain a d, two of the three notes in a triad of D minor (d f a: v) or B$ major (b$ d f: $III). Bars 11 and 12, on the other hand, contain a and c, two notes in an F major triad ($VII). One simple but viable solution for the tertial harmonisation of the sixteen bars of example 110 is therefore {Gm |Dm |Dm |Gm } Gm |Gm |F |F |Gm |B$ |Dm |Gm ]. That amounts to eight bars of G minor and eight bars of ‘somewhere else’.
When using drones and parallel fifths to harmonise a tune like this, that ‘somewhere else’, that tonal-melodic ‘opposite pole’, needs to be identified as a single note other than the tonic. Just as the tonic, with its real or potential drone(s) on scale degrees 1 (g) and 5 (d) —G5— acts as tonal reference point for the song as a whole, the melody also has its ‘contrary’ pitch pole, its somewhere other than the tonic, that is, in the case of example 110, the tonal common denominator of all the notes in bars 2, 6, 11, 12 and 14. Now, our simple tertial chords for those bars were Dm, F and B$, common triads whose constituent notes are d f a (Dm), f a c (F) and b$ d f (B$). Only one note occurs in all three of those triads: f, the subtonic ($7). It is the central note for all points where the melody is in relative dissonance with the tonic drone (G5). Shortening the expressions ‘somewhere other than the tonic’ and ‘secondary tonal pole’ to the single word counterpoise, we can say that in The Tailor and the Mouse g is the tonic pole and f its counterpoise.
Constructing a temporary pseudo-drone on the counterpoise is a common harmonisation device for modal melodies like example 110. If the tune had been in G ionian, its counterpoise would most likely have been on the fifth (d), in which case the tonic’s G5 (g and d) would have alternated with D5 (V5 = d + a). If it had been in G mixolydian, the counterpoise fifths to G5 (I5 = g + d) would have been either C5 (IV5 = c + g) or F5 ($VII5 = f + c). In The Tailor and the Mouse the counterpoise fifths work best as F5 ($VII, f + c). As shown in the second line of example 111, F5 can cover all the tune’s ‘other places than the tonic’ (bars 2-3, 6-7, 11-12 and 14-15). However, in order to keep a droned effect throughout the piece, as would be the case if bagpipes or hurdy-gurdy were involved, that rudimentary organum shuttling in parallel fifths between G5 and F5 would miss the richness of the sonority arising from the simultaneous sounding of the tonic drone and the tonal constellation of the counterpoise. And that, finally, is where quartal harmony comes in because if the tonic drone is combined with the counterpoise’s pseudo-drone the resultant chord contains, as shown in the third line of example 111, degrees 1, 4, 5 and $7 (g c d f) in relation to the tonic, i.e. the same quartal tetrad as chord number 6 in explanatory example 103 (p. 126: c f g b$).
The Tailor and the Mouse with (a) alternating tonic and counterpoise ($VII) pole fifths; (b) combined tonal pole fifths; (c) tonic drone.
Bass is often included in this type of alternating drone harmonisation.
The Tailor and the Mouse with shuttled drone and bass line
The bass line in example 112 would not be untypical for a droned arrangement of a simple modal tune like The Tailor and the Mouse. After a simple pedal reinforcing the tonic drone (bars 1-8) it launches into oompa fifth and octave figures (bars 9-12), uses scalar movement based on the tune’s hexatonic vocabulary (bars 11-16), and increases both harmonic and rhythmic speed to push things forward into the cadence (bars 14-16). With the addition of this bass line, new quartal chords are produced in bars 11-15 where G4-5-$7 is heard over a, b$ and d. In fact, as example 113 shows, a considerable array of quartal chords can be generated from different modally relevant bass notes combined with the simple parallel-fifth device explained above.
Quartal chords resulting from G minor hexatonic bass-note changes in combination with droned G5 and F5.
Chords 1, 2, 3, 5 and 11 in example 113 all occur in the arrangement presented as example 112, the only non-quartal chord being number 5, a G minor triad in first inversion (bars 13 and 15 in ex. 112). The top line in example 113 rearranges the constituent notes of each chord into theoretical piles of fourths illustrating the principles of anhemitonic pentatonicism and quartal harmony explained on pages 125-127. The problem is how to label each sonority produced by combining the drone shuttle and bass line of example 112 into the single chords of example 113. Chord no. 1 in example 113 is clearly G5 (‘G five’) and chord no. 2 is G4-5-$7 (‘G four-five-flat-seven’, not G7sus4 !), but what on earth is chord 3 (bars 11-12, 14-15 in ex. 112)? I’ve suggested G4-5-$7/2 (‘G four-five-flat-seven with a second [a] in the bass’) because that’s how it was produced, but it’s a very clumsy name for something quite simple to play and hear. In tertial terms the same chord, containing a f c d g, may be thought of as an F6add9/3 (an F triad in first inversion with added sixth and ninth). That label is theoretically not at all unreasonable because the bass line uses the major third (a) to proceed to the fourth (b$) in compliance with the norms of tertial voice leading. However, labelling chord 3 ‘F6add9/3 ’ is also deceptive because the following chord (no. 4 in ex. 113), which sounds very similar to chord 3 and which has the same bass voice-leading function from g via a to b$, contains no f to identify as root note. The question is then whether chord 4 in example 113 is Am11 omit 5, 9, or C2-5/6, or C6 add9 omit 3/6, or G4-5/$7, or D4-5-$7/4, or if it is something else altogether. I suggest that it can be thought of as all and therefore as none of the above. To be frank, I just don’t know and I’m at an equal loss as to labels for most of the chords in example 113 because they’re constructed on polyphonic principles of relative independence inside a shared tonal vocabulary between the shuttled drone and bass line. Resolving this theoretical problem must regrettably be stacked in the mounting pile of tasks labelled ‘future research’.
Quartal: past or future?
It is probable that the use of quartal harmony in pop and rock, including its occasional appearance in such Rolling Stones hits as Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Gimme Shelter (1969), derives partly from the old rural forms of polyphony (blues, ‘folk’ song, etc.) similar to the drone devices just illustrated. For example, Clarence Ashley’s open-string banjo accompaniment to the minor pentatonic tune Coo-Coo Bird is entirely quartal and qualified by the Folkways liner notes (1963) as ‘archaic’. Similarly, the thirdless harmonies of minor-mode shape-note hymns like Hauser’s Wondrous Love (1835) bear more resemblance to the polyphony of Heinrich Isaac (died 1517) than to their urbane contemporaries. Indeed, during tertial harmony’s global hegemony (c.1650 - c.1950), polyphony based on fourths or fifths was regarded as either archaic or primitive to the extent that Hollywood stereotypes for almost any place or time felt to be distant enough from ‘our own’ —‘we’ were mostly conservatory-trained composers, often from Central Europe— were ethnocentrically provided with thirdless polyphony. Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, pre-Renaissance Europe, the Chinese, the Arabs and Native Americans were often harmonically indistinguishable according to a sort of all foreigners sound alike mentality.
From this perspective it might seem as if modal and quartal harmony constitute no more than a return to pre-classical polyphony. There is, however, little doubt that classical harmony’s tertiality and V-I functionality will survive as one important polyphonic idiom among several. It has also left an indelible impression worldwide on practices of tonal polyphony. Its imprint on quartal harmony can be seen in the apparent need to develop means of ‘changing key’ inside a tonal idiom which in earlier times contained no modulation. Quartal key changes occur in examples 106 (p.128: from C#4-5-$7 to E4-5-$7), 107 (p. 129: from Dm11 to E$m11) and 108 (p. 129: a riff whose two poles are [i] Dm11 and A4-5-$7 and [ii] Cm11, E$11, G$/f). Moreover, the Kojak theme changes between Cm11 and E$m11, and much of the dynamic in Bartók’s harmonic language derives from tension between quartal chords a tritone apart (Lendvai 1971). In short, it is possible to change quartal key by introducing a chord whose constituent notes are as different as possible to those in the previous one. The most usual key changes from a quartal sonority in central position (1-2-4-5-$7, ex. 102 p. 125) are therefore those to a quartal chord situated a minor third above or below, or to a quartal chord at a tritone’s interval, or to a quartal chord on either degree IV or V in relation to those three other pitches, i.e. to any note in the quartal tonic’s diminished seventh chord, or to either IV or V in relation to those other three pitches. For example, a quartal key change from C can move to E$, F#/G$ or A8, or to [1] A$ (IV in relation to E$), or [2] to B or C#/D$ (IV or V relative to F#/G$), or [3] to E (V in relation to A). Put simply, a 1-4-5 chord can only ‘change key’ to a 1-4-5 triad on a note at least three positions away in the circle of fifths (C to E$, A$, D$, G$/F#, B, E, A) but it can’t ‘change key’ to B$, F, G or D because these notes are already inside its own tonal vocabulary (1-2-4-5-$7, ex. 102).
It is impossible to tell if developments in tonal polyphony during the twentieth century will survive as long as those of the Central European classical tradition, or whether the tonal constraints of quartal and modal tonality will end up in the same sort of cul-de-sac as tertial chromaticism. It is more likely that harmony might be superseded, not least for technological reasons, by another compositional dynamic: that of sampling, looping and the juxtaposition of pre-existent musical and paramusical sounds.
Chords
Chord, from Greek chordé (Latin chorda), originally meant the string of a musical instrument. Eventually, chord came to denote the simultaneous sounding of two or more different tones by any polyphonic instrument or by any combination of instrument(s) and/or voice(s). The simultaneous sounding of notes of the same name, i.e. unison pitches or pitches separated by octave intervals, does not qualify as a chord. Two-note chords are called dyads, three-note chords triads, four-note chords tetrads and so on.
Chords need not be heard as such by members of a musical tradition whose polyphony emphasises the interplay of independent melodic lines (counterpoint) much more strongly than music in the Western post-Renaissance tradition of melody and accompaniment. In most types of popular music chords are generally regarded as belonging to the accompaniment part of that dualism.
Due to the global predominance of Western harmonic practices, it is useful to distinguish between two main categories of chord: tertial and non-tertial (see chapter 6). Chords can be identified in both structural and phenomenological terms. This chapter focuses mainly on structural aspects of chords.
Structure and terminology of tertial chords
Tertial triads
Tertial chords are based on the superimposition of thirds. These chords are the fundamental harmonic building blocks in most forms of jazz, popular music and European classical music.
A triad is any chord containing three different notes. The common triad is a particular, and particularly common, type of triad constructed as two simultaneously sounding thirds, one overlapping with and superimposed on the other. As example 11 (p. 138) shows, c and e (a major third) together with e and g (minor third) make the major common triad of C major (c-e-g), while d and f (minor third) together with f and a (major third) make a D minor triad (d-f-a, a minor common triad).
Tertial ‘common’ triads on each degree of C major / A minor scale
There are four types of tertial triad: major, minor, diminished and augmented (Table 12). The first three of these triad types can be generated from the seven key-specific notes of any standard major or descending melodic minor scale (ionian and aeolian modes).
As shown in Table 11, major triads occur on degrees 1, 4 and 5 of the major, and on degrees 3, 6 and 7 of the minor scale (e.g. C, F, G in C major / A minor). Minor triads are found at degrees 2, 3 and 6 of the major and at degrees 4, 5 and 1 of the minor scale (Dm, Em, Am). The major scale’s degree 7 and the minor scale’s degree 2 each produce a diminished triad. All four types of triad are set out, with C as their root, in table 11 (p. 139). Major triads consist of a minor third on top of a major third (e-g over c-e for C), minor triads of a major third over a minor third (e.g. e$-g over c-e$ for C minor), while augmented triads comprise two superimposed major thirds (e.g. e-g# over c-e) and diminished triads two minor thirds (e.g. e$-g$ over c-e$). All tertial triads contain the root (1) and, with very few exceptions, both third (3) and fifth (5) of one of the triad types defined in Table 12.
Four types of tertial triads (on c)
type of
triad type of third type of fifth notes in chord lead sheet shorthand roman num.
major major perfect c e g C I
minor minor perfect c e$ g Cm i
augmented major augmented c e g#/a$ Caug / C+ I+
diminished minor diminished c e$ g$/f# Cdim / Co io
Tertial chord symbols
Two types of shorthand are in common use so that musicians can quickly identify tertial chords: [1] roman numerals (I, vi, ii7, V7 etc.) and [2] lead sheet chord symbols (e.g. C, Am, Dm7, G7). Lead sheet chord shorthand is explained on pages 145-158.
Roman numerals
Roman numerals are used in classical harmony to denote chords and their relation to the tonic (keynote) of any key. This system of relative chordal designation can, with minor modifications, be transferred to the study of any polyphonic music for which a keynote or tonic can be established. More specifically, roman numerals denote chords —mainly tertial triads— built on the scale degree they designate. The numerals denote the scale degree of the root note of the chord in question, upper case denoting major and lower case minor ‘common’ triads. Table 11 (p. 138), whose root notes are c d e f g a b in the key of C major (ionian C), show that ‘I’ denotes a major triad based on scale degree 1, ‘ii’ a minor triad with scale degree 2 (d) as its root and so on. All triads in the other modes commonly used in Western popular music are set out in Table 32, p. 277.
Bearing in mind that pitches extraneous to the tertial common triad, most frequently the flat seventh, are expressed as superscripted arabic numerals, it is clear that | I vi ii7 V7 | designates the same chord progression in any major key, whereas |C Am Dm7 G7 | and | D Bm Em7 A7 | designate the same sequence in two keys only (C and D major respectively, ex. 114). Similarly, a repeated |I $VII IV| progression (C B$ F in C) is found as D C G (in D) throughout Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama (1974) and as |G F C| at the end of the Beatles’ Hey Jude (1968b; in G). Note that tertial triads built on pitches foreign to the standard major or minor key of the piece must be preceded by the requisite accidental, for example ‘$VII’ for a major triad built on b$ in the key of C major. Similarly, notes within a tertial chord that are extraneous to the current key of the piece must also be preceded by the requisite accidental, e.g. ‘ ii7$5 ’ for the second-degree seventh chord in C minor with d as root and containing also f, a$ and c.
I vi ii7 V7 sequence (‘vamp’) in C and D major
Inversions
C major triad inverted
In most popular music the lowest note in a chord is usually also its root. However, in choral settings and in music strongly influenced by the European classical tradition, tertial chords are often inverted, i.e. the chord’s root note does not have to be its lowest. The first three chords of example 115 show a C major common triad [1] in its root position (with c in the bass), [2] in its first inversion (with its third, e, in the bass) and [3] in its second inversion (with its fifth, g, in the bass). The final chord of example 115 is a tetrad (a chord containing four different notes): it is a C major triad with the flat seventh (b$) in the bass, i.e. a C7 chord in its third inversion (with its seventh, b$, as lowest note).
European textbook harmony symbols, derived from figured bass techniques of the baroque era (bottom line of symbols in ex. 115), are largely incompatible with the way in which chords are understood by musicians in the popular field. Therefore, when inversions need to be referred to they are most commonly denoted in the absolute terms of lead sheet chord symbols (top line in ex. 115), sometimes in the relative terms of roman numerals, as shown in the line of symbols between the two staves, i.e. as ‘I/3’ for the tonic triad with its third as bass note, ‘I/5’ for the same chord with its fifth in the bass, etc.
Recognition of tertial chords
Individual chords can be identified and named according to their constituent notes and harmonic functions. They can also be recognised phenomenologically. Table 13 lists some of the most common chords in popular music, together with references to occurrences of those chords in well-known pieces of popular music. It also shows, where applicable, with which musical styles or with what type of mood the chords are often associated.
Familiar occurrences of tertial chords (3 pages)
chord
short-
hand full
chord
descrip-
tion occurrences style
(common)
major
triad First and final chord of most national anthems, White Christmas (Crosby 1942), the Internationale (Degeyter 1871), Blue Danube waltz (Strauss 1867). Chords in chorus of Yellow Submarine (Beatles 1966). Happy Birthday, last chord.
m (common)
minor triad 1st long chord in Pink Floyd’s Shine On Crazy Diamond (1975). 1st chord in It Won’t Be Long, She Loves You and I’ll Be Back (Beatles 1963b; 1964a). 1st and last chord in Chopin’s Funeral March (1839).
+ augmented triad Gershwin’s Swanee (1919) at “how I love you!â€. Second chord in Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite and Fixing A Hole (Beatles, 1967)
6 added sixth chord 1st chord, at ‘When whipperwills call’, in My Blue Heaven (Donaldson 1927). 1st and last chord in Mack The Knife (Weill, 1928); in chorus of Alabama Song, at ‘Moon of Alabama’ (Weill, 1927). Last ‘Yeah’ in She Loves You (Beatles, 1963b). jazz
1920-40s
m6 minor triad with added (maj.) sixth First chord in verse of Alabama Song, at ‘Show us the way to the next’... (Weill, 1927). First chord after fanfare in the Wedding March (Mendelssohn, 1843).
7 (dominant) seventh chord Penultimate chord in most hymns and national anthems. First chord in Beatles’ I Saw Her Standing There (1963a), I Wanna Be Your Man (1963c), She’s A Woman (1964d), Taxman (1966), Get Back (1969b).
7+ seventh chord with
aug-
mented
fifth Cole Porter (1933): You’re Bad For Me, upbeat to chorus. Miles Davis (1961): Some Day My Prince Will Come, second chord, at ‘day’. Mary Hopkins (1968): Those Were The Days, at ‘were the’ (upbeat to chorus). Beatles (1969a): Oh! Darling, after ‘broke down and died’ before reprise of hook.
7$5 seventh chord with diminished fifth; seven flat five) Jobim (1963): Garota da Ipanema, penultimate chord; (1964):
Samba da una nota so, 4th chord; (1969);
Desafinado, 2nd chord. bossa nova,
bebop,
jazz
maj
or D or
maj7 major seven[th] chord Cole Porter (1932): Night And Day, first chord of chorus. Erroll Garner (1960): Misty, 1st downbeat chord of chorus. Beatles (1963d): This Boy, 1st chord. Tom Jones (1965): It’s Not Unusual, 1st chord. Burt Bacharach (1968): This Guy’s In Love With You, 1st three chords. Beatles (1969a): Something, 2nd chord. jazz standards,
pop 1960s-70s,
bossa nova,
Bacharach
m7 minor seven[th] chord Youmans (1925): Tea For Two, first chord (on ‘tea’). Bacharach (1964): Walk On By, first chord. Beatles (1965b): Michelle, second chord; (1968a): Rocky Racoon, 1st chord in hook; (1969a): You Never Give Me Your Money, first chord. jazz standards,
pop 1960s-70s
mD7
mD9 minor, major seven[th]/ninth
(or nine) Hagen (1944): Harlem Nocturne (the ‘Mike Hammer’ theme), first downbeat chord of tune. Norman/Barry (1962): James Bond Theme, final chord.s detective
& spies
m7$5 minor seven flat five
or half diminished Addinsell (1942): Warsaw Concerto, 2nd chord. Miles Davis (1973): Stella By Starlight, 1st chord. Nat King Cole (1955): Autumn Leaves (Kosma), 1st chord of middle eight. romantic
& classics
dim diminished seventh chord Beatles (1963b): Till There Was You,
2nd chord (at ‘hill’);
Beatles (1967a): Strawberry Fields,
at ‘nothing is real’. horror chord
silent movies.
9 (dominant) ninth chord Beatles (1964a): Things We Said Today, at ‘dreaming’ (‘some day when we’re dreaming’); (1969a): Because, highlighted chord at ‘round’/‘high’/‘blue’. swing
bebop,
+9 plus nine chord Hendrix (1967b): Purple Haze, 1st chord.
Beatles (1969a): Come Together, start.
Blood Sweat & Tears (1969):
Spinning Wheel, first chord. rock c. 1970,
jazz fusion
maj9 major nine chord Jobim (1963): The Girl from Ipanema, 1st chord.
m9 minor nine chord Warren (1938): Jeepers Creepers, 1st chord of chorus. Weill (1943): Speak Low, 1st chord in chorus. Raksin (1944) Laura, 1st chord in chorus. jazz
stands.
11 chord of the eleventh;
‘eleven
chord’ Righteous Brothers (1965): You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, 1st chord. Beatles (1967b): She’s Leaving Home, at ‘leaving the note’, ‘standing alone’, ‘quietly turning’, ‘stepping outside’, ‘meeting a man’; (1970): Long And Winding Road, at first occurrence of ‘road’. Abba (1977): Name of the Game, at repeated ‘I want to know’. gospel, soul,
fusion, modal jazz
m11 minor eleven chord Miles Davis (1959): So What, all chords. Goldenberg (1973): Kojak Theme, first two chords under melody. modal
jazz
13 chord of the thirteenth;
or thirteen
chord Degeyter (1871): Internationale, upbeat to chorus. Big Ben Banjo Band (1958): Luxembourg Waltz, 1st chord (upbeat).
Beatles (1969a): Because, just before ecstatic “Ah!†on D chord. pre-jazz,
swing,
bebop
add9 major triad with added ninth Bacharach (1970b): Close To You,
1st chord (at ‘why do birds suddenly appear?’); Nilsson (1974): Without You, 1st chord. pop
ballads
madd9 minor triad with added ninth;
minor add nine Al Hirt (1966): Music To Watch Girls By, 1st chord.
Lionel Richie (1983): Hello, 1st chord.
Rota (1966): Romeo and Juliet,
main theme, 1st chord. sad, bitter-
sweet
/3 major triad in first inversion Beach Boys (1966): God Only Knows, hook line at ‘knows what I’d be’. Foundations (1967): Baby, Now That I’ve Found You, at ‘let you go’ and ‘even so’. Procol Harum (1967b): Homburg, 3rd and 4th chords in introduction. ‘classical’
/5 major triad in second inversion Beach Boys (1966): God Only Knows, 1st chord. Foundations (1967): Baby, Now That I’ve Found You, at ‘love you so’. Procol Harum (1970): Wreck of the Hesperus, start of major key section. ‘classical’
m/5 minor triad in second inversion Simon & Garfunkel (1966): Homeward Bound, 2nd chord; Sinatra (1969): My Way, 2nd chord. reflective
ballads,
‘classical’
7/7 seventh chord in third inversion Beach Boys (1966): God Only Knows, at ‘are stars above you’. Foundations (1967): Baby, Now That I’ve Found You. Procol Harum (1967): Homburg, 2nd chord. Abba (1974a): Waterloo, 2nd chord, on the of ‘oo’ of ‘At Waterloo’ in verse 1. ‘classical’
D7/7 major triad with major seventh in bass Procol Harum (1967): Whiter Shade Of Pale, chord 2.
Eric Clapton (1974): Let It Grow, 2nd chord. ‘classical’,
reflective
sus4 suspended fourth chord;
quartal chord Beatles (1965a): You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.
Rolling Stones (1965): Satisfaction, 2nd of two chords in main riff
Marvin Gaye (1966): Ain’t No Mountain, 1st chord in introduction. pop 1960s-70s
Lead sheet chord shorthand
G, D7, Em7, C#m7$5, B$sus4, Amadd9 and so on: these are just a few examples of the shorthand used to designate individual chords in many forms of popular music. The object of this section is to explain how that system of chord labelling works.
Lead sheets are sheets of paper displaying the basic information necessary for performance and interpretation of a piece of popular music. Elements usually featured on a lead sheet are: [1] melody, including its mensuration, in staff notation; [2] lead sheet chord shorthand, usually placed above the melody; [3] lyrics, if any. Such types of written music are used extensively by musicians in the fields of jazz, cabaret, chanson and many types of dance music, etc. Lead sheets consisting of lyrics and chord shorthand only are common among musicians in the rock, pop and Country music sphere.
Lead sheets originated for reasons of copyright. In the 1920s, the only way to protect authorship of an unpublished song in the USA was to deposit a written copy with the Copyright Division of the Library of Congress in Washington. To protect the rights of songs recorded by early blues artists, musicians had to provide the Library of Congress with a transcription of the melody’s most salient features along with typewritten lyrics and basic elements of the song’s accompaniment (Leib, 1981:56). Such a document was called a lead sheet, its function descriptive rather than prescriptive, not least because: [1] the most profitable popular music distribution commodity of the time was not the recording but three-stave sheet music in arrangement for voice and piano; [2] most big band musicians read their parts from staff notation provided by the arranger. However, guitarists and bass players of the thirties usually played from a mensurated sequence of chord names, i.e. from ‘basic elements of the song’s accompaniment’ as written on a lead sheet. With the decline of big bands and the rise of smaller combos in postwar years, with the increasing popularity of the electric guitar as main chordal instrument in such combos, and with the shift from sheet music to records as primary music commodity, lead sheets ousted staff notation as the most important scribal aide-memoire for musicians in the popular sphere. Other reasons for the subsequent ubiquity of lead sheets are that: [1] their interpretation demands no more than rudimentary notational skills; [2] since they contain no more than the bare essentials of a song, an extensive repertoire can be easily maintained and transported to performance venues.
By lead sheet chord shorthand is meant: [1] symbols used on a lead sheet to represent, descriptively or prescriptively, the chords of a song or piece of music; [2] the widespread system according to which music practitioners most frequently denote chords.
Since there are probably as many variants of lead sheet chord shorthand in current circulation as there are musical subcultures, it is impossible to provide a definitive overview of the system. Still, even though a few of these variants diverge from the codification practices described below, most variants follow by and large the principles expounded in this chapter. Table 14 (pp. 148-149) provides a selection of fifty tertial chords and their lead sheet symbols, all with the note c as root. Table 15 (p. 149) shows how the shorthand translates into spoken English used by musicians. The basic rationale of the shorthand will be explained in detail after the presentation of the two tables.
Lead sheet chord shorthand table: explanations
Table 14 (pp. 148-149) charts fifty different chords based on the note c. Each chord is identified with: [1] its number in the chart so that it can be referred to concisely from the commentary following the tables; [2] the stack of thirds from which each chord derives its lead-sheet shorthand; [3] a valid way of spacing each chord on the piano. The first section of the chart (p. 148) is presented in ascending order of the number of thirds supposedly contained in the chords: first simple triads, then seventh chords, ninths, elevenths and thirteenths. That part of the table is followed by a selection of added, suspended and inverted chords, as well by a couple of examples of note omission, and ends with a few samples of quartal chords (p. 149).
The top staff line in Table 14 is not for playing: it simply shows the stacking of thirds at the conceptual-theoretical basis of each chord. The lower two staves, however, present a viable way of spacing each chord on a piano keyboard. Please note that the little ‘8‘under the treble clef of the piano part follows the practice of notation for tenor vocalists. That means your right hand has to play everything one octave lower than written. The left hand part should be played as notated (ex. 116).
Symbols and signs used in Table 14 (pp. 148-149)
Table 14 contains a few symbolic conventions in need of explanation. [1] There is in general one ‘bar’ per chord. If two chords appear in the same ‘bar’ it is because one and the same chord, for example C+11+9 (#100 in ex. 116; or chord numbers 12 and 18 on page 148), can be written in radically different ways depending on tonal context. [2] Certain notes must, for reasons explained later, be omitted from certain chords, for example the major third (e) in the C11 chord shown as number 98 in example 116. Such obligatory omissions are indicated by a line drawn diagonally through the note in question. [3] Sometimes the piano part in Table 14 misses out notes that appear in the stack-of-thirds row with no ‘obligatory omission’ line through them. These optional omissions are delimited by brackets round the relevant note in the tertial stack line of Table 14 (see chords 99 and 100 in ex. 116).
Lead sheet chord shorthand chart for C (1)
Table 14 (cont’d): Lead sheet chord shorthand chart for C (2)
Full names of lead sheet chords in C (Table 14)
chord shorthand number in table 14 as spoken in English
C+ or Caug 3 C plus, C augmented, C aug [o:g]
C7 C9 C11 C13 5, 13, 22, 26 C seven, C nine, C eleven, C thirteen
Cmaj7, Cmaj9 7, 15 C major seven, C major nine
C7-5 or C7$5 10 C seven minus five, C seven flat five
C7aug, C7+ 9 C seven augmented, C seven plus
C9+ (C9aug) C+9 19 18 C nine plus (C nine augmented), C plus 9
C13+11 (C11+13) 31 C thirteen plus eleven (C eleven plus thirteen)
Cm7, Cm9, Cm11 6, 14, 23 C minor seven, C minor nine, C minor eleven
CmD, CmD9 8, 16 C minor major seven, C minor major nine
Cm7-5 or Cm7$5 or Cø 11 C minor seven minus five,
C minor seven flat five, C half diminished
Cdim or Cdim7 12 C diminished, C dim, C diminished seventh
C6, Cm6 33, 34 C six (C add[ed] sixth), C minor six
(C minor add[ed] sixth)
Csus(4), Csus9 37, 39 C sus (four), C four suspension, C suspended fourth, C sus nine
Cadd9, Cmadd9 35, 36 C add nine, C minor add nine
C7/3, C7/e 41 C (with) third in bass, C (with) e bass, C first inversion
Basic rationale of lead sheet chord shorthand
After seeing so many stacked thirds, it seems superfluous to state that lead sheet chord shorthand has a tertial basis. Since this system of abbreviation evolved during the heyday of tertial harmony in popular music, its simplest symbols denote common triads built on the designated note (e.g. ‘C’ for a common C major triad). Moreover, characters placed after the triad name tend merely to qualify that tertial triad, either in terms of notes added to it or by denoting chromatic alteration of any degree within the chord except for the root and its third. Similarly, the numerals seen most frequently after the triad symbol (7, 9, 11, 13) represent pitches stacked in thirds above the two thirds already contained within the triad (1-3, 3-5) on which a more complex chord is based (e.g. C9 containing b$ and d —flat seventh and major ninth— in addition to c-e-g). The shorthand system also assumes that root and bass note are the same. Developed in style-specific contexts, lead sheet chord shorthand allows for the concise and efficient representation of chords in many types of popular music, for example jazz standards, chanson, Schlager and many types of pop, rock and Country music. The system is, however, cumbersome and in need of reform when it comes to codifying inversions and to non-tertial harmony.
Symbol components
Lead sheet chord symbols are built from the following components placed in the following order: [1] note name of the chord’s root, present in every symbol; [2] triad type, if not major; [3] type of seventh, if any; [4] ninths, elevenths and thirteenths, if any, with or without alteration; [5] altered fifth, if any; [6] added notes outside the tertial stack, or omitted notes and suspensions, if any; [7] inversions, if any. Since components [2] through [7] are only included when necessary, chord symbols range from very simple (e.g. C, Cm, C7) to quite complex (e.g. F#m6add9, B$-13+9, E omit G#). Table 16 summarises the order of presentation for symbols most commonly used in connection with tertial chords containing neither added notes, nor suspensions nor inversions.
Normal order of components in lead sheet chord shorthand
1: root
note
name A, B$, B, C, C#/D$, D, D#/E$,
E, F, F#/G$, G, G#/A$
chord/interval type
perfect
major
minor
augmented
diminished
2: triad type
[omit] m
(=min/mi) aug or +(5) [v. unusual]
3: type of
seventh maj(7)
or D
7 dim(7)
or o(7)
4a: thirteenth 13 –13
b: eleventh 11 +11
c: ninth 9 –9 +9
5: fifth + or aug –5 or $5
Note name of the chord’s root
Note names may be in English, as in the top row of Table 16, or are written according to Germanic or Latin language nomenclature. English root note names are always in upper-case.
Tertial triad type
No extra symbol is necessary for standard major triads: just ‘C’ on its own is always a C major common triad, i.e. c-e-g. The qualifier ‘major’ applies exclusively to sevenths, never to thirds (see p. 152). On the other hand, ‘minor’ applies to the third and to no other note in the chord. Chords built as or on a common minor triad must therefore include the triad type qualifier ‘m’, ‘mi’ or ‘min’, always lower-case, immediately after the chord root’s note name. For example, ‘Cm’ means a C minor common triad, i.e. c-e$-g.
Augmented triads consist of two superimposed major thirds (e.g. c-e-g#), diminished triads of two superimposed minor thirds (e.g. c-e$-g$). The adjectives augmented and diminished qualify in this case the alteration of scale degree 5. Augmented fifths are usually indicated by a ‘+’, or by ‘aug’ (e.g. ‘C+’, or ‘Caug’). While the diminished triad is uncommon on its own, the augmented triad (C+, B$+, etc.) occurs quite frequently in popular music.
To avoid linguistic incongruities like ‘Amadd9’ in chord shorthand —there’s nothing mad about it!— it is preferable to write root name and triad type in normal typeface, subsequent symbols in a smaller typeface and/or as superscript, for example ‘Ammaj7 ’ or ‘Amadd9 ’.
Type of seventh
Since, in the often jazz-related styles for which lead sheet symbols were originally developed, the minor (flat) seventh (e.g. b$ in relation to c) is more common than the key-specific major seventh (e.g. b8 in relation to c), and since the qualifier ‘minor’ is applied exclusively to the third in tertial triads, a common major triad with an added minor seventh requires no other qualification than the numeral 7 (Table 14: 5): flat seven is default seventh in the same way as default triads feature major thirds. On the other hand, tertial chords containing a key-specific major seventh need to be flagged by means of ‘maj’ or ‘D’ (table 14: 7). Since maj and D are reserved as qualifiers of the seventh and of no other scale degree, the ‘7’ may be omitted in conjunction with these symbols (e.g. Cmaj or CD = Cmaj7). However, the simple ‘7’ is always present to denote the default tetrad of the seventh whose seventh degree is always flat or minor, see Table 14: 5-12).
Seventh chords containing an augmented fifth indicate such alteration by 7+ or 7aug (Table 14: 9). Diminished fifths in seventh chords containing a major third appear as 7-5 (‘seven minus five’) or 7$5 (‘seven flat five’, see Table 14: 10). Seventh chords containing minor third, diminished fifth and flat seventh are written as m7-5 or m7$5, sometimes as ø (‘minor seven flat five’ or ‘half diminished’, Table 14: 11). The ‘dim’ chord constitutes a special case, containing both diminished seventh and fifth, and is most frequently indicated by dim placed straight after the root note name, sometimes by dim7, occasionally by o or o7 (‘diminished seventh’ or just ‘dim’; Table 14, chord no. 12).
Ninths, elevenths, thirteenths
Chords involving ninths, elevenths and thirteenths are assumed to include, at least theoretically, some kind of tertial triad and some kind of seventh (p. 148: 13-32). Chords containing elevenths presuppose the presence of a ninth, and thirteenth chords the presence of an eleventh as well as a ninth, all in addition to a seventh and the major or minor triad of the root note. To save space, shorthand denoting all such chords is usually presented in descending order of intervals requiring qualification — thirteenths, elevenths, ninths, fifths — once the root note name, the minor triad marker (if necessary) and the major seventh symbol (if necessary) have been included (Table 14: 17-32). The only exception to this practice is the chord containing major thirteenth and augmented eleventh (13+11) which is sometimes referred to in reverse order as 11+13 (p. 148: 31-32). Shorthand for chords of the thirteenth, eleventh and ninth include no mention of the eleventh, ninth or seventh below them, unless any of those degrees deviate from their default values (perfect eleventh, major ninth, minor seventh). For example, the ‘11’ in C11 assumes the presence of the default ninth and flat seventh (d and b$), whereas the ‘9’ in C+11+9 is included on account of its alteration from d to d#/e$ (ex. 116, p. 147: chord 100).
Certain notes are often omitted from ninth, eleventh and thirteenth chords. While most of the omissions are preferential, one is mandatory: removing the major third from an eleven chord because of an internal minor-ninth dissonance created between the major third lower in the chord and the eleventh usually at the top, for example the e83 against the f4 in C11 (see chord 98 in ex. 116, p. 147). Other omissions relate largely to register. For example, with an accompanimental register in the middle of the piano keyboard and with bass notes usually between one and two octaves lower, sounding the fifth in chords of the ninth and thirteenth can often cause a ‘muddy’, ‘cluttered’ effect. It is for this reason that fifths are omitted in chords 17, 18 and 26-31 on page 148.
Altered fifths
Although simple augmented and diminished triads are encoded + or aug and dim or ° respectively, the symbol for altered fifths (+ and –5 or $5) in chords of the seventh, ninth, eleventh and thirteenth is always placed last after all other relevant information (e.g. C7$5, Cm7$5, C7+, etc; see table 14, chords 9-12, 19-21, page 148).
Additional symbols
Omitted notes
The more notes a chord theoretically contains, the more difficult it becomes to space those notes satisfactorily on the keyboard or guitar. As we just saw with the ‘eleven chord’, the principle of tertial stacking even leads to unacceptable dissonance that can prove impossible to resolve without removing a note from the stack. Such removal also applies to any thirteenth chord whose theoretical tertial stack contains an unaltered eleventh: that note is always left out of thirteenth chords based on the major triad (p. 148, chords 26-30). Similarly, the perfect fifth is often omitted from thirteenth chords as well as from certain ninth chords. All these omissions constitute standard practice and need not be indicated in lead sheet chords.
One chord which does require indication of note omission is the ‘bare’ fifth, often used as rock power chord and usually noted (in E) as ‘E no 3’ or ‘E omit G#’. A less clumsy way of indicating open fifths is with a simple ‘5’, for example ‘E5’ for a dyad of e and b, B$5 for b$ and f, C5 for c and g, etc. (see Table 14, p. 149, chord 45).
Added ninths and sixths
Added chords are those consisting of a simple triad to which another single note has been added without inclusion of intervening odd-number degrees that result from tertial stacking. For example, add9 and madd9 chords are triads to which the ninth has been added without including an intermediate seventh (p. 149, chords 35-36). Similarly, the two sixth chords (p. 149: 33-34) are qualifiable as added because they both consist of a triad to which a major sixth has been added without any intervening sevenths, ninths or elevenths making them into chords of the thirteenth. It should be remembered that the ‘m’ in ‘m6’ refers to the minor third, not to the sixth which is always major (e.g. Cm6 as c e$ g a8; p. 149: 34). Unlike added ninths, added sixth chords are not indicated with the prefix ‘add’ before the ‘6’.
Suspended fourths and ninths
Suspensions are chords that can be resolved into a subsequent tertial consonance. The most common suspensions in popular music, sus4 and sus9, both resolve to common major or minor triads, the fourth of sus4 to a third, the ninth of sus9 to the octave (e.g. the f in Csus4 to the e of C or the e$ of Cm, the d in Csus9 to the c of C or Cm (p. 149: 37-40). The absence of any numeral after sus assumes that the suspension is held on a fourth. Although add9 chords (p. 149: 35-36) and sus9s (39-40) may be identical as individual chords, sus9 should typically resolve in the manner just described, while add9 need not. (For use of sus in quartal harmony, see ‘Non-tertial chords’, p. 157, ff.).
Inversions
Since inversions mainly to occur in popular music in passing-note patterns or anacruses created by the bass player without reference to notation, no standard lead sheet codification exists for such practices. This lacuna in the system makes chord labelling difficult in classical harmony contexts. One way of indicating inversions is, however, to write the relevant bass note by interval number or note name following the rest of the chord’s symbols and a forward slash, for example C7/3 or, for a C seven chord with its third (e) in the bass, C7/e (p. 149: 41-43). Inversions audible in pop recordings are often absent from published lead sheets and tend only be indicated if they occur on an important downbeat or its syncopated anticipation. The same goes for chords that are held or repeated while bass notes change in conjunct motion. For example, a bass line descending chromatically from Cm to A$ would first pass through the chord shown as number 44 on page 149: Cm/b8. That indication may be accurate but the chord is unlikely to be called ‘C minor with a major seventh in the bass’ or ‘C minor over b natural in the bass’, much more likely to be thought of as a ‘another C minor’, because it’s simply part of the bass player’s job to take the music from Cm to A$ in an appropriate manner. In any case, you are unlikely to see |D D/c# |Bm D/a |GD| as lead-sheet shorthand for the first five chords in Bach’s Air (1731), however accurate that may be.
Anomalies
Flat, sharp, plus and minus
Sharp and flat signs (#, $) are mainly reserved as accidentals qualifying the root note name. Example 117 shows the ‘$’ in ‘E$9’ indicating that the root note e itself is flat (E$) and not its ninth (f# becoming f8). It is in this way possible to distinguish between an E flat nine chord, (E$9: e$-g-b$-d$-f), and an E minus nine chord (E-9, i.e. E7 with a flat ninth, i.e. e-g#-[b]-d-f8). Otherwise the rule is that in any chord, all altered degrees apart from 3 and 7 (pp. 151-152) are indicated by ‘+’ for a note raised by a semitone and by ‘–’ or ‘$’ for a note lowered by one semitone. C7$5 and C7-5 are in other words the same chord. It should be noted that conflicting conventions concerning the use of these symbols are in operation. For example, some versions of the ‘Real Book’ use minus signs instead of m or min to denote minor triads, flat and sharp signs instead of + and – to signal chromatic alteration.
Enharmonic spelling
Lead sheet chord shorthand tends to disregard the rules of enharmonic orthography. For example, although the $II®I cadence at the end of the Girl from Ipanema (Jobim, 1963) might appear as A$9$5 ® Gmaj7 on a lead sheet in G, the same $II®I cadence would in E$ almost certainly be spelt E9$5 ® E$maj7 rather than the enharmonically correct F$9$5 ® E$maj7. Similarly, distinction is rarely made between chords containing a falling minor tenth and those with a rising augmented ninth: the assumption is that since both +9 and -10 refer to the same equal-tone pitch, the difference between them is immaterial. +9 is much more commonly used than -10, even if the latter is more often enharmonically correct.
Non-tertial chords
Since non-tertial chords do not derive from stacked thirds, they are not really translatable into lead sheet shorthand. Apart from open fifths, already mentioned, there are problems in encoding harmonies used in modal and bitonal jazz, as well as in some types of folk music and avant-garde rock. For example, standard consonances in quartal harmony, like chords 48 and 50 on page 149 (C4 and C4$7), are often labelled ‘sus’ or ‘sus4’, which is in one sense not surprising because chords 48 and 50 (C4 and C4$7) contain exactly the same notes as chords 37 and 38 (Csus, C7sus). The point is that neither C2,4, nor C5 and C4$7 need any ‘resolution’ and that harmonic suspension is neither intended nor perceived. That such suspension is intended in chords 37-40 is indicated in the table (p. 149) by arrows leading from each suspended note to its resolution on the small, stemless black note following it.
Another anomaly is that musicians often conceptualise chords of the eleventh and thirteenth bitonally rather than in terms of stacked thirds, for example C13+11 as a D major triad on top of C7; or C11 as Gm7 or B$6 with c in the bass. No satisfactory consensus exists as to how such chords might be more adequately encoded. One possible solution to part of the problem may be to refer to some of these chords in the way suggested in table 14, examples 47-50 (p. 149), in line with our discussion of quartal harmony in Chapter 6 (pp. 125-136).
One-chord changes
When is a chord not a chord? ‘When it’s two or three’ is the answer and general topic of this short chapter. Before trying to answer the question less glibly, however, it’s necessary to first confront some general misconceptions about harmony in popular music.
Harmonic impoverishment?
Even today (2009) some art music buffs will complain that popular music is harmonically impoverished. They’ll most likely back up their opinion by arguing that a twelve-bar blues contains only three chords. Jazz adepts will then retort that a bebop blues performance usually includes lots of different chords of considerable complexity. I agree with those jazzos because I remember having great difficulty learning the following twelve-bar harmonic sequence (ex. 118).
Engdahl’s bebop chords for a blues in A$
bar 1 (A$=I)
h. A$13 q D+9$5 bar 2 (D$=IV)
h. D$9 q G7a$ bar 3 (A$=I)
h. A$13 q A13 bar 4 (A$=I)
h. A$13 q D+9$5
bar 5 (D$=IV)
h D$9 h G$13 [6] q B813 q E+9
q B$-9+5 q E$+9 bar 7 (A$=I)
h A$13 h G13+9 bar 8 (A$=I)
h G$13 h F+9
bar 9 (E$=V)
B$+9+5 or E+9 bar 10 (D$=IV)
w E$+9+5 or A13 bar 11 (A$=I)
h A$13 h B813 bar 12 (A$=I)
h E9 h E$13+5
Whatever respect I may have for the complexity of such harmonies, I cannot logically argue that music normally devoid of thirteenth- and altered ninth-chords (chanson, pop songs, rock numbers, folk arrangements, etc.), is intrinsically less interesting than bebop. Nor should it imply, as we shall see, that songs containing only three chords, like Chuck Berry’s Nadine (1964 —B$ ×12 bars, E$ ×2, B$ ×2, F, E$, B$ ×2), is tonally less interesting than the first movement of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik (5:44; 1787), a piece of late eighteenth-century easy listening which starts in G, modulates to D, repeats that whole process, then jumps to C major, after which it modulates through A minor and, via D, back to G to recap the first themes. The whole process is embellished with standard tertial chord changes between, and with cadential harmonic formulae at, the tonal milestones just mentioned.
There are at least three problems with the idea of popular music as harmonically impoverished. The first of these relates to the fact that harmony has acquired a privileged status in seats of musical learning and in the notion that texture, timbre, rhythmic articulation and other non-notatable parameters of musical expression are somehow of secondary importance. It is as if the moving coil microphone, electrically amplified instruments, multi-channel recording, studio sound treatment, sequencing, digital sampling and the change of musical commodity from score to recording had never taken place nor in any way contributed to any change in the way music’s expressive potential is realised. True, harmony still exists today, but it has, thanks to the twentieth-century developments just listed, become just one parameter of expression among many. Electrically amplified and recorded music allows for the expression of intimate vocal nuance, as well as for the presentation of complex acoustic space through use of panning, reverb, delay, chorus and so on. Moreover, popular musicians devote considerable time and attention to perfecting particular sounds with their instruments and equipment, while the new millennium’s mashers and remixers seem to favour parameters of synchronicity, metricity, periodicity and timbral interest to create their sample-based compositions. To turn the tables, no-one in their right mind would dismiss late Beethoven quartets on grounds of monometricity (no cross-rhythms), monotimbrality (just a string quartet) or monospatiality (no variation or complexity of acoustic ambiance) because it is obvious that the main dynamic of those quartets comes from thematic and harmonic development over time. It is by the same token silly to dismiss Chuck Berry’s Nadine (1964, ex. 120) because it spends 70% of its time on one chord, or Bo Diddley’s Bo Diddley (1958) because it never changes harmony at all.
The second reason for refuting high-art arguments of harmonic complexity versus impoverishment is that while many types of popular music are frowned on for containing too few chords that are too simple, other music that contains no chords at all, such as raga music from India, is rarely the target of the same sort of criticism. It’s as if one set of values applied to art musics of the world and another to the everyday musical fare of the popular majority in the urban West.
The third reason —and the main topic of the next few chapters— is that harmony in many types of popular music doesn’t function in the same way as jazz or classical harmony and that it’s not as crude or simple as uninformed jazzos and classical buffs still sometimes seem to believe.
Extensional and intensional
The very notion of chord change has an obvious temporal implication. It’s not the short hiatus that can sometimes occur when performing a technically difficult chord change that’s at issue here but the fact that chord changes entail by definition movement from one tonal configuration to another and that no movement of any type can take place without time passing. For example, the E«A shuttle with the famous sus4 guitar riff over A in Satisfaction (Rolling Stones, 1965) occupies about 3.6 seconds (c. 0:1.8 each on E and A at q=136) before it is repeated.
Satisfaction guitar riff shuttle occupying 3.6 seconds
A duration of 3.6 seconds falls squarely within the limits of ‘now sound’, i.e. into experience of the extended present. Now, although the present has no duration in Newtonian physics, the immediate past does have an objective existence in that very short-term and longer-term types of memory operate in different parts of the human brain; the difference is similar to that between a computer’s RAM and its hard drive. The musical present lasts for about as long as breathing in and out, or as a few heartbeats, or as taking two or three steps, or as enunciating a phrase or short sentence, i.e. a duration equivalent to that of a musical phrase or a short pattern of dance movements. Such immediate, present-time activities usually last, depending on tempo and degree of exertion, for between around one and ten seconds.
The extended present in music relates closely to the notion of intensional aesthetics put forward by Chester (1970) as an opposite pole to extensional aspects of musical interest. His distinction is that between relatively long-term narrative in music (extensional) and the relatively short-term or immediate presentation of musical detail (intensional). According to this conceptual polarity, a classical sonata form movement is more likely to derive its main dynamic from the presentation of ideas over a duration of several minutes, while a pop song or film music cue is more likely to do so in batches of ‘now sound’, like the 3.6-second Satisfaction loop whose lead guitar part is cited above. None of this means that sonata form movements never exhibit timbral or metric interest or that pop recordings never contain a sense of narrative. It’s simply a question of degree and of general tendency. It’s also a question of different types of harmonic function, of chords and of chord changes, not just as harmonic travelling —‘somewhere worth going’— but also as harmonic being —‘somewhere worth staying’. Clearly, the experience of ‘being in one place’ does not necessarily mean that nothing happens there or that the experience is dull. That’s why it’s essential to examine the functions and tonal reality of what classical buffs and jazzos tend to think of as simple, single chords in many types of popular song.
The wonders of one chord
Bo Diddley (Diddley, 1958) is an R&B recording familiar to musicians for at least two reasons: [1] it features Diddley’s trademark guitar-strum patterns o y n q, ouM nq etc., all partially swung (o=¼); [2] it contains only one chord. Lively strum patterns certainly offset the tune’s lack of harmonic variation, as do changes of fretboard position and the guitar tremolo effect’s regular quavers; but the performance also derives interest from passages where Diddley embellishes the permanent tonic F (I) by alternating it with E$ ($VII). In other words, not even this infamously single-chord piece consists of just one chord. It includes variation not only in timbral, rhythmic and registral terms but also tonally. Now, shuttling in parallel barré between I and $VII is neither the only nor the most common way of creating tonal interest on one single chord. Other means are applied to the twelve consecutive bars of B$ in Chuck Berry’s Nadine.
Chuck Berry: Nadine (1964): generic harmonic groove for B$ tonic (0:6.7)
The B$ chord in this example is clearly no simple tonic common triad for at least four reasons.
The strong downbeats at the start of odd-numbered bars contain a flat seventh (a$) and no third (d8). Strictly speaking that’s a B$7 omit 3 chord, not B$.
The major third (d8) is either absent on the weaker downbeats at the start of even-numbered bars (the sax’s d at the end of bar 1 does not carry over into bar 2) or else it is smudged (d$ into d8).
The same d8s only appear as unaccented notes in the vocal line.
E$ triads occur on the fourth beat of each bar over the V-I anacrusis (f-a$-a8) in the bass that leads back into the each bar’s B$ like a very brief dominant eleventh chord (F11-B$). No rock musician would dream of referring to the harmony of example 120 in terms of the reduction shown as example 121.
The function of extended one-chord harmony in a song like Nadine is at the same time stylistic and kinetic. Cover band musicians have to learn aurally how to configure, both rhythmically and tonally, the tune’s B$ chord so it sounds like classic rock and roll rather than like, say, trad jazz, disco, bossa nova or a polka. That stylistic knowledge involves knowing which notes to include, omit, smudge, slide or accentuate, which tonal shuttle poles to use in inner parts and bass lines, and how to rhythmically articulate those notes in terms of anticipation, on-beat placement, phrasing and so on.
Demonstrating the full complexity of harmonic groove would demand the detailed transcription of drumkit and other accompanimental patterns, including copious articulation marks, as well as descriptions of timbre and sound treatment. I have chosen not to undertake such tasks, not so much because that work would have further delayed the publication of this book as because it would have blurred the focus of this book on the tonal elements of music. That’s also why musical examples in this section are mainly presented as piano reductions allowing readers with moderate keyboard skills to concretise the harmonic and basic rhythmic issues under discussion. And it’s why we’ll now concentrate on the harmonic variation of literally one single chord: G.
G? Which G?
The Nadine groove’s 6.67 seconds (2 × 3:33, ex. 120, p. 163) demonstrate how one chord of pop music can be tonally expanded in four different ways, one of which was the use of the chord’s fifth degree as alternate bass note on beat 3 of each 4/4 bar. This kind of bass shuttle is very common in many types of popular song and, in its simplest form, merely presents the second inversion of the same chord in ‘oom-pa’ and ‘oom-pa-pa’ accompaniment figures for dances like the polka or waltz (G/5 in ex. 122). In some styles arpeggiation figures are used in conjunction with the shuttling bass fifth, for example in Country ballads (ex. 123) and valses chantées (ex. 124).
Arpeggiated Country ballad accompaniment figure in G with shuttling fifth (d): e.g. chorus of Detroit City (Bobby Bare, 1963)
The Country accompaniment figure’s G chord in example 123 consists of a simple dotted arpeggiation with a bass fifth shuttle on beat 3 and an anacrustic f# leading the bass line back to g. The only note extraneous to the common triad of G major is the slightly accentuated a which, in the style of Country pianist Floyd Cramer, imitates a typical Country guitarist’s second-to-third hammer-on embellishment of the chord. It would be stylistically out of place in jazz standards, waltzes, folk rock, chansons, reggae and countless other types of music.
F.L. Bénech: L’hirondelle du faubourg (1912) with accordéon musette arpeggiation in G and bass-line shuttling to the fifth (d)
The sheet music source for example 124 contains only the vocal line and the chordal shorthand ‘sol’ (=G) and ‘re7’ (=D7). The stylistically appropriate arpeggiated accompaniment derives from French accordion patterns featuring the familiar 8-7-6-7 ‘carrousel’ motif (the loop of the right hand’s top notes in each bar: g-f#-e-f#). Although this tonal expansion of bar 1’s G common triad in fact produces three chords (G, Gmaj7 and G6), the single chord designation G (sol) covers all of them on paper. No less than with Nadine and the Country example (pp. 163, 165), musicians intending to accompany a valse chantée will also need to have acquired the requisite stylistic skills: what notes to add, change and omit; what arpeggiation figure to provide, what type of phrasing and articulation to apply, etc. They will also need to know that the bass note of the first dominant chord reached (the D7 or RÉ7 of example 124) will probably have to be that chord’s fifth (the a of D7) so that the see-saw profile of the bass line can remain in tact and so that the return to I (G) falls on a clear V-I change (d-g and D-G, ex. 125) rather than just a-g (D7/5-G). Besides, if the ‘carrousel’ top-note loop continues into the dominant chord, which it often does in this kind of valse musette accompaniment, suspended fourths will occur over the dominant chord’s root. That’s another reason why the D (V) chord has to start with the shuttling fifth (a) in the bass line (ex. 125).
Musette waltz one-chord loops in G without arpeggiation
If the most common shuttle pole in bass lines is the fifth (d in G), the fourth (c in G) is the most usual pole of alternation in inner parts, especially in styles like soul, gospel and rock. Examples 126 - 128 illustrate such plagal embellishment of the same tonic G chord without using any bass shuttle at the fifth. The generic rock pattern of example 126 includes smudged blues thirds (b$-b8) but none of the flat sevenths shown in examples 127 (fast gospel) or 128 (slow blues).
One of the most salient tonal features in example 129 is the ‘eleven chord’ effect created by the combination of plagal alternation of the overall chord and the bass line’s shuttle fifth. The C major triad over a d bass as harmonic shuttle pole for the G chord in bars 1-4 creates a stripped down sort of D11, while the F major triad over a g bass for the C chord in bars 5-6 produces a G11 effect. This harmonic trait is common in gospel and soul influenced styles of music (examples 130 - 132).
Plagal rock shuttle
(generic
pattern: G as G-C-G)
Can I Get A Witness
(Marvin Gaye, 1963;
transposed):
plagal extension of G
to C and G7 no 5
Plagal extension of G to C and G7 no 5;
generic slow blues
in G: based on
Going Down Slow
(Alan Price, 1966)
Plagal (C) alternation of G and C chords over bass fifth shuttles with
anticipated chord changes. Fits slowish pop ballads like Ode To Billie Joe (Bobbie Gentry, 1967)
Harmonic groove from Watermelon Man
(Hancock, 1962; transposed from F): ‘11-chord’ effect of plagal alternation with shuttle fifth in bass
G as 7th chord, plagal expansion (C) and D11 effect;
fits Mercy Mercy
(Don Covay 1966)
In Living For The City, Stevie Wonder (ex. 132) uses the same basic plagal shuttle pole and rhythmic pattern as Herbie Hancock (ex. 130) but expands the tonal configuration of G to also include a B$ triad, creating a major-minor shuttle consistent with the blues-related hardships recounted in the song’s lyrics.
Expansion of I to I IV$III IV (G C B$ C) in verses of Living For The City (Wonder 1973) with resultant G7, C5, D11 and Gm7
A similar expansion of the simple tonic chord to include both $III and IV, though this time without the eleven-chord effect, is at the basis of the well-known Green Onions riff (ex. 133). It is applied to all three chords in the twelve-bar blues format the tune follows: G B$ C, C E$ F and D F8 G.
Expansion of I to I $III IV (G B$ C) in Green Onions (Booker T and the MGs 1962, transposed from F)
The consecutive juxtaposition of minor and major (ex. 132 - 133) can also be made simultaneous, as with the bebop +9 chords of example 118 ( p. 159) or in the characteristic sound of Hendrix numbers like Purple Haze (1967b) and Foxy Lady (ex. 134).
I expanded to I+9 with heavy anacrusis in Foxy Lady (Hendrix 1967c,
transposed from F#)
The chordal effects of blue notes in contrapuntal one-chord configurations like example 135 can also be quite striking, as can the sonorities created by delayed bass root notes sounding with incomplete seventh chords (example 136).
(right) Plagal and bluenote ($3, $5, $7) contrapuntal expansion of G, producing momentary dissonances; fits Good Golly Miss Molly (Little Richard 1958)
(below) Incomplete G7 chord with delayed bass root in harmonic groove at start of Lively Up Yourself (Marley 1975)
Finally, while the G major of example 137 is quite unambiguous, the bass line’s pentatonically delayed root notes, the G 9 effect of the trumpets’ f8 and a, the guitar’s three b8s contradicted by a b$ in the strings and flute part, the insistence on f8 in the trombone part, not to mention the fact that it is easy to hear the downbeat of each bar a quaver later than it actually occurs, make for yet another tonally distinct configuration of the ‘same’ chord: ‘G’.
G major section in the middle of Shaft (Isaac Hayes 1971)
The sixteen examples (122-137) just presented of the single chord G vary considerably, not just in terms of voicing, register, instrumentation, tempo, timbre, phrasing and rhythmic configuration but also, as the piano reductions were intended to show, tonally. It should be clear from all these variants of ‘G’ that ‘chord’ means at least two chords in the sense of the word defined on page 137, whether that one chord be in a valse chantée (ex. 124, p. 165) or a soul number. Readers still unconvinced by this exposé are urged to peruse example 138 which shows two standard variants of what would most likely appear on a lead sheet as just ‘G’.
Single tonic chord expanded to standard turnaround sequences in bars 11 and 12 of a slow twelve-bar blues in G
If the chords of a standard simple twelve-bar blues in G are supposed to run G × 4 bars, C×2, G×2, D×1, C×1, G×2, why, you might well ask, is it equally standard practice to play six different chords in the cycle’s last two bars instead of just staying on G? It’s partly because the harmonic notion of a twelve-bar blues is, like the concept of a ‘single chord’, no more than an abstraction of real musical practices. Just as musette accordionists and rock guitarists must learn by ear what to omit, include and add, all in accordance with the relevant style, to the stated chord indication, blues pianists have to know that staying on the tonic for the last two bars of a chorus will halt harmonic movement and provide no forward drive into the first tonic chord of the next chorus. Blues pianists learn to compensate for such harmonic stasis by increasing harmonic rhythm towards a chord that can lead into the tonic on the first beat of the first bar of the subsequent twelve-bar period. That’s why the turnarounds in example 138 aim for D so as to direct movement towards a V®I cadence back into G in bar 1 of the twelve-bar cycle. Indeed, as stated earlier, one of the main reasons for tonally expanding single chords well beyond the notes they theoretically contain is to create tonal movement, usually by shuttles in the bass line and inner chordal parts. That sort of movement livens up the single chord, producing appropriate harmonic activity as an intrinsic part of the relevant groove. It is in that sense of harmonic groove that single chords can, as suggested earlier, turn into ‘somewhere worth staying’.
The next chapter deals with the harmonic groove of two chords as a place to be…
Chord shuttles
As we saw in the previous chapter, harmonic shuttles are an effective way of putting life into single-chord passages of music and of establishing a groove and sense of style. However, one of the shuttles cited —Bob Marley’s Lively Up Yourself (p. 169)— is different. It’s not a plagal expansion of an ongoing D tonic but a two-chord alternation between D and G, lasting six seconds, that runs throughout the whole performance. The duration of a two-chord shuttle unit, from one chord to the other and back, is, like that of a single-chord shuttle, always containable within the limits of present time. The fact that, for example, Chuck Berry’s two-chord song Memphis Tennessee (1960), spends twelve seconds on one chord and twelve more on the other —that’s 24 seconds in all (16 bars of 4/4 at q=160)— means that each harmonic to and fro in the song is about four times too long to qualify as a shuttle.
The difference between one-chord and two-chord shuttles is not determined by duration but by whether or not both chords in the shuttle are complete in themselves. The most reliable signs of a complete two-chord shuttle are: [1] each chord can usually be heard in root position for part of its duration; [2] a similar amount of time is spent on each chord as long as the shuttle is in operation; [3] it occurs as to-and-fro movement at least twice in immediate succession and does not exceed the limits of present-time experience. One consequence of these three traits is that, like two equally heavy children each at opposite ends of a seesaw, there need be no specific tonal hierarchy between the two chords of a shuttle. As we shall see later, while many of the chordal alternations under review can be heard in relation to a tonic (I), others cannot. But first I ought to let readers know what sort of repertoire I draw on in what follows and explain how the material is presented and categorised.
About the material
Tables 17-21 (pp. 176-189) show the most common types of chord shuttle used mainly in widely disseminated recordings of English-language popular song released since 1955. Now, I have to confess that my repertoire selection criteria have not been particularly rigorous because, as the preponderance of recordings from my band-playing years in the 1960s and 1970s suggests, about half of the pieces listed in the tables are simply tunes I have either actually played or that I remember well from younger days. To counteract that personal bias I expanded the selection by listening to most UK number-one hits, especially those I did not know, released between 1960 and 2007 and by noting details of the chord shuttles I heard. Therefore, although the tunes listed in the tables in no way constitute an exhaustive inventory of anglophone hits containing chord shuttles during that period, I don’t think they constitute an entirely unreliable sample of that repertoire.
Tables 17-21 present shuttle types in ascending order of the scale degree of the root of the second chord in relation to the first, i.e. I«II, I«IV, I«V, I«VI, I«VII (I«III is absent for reasons explained later). Each table divides the relevant scale-degree-based category into subgroups. For instance, the main category, ‘Quintal shuttles (I«V)’ (p. 184), contains (using the key of D as an example) the subgroups I«V (D«A, ionian shuttles), i«V (Dm«A), I«v (Dm«Am) and V«I (A«D). The last of these subgroups, the reverse ionian shuttle V«I, is included in the I«V category because, even though ‘A«D’ on paper looks like a I«IV (see Floyd Cramer, Spencer Davis and Paul McCartney in Table 18), the keynote of A«D in the chorus of The Police’s Every Little Thing (Table 19) is, unlike the tunes listed in Table 18, clearly D, not A. The point of this aspect of classification is to group together, where possible, shuttles that use the same harmonic constellation in relation to an unambiguous tonic. Example 139 illustrates this last point: E«A in Satisfaction clearly shuttles plagally between the tune’s tonic and fourth degree in E (I«IV) while the Beethoven E«A is a reverse ionian shuttle between dominant and tonic (V«I).
E«A shuttle in different keys: (1) Satisfaction (Rolling Stones, 1965);
(2) Symphony N°7 in A, last movement, bars 5-8 (Beethoven, 1812).
Although the roman numerals used in the previous paragraph and in tables 17-21, are essential to chord shuttle classification in sound-alike types, they do cause one major problem in that their use assumes that the chords under discussion all relate to an unambiguous tonic. Since such notions of harmony do not apply to several of the pop recordings listed below, the tables also include absolute chord indications (e.g. ‘C«F’ rather than just ‘I«IV’) for each song. In most cases it has been possible to assign a keynote to the section of the recording in which each shuttle occurs. Those keynotes are shown in column three of each table. Question marks are inserted when the tonic’s identity is ambiguous and such cases are discussed in conjunction with the table containing those peculiarities.
Apart from the shuttle types, chords and keynotes in the left three columns, each table also refers to each recording by artist, title and year. Publishing details of each tune are included in this book’s List of Musical References (p. 297, ff.) so that readers can more easily locate and access the recordings mentioned (see ‘Accessing and using musical sources’, p. 12).
It will be clear from what follows that some types of chord shuttle are more common than others. Although plagal shuttles seem to be in widest use (p. 177, ff.), other patterns of chord alternation are also common, notably those at the fifth, sixth and seventh (pp. 182-198). On the other hand, I found far fewer I«ii shuttles, and I was particularly surprised to find no instances of I«III because I®III, I®iii, I®$III and I®$III are hardly the rarest chord changes in pop music. Judging as improbable the possibility that numerous I«III shuttle tunes exist of which I am unaware, the only plausible explanation I can offer for not finding any in the repertoire to which I have had access is that shuttles, unlike the chordal departures just mentioned, go in two directions and that moving from III to I is as uncommon a chord change in the music under discussion as I to III is common. Besides, as we shall see in Chapter 12, as well as in the chapter on the ‘Yes We Can chords’, I®III departures often lead ‘somewhere else’, usually to vi, VI or IV before returning to I.
Supertonic shuttles (I«II)
Examples of shuttles to and from the second
Type Chords Key Tune
I-$II C«D$
A«B$
C«D$ C
A
C Nacio Herb Brown: Temptation (1933)
Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (start) (1967)
Madness: Night Boat To Cairo (1979)
I-ii CD7«Dm7
D«Em
D«Em
C«Dm C
D
D
C Tom Jones: It’s Not Unusual (intro) (1965)
Tymes: Miss Grace (1974)
Carl Douglas: Kung Fu Fighting (1974)
Wham: Wake Me Up (chorus) (1984)
ii-I Dm7«CD7
Gm7«FD7 C
F Guess Who: These Eyes (1969)
Lily Allan: Smile (2006)
As already mentioned, supertonic shuttles (Table 17) do not seem very common in the music under review here. Although widespread in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, the phrygian shuttle I«$II / i«$ii is quite rare in anglophone pop songs and, judging from the lyrics of relevant songs in Table 17, seems to be used together with notions of strangeness and mystery (temptation, drugs and Cairo). The (non phrygian) I«ii and ii«I examples sound a lot like the IV6«I of George McRae’s Rock Me Baby (1964, A$6«E$) because ii7 and IV6 (e.g. Gm7 and B$6 in F) contain exactly the same notes (2, 4, 6, 1: in F = g, b$ d f). All five I«ii shuttles, plus the McCrae example, are linked to carefree lyrics, about love in the case of Guess Who, McCrae, Tom Jones and Lily Allan, and, in the Carl Douglas hit, about the fun of watching, rather than participating in, Kung Fu fighting.
Plagal shuttles
For reasons just explained, no table exists for shuttles to and from the third. On the other hand, since shuttling to IV in the inner parts of the harmonic elaboration of single chords is such a common phenomenon (see pp. 166-169), it is hardly surprising to discover that two-chord plagal shuttles are so numerous that there is only room to include some of the most striking or well-known examples in Table 18 (p. 178). These plagal shuttles are presented in two main sections, the first for straightforward examples where there is no doubt about keynote identity, the second for ‘dorian’ shuttles, i.e. for those whose first chord contains, or is, a minor triad and whose second contains, or is, a major triad at the fourth.
The first and last subgroups in the first section of Table 18 (I«IV and IV«I) list standard major-major plagal shuttles that are an extremely common harmonic device in pop and rock music. Some of them occur in introductions and/or at the start of verses (e.g. Spencer Davis, John Lennon, Dionne Warwick, Manfred Mann, Archies, Paul McCartney, Oasis, Clash, and both Aretha Franklin songs) while others dominate large parts of the recording (e.g. Bob Marley, Arrested Development, George McCrae). In the first instance, repeating the I«IV shuttle, even if it’s part of the tune’s hook, highlights whatever eventually breaks the repetition. In the second case the shuttle constitutes either the entirety or the main part of the recording’s harmonic universe. As the first part of the listing on page 178 suggests, minor-triad variants of I«IV are rarer: only one instance of I«iv was found (R. Kelly’s C«Fm) and only three of i«iv (Anita Ward, The Valentine Brothers and Xtra Bass).
Shuttles to and from the fourth (I«IV, plagal)
Type Chords Key Recording (Year)
Simple plagal shuttles
I-IV G«C
D«G
A«D
A«D
E«A
C«F
C«F7
CD7«F6
D«G
C«F
B$«E$
D«G
A«D
E$«A$D G
D
A
A
E
C
C
C
D
C
B$
D
A
E$ Beatles: Love Me Do (1962c)
Dave Clark Five: Glad All Over (1963)
Floyd Cramer: On The Rebound (1964)
Spencer Davis: Keep On Running (intro) (1965)
Rolling Stones: Satisfaction (1965)
Manfred Mann: Pretty Flamingo (1966a)
Aretha Franklin: Respect (1967)
Dionne Warwick: The Way To San José (1968)
Archies: Sugar Sugar (1969)
John Lennon: Imagine (intro, verse start) (1971)
Aretha Franklin: Think (1974)
Bob Marley: Lively Up Yourself (1975)
Paul McCartney: Mull Of Kintyre (1977)
Arrested Development: Mr Wendal (1992)
I-iv C«Fm C R. Kelly: I Believe I Can Fly (1996)
i-iv Cm«Fm
Bm«Em7
Cm«Fm Cm
Bm
Cm Anita Ward: Ring My Bell (1979)
Valentine Brothers: Money’s Too Tight (1982)
Xtra Bass: Step To The Rhythm (1989)
IV-I A$6«E$
G«D
F«C
G$«D$ E$
G
C
D$ George McCrae: Rock Me Baby (1974)
Clash: Should I Stay Or Should I Go (1982)
Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger (intro) (1995)
Michelle McManus: All This Time (2004)
Dorian plagal shuttles from minor to major at the fourth
i-IV Am«D
Am«D
Fm7«B$
Am7«D
Gm7«C
F#m«B Am
Am
Fm
Am
Gm
F#m Shadows: Apache (1960)
Swinging Blue Jeans: You’re No Good (1964)
Classics IV: Spooky (1968)
Santana: Oye como va (1970)
Labelle: Lady Marmalade (1975)
Dead or Alive: You Spin Me Around (1985)
ii-V Am7«D
B$m7«E$ G
A$ Chiffons: You’re So Fine (1963)
Edwin Hawkins Singers: Oh Happy Day (1969)
ii-V [?]
ii-V [?]
? F#m«B
G#m«C#
Gm«C E?
F#?
? George Harrison: My Sweet Lord (1970)
George Harrison: My Sweet Lord (1970)
Pink Floyd: The Great Gig In The Sky (1973)
?
? Am7«D
F#m«B F
A Dionne Warwick: Walk On By (1964)
Abba: The Name Of The Game (A section) (1977)
The first subgroup of dorian shuttles in Table 18 is reasonably straightforward. Apache, You’re No Good, Lady Marmalade and You Spin Me Around all include clear cadences on to their tonic, even if the home keys of Spooky and the Santana rendering of Oyé como va are slightly less unequivocal. In the second subgroup (ii«V), He’s So Fine and Oh Happy Day start with repeated dorian plagal shuttles like the tunes just mentioned and could, without their continuation, also be construed as straight i«IVs. However, the IV in the final instance of the Chiffons and Edwin Hawkins shuttles becomes V in relation to a tonic major chord whose root is situated one tone below that of the shuttle’s first chord. In concrete terms, He’s So Fine’s Am7«D becomes Am7®D®G and Oh Happy Day’s B$m7 « E$ becomes B$m7®E$®A$. In short, the to and fro of i«IV turns into a unidirectional ii®V®I cadence. Things are not that simple with the Pink Floyd track The Great Gig In The Sky.
The Pink Floyd track just mentioned has a duration of 4:34 and appears on the album Dark Side of the Moon (1973). It is perhaps best known as the track featuring ecstatic vocals by Clare Torry. Harmonically it starts with a minute of chordal meandering to end up clearly on B$. That harmonic resting point is followed at 1:07 by a 72-second stretch of Gm7«C shuttling at c. q=66 (ends at around 2:19) over which Torry improvises her famous wordless vocals. The Gm7«C shuttle might initially sound like I«IV in the relative minor of B$, or even like a potential ii«V in F major, but, with the vocal improvisation clearly locked into the harmonic universe of the shuttle, it becomes a tonal world of its own. The ten consecutive Gm7«C shuttles, each lasting seven seconds, are followed by a brief chromatic passage landing not in B$, Gm or F but on a held B8m. From that distant harmonic reference point the sequence |o F |B$|F/a|Gm7|C |Gm7|C7 |FD |B$D |E$D |Cm7 |F7| leads back to a clear resting point at 3:24 on the initial tonic, B$. The last 72 seconds of harmony consist, once again, of Gm7«C, ending its final rallentando on an ‘unresolved’ Gm7. And that is the end of the original vinyl album’s side one.
The question is whether the Gm7«C heard during over half of The Great Gig’s total duration is: [1] a i«IV shuttle in G minor because Gm is the track’s last chord and because G minor is relative minor to the only obvious possible tonic —B$; [2] as v«I in C, because, with the minor seventh in the G minor chord and the rallentando, the track could just as easily have ‘resolved’ on to a final C major common triad as gone back to G minor; [3] as ii«V in F, because that’s how the shuttle is treated in the modulatory sequence at 2:48; [4] as a sort of vi«II shuttle in B$ because the tune has full cadences in, and rests consecutively for much longer on, B$ than any other chord. Frankly speaking, the answer is at the same time all and none of the above. The weakest of the four explanations is nevertheless the last one, even though it may appeal to those who believe in hierarchically arranged tonal centres, because the very fact that the Pink Floyd shuttle can be heard in any of the other three ways means that it either has multiple tonal implications or none at all. In fact, the track’s last 72 seconds, which repeat Gm7«C, suggest that this shuttle is not a process but a state or condition. Pink Floyd’s Gm7«C in The Great Gig In The Sky is not a place you pass on the way to another destination: it’s itself somewhere to be.
The Pink Floyd Gm7«C as a ‘place to be’? Before dismissing that notion as a sad platitude issuing from the befuddled brain of an old hippie it’s worth considering the following points. Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album with no silence between tracks. Since Great Gig is track 4 on side 1 of the LP, most listeners will have already heard track 2, Breathe, which contains the same dorian shuttle (i«IV) a tone higher (Em«A) in the same slow tempo. In fact the first Em of Breathe’s first i«IV is also the first tonal sound on the whole album because track 1, Speak To Me, is a montage of heartbeats, a ticking clock, a cash machine, disjointed speech, a helicopter and a scream. Since Breathe’s first Em«A has no prior harmonic context to which it can refer, the slow i«IV dorian shuttle is itself the whole album’s initial tonal reference point. It is moreover squarely established by being repeated eight times (16 bars and lasting 1:45) at the start of Breathe, after which the four-bar sequence |CD |Bm |F |G D+9 | just leads back, with a v®I movement, to the same Em«A. It then reappears, twice more in the same track, repeated four times on each occasion, at the words ‘Breathe, breathe in the air’ (2:27) and at ‘Run, rabbit, run’ (3:12). The same i«IV also turns up, once again in slow tempo and six times in a row, near the end of track 3 (Time, at 5:54), just before ‘Home, home again’. It even appears in a similar tempo as Dm«G in a rhythmically more active instrumental section lasting 110 seconds (1:30-3:20) in Any Colour You Like on the album’s side two. In short, if anything had to be singled out as harmonic focal point of Dark Side of the Moon, it would not be the mere ‘keys’ of D minor, E minor or G minor in the three shuttles Dm«G, Em«A and Gm«C but the ongoing tonal constellation of the i«IV dorian shuttle at any of those pitches. It is for these reasons that the famous Great Gig shuttle has to be understood as the whole album’s most frequently stated and most characteristic tonal place to be.
The last 1:45 of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord (4:35; 1971) is in a similar sort of dorian shuttle ‘place’ as Pink Floyd’s, fading out on its G#m«C# with no sense of a final tonic. However, the Harrison tune starts with four F#m«Bs, the last of which turns out to be a ii®V to land on the tonic, E. Still, even though this ii«V pattern occurs a few times in the first part of the song (first in E, then F#), the lasting harmonic impression of the Harrison recording and the chordal basis of its repeated hook line is the dorian shuttle and its state of open-endedness which occupy 70% of the song’s total duration. It is certainly where the song mostly wants us to be, along with the simultaneously sung ‘Hare Krishna’-type repetitions preceding the final fade-out.
The Am7«D shuttle at the start of the verses in Walk On By (Warwick, 1964) works differently in this Bacharach tune whose clear target tonic is F. The Am7«D can be heard as lead-in to a ii®V®I on the subsequent G minor. However, that Gm becomes one pole in a Gm7«Am7 shuttle (i«ii in Gm, ii«iii in F) that leads via B$ (IV) to C (V) and the verse’s end cadence in F (I). Whatever the case, the tune’s initial Am7«D, its es and gs shuttling with ds and f#s, is clearly a different place to be than the world of song’s tonic, FD and its shuttle with B$D.
Abba’s The Name Of The Game (4:00; 1977) is a different kettle of fish because its F#m«B constitutes the harmonic entirety of the first (‘U’) part of the song (0:38) whose sections have an unusual order of presentation: U V W X Y Z X Y X Z. Since the subsequent sections (X, Y, Z) are unequivocally in A, it is tempting to argue that if the first (U) section’s F#m«B is not a sort of vi®II pointing vaguely towards the subsequent tonic, then it must at least be a ii«V in E which then completes a classic V®I gesture on to A. Well, neither argument holds because the chords of the song’s second (V) section run |F#m |Bd# |C#m |D| which, only after repetition, finally runs into an E chord and a V®I cadence in A. Yet again, this Abba F#m«B is ‘another’ place to be, a different tonal constellation. If you insist on considering this Abba shuttle in terms of conventional harmony (which it’s not), it’s probably least misleading to think of it as a i«IV dorian shuttle in the tune’s relative minor.
Quintal shuttles (I«V)
Shuttles to and from the fifth are a stylistic trait of European art music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Just as rock musicians often milk a final IV®I cadence with virtuosic flourishes in live performance, European classical composers seem to have taken delight in extending final cadences with their V«I shuttles. There are, for example, six such ionian shuttles as episodic markers of finality in bars 305-310 of the first movement of Mozart’s 41st symphony and seven in bars 405-416 at the end of the last movement of Beethoven’s fifth. However, it should be remembered not only that E«A can be either V«I in A or I«V in E (ex. 139 p. 175) but also that ‘I’ and ‘V’ may not be at all accurate chord labels when discussing all forms of popular music (ex. 140).
Mila moja (‘A’ section; Serbian trad., quoted from memory)
Both sections of this Serbian song start with a chord of D major and end with a chord of A major that leads to the start of one of those two sections with what seems like a V®I movement after a ‘half cadence’ at the end of every four-bar period. Heard like that, Mila moja clearly has D as its ‘tonic’ (‘I’) and A as its ‘dominant’ (‘V’). The only trouble is that the recording ends squarely and without fade-out on A. Since A is the final resting point of the tune’s harmony, it cannot be the dominant because dominants must, according to the rules of classical harmony, proceed to the tonic. So perhaps A is tonic instead?… That interpretation of Mila moja’s chords as plagal movement in A (D=‘IV’, A=‘I’) is no more convincing because, as we just suggested, the chords lead just as much from A to D as from D to A. The only realistic interpretation of Mila moja’s two chords is to view them as a simple shuttle whose function is to provide a tonal dimension to the motion and direction of both melody and accompaniment, and to consider D and A as non-hierarchical shuttle poles because both chords exhibit characteristics of the tonic, one ionian (D), the other mixolydian (A). Like Pink Floyd’s Gm7«C, Mila moja’s D«A is one integral harmonic unit, a harmonic ‘state’ or ‘place to be’. Denoting its two chords as either I«V or IV«I rather than as both is certainly misleading, but using the terms ‘dominant’ or ‘subdominant’ in such contexts is plain wrong.
Despite the conceptual problems just discussed, most of the I«V and V«I shuttles listed in Table 19 (p. 184) contain an unambiguous ‘I’ and ‘V’ in relation to each other. There is, for example, no doubt that Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String (1967) is in C and that the chorus of Every Little Thing She Does (Police 1981) is in D. Direction from V (G and A respectively) towards those keynotes is as unequivocal as it is from E to A in the Beethoven extract referenced in the same table.
The i«v shuttles (both minor triads), on the other hand, have very little of the I«V (ionian) shuttle’s sense of harmonic direction, not least because a minor triad on the fifth (v) contains no leading note to the tonic. In concrete terms, the c8®d in the Am®Dm of the Kylie Minogue song’s i«v shuttle just doesn’t pack the same directional punch as the c#®d in the A®D movement of the V«I shuttle in Police’s Don’t Stand So Close To Me (1980; ex. 142, p.188). Another reason for the lack of direction in the Minogue shuttle (ex. 141) is that, as various parts are added to the mix, the i«v’s two chords contain more and more notes in common: two of the first chord’s four different notes (the a and c in Dm7) are also included in the second chord (Am9)
Kylie Minogue: Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (®) (2001): i«v shuttle with additional notes
.Examples of shuttles to and from the fifth (¯)
Type Chords Key Recording (Year)
I-V A«E
G«D
F«C
G«D
D«A
C«G
E«B11
C«G A
G
F
G
D
C
E
C Beethoven: Symphony #7, 4th movement,
(bars 24-36) (1812)
Honeycombs: Have I The Right (intro) (1964)
Kinks: Tired Of Waiting (middle) (1965)
Kinks: Tired Of Waiting (middle) (1965)
Byrds: Mr. Tambourine Man (intro) (1965)
Sandie Shaw: Puppet On A String (1967)
Fifth Dimension: Stoned Soul Picnic (1968)
Rod Stewart: The First Cut Is Deepest (intro) (1977)
i-V Gm«D
Em«B
Fm«C Gm
Em
Fm Mozart: Symphony #40, 1st movement
(last 8 bars) (1788a)
Rolling Stones: Paint It Black (1966)
All Saints: Bootie Call (1998)
i-v
(see also
I-$VII-I) Am«Em
Dm[7]«Am[7] Am
Dm Kraftwerk: The Model (1982)
Kylie Minogue: Can't Get You Out Of My Head
(2001)
V-I E«A
C«F
A$«D$
E«A
D«G
A«D
A5«D5 A
F
D$
A
G
D
D Beethoven: Symphony #7, 4th movement,
(bars 5-12) (1812)
Roy Orbison: It’s Over (intro) (1963)
Unit Four Plus Two: Concrete And Clay (1965)
Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (B part) (1967)
Cowsills: Indian Lake (end of intro) (1968)
Police: Every Little Thing She Does (1981)
Tori Amos: Professional Widow (1996)
Kylie Minogue’s electronica hit and Kraftwerk’s The Model are interesting because their hook lines and harmonic ‘places to be’ —where the tunes spend most of their time— are in the sphere of their i«v shuttles. Both tunes not only start and end there: other chordal passages also aim clearly back towards that main tonal world of the song: i«v.
Submediantal shuttles (I«VI)
Examples of shuttles to and from the sixth
Type Chords Key Recording (Year)
I-vi F«Dm
C«Am
B$«Gm
G«Em
F«Dm
A«F#m
A$«Fm
A$«Fm
D«Bm
A$«Fm
E«C#m
E$«Cm
C«Am
B$«Gm
C«Am
E«C#m
D$«B$m
A«F#m
E$«Cm
G$«E$m F
C
B$
G
F
A
A$
E$
D
G$
E
E$
C
B$
C
E
D$
A
E$
G$ Isley Brothers: Shout (1959)
Bobby Darin: Dream Lover (intro) (1959)
Jimmy Jones: Handy Man (intro) (1960)
Sam Cooke: The Chain Gang (intro) (1960)
Steve Lawrence: Pretty Blue Eyes (1960)
Johnny Preston: Cradle Of Love (1960)
Helen Shapiro: Walking Back To Happiness (1961)
Ernie K-Doe: Mother-In-Law (1961)
Ricky Nelson: Travelling Man (intro) (1961)
Dick & Dee Dee: The Mountain’s High (1961)
Neil Sedaka: Calendar Girl (intro) (1961)
Little Eva: The Loco-Motion (1962)
Marvelettes: Playboy (intro) (1962)
Shirelles: Baby It’s You (intro) (1962)
Little Peggy March: I Will Follow Him (1963)
Lulu: Shout (1964) (orig. Isley Brothers, 1959)
Searchers: Don’t Throw Your Love Away (1964)
Roy Orbison: Pretty Woman (verse start) (1964)
Georgie Fame: Yeh-Yeh (1964)
Angelo Badalmenti: Twin Peaks (1990)
I-VI A«F A David Bowie: Suffragette City (1972)
Aeolian shuttles
i-$VI B$m«G$
Am«F
Am«F
Dm«B$
Am«F
Gm«E$
Am«F B$m
Am
Am
Dm
Am
[B$]
Am Chopin: Marche funèbre (1839)
Bob Dylan: All Along The Watchtower (1968)
Jimi Hendrix: All Along The Watchtower (1968)
Ten cc: The Wall Street Shuffle (1974)
Elvis Costello: Watching The Detectives (1977)
Irene Cara: Flashdance (1983)
Neil Young: Change Your Mind (1994)
? E$«Gm Gm? Police: Don’t Stand So Close To Me (1980)
i-vi A$m7«Fm7 A$m Doors: Light My Fire (1967)
Shuttles between tonic and submediant, it seems, are far from rare in anglophone pop music. The most frequently used subtype is I«vi: major tonic to minor submediant. Although it turns up in songs from various periods in Anglo-North-American pop history, it is particularly common, as Table 20 shows, in US-American pop music from the late 1950s and early 1960s. I®vi may also sometimes be associated with gospel (e.g. Shout) but, it has, as I just hinted, more obvious connotations with the doo-wop and ‘shalalee’ world of white US teenagers around 1960, not least because i®vi is the first change in the even more frequently exploited NI-vi-IV/ii-VO loop hailing from the same milksap period. This ‘historical reference’ connotation of I«vi operates clearly in Angelo Badalmenti’s opening theme tune to the David Lynch TV series, Twin Peaks (1990-91). That recording’s clean, late-1950s guitar sound à la Duane Eddy, complete with historically accurate spring reverb, alternates calmly between I and vi to usher in the TV series’ superficially idyllic but deeply disturbing small-town ‘American dream’, with its creepy consumerism, its depraved prom queens and its depressive James Dean look-alikes.
Although only one example each was found of I«VI (Bowie) and i«vi (Doors), i«$VI shuttles were quite numerous. Toing and froing between a tonic minor and a major triad on the flat submediant (i«$VI) —the aeolian shuttle—, has already been mentioned in terms of its ominous, fateful or implacable connotations (p. 125). Sometimes this basic harmonic and connotative sphere includes a $VII between the tonic minor (i) and $VI poles of the shuttle, like the N|Dm |B$ | C | C |O in Dire Straits’ Sultans Of Swing (1978). On paper that certainly looks more like a four-bar loop than a shuttle, but since the $VII in any loop of the Ni-$VII-$VI-$VIIO type is situated one whole-tone below the minor tonic and one whole-tone above the $VI pole, and since it is consistently followed in alternation by the poles on either side, it has, if the loop is fully repeated at least once, the character of a passing chord in a shuttle between the two chords at opposite ends of the loop. If we consider Ni-$VI-$VIIO, Ni-$VII-$VIO and so on as extended variants of i«$VI, then we can add a fair number of tunes to the aeolian shuttle list, for example: [1] Derek & The Dominoes: Layla (1970); [2] Neil Young: Southern Man (1970); [3] Jeffrey Cain: Whispering Thunder (1972); [4] Pink Floyd: Money (1973); [5] David Bowie: 1984 (1974); [6] Nationalteatern: Barn av vår tid (1978); [7] Dire Straits: Sultans Of Swing (1978); [8] Flash and the Pan: California (1979); [9] Phil Collins: In The Air Tonight (1981); [10] Kim Carnes: Voyeur (1982); [11] Frequency X: Hearing Things (1989); [12] Neil Young: Rocking In The Free World (1989).
Without going into the verbal details of these songs, it is possible to summarise some important areas of connotation for the lyrics of each title as: [1] painful separation (Layla); [2] ‘screaming, bullwhips cracking’, ‘crosses burning’ (Southern Man); [3] distant but immanent threat (Whispering Thunder); [4] the absurdity of financial greed (Money); [5] dystopia (1984); [6] teenagers hardened by cold, grey soulless concrete tower blocks (Barn av vår tid = ‘Child of our time’); [7] a trad jazz band playing for an inimical audience on a cold and rainy night (Dire Straits); [8] a mad US general nukes the state of California (California); [9] waiting for something unknown, imminent showdown (Phil Collins); [10] the loneliness and emptiness of video titillation (Voyeur); [11] fear of mentally instability (Hearing Things); [12] ‘better off dead’ and ‘garbage can’ (Rocking In The Free World). Now let’s add to those ten extra examples of aeolian shuttle connotations the basic gist of lyrics in the six i«$VII tunes listed in table 20: [11] funeral (Chopin); [12] ‘Outside in the cold distance a wild cat did growl… and the wind began to howl’ (All Along The Watchtower); [13] the destructive ugliness of financial speculation (Wall Street Shuffle); [14] ‘they beat him up until the teardrops start’ (Elvis Costello); [15] ‘in a world made of steel, made of stone’ (Flashdance); [16] ‘When you get weak and you need to test your will’ (Neil Young: Change Your Mind).
Here’s Alf Björnberg’s conclusion (1984: 382) about the connotations of aeolian shuttles:
“A remarkable number of these lyrics deal with such subjects as fascination with and fear of modern technique and civilisation, uneasiness about the future and the threat of war, alienation in general and in particular situations, static moods of waiting and premonition, historical or mystical events. As a whole the lyrics circumscribe a relatively uniform field of associations which might be characterised by such concepts as modernity, cold, waiting, uncertainty, sadness, stasis, infinity in time and space.†(Björnberg, 1984: 382)
Before ending this sad aeolian story, let’s not forget the poor ‘young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasy’, the ‘temptation, frustration, so bad it makes him cry’, the ‘hurt’ and ‘accusations’, etc., all sung over the $VI«i (E$«Gm) verse part of Don’t Stand So Close To Me (Police, 1980, ex. 142). With chorus hook lines squarely in D major, the tune’s E$«Gm is a very different harmonic place to be. Calling it ‘$VI«i in the key of the refrain’s subdominant minor’ or even ‘I«iii in the key of the flat supertonic’ might fool a gullible harmony teacher but since the tune starts with repeated changes from E$ to Gm, first quietly and threateningly in the sub-bass register, then chordally with guitar and vocals, there is in reality no key of D major to which the supposed ‘subdominant minor’ or ‘flat supertonic’ can possibly be related. Moreover, the change to D major and ‘Don’t stand so close’ is entirely unprepared (first at 1:48) and the return to the world of E$«Gm is equally abrupt (bars 4-5 and bar 8 back to bar 1 in ex. 142).
Police: Don’t Stand So Close To Me (1980): juxtaposition of two distinct tonal spheres.
Once again we’re dealing with states, conditions and tonal grooves, not with the syntactic norms of transition in European art music theory. Any sense of overall tonal process, ‘narrative’ or ‘form’ in this Police song, and in countless others, derives not from modulation, nor from overriding tonal schemes, nor ‘deep structure’ à la Schenker or Riemann, but from the juxtaposition of distinct harmonic constellations and from the organisation of those different tonal states in terms of repetition, change, reprise and relative duration, as well as from the order in which the distinct elements are presented. This is of course a question of musical ‘form’ and, structurally, of the intramusical context of shuttles. However, it is clear that if we don’t know how the shuttles themselves work, we won’t be able to understand how they, or the chord loops discussed in the next chapter, contribute to the overall character and identity of a recording or performance.
Subtonic shuttles (I «$VII)
Examples of shuttles to and from the seventh
Type Chords Key Recording (Year)
I-$VII F«E$
G«F
C«D
G«F
A«G
D«C
C#«B
D«C F
G
D
G
A
D
C#
D The Champs: Tequila (1958)
Shadows: Wonderful Land (intro) (1962)
Cliff Richard: Bachelor Boy (intro) (1962)
Kinks: Tired Of Waiting (1965)
Youngbloods: Get Together (1969)
Brook Benton: Rainy Night In Georgia (intro) (1969)
Dexy’s Midnight Runners: Geno (1980)
Madness: House Of Fun (1982)
i-$VII Cm«B$
Am«G Cm
Am Albion Country Band: Van Diemen’s Land (1971)
Bothy Band: Farewell To Erin (1976)
$VII-I B$/c«C
D$«E$ C Righteous Brothers: You’ve Lost That
Loving Feeling (1964)
Van Halen: Running With The Devil (1978)
IV-V
? A$«B$
F«G E$
Am? Elvis Presley: Return To Sender (1962)
Human League: Don’t You Want Me Baby (1981)
Shuttles between a tonic and subtonic can be divided into three subgroups: [1] I«$VII or mixolydian; [2] i«$VII, which alternates a minor-key tonic with a major chord on the flat seventh; [3] $VII«I or reverse mixolydian. This third group also includes shuttles which, like subgroup [1] and the Righteous Brothers tune, feature two major triads a whole tone apart but which, as we shall see, can also be heard as belonging to another key (Presley), or to several potential keys (Human League).
There are three obvious common denominators between the shuttles listed in Table 21: [1] there are no shuttles to or from any chord on the major seventh degree; [2] there are no shuttles between the tonic and the minor subtonic because I«$vii and i«$vii (e.g. E«Dm) are variants of the phrygian shuttle i/I«$II (e.g. E«F) where the flat supertonic (f8), not the subtonic (d8), is the operative feature; [3] neither I«$VII, the mixolydian shuttle, nor i«$VII show any trait of classical harmony in the sense defined and used in Chapter 6 (p. 93, ff.); [4] unlike dorian shuttles (i«IV), which could turn into ii«V and end as ii®V®I cadences, neither I«$VII nor i«$VII seems to own the clear potential to lead elsewhere. The last two of these four traits are interrelated for the following reasons.
It is first of all difficult to move directly between a tonic triad and a subtonic triad without involving voice leading in parallel fifths or octaves, both of which are banned in classical harmony. Secondly, chords on the flat seventh automatically contain no leading note, no major seventh (#7), an essential ingredient in tonal spheres dominated by the ionian mode. In fact, the only mode in the European art music tradition to include a flat seventh is the descending ‘melodic’ variant of the minor scale (same notes as the aeolian mode) whose other two variants, the ‘ascending melodic’ and the ‘harmonic’ minor, both include major sevenths. And harmonic minor means just what it says: that any chord containing scale degree seven must make that seventh major so that it produces the leading note (#7) to the tonic (e.g. f#®g in the change from D or D7 to Gm). That’s why i«V (e.g. Gm«D) often occurs in classical-music styles and why you’ll hardly ever come across i«v (e.g. Gm«Dm), except when stylistic reference or pastiche is intended, as in example 143. It’s also why i«$VII (e.g. Gm«F) and I«$VII (G«F) are usually off the conventional harmony teacher’s radar screen.
Dvorák (1893): minor-mode ‘folk tune’ from New World Symphony.
Returning to the third of our comments about oscillations between tonic and flat seventh —that none of the example shuttles listed in Table 21 seem to have much harmonic potential to lead elsewhere— it’s worth noting that three of them are only used in introductions (Wonderful Land, Bachelor Boy and Rainy Night In Georgia). Now, introductions are by definition episodic markers of initiation and of preparation for an imminent something new, so using a shuttle without much potential to lead elsewhere means that a tonal, timbral, metric and rhythmic framework (groove) can be established while listeners wait for the tune proper to kick in. In fact, waiting is what the lyrics and the repeated I«$VII of the Kinks’ Tired Of Waiting is all about. It’s also an important element in the lyrics of the Righteous Brothers song: there’s no reciprocation of desire from the lyrics’ loved one. Waiting or frustration at unfulfilled goals are also key elements in Dexy’s Geno and Elvis’s Return To Sender. I«$VII in the Madness song, too, plays a waiting game in both its intro and in the first part of verses where the story is set up for punch lines and the chorus, both in a different harmonic sphere.
Waiting and not going anywhere are key issues in Human League’s Don’t You Want Me Baby? (1981). The key of A minor is clearly stated from the outset in eight bars of serious-sounding analogue synthesiser unambiguously confirming the aeolian mode. Then the male vocalist enters: ‘You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar’. It is with that famous line that the song’s F«G shuttle also first kicks in to be stated eight times in a row (16 bars at q=116 = 0:34) before the harmony reverts to A minor and to two chordal passages that once again strongly underline that key (N|Am |Em |F |Dm G|O (×2) and |A |A#° |Bm |E7 |). The latter of those two passages leads back into another 24 bars of F«G (chorus ‘Don’t You Want Me, Baby?’ and the subsequent verse, lasting 0:50). That long batch of shuttles is followed by the A minor progressions just mentioned, by eight more bars of F«G (0:17), by a reprise of the ‘serious’ A minor intro and, to end with, thirteen more F«G shuttles (26 bars = 0:54) before the final fade-out finishes. F«G occupies in other words 2:35 (66%) of the song’s total duration of 3:56.
Harmonic issues about this song are similar to those raised about Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky. This time, however, there only seems to be one logical explanation for the harmonic relativity of the shuttle. Such an explanation would first argue that the tune’s F«G is a $VI«$VII in A minor because it first appears after the unequivocal establishment of that key as the tune’s harmonic starting point. Such an explanation would go on to argue that on two occasions the final instance of F«G becomes F®G®Am (a $VI® $VII®i aeolian cadence) as it runs into the first A minor chordal passage cited in the previous paragraph. The only trouble with this line of reasoning is that the F«G in the Human League song doesn’t really sound like it’s in A minor, however neat the argument just given may appear because the shuttle has simply no transitional function at all. That claim is based on two observations. Firstly, since two thirds of the song’s duration, including its final quarter, is harmonically occupied by F«G in constant repetition, nothing else can possibly be heard as the song’s harmonic centrepiece or main reference point. Secondly, if a continuation of F«G had to be imagined, it would more likely have been a transformation into a IV®V®I in C (F«G becoming F®G®C). That IV®V®I hypothesis is based on previously established instances of the same shuttle in the relevant repertoire, as shown in example 144 (p. 193).
The top line in example 144’s eight-bar comparison presents the melodic line of the chorus in Elvis Presley’s Return To Sender (1962), transposed up one tone, while the lower of the two lines shows the main hook of the Human League song (1981). There is striking similarity between the two melodic lines in the same vocal register which, in bars 1-6 of the example, follow the same basic to-and-fro movement of the same type of mixolydian shuttle (Presley in parallel fifths over B$«C, Human League in octaves over F«C, each three times in a row). In bars 6-7 of example 144 the Presley song completes a perfect cadence, using the second chord of its shuttle, C, as a dominant chord in relation to the target key of F. Bars 7 and 8 in the lower line are fictional and are supplied to demonstrate what might have happened if Human League had followed the practice, established by Elvis and many others, of transforming a mixolydian shuttle ($VII«I) into IV«V and thence into a IV®V®I cadence. If they had done so, it would certainly not have been the first time IV®V®I was heard in a popular song!
Elvis Presley: Return To Sender (1962; chorus, A$«B$ ending in E$, transposed up 1 tone to F) and Human League: Don’t You Want Me, Baby? (1981; F«G shuttle ending hypothetically on I in C).
One aim of the hypothetical substitution just proposed is to argue that harmonic devices like Human League’s F«G have a history and that included in such history is the way in which those devices normally connect (if at all) to what follows them. That’s why a continuation of the Don’t You Want Me shuttle as IV®V®I on to C doesn’t sound totally wrong. (Try it!) The interesting thing is nevertheless that there’s not a single chord of C in the whole tune and that listeners familiar with songs like Return To Sender will never hear the continuation they may have been unconsciously expecting. Now, that interpretation might square nicely with the waiting, frustration and the unfinished business of the relationship presented in the song’s lyrics but that hypothesis is at best no more than intelligent speculation. Besides, the song could just as easily end on a final F or G chord, as well as on C or A minor. In fact, the main point of this discussion is that theoretical destinations of the F«G shuttle are only of interest to the extent that they help us understand why and how it in practice goes nowhere. Its overriding presence in the recording and its protraction into the final fade-out mean once again that, like the Police and Pink Floyd shuttles, we are dealing with a state, not a process, and with a situation, not a transition.
Tequila’s mixolydian shuttle (1958) is similar to the one in Don’t You Want Me Baby? in that it occupies the majority of the recording’s total duration. In fact Tequila’s proportion of main shuttle to other harmonic material beats both Human League (66%) and Pink Floyd (70%) hands down with its score of 83% (1:49 of 2:11). However, there is no doubt at all that Tequila is in F mixolydian and it has neither the potential nor the intention of going anywhere else, except for the very short B section which ends with an unambiguous II7® V7 (the G7® C7 at 0:51 and 1:34: Y qnue break: ‘Tequila’) that points listeners straight back with a V®I into the familiar I«$VII shuttle (G7® C7® F«E$). Although this quality of unambiguous tonic may be one reason why the tune’s F«E$ creates no connotations of waiting or suspension, it is more likely that the shuttle’s lively accompaniment patterns and the lead sax’s downbeat anticipations, all executed in brisk alla breve tempo (the groove), provide the recording with its ongoing forward drive.
The Champs: Tequila (1958) – mixolydian shuttle in F.
Strictly speaking this F«E$, which lasts less than 1½ seconds each time it occurs, is too short to qualify as a proper shuttle (1 per bar in ex. 145). It has more the character of a single-chord tonal expansion, especially given that the recording’s acoustic bass, when it enters, plays c, not e$, each time the guitar switches to E$, using the familiar one-five oompa shuttle trick to vary what might otherwise have been an intervallically static bass line. In so doing the bass player creates a I«v (F«Cm7) shuttle which, as we have already mentioned, is tonally very close to I«$VII. Whatever the case, doubt remains as to whether the Tequila F«E$ is in fact a two-chord shuttle, not just because each unit is so short (only 1.36 seconds) but also because the amount of time spent on each chord is not exactly equal. The point here is that although the two chords are equidurational in the first three repeated units (bars 1-3), in each fourth unit only the first of eight quavers is spent on F, the remaining seven being assigned to lively strumming on E$. That kind of insistence and increased rhythmic surface rate on the counterpoise chord has an anacrustic function similar to that of pick-up notes in the bass running from V back up to I (e.g. c e$ e8 | f in F) or to that of a drum fill on toms before kicking into ‘one’ on the ensuing downbeat (or its anticipation). Such anacrustic devices are frequently used as episodic markers of borders between musical phrases, i.e. to signal that a shuttle, loop or groove is about to restart or that the music is about to go elsewhere. The devices are in both instances syntactic (like punctuation) and propulsive (driving forward). Tonal variation in accompanying instruments, including variations of relative duration assigned to chords in a shuttle or loop, play a significant part in creating such propulsion, as will become clearer in our discussion of the final subgroup of flat-seven shuttles. In fact, the unit of present time in Tequila is, thanks to that episodic marker, more likely to be the whole length of the period shown in example 145, i.e. the full four bars of I«$VII shuttling or 5½ seconds (16 beats at q=176 or 8 beats at h=88).
Shuttle or counterpoise sandwich?
What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?
(Eng. trad., quoted from memory)
Like mixolydian melodies, minor-mode tunes with flat sevenths (dorian, aeolian, minor pentatonic, etc.) are, as we saw in Chapter 7 (p. 120, ff., ex. 92, 97, 110), hardly uncommon in the popular song repertoire of pre-industrial Britain, Ireland and Appalachia. Indeed, as examples 146 and 147 suggest, harmonising tunes in those modes almost always involves changes between tonic minor and major flat seven (i«$VII; or between i and v). The question is, though, whether the chord changes presented qualify as shuttles because, as with Tequila, the time spent on each of the two chords is neither consistent nor equal. One obvious reason for such ‘inconsistency’ is that if both the first and last chords in a period covering an even number of bars need to be on the tonic —as in bars 1 and 8 of the Drunken Sailor, or in bars 1 and 4, or 5 and 8, or 13 and 16 of The Tailor and the Mouse (ex. 147)—, then no consistent chord alternation is possible because the final bar in the phrase will inevitably land on the wrong chord (or the first one will in the case of a reverse shuttle). This simple arithmetic means that the shuttle, consisting by definition of two chords, must be adjusted in some way if it is to fit into the remaining odd number of bars (1-7 in ex. 146; 1-3, 5-7 and 13-15 in ex. 147). One trick is to halve the duration of the counterpoise chord on its final appearance in the phrase (the C in bar 7 of ex. 146), another to employ the sandwich technique illustrated in example 147.
The Tailor And The Mouse (Eng. trad. quoted from memory)
The harmonic sandwich occurs three times in example 147 and involves putting the non-tonic chord filling (‘v’ or Dm in bars 2-4, 6-7, 14-15) between a slice of tonic-chord bread at each end of the phrase (‘i’ or Gm in bars 1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 16). These four- or eight-bar sandwiches are also extremely common in the ionian mode, I-V-V-I being a stock formula of harmonic progression in, for example, valse chantée. A third strategy, and the opposite of the Drunken Sailor trick, is to increase the duration of the counterpoise chord by placing it a beat or two before it is expected in a regular shuttle. That trick, used in Tequila, also works well when harmonising minor-mode traditional tunes like Farewell To Erin (Bothy Band, 1976) or The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies (Reel Thing, 1998). However, when it comes to harmonising modal songs originally conceived without accompaniment, chord shuttles, as we have treated them in this chapter, can be virtually impossible to apply.
Van Diemen’s Land, transcribed from version by Albion Country Band (1971, arr. Hutchings) with addition of pitch pole markings
(tonic = c, counterpoise = b$).
In this traditional English tune there are really only two tonal poles: one on the keynote (c), the other on the tune’s counterpoise ( b$). The melody switches quite irregularly between those two poles: it starts with three dotted crotchet beats on c (1½ bars of 6/8 metre = 3 × q. ), then five on b$ and so on. The complete pattern of rate of change between those tonal poles for the song is in fact 3 5 |3 1 1 1 2 |2 2 4 |3 2 1 2 1|, where ‘1’= 1 × q . and ‘|’ denotes end of phrase. If you harmonise this version of Van Diemen’s Land using just Cm and B$, you will certainly be alternating between i and $VII but you will definitely not be performing a i«$VII chord shuttle.
Having flown off classical harmony’s radar screen many pages ago, we now risk disappearing from our own because, although chordal alternation is the subject of this chapter, questions of periodicity and harmonic rhythm are peripheral to the issue. However, we may have cause to revisit them in part of the next chapter when we try to come to grips with some fundamental questions of tonality in everyday life. For example, how come the ubiquitous La Bamba chord loop NG-C-D-DO is heard as NI-IV-VO in G while the well-known mixolydian rock loop ND-C-G-GO in Sweet Home Alabama is heard as a NI -$VII-IVO pattern in D? And, more importantly, does it really matter?
Chord loops 1
Circular motion
Vamp, matrix, formula, pattern, changes, turnaround, loop, etc... These words, and probably several others, have all been used to denote the same thing: a short sequence of chords, usually three or four, recurring consecutively inside the same section of a single piece of music. There are several reasons for choosing chord loop as the most useful label for such a common phenomenon.
The first reason is that loop is a short word whose meaning, transferred to denoting repeated circular motion, is widely understood, not just by computer programmers writing do while routines but also by anyone old enough to have worked with audio tape. Indeed, the ninth meaning of loop in the Oxford Concise English Dictionary (1995) is ‘an endless strip of film or tape allowing continuous repetition’. Since 1995, short, digitally stored sequences have replaced tape loops to become one of most widely used building blocks in music making. For example, the audio software I bought in 2007 came with a small repertoire of synth and drum loops which I can, time and money permitting, expand by downloading thousands more from sites with names like Acid Loops, Freeloops, Fruity Loops, Loopasonic and Loop Galaxy. In other words, since loop already means a short sequence of sound, usually no longer than a few seconds, that can be repeated consecutively twice or ad infinitum, it is no great leap of semantic faith to use chord loop to mean ‘a short sequence of chords, usually three or four, recurring consecutively inside the same section of a single piece of music’.
The second reason for using loop rather than, say, formula, matrix, pattern or progression is that these other five words do not necessarily imply repetition or circularity, and that of those five only progression unequivocally involves motion. Loops, on the other hand, go round and round (and round…) through at least three chordal points until the music exits the loop, or goes elsewhere, perhaps to a different loop, or until it fades out or just stops. Rundgång, literally ‘a going round’, is what Swedish musicians call chord loops: it’s a very brief ‘round trip’ where you pass a few different points (chords) before starting again round the same circuit for another short lap. It’s a bit like a race track event compared to a swimming competition: swimmers swim lengths to and fro (shuttles) while runners run laps (loops).
The third reason concerns turnaround, a word clearly implying both motion (turn) and circularity (around). It has often been used in the same sense as chord loop but its original meaning is a short progression of chords played at the end of one section in a song or instrumental number and whose purpose is to facilitate recapitulation of the complete harmonic sequence of that section. Example 149 shows a typical turnaround for a slow twelve-bar blues in F whose basic chord changes run, for example | F B$ F F B$ B$ F F C B$ F F |. So as to avoid harmonic stasis and in order to drive tonal motion back into the initial F chord of bar 1, the final F chords of bars 11 and 12 can be replaced with a sequence such as the | F F7/a B$ Bdim | F/c D$9 C7 | progression shown as example 149. This turnaround first increases the rate of harmonic change in motion towards the final C chord (bar 12) which, in its turn, leads back to the F of bar 1, creating in the process a highlighted V®I cadence and an effect of continuity over the join between the two periods.
Typical turnaround figure for a slow blues in F.
A turnaround is in other words an episodic device joining the end of a larger harmonic cycle back to its start. It’s only the end part of that cycle, not its entirety. Now, observant readers objecting that example 149 (I® I3® IV® +iv°® I5® [$VI] V in relative terms) can on its own be convincingly repeated and treated as a chord loop are of course right. Ray Charles, for one, uses a simplified variant of this turnaround sequence as loop in Hallelujah I Love Her So (1957) NI-I3-IV-VO (=NB$ B$3 E$ F, in B$O) which, further simplified, would turn into a La Bamba loop (NI IV VO; p. 217, ff.). On its third appearance in each verse of the same Ray Charles song, however, the loop is left behind, becoming more like the blues turnaround in example 149: I® I3® IV® +iv°® I5® (B$ B$/d E$ Edim). That leads into the vamp progression I(5)® VI® II® V® I signalling end of verse. This ability of turnarounds to become loops and vice versa highlights the need to distinguish between the two related concepts. Both loops and turnarounds can have the same dual function: they can either be repeated as loops or propel tonal movement towards something else. Vamp is the clearest embodiment of such dual function and the fourth reason for preferring loop to the other labels for ‘a short sequence of chords, usually three or four, recurring consecutively…’
The VI® II® V® I progression in the Ray Charles song just mentioned is directional and cadential in accordance with the norms of classical harmony in general and in particular with the tenet of anticlockwise movement round circle of fifths (see pp. 96-107). However, the much-used instruction vamp until ready, which also often involves repeating some kind of VI-II-V- I progression, suggests neither direction nor closure. As Monty Ashley wrote on his website in 2002:
‘[M]y favourite phrase in all of music is “Vamp until readyâ€. That’s basically an instruction to the band to stall. To fill time. To keep doing the same thing in an attempt to trick the audience into thinking something’s about to happen… I would have thought vamping instructions would be sort of complicated, but it’s usually only a few bars.’
It’s true that a vamp doesn’t have to be based on ‘some kind of VI-II-V- I progression’; however, since vamp until ready appeared so often in sheet music for songs from musicals and since some kind of NI VI II VO loop was either written out or expected from the musicians following the instruction, vamp will in what follows denote any chord sequence of the type [I] VI II V [I]. The ‘[I]’ of course implies that not only does the tonic chord cadentially follow the V that precedes it; it also means that it is followed by a tertial chord based on degree six of the scale. That in turn means that the sequence can function as a loop: NI VI II VO. Vamp will in other words be used to designate that particular type of chord sequence as a class of chord loops, not as a generic term for all chord loops.
Vamps
Loops and turnarounds
Performance of jazz standards in AABA form often feature vamp turnarounds before each recurrence of the ‘A’ section. Table 22 shows chord changes for the ten-bar ‘A’ section of a UK World War II hit. Note first how, in bars 7-9, the tune’s hook line is set to a cadential [I-]vi-ii-V-I sequence. Then, instead of sticking to that E$ tonic through bars 9 and 10 into the first two beats of the repeat’s bar 1, another I- vi® ii® V (E$ Cm7 Fm7 B$7) is inserted, this time as a turnaround which can be exchanged for its chromatically descending tritone substitution variant if you want to impress jazz chord connoisseurs (see p. 86).
A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square (Sherwin & Strachey, 1940): viable chord changes for ‘A’ section of chorus in AABA form.
1 2 3 4 5
E$D Cm7 Gm7 E$9 A$D G7 Cm7 D$9 E$D A$D
6 7 8 9 10
E$D A$D E$D Cm7 F9 B$–9 E$6 E$6 E$6 E$6
Vamp turnaround for reprise ® Cm7 Fm7 B$7
Partial TRITONE SUBSTITUTION of vamp turnaround ® G$13 Fm9 E9$5
Blue Moon (Rodgers, 1934): vamp loops and turnarounds in a 32-bar jazz standard.Bar numbers are in italics. Each vamp occupies two bars.
[A1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$
I vi ii V I vi ii V I vi ii V I vi ii V
[A2] 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ A$ E$ Cm
I vi ii V I vi ii V I vi ii V I IV I vi
[B] 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm A$m D$ G$ B$5 F B$
ii V I vi ii V I vi iv [$VII] [$III] V II V
ii V I [III]
[A3] 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ Cm Fm B$ E$ A$ E$
I vi ii V I vi ii V I vi ii V I IV I
In several jazz standards —Blue Moon (Rodgers, 1934) and At Last (Warren, 1940) to name just two— the harmony of the entire ‘A’ section, not just its turnaround, consists of the same four-chord vamp. As shown in Table 23, the ‘chorus’ of Blue Moon starts by running a I-vi-ii-V pattern four times in a row (bars 1-8), the first three times as a loop (b. 1-6), the last time as a turnaround leading back to a repeat of the ‘A’ section ‘[A2]’ containing three more vamp loops (b. 9-14) and to a final, plagally extended tonic (E$ A$ E$, b. 15-16). That final E$ (b. 16) also initiates, with a one-bar delay, two more instances of I-vi-ii-V and the first four bars of the song’s ‘B’ section until it faces the middle eight’s obligatory modulation to a quickly accessible but not necessarily neighbouring tonal centre (bars 21-22). In Blue Moon’s case the target foreign key is G$ which is prepared by inserting a minor variant of IV (A$m7) as a pivot chord doubling as ii in a ii®V®I cadence (A$m® D$7® G$). Shifting back to E$ even quicker than we left it, another three instances of NI-vi-ii-VO (bars 25-30) lead to the end of this ‘standard’ in classic 32-bar form, 24 (¾) of which house the I-vi-ii-V vamp sequence as loop or as turnaround, and another two the ii®V®I in G$. That means the harmony of Blue Moon spends over 80% of its time going flatwards round the circle of fifths.
With their anticlockwise movement three steps flatwards round the circle of fifths (VI® II® V® I), vamp sequences have a long history that dates back through jazz and the European classical period to chains of seventh chords produced by composers like Corelli and Vivaldi in the Baroque era (p. 107); but it’s not easy to find examples of vamp loops before the heyday of Broadway shows and big bands. It is on that tradition and its vamp until ready practices that US pop song writers drew to provide harmony for a disproportionate number of teenage-oriented hits released between 1957 and 1963, in the gap between the initial impact of rock’n’roll and the breakthrough of British bands in the 1960s.
Vamp loops of the 1957-1963 pop period can be heard as the harmonic epitome of the doowop-shalala culture alluded to in conjunction with the I«vi shuttle (pp. 185-186). Those loops are the chordal signature of what Jerry Lee Lewis is reported to have called ‘milksap’ sung by ‘all those goddam Bobbies’. But it wasn’t so often NI vi ii V IO that accompanied Bobby Darin, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton and their soundalikes as NI vi IV V IO. Can NI vi ii V IO and NI vi IV V IO really be considered the same thing? The short answer is, as we shall see next, ‘yes and no, but much more “yes†than â€noâ€â€™.
Leaving the interwar big-band-friendly key of E$ behind us and moving to C as characteristic keynote for much music of the milksap era (I-vi-IV-V = C-Am-F-G in C), the answer to the question just posed should be: ‘yes, they are the same thing except for a difference of one note in one of the four chords’ because 11 of 12 notes are identical in the sequence. As shown in example 150, the only difference between ii and IV is between the d in Dm (ii) and the c in F (IV). At the same time, example 150b shows that a seventh chord on the second degree in C (Dm7, ii) contains exactly the same four notes (d f a c) as an added sixth chord on the fourth degree (F6, IV) and that the only difference between them is the choice of root note, i.e. whether d or f is in the bass. Example 150b also shows that the same principle applies to Fm7 and Dm7$5, all depending on whether f or d is the root of the same chord containing d f a$ and c. Although these aspects of interchangeability between II and IV are particularly striking when sevenths are also included in other chords of the same vamp, as in the performance of jazz standards (ex. 86 (p.113)), they do explain why it is possible to consider both I-vi-ii -V and I-vi-IV-V as vamp variants rather than as distinct categories of loopable chord changes.
I vi ii V and I vi IV V in C; (b) interchangeability of II and IV in C.
---------------------------------------------------------
Sample of I-vi-IV-V ‘milksap’ recordings issued in the USA 1957-63.
1957 1961
Tab Hunter: Young Love Chubby Checker: Let’s Twist Again
Ricky Nelson: Teenager’s Romance Dion: Runaround Sue
The Rays: Silhouettes Ben E King: Stand By Me
Paul Anka: Diana Barry Mann: Who Put The Bomp
1958 The Marcels: Blue Moon
Chordettes: Lollipop Ricky Nelson: Travelling Man
Danny & the Juniors: At The Hop Elvis Presley: His Latest Flame
Everly Brothers: Dream Rosie & Originals: Angel Baby
Monotones: The Book Of Love Bobby Rydell: Good Time Baby
Ricky Nelson: Poor Little Fool 1961
1959 Neil Sedaka: Happy Birthday Sweet 16
Paul Anka: Put Your Head On My Shoulder Bobby Vee: Take Good Care Of My Baby
Bobby Darin: Dream Lover Del Shannon: Runaway
Dion & Belmonts: A Teenager In Love Linda Scott: Don’t Bet Money, Honey
Drifters: There Goes My Baby 1962
Connie Francis: Lipstick On Your Collar Gene Chandler: The Duke Of Earl
Ritchie Valens: Donna Sam Cooke: Having A Party
Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops Four Seasons: Sherry Baby
1960 Shirelles: Baby It’s You
Bobby Rydell: Little Bitty Girl 1963
Mark Dinning: Teen Angel Cascades: Rhythm of the Rain
Percy Faith: A Summer Place Elvis Presley: The Devil In Disguise
Jimmy Jones: Handy Man Paul & Paula: Hey Paula!
Sam Cooke: What A Wonderful World This Could Be Del Shannon: Little Town Flirt
Little Peggy March: I Will Follow Him
Bobby Vee: Devil Or Angel Ronettes: Be My Baby
Johnny Tillotson: Poetry In Motion Doris Troy: Just One Look
As stated earlier, NI-vi-IV-VO loops are the harmonic epitome of milksap music emanating from both major and minor record labels in the USA between about 1957 and 1963. When researching that repertoire for intertextual purposes relating to the semiotic analysis of the I-vi-ii-V sequence in Abba’s Fernando (1975), I found 137 relevant tunes on the Billboard hot 100. To give a rough idea of that kind of repertoire I’ve listed 57 of those recordings in Table 24.
The duration of vamp sequences in the songs listed in Table 24 ranges from very short (e.g. 3" for Lollipop by The Chordettes (1958)) to well beyond the limits of present time (e.g. c. 15" for There Goes My Baby by The Drifters (1959)). One vamp progression from 1962 was intentionally omitted from the list because it lasts for 23 seconds, the first half of which appears as example 151.
Ketty Lester: Love Letters (1962): bars 1-8 of first verse
I started Chapter 9 by arguing that Chuck Berry’s Memphis Tennessee didn’t qualify as a shuttle because it took too long (24") to alternate between its two chords. The same reservation applies in terms of a loop to Ketty Lester’s Love Letters (ex. 151): even if its B$-Gm-E$-F (I-vi-IV-V) is repeated consecutively, each occurrence of the progression occupies an entire verse lasting 23 seconds, a duration similar to that of a twelve-bar blues period running in o at q=120. Of course, the twelve-bar blues, like the chaconne or passacaglia, is by definition a tonal format that is repeated consecutively, but if each cycle in the format exceeds the duration of present-time experience by a factor greater than two, which it almost always does in the case of a 12-bar blues, it becomes difficult to hear and to qualify as a loop —as a cyclical harmonic matrix, yes, but not as a loop. On the other hand, if the cycle in question has a duration of no more than two ‘nows’ —a ‘this bit’ and a ’that bit’ with just one caesura and no third or fourth ‘bits’, so to speak— then it can still be heard as a loop. That’s one reason why the repeated 12½-second mixolydian chord formula at the end of Hey Jude (Beatles, 1968a; see p. 221, ff.) can be heard as a single-caesura loop in the same way as longer milksap vamp loop durations like the 15 seconds in There Goes My Baby (Drifters, 1959) or the 14½ seconds in Oh Carol! (Sedaka, 1959). On the other hand, the Love Letters vamp includes four bouts of present time, the first two of which are shown in example 151.
The discussion so far can be summed up in the following six points.
A simple loop without caesura usually lasts for between about 3 and 8 seconds, the approximate equivalent of one bout of present time;
A single-caesura loop usually lasts for between roughly 8 and 18 seconds, the equivalent of two bouts of present time;
Consecutively repeated chord progressions each of which lasts longer than around 18 seconds are much more likely to be heard as cyclical matrices. Loops may even be included within such cycles, as in the first statement of the ‘A’ section of A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square (bars 7-10 in example 22, p. 202).
Loops and turnarounds often consist of the same sequence of chords so that loops can become turnarounds and vice versa. However, while loops go round and round within themselves, turnarounds have a specific episodic function in that they simultaneously signal the end of the ongoing harmonic cycle and propel tonal motion towards the start of the next one.
The most common variants of the I-VI-II-V vamp sequence in English-language popular song are I-vi-ii-V and I-vi-IV-V. Both sequences usually occur as loops. NI-vi-IV-VO became a style indicator of teenage-orientated pop hits released in the USA between 1957 and 1963.
Vamp sequences take three steps anticlockwise (flatwards) round the circle of fifths (vi® ii® V® I) and have a history in both jazz and classical harmony.
Vamp, blues and rock
On page 204 I mentioned that the period between 1957 and 1963 coincides with the gap between the initial impact of rock’n’roll (c. 1955-7) and the global influence of British bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (c. 1963-70). It is worth considering this gap historically for both harmonic and ideological reasons. As we shall see, chords, one aspect of ‘everyday tonality’, aren’t just a matter of musical theory or practice: they also have to do with attitudes and values.
Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock (1955) and See You Later Alligator (1954), Elvis Presley’s recordings of That’s Alright Mama (1954) and Hound Dog (1956), many of Little Richard’s early recordings (Tutti Frutti, Lucille, Long Tall Sally, etc. , 1956-57), Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls Of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ (1957), not to mention Chuck Berry’s Maybellene (1956) and Johnny B Goode (1958) are all generally considered classics of early rock’n’roll. Numerous historians of the genre have interpreted such songs as representing some sort of social and behavioural paradigm shift, drawing attention to qualities like youthful energy and abandon, corporeal self-celebration, and pointing to musical traits like loudness, brisk tempo, plenty of percussive elements, energetic guitar strumming, relatively unrestrained vocal delivery and so on. Any mention of the music’s tonal elements is usually restricted to comments about the use of ‘blue notes’ or to the notion that the harmonies of rock’n’roll are simple. What most commentators tend to omit is that a large proportion of rock’n’roll hits from the mid 1950s, including all those just enumerated, follow the basic twelve-bar blues format | I | I | I | I | IV | IV | I | I | V| IV | I | I |. That sequence performed loud and up-tempo had immediate forerunners in the music of jump bands, boogie-woogie trios and other small combos in the milieu of jive and jitterbug that until the end of World War II had been the territory of riffing big bands. It was first with the initial breakthrough of rock’n’roll in the mid 1950s that those loud, up-tempo renderings of the twelve-bar blues format entered the mainstream en masse. That breakthrough has considerable harmonic and historical significance.
First of all you don’t have to be a musicology professor to work out that the basic blues format contains not a single V® I progression, not a single ‘perfect’ cadence. Even though the V in bar 9 may occasionally be repeated in bar 10, and even though turnarounds ending on V in bar 12 are far from uncommon in slower blues recordings, the basic harmonic matrix contains no steps anticlockwise round the circle of fifths. Of course, many jazz versions of the twelve-bar blues replace the I-V-IV-I of bars 8-11 with a vamp-related progression similar to that shown in the bebop example on page 159, but that is jazz, not rock. 1950s rock’n’roll usage of the format usually adheres to the V-IV-I-I pattern in bars 9-12. So, what’s the big deal?
A small but important part of the answer has already been intimated: that the closing change in a basic twelve-bar blues cycle is IV®I, not V® I such as you are bound to find in classical harmony or in music using a vamp sequence. The ‘Amen’ change (IV-I) in bars 10-11 of the twelve-bar format is in other words plagal, one step clockwise (sharpwards) round the circle of fifths. But the question is whether we are in fact dealing with harmonic direction at all when rock, pop and Country musicians use the V-IV-I end changes so familiar from bars 9-11 of a twelve-bar blues.
Eddie Cochran: C’mon Everybody (1958): 5½" ionian intro pattern.
This intro from an Eddy Cochran hit is quoted for three reasons: [1] it includes the V-IV-I end change from the twelve-bar blues format so popular in rock’n’roll circles at the time the tune was recorded; [2] it contains no V®I change and little or no V®I directionality; [3] the bass anacrusis in bar 4 works like a miniature turnaround: it propels motion back to the start of the intro loop both rhythmically (eq e |q) and tonally (5 $7 5 $7®|8 = b d b d®|e). This third point will be useful in the discussion of factors determining the home key, if any, of modal loops. Here, though, we need to focus on the second point because it represents a radical shift in the accompaniment of English-language popular song from European classical ii-V- I directionality to modal harmony. The Cochran tune’s chords are simply I, IV and V in E, but V (B) is no dominant and IV (A) no subdominant for two reasons: [1] return to the tonic (E) is not from a supposed ‘dominant’ on B (V-I) but from IV; [2] the Cochran B (V) chord occupies only two of the loop’s 16 beats while A (IV) occupies six and E eight. This means that in terms of both duration and cadential function IV (A) is more ‘dominant’ and V (B) more ‘subdominant’, so to speak. Still, switching the meaning of those two terms of classical harmony to cater for other harmonic realities, although illustrating a valid point, would cause even more confusion. That’s why I’ve decided to abandon both terms in the discussion of most types of modal harmony and to use, where necessary, expressions like outgoing chord, medial chord, incoming chord, and turnaround chord (Fig. 10, p. 212). In the Cochran intro, with E as tonic, IV (A) is both its outgoing and incoming chord because its first change is I-IV and its final change IV-I. V (B) is the intro’s medial chord simply because it occurs in the middle of the loop. Since the loop both starts and ends on the same chord (E) it contains no turnaround chord in bar 4 and has to be supplied with the monophonic bass-line anacrusis shown in example 152. In vamps, on the other hand, the outgoing chord is vi, the medial chord ii or IV, followed by V which is both the incoming chord and turnaround chord towards I as the loop repeats. Of course, in both these cases the tonic (I) is of primary importance, being both starting point and destination of the loop, at least as long as it is in operation.
Chord positions/functions inside loop with vamp as example.
(note: in 3-chord loops medial and incoming are usually on the same chord, e.g. I-IV-V-V for La Bamba).
With artists like Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Eddie Cochran out of action not long after the initial impact of rock’n’roll, recordings of energetic twelve-bar blues formats with their V-IV-I endings made less frequent appearances on the mainstream sales charts. That space was soon filled with manufactured teenage idols and their vamp until ready I-vi-IV-V loops. It was almost as if the shift towards modal harmony had been a passing fad. The historical point, which I cannot discuss here in any detail, is that a prewar harmonic model was dusted off and dressed up as a teenager with moody good looks and all the superficial attributes of youthful musical energy: guitar strumming, prominent bass and drum parts, etc. However, like parlour song, polkas, waltzes and jazz standards, the milksap records, based on vamp loops or not, usually cadenced V® I. Rather than profit from the obvious popularity of recent recordings featuring modal major-key harmony (Tutti Frutti, Hound Dog, C’mon Everybody, etc.), professional songwriters of the milksap era stuck to the familiar and well-tried (ii/IV®) V® I habits of popular harmony from before the war and, in the lyrics, to teenage-oriented variants of love and marriage topics that were usually absent in the up-tempo rock’n’roll recordings. Now, there may be interesting parallels to draw between this reversion to older harmonic models and attempts at the same time to contain changes in social and sexual values within previously established rules of order and decency, but that is not the subject of this book. Whatever the case, if such hypotheses were to be tested, you would need viable theoretical tools to sort out the harmonic side of the issue. And that is definitely relevant to the title of this book.
After the temporary re-emergence of vamps around 1960, modal harmony —ionian, dorian, mixolydian and aeolian— became an increasingly common trait in music that was eventually labelled rock or rock and roll rather than rock’n’roll. At the same time, many aspects of classical harmony remained an integral part in recordings of English-language popular song. For example, The Beatles, at their numerous gigs in Hamburg (1960-62), had to provide the demographically heterogeneous audience with an equally heterogeneous mixture of popular music styles. Early Beatles recordings (1962a/b, 1963a/c, 1964c/e) exhibit an eclecticism that includes everything from old-style I-IV-V-I classical-harmony-based singalongs (e.g. My Bonnie; When The Saints Go Marching In), through AABA 32-bar standards (e.g. Sweet Georgia Brown; Till There Was You) to ‘fast, loud twelve-bar blues formats and V-IV-I endings’ (e.g. Long Tall Sally; Kansas City). Furthermore, even though they covered at least one vamp loop tune in their repertoire (Please Mr. Postman; Marvelettes, 1961), they also drew on modal harmony associated with ‘folk song’ from the British Isles (e.g. A Taste Of Honey, 1963a). That ‘folk’ influence turns up more often in later recordings like And I Love Her and Things We Said Today (aeolian, 1964a), Norwegian Wood (mixolydian, 1965b) and Eleanor Rigby (dorian/aeolian, 1966). Add to all these harmonic influences Harrison’s interest in Indian raga music (e.g. Within You Without You, 1967b) plus experimentation with musique concrète and other avant-garde techniques (e.g. Tomorrow Never Knows, 1966) and you have a respectable number of tonal territories regularly occupied by the band. In addition to all that there are several Beatles idiosyncrasies whose harmonic origins I’ve failed to clearly identify but which seem to have influenced other bands. One such idiosyncrasy is what Mellers (1973: 54) calls the band’s ‘familiar mediant transitions’, as in She Loves You (1963b), Help! (1965a) or She’s Leaving Home (1967b), but which I prefer to think of as multi-functional ways of treating the major key’s minor triads ii, iii and vi. For instance, apart from the mediantal transitions just mentioned you’ll find a regular submediant shuttle (I«vi in G) running into an aeolian cadence on vi (E minor) in Not A Second Time (1963c) and a reverse mediantal shuttle (vi«I) with an unusual continuation in It Won’t Be Long (1963c). One final minor-triad-related Beatles idiosyncrasy is worth mentioning: starting songs on vi (e.g. She Loves You; It Won’t Be Long); or on iii (Can’t Buy Me Love, 1964a); or on ii (e.g. All My Loving, 1963c; No Reply, 1964c; Help!, 1965a; You Never Give Me Your Money, 1969a).
Devoting one page to Beatles harmony may seem excessive to some readers, totally inadequate to others. Whatever the case, my aim was neither to aggrandise nor belittle the band’s importance but to present their use of harmony as eclectic and aggregative in a particular historical context. Their ability to assimilate a wide range of (then) contemporary harmonic idioms into a body of work in which none of those constituent idioms is hegemonic may partly explain their continued popularity across generational and other demographic gaps, but that is not really the point I wanted to make. More relevant to this chapter on chord loops is the fact that The Beatles helped expand the harmonic repertoire of popular music making so that it could include I-IV-V-I singalongs, twelve-bar blues sequences, ii® V® I directionality and mediantal progressions, as well as various types of modal tonality. In short, while we shall see in what follows that there is often correlation between particular types of loop conceived in particular harmonic idioms and particular styles of music, that variety of idiom in the pop mainstream was made possible by musicians who bridged the old stylistic gaps, in particular by The Beatles.
Like shuttles, chord loops often play a central role in the creation of popular song in recording and performance. They work as the tonal ingredient of groove and, like shuttles, are best regarded as ongoing states, conditions or ‘places to be’, not as transitions or parts of an overarching tonal scheme or process. Many songs are harmonically based on a single loop (e.g. La Bamba) but more use one loop for just one section of the song and move elsewhere for other sections —to a different loop, for example. Having already dealt in some detail with the vamp, perhaps the best known of all chord loops, and with its vi-ii/IV-V-I directionality, most of the chord loops presented in the next chapter will be much more modal (in the sense of non-classical).
Modal loops and bimodality
Ionian or mixolydian?
Since the vamp loop discussed in the previous chapter is built on unaltered tertial triads of the major scale’s constituent notes it is by definition ionian. However, it is, with its three flatward steps round the circle of fifths (vi® ii/IV®V®I, e.g. Am Dm/F G C), a rare bird in the ionian menagerie. Even the La Bamba loop (NI-IV-VO, e.g. C F G), whose V leads squarely back into I, is, for reasons explained on page 116, unlikely to follow the voice-leading principles of classical harmony.
Table 25 (p. 218) lists a selection of tunes featuring ionian loops that contain the three chords that first-year students of classical harmony students are expected to learn in their first term: I, IV and V. To make things easier, I have restricted the first batch of loops examined to those starting on I (‘one’, the tonic). One reason for starting this chapter with those loops is that they link directly back to the passage about Eddy Cochran’s C’mon Everybody (p. 211 ff.) and to the necessity of abandoning notions of ‘dominant’, ‘subdominant’ and ‘perfect cadence’ when dealing with a large part of everyday harmonic reality. Another reason is that by dealing exclusively first with major triads in what most Europeans and many North Americans will doubtless think of as ‘the major scale’, I can hopefully exploit familiarity with how those ‘easy’ chords sound to explain the range of modal and connotative variety that different configurations of I, IV and V can produce.
The first subgroup in Table 25 (p. 218) lists examples of NI-IV-VO loops whose final V chord always leads back to I, while the second category consists of a selection of loops whose turnaround change is plagal (IV as incoming chord to I). The first part of section (a) in the table mentions La Bamba and Guantanamera, two happily energetic dance tunes (Do You Love Me and Twist And Shout), and the celebratory singalong chorus of an otherwise pretty psychedelic Beatles track. The I-V-IV-V loops listed in the second part of section (a) all accompany tunes best qualified in terms of carefree singalong.
Selection of ionian chord loops consisting of only I, IV and V
Type Tune (Artist, Year: chords; [detail])
(a) ionian loops with V-I turnaround
I-IV-V
La Bamba
loops • La bamba (Richie Valens, 1958: C F G G)
• Do You Love Me (Brian Poole & the Tremoloes, 1963b: D G A A)
• Guantanamera (Trini Lopez, 1963: E A B B)
• Twist and Shout (Isley Brothers, 1962: F B$ C C)
• Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Beatles, 1967b: A D E E)
I-V-IV-V • I Don’t Want To Know (Fleetwood Mac 1977: B F# E F#; hook)
• I Walk The Hill (Big Country, 1986: D A G A)
• From Under The Covers (Beautiful South, 1989: F C B$ C; verses)
(b) ionian loops with plagal turnaround (IV-I)
I-IV-V-IV
Wild Thing
loops • C’mon Everybody (Eddy Cochran 1958: E A B A)
• Sweets For My Sweet (Searchers 1964: D G A G)
• Wild Thing (Troggs 1966: A D E D)
• Hang On Sloopy (McCoys 1965: G C D C)
• Name of the Game (Abba 1977: A D E D; hook line/chorus)
• Congratulations (Traveling Wilburys 1988: C F G F)
I-V-IV • Knocking On Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan 1973: G D C C [Am Am])
• Already Gone (Eagles 1974: G D C C)
• Helpless (Neil Young 1977: D A G G)
‘Carefree singalong’ applies also quite well to the first batch of plagal loops (I-IV-V-IV), even if the light-hearted familiarity in Congratulations is verbally ironic and paced quite slowly. But the general mood of the NI-V-IV-IVO songs in section (b) of the table is quite different. The Eagles track is in moderately brisk tempo and has lyrics about showing courage in the face of difficulty, but the Dylan and Neil Young recordings move much more slowly. The words of Knocking On Heaven’s Door are about facing death and being weary of violence, those of Helpless about hopelessness with a faint promise of consolation. The lyrics of all three songs are reflective first-person narratives sung by a solo male vocalist. They are musically presented as Country-influenced ballads in a partially folk-rock vein, not exactly a startling stylistic choice for serious singer-songwriters like Dylan or Young. We are a long way from the carefree singalong of tunes in Table 25’s other subgroups.
One reason for such clear connotative differences between the NI-V-IV-IVO songs and the others listed in Table 25 is obviously tempo, another melodic profile and register, yet another vocal timbre and so on; but none of this means that harmony has no bearing on the issue. One reason is that the lyrics of the Eagles song, although set in a quicker tempo than both Hang On Sloopy and Wild Thing, have at least some qualities of narrative reflection that the majority of tunes in the first three subgroups lack. In fact it’s as hard to find loops from songs in the first three subgroups linked to reflection about serious things as it is to find NI-V-IV-IVO in a cheerful, familiar-sounding or carefree singalong. Although extensive research would be necessary to test the validity of that observation, it is not unreasonable to hypothesise that the relative duration of I, IV and V, as well as their functions in the loop (incoming, medial, etc.), may be factors affecting the connotative charge of the chord loop in question. If that is so, how can the three simplest chord functions known to harmony students give rise to even the slightest connotative difference in the space of just a few seconds? One reason is that conventional harmony can only see V as ‘dominant’ leading to I and cannot entertain the notion that V can be directly followed by IV, as in the NI-V-IV-IVO loops. According to those norms, IV can, if no parallel fifths or octaves are involved, proceed to V (and thence to I) but V “just doesn’t†go to IV (and thence possibly also to I). ‘Thence to one’ is an important observation because the most common incoming and turnaround chord in ionian, dorian and mixolydian loops is, at least in rock-related contexts, IV or, failing that, another chord whose root note is situated flatwards of the tonic in the circle of fifths. Under such circumstances movement to the target tonic proceeds in a clockwise direction. Indeed, plagal cadences are probably more rule than exception in those musical styles.
Since the loops in Table 25 only contain the three chords I, IV and V, both IV and V can have more than one function. For example, the V in NI-V-IV-VO and the IV in NI-IV-V-IVO function as both outgoing and incoming chords whereas the IV in NI-V-IV-VO and the V in NI-IV-V-IVO have an exclusively medial function. With NI-IV-V-VO and NI-V-IV-IVO, on the other hand, V is the medial and incoming chord functions that combine and the outgoing that stays single. One simple rule of thumb in determining the character of these chord loops is that the more functions a chord fulfils, the more important it is. Another general guideline is that the medial chord often works like the opposite pole of a chord shuttle and can, as such, have particular importance as ‘the other place to be inside the loop’, especially if the outgoing chord is both produced and heard as a logical step towards that pole and if the incoming chord is produced and heard as a logical link back between the medial and primary chords in the loop. Such links, explained in the next paragraph, can occur either as scalar motion in the root notes involved or as steps in one direction or the other round the circle of fifths.
In a I-vi-ii-V vamp in C, for example, the outgoing chord, vi or A minor, takes one step flatwards to arrive at the medial chord ii or D minor (or its relative major IV), then another step flatwards to the incoming chord V or G which takes a final single step flatwards back to I or C. La bamba loops, on the other hand, start with one step flatwards to the outgoing chord, IV, which then uses a scalar root note progression (usually barré with parallel fifths and octaves) to reach the medial halfway house, V. That medial is then prolonged into an incoming chord function which completes the loop with a predictable single step flatwards to the tonic. It is clear that V, in its medial position, is where the outgoing IV was heading, even clearer that it is the incoming chord to I. In short, V carries much more weight than IV in a La bamba loop. It is for the very same reasons that the reverse applies to the I-V-IV-IV loops (Dylan, The Eagles and Neil Young), where IV occupies the dual function of medial and (plagal) incoming chord, and where V, as outgoing chord, acts only as scalar link down to IV. IV carries much more weight than V in the I-V-IV-IV loops, not so much because it occupies more time as because it is both where the V leads (medial position) and what points the loop back to its primary point on I (incoming function).
Things are not so clear cut with the two subgroups in the middle of Table 25. In the I-V-IV-V loops (Fleetwod Mac, etc.) V acts first as outgoing chord that leads by scalar descent to IV which is clearly the medial chord, the most obviously different ‘place to be’ inside the loop, as in the Dylan and Neil Young tunes. Then, with a one-step scalar ascent, the medial chord returns to V which then acts as incoming chord and makes an expected V-I change back to the tonic. V has a dual function in the loop and occupies half of its duration, but IV is the medial chord, the opposite pole (Fig. 10, p. 212). The same applies in reverse to the I-IV-V-IV loops: I’ve labelled them ‘plagal’ because: [1] the final step sharpwards from incoming or turnaround chord to tonic is a IV-I; [2] because the outgoing chord is also IV; and [3] because IV occupies half the loop’s duration. However, given the medial function of V, do the I-IV-V-IV loops really sound more plagal than those in the I-V-IV-V subgroup or do they both straddle a kind of tonal no-man’s land between IV and V in relation to I? The only honest answer I can give to that question is ‘I don’t know’. What’s more I think the question is irrelevant unless I insist on hearing the V in the Dylan and Neil Young I-V-IV-IV loops as a ‘dominant’ demanding the tonic, which it patently neither is nor does.
Spot the key
Before finally putting to rest the misconceptions of conventional harmony in this chapter, there’s the issue of identifying a single tonic (’keynote’, ‘I’, ‘one’) in chord loops. I may have had difficulty sorting out issues of relative importance for IV and V but the tonic has yet to cause any major problems in this chapter.
Example 153 (p. 222) contains only three triads: D, C and G. Loops 1a and 1b are identical, as are 2a and 2b which are retrogrades of 1a and 1b. The repeat marks indicate that each sequence can work as a loop. The only suggestion that there might be differences between the four loops in example 153 is in the roman numerals identifying the tonic as first chord in loops 1b and 2a and as last chord in 1a and 2b.
Same three chords, two different tonics
Two modes are also in evidence since the tonic G in loop 1a has become a medial and incoming IV in the otherwise identical loop 1b. The same goes for the shift of tonic from G to D between loops 2a and 2b. The difference between the two pairs of identical chordal twins is in other words one of mode: I on G, IV on C and V on D means ionian because, according to Table 9 (p. 117), that is the only heptatonic diatonic mode with major triads on scale degrees I, IV and V, while the only mode with major triads on I, $VII and IV is the mixolydian. So, if it’s not always possible to spot the tonic chord from its position in the loop, what other clues enable us to identify it?
Is the loop preceded or followed by other material that can put it in a larger tonal context?
Does the recording or performance containing the loop end without fade on a particular chord that its creators might consider tonal centre?
Is any chord immediately preceded by another in the loop which includes, or concurs with, anacrustic patterns highlighting and propelling motion towards that subsequent chord?
Does one of the chords in the loop have two functions of which one is either first or last in the sequence?
Is the music in which the loop occurs part of a tradition in which some tonal configurations are more common than others?
Let’s test these tips using two famous loop tunes: La bamba, usually in C or D but transposed here to G to facilitate comparison, which corresponds to the I-IV-V (NG C D DO) configuration ‘2a’ in example 153, and Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974), the I-$VII-IV-IV loop labelled ‘1b’ in the same example (ND C G GO). How do we know that, using the same chords, the La bamba loop is in G and Sweet Home Alabama in D?
The first tip (what comes before and after the loop) is no help because the harmony of each song consists entirely of a single loop. Tip no. 2 is not much better in the case of La bamba because, although the Trini Lopez version culminates in an abrupt stop on the first chord of the loop (I), my Ritchie Valens and Los Lobos recordings of the song both end in fade-out. The widely distributed studio version of Sweet Home Alabama (1974) fades out too but the band seemed to be in no doubt that live performance of the tune demanded a final rock-show flourish on D (1977). As noted previously on several occasions, loops, like shuttles, are much more ‘places to be’ than ‘means to an end’ and, if a finality marker is necessary in live performance, the tune’s last chord could be the last chord of the loop: just try ending Sweet Home Alabama with a slight ritardando on a plagally extended IV (G G C G) to the rhythm |iiiq_h |. As for live-performance markers of harmonic finality in Latin American songs based on I-IV-V loops, the choice seems more open-ended. The point is that if musicians can opt to end on either what they perceive as the tonic or on the last chord of the loop in question, then the harmonic finality marker in live performance is in those cases not a reliable indicator of the loop’s tonic (I). The third tip is in general more reliable than any other and is best illustrated by example.
Example 154 (p. 224) shows two representative lead guitar licks for the mixolydian loop in Sweet Home Alabama. Like the |Q eq eq |q figure at the end of example 152 (p. 211), the jjjq_ jjjq ending of the Sweet Home Alabama loop shown in example 154 is anacrustic. This anacrusis has both rhythmic and tonal aspects. Rhythmically speaking the music’s surface rate increases from iq to jjjq, an action which, so to speak, hurries the music on, propelling movement towards whatever immediately follows, in this case to the D chord at the start of the loop. Tonally the anacrusis contains the repeated rising pentatonic pattern 5-6-1 (a b d) so familiar as pickup figure in Motown recordings as well as in soul, gospel and funk, and as melodic upbeats in music of British or Irish origin. Lynyrd Skynyrd use other anacrustic devices in the chorus —| jjjq jjjq | on toms and a tutti | jjjq x sfz e. |— to veritably hurl us at the ensuing D as tonic.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama (1974): two lead guitar licks.
With La Bamba transposed to run NG-C-D-DO on the other hand, anacruses come mainly in the form of the vocalist’s |E e n q e ®| pickup syllables Para bailar la, Una poca de and Yo no soy mari-, which aim at Bamba, gracia and -nero respectively as their ensuing downbeats at the start of the loop. Since Bamba, gracia and -ero land consistently on the anacrustically targeted chord of G, G becomes just as clearly I in the NG-C-D-DO of La Bamba as D became I in the ND-C-G-GO of Sweet Home Alabama.
The fact that the first chord in both the La Bamba (ionian) and Sweet Home Alabama (mixolydian) loops happens to be I in no way means that I is always in that loop position. You only need to repeat the ionian V-IV-I-I loop (ex. 153-1a, ND-C-G-GO) to hear that G, not D, is I (see audio demo). Another reason for rejecting the first chord is tonic theory is that one common variant of the simple mixolydian loop runs N$VII-IV-I-IO, like the ND-A-E-EO in the chorus of With A Little Help From My Friends (Beatles, 1967b) or in the first two phrases of the Polythene Pam passage on the B side of Abbey Road (Beatles, 1969a). That $VII-IV-I movement is important because the roots of those three chords appear in order as two clockwise steps round the circle of fifths (Figure 9, p. 100). In fact, all the mixolydian loops listed in Table 26 feature stepwise clockwise motion sharpwards round the key clock (see online demo The Mixolydian Mini-Montage).
Examples of songs containing simple three-chord mixolydian loops
Type Key Song (Artist, Year)
$VII-IV-I E
E
A
C • With A Little Help From My Friends (Beatles, 1967b: hook)
• Polythene Pam (Beatles, 1969a: start of verses)
• 20th Century Man (Kinks, 1971)
• Gimme All Your Lovin’ (Z.Z. Top, 1983: hook)
I-$VII-IV-I G
G • Hey Jude (Beatles, 1968b; end)
• Fortunate Son (Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970)
I-$VII-IV-IV B
F#
A
D
C • The Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones, 1969)
• Where Do We Go From Here Now? (The Band, 1971)
• 20th Century Man (Kinks, 1971)
• Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974)
• Sharp Dressed Man (Z.Z. Top, 1983: verse starts)
I-I-$VII-IV B
E
A • Soul Finger (Bar Kays, 1967)
• Traveler In Time (Uriah Heep, 1972)
• You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet (Bachman Turner, 1974)
All these mixolydian loops contain two consecutive steps of a rising fifth or falling fourth: from $VII to IV and from IV to I (Figure 11, p. 226). We know that we’ve arrived on the tonic at that point because that’s where the process stops and a single two-step jump in the opposite direction, flatwards from I to $VII, is needed for the sharpwards process to repeat In fact it’s the exact opposite of classical harmony’s II®V®I directionality with its anticlockwise steps flatwards ending on I, where a single two-step jump sharpwards (from I to II) is required for the process to repeat. The tonic can therefore also be identified as the culmination point of a process in one direction or the other round the circle of fifths.
Basic mixolydian and ionian chord steps towards tonic in G
It’s also worth noting that longer, usually four-step, rising-fifth progressions sometimes occur in rock music, for example the final F® C® G® D® A cadence in 20th Century Man (Kinks, 1971) or the famous Hey Joe loop NC-G-D-A-E×4O (N$VI-$III-$VII-IV-IO; Hendrix, 1967a). In any case, all the short mixolydian chord loops listed in Table 26 (p. 225) establish the tonic as culmination of stepwise chordal movement sharpwards (clockwise) round the circle of fifths. That is certainly true for Sweet Home Alabama (C®G®D = $VII IV I) but how can it apply in reverse to La Bamba’s ionian loop which arrives on G as tonic not from A (II) or Am (ii) and D (V), as suggested in Figure 11, but from C (IV) and D (V)? For two reasons: [1] as we’ve already seen (pp. 204-205), since IV6 and ii7 contain the same notes, IV and ii often serve the same purpose as chords preceding V in flatwards sequences towards the tonic; [2] the single scalar step from IV to V can provide a viable alternative to the single circle-of-fifths step from ii to V in projecting tonal movement towards V and thence to I.
Aeolian and phrygian
Chord progressions based on both scalar and circle-of-fifths motion combine to create considerable directionality in aeolian shuttles, loops and cadences. Remembering that the aeolian mode is alone with its major triads on the flat sixth and flat seventh degrees ($VI, $VII), the scalar aspect of aeolian chord sequences is obvious: $VI ® $VII ® I/i (6-7-8; F G A/Am, for example). Like the mixolydian loops just discussed, the motion of aeolian harmony towards the tonic also proceeds sharpwards round the circle-of-fifths, the main difference being that aeolian harmony uses double consecutive steps clockwise to progress from its flatward pole ($VI) to the tonic (Figure 12). At the same time, aeolian harmony’s scalar aspect means that it is, if the tonic triad contains no Picardy third, eminently reversible in terms not of tonal centre but of the conjunct motion of the chords’ root notes (6-7-8-7-6-7-8, etc.). It is this type of reversibility that motivated the general categorisation of aeolian loops like N i $VII $VI $VII O as aeolian shuttles: i«$VI via $VII, so to speak, as in Sultans Of Swing (Dire Straits, 1978: Dm via C to B$ and back via C to Dm; see pp. 186-189). However, if the tonic triad is major the sequence is usually unidirectional and turns into the much used aeolian cadence with Picardy third, as in The Beatles’ P.S. I Love You (1963a) and Lady Madonna (1968a).
Another aeolian device in English-language pop music is the uninterrupted cadence discussed earlier (pp. 103-104) and exemplified by Um Um Um Um Um (ex. 155). The loop NI I ii viO —A A Bm F#m— runs throughout both the Major Lance (1962) and Wayne Fontana (1964) versions of the song and, as we also noted earlier, has F#m as its final harmonic resting place. Heard in the key of F# minor rather than its relative major (A), roman numerals for the loop would be N$III $III iv iO and its final cadence plagal aeolian —plagal because the final step is from iv (Bm) to i (F#m) and aeolian because that’s the only ‘church’ mode featuring both $III and iv but neither $II nor $vii. However, uninterrupted cadences heard in the major key are more often of the V-vi type ($VII-i if you hear vi as i) and which serve to harmonically complete the phrases quoted as examples 40(a), (b) and (c) on page 69. They also turn up in Beatles tunes like Not A Second Time (ex. 156).
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders: Um Um Um Um Um (1964)
Beatles: Not A Second Time (1963c: uninterrupted aeolian cadence)
Times critic William Mann’s qualification (1963) of this Beatles cadence as aeolian may have caused the young Lennon much understandable mirth but it is quite accurate. It is also a cadence that may have caused a few eyebrows of to be raised in 1963, when there was little or no alternative to the precepts of Central European classical harmony in institutions of musical learning, but it should, almost half a century later after decades of mediantal folk rock and other types of rock modality, cause no surprise at all. And yet it does: several of my pop music analysis seminar participants, all fed on a strict diet of V-I directionality, still find such cadences incomplete. Such surprise is all the more surprising given the continued existence today of modal tonality established a millennium before the rise to power of the ionian mode in Central European art music. What can possibly be incomplete about completing a final ‘Amen’ on scale degrees $7 and 8 (1) if you hear example 157 in D minor or on 5 and 6 if you hear it in F?
Psalm tone 2 (end of final ‘Gloria patri et filio’…, simplified)
The question just asked is rhetorical because it’s hard to think of musical events much more final than a final ‘Amen’. The problem of course lies in the particular type of tonal monocentricity with which our music students are still brainwashed. Having two possible tonal poles, like Psalm tone 2, Um Um Um Um Um or Not A Second Time, need be no problem unless you uncritically accept the arrogations of conventional harmony teaching, or unless you’ve somehow managed to avoid modal rock music, droned ‘folk’ harmonisations, bimodal popular music from Latin America, music by composers of the Tudor era, the toni of Roman psalmody, and so on and so forth.
Carlos Vega (1944: 160), referring to criollo song, noted with customary acuity that ‘[t]here are no major tunes and minor tunes. There are just bimodal tunes’. The examples of uninterrupted cadences just presented are in Vega’s sense bimodal since they can be heard as first in a major mode, then in a minor mode (Um Um Um in A then F#m, Not A Second Time in G then Em, psalmody tone 2 in first F then in Dm). If you still insist on tonal monocentricity for such short musical statements, you’ll be faced with the thankless task of determining whether you’re hearing first I then vi or first $III then i. My advice is to convert to a more catholic view (‘catholic’ in its original sense), to one that allows for the existence of both bimodal and monomodal notions of tonality. Although these considerations may not be directly relevant to the discussion of V-vi, a relatively rare change inside the chord loops of post-war English-language popular music, the notion of bimodality is essential to understanding the workings of another, extremely common type of aeolian loop: Ni-iv-VO.
The NF#m Bm C#O of example 159 (p. 231) contains an aeolian loop that can be easily understood as the harmonic minor equivalent of the ionian La Bamba pattern. With v altered to V it basically runs Ni-iv-V-VO (e.g. Am Dm E; F#m Bm C#; Dm Gm A) and is widely used in Latin America. It seems to be particularly common in Cuban son and bolero styles, not least with artists like Compay Segundo and Carlos Puebla. This harmonic minor loop has a close relative in the Niv i V iO patterns (e.g. Dm Am E Am) that also frequently appear in minor-mode popular music from Iberia and Latin America. Apart from running throughout substantial sections of several traditional Cuban son and bolero tunes, Niv-i-V-iO turns up as introduction to at least three Amália Rodrigues fado recordings.
This Niv-i-V-iO cousin of Ni-iv-V [-i]O is also common in Andean regions where it has another close bimodal aeolian relative: the $VI-$III-V-i sequence, as illustrated in example 158.
Los Calchakis: Quiquenita (Argentinian trad.; La flûte indienne, 1968)
The $VI-$III-V-i bimodal accompaniment for this little Andean tune runs as a loop, as indeed it does in a few other songs on the globally distributed La flûte indienne album, but such patterns tend more often to either occupy longer durations than those of present-time experience or not to be repeated consecutively.
Carlos Puebla: Comandante Che Guevara: aeolian and phrygian.
Three quarters of the sung part of Carlos Puebla’s famous ode to Che Guevara (ex. 159) uses the standard harmonic minor i-iv-V loop (F#m-Bm-C# in F#m minor, bars 1-4, 6-7) and a straight i«V shuttle (F#m « C# in bars 5-6 and 9-12). The last quarter (bars 13-16) consists of a phrygian descent towards what monomodal minds would assume to be V (C#) but which, if you listen bimodally, is in fact I in that final four-bar phrase because F#m-E-D-C# is iv-$III-$II-I in C# and because a falling [iv-] $III-$II-I progression is a common finality marker in phrygian harmony. After all, that’s how the four-bar introductions to each verse of Comandante Che Guevara run (ex. 93, p. 122) and, more importantly, that’s how Puebla’s performance of the piece always ends. It’s also, as we already noted, how Sabicas ends his malagueña performances and how Greek songwriter Stavros Kouyioumtzis chose to finish the tune quoted as example 95 on page 122. But the malagueña and the Kouyioumtzis song are more unambiguously phrygian than Puebla’s Guevara ode whose twenty-bar full cycle (4 bars instrumental plus 16 bars verse) consists of twelve bars in the aeolian-harmonic-minor mode (60% or the total duration) and eight bars (40%) of phrygian-mode descent. That descent takes us from what was i (F#m) but now becomes iv, down via $III and $II to the phrygian tonic with Picardy third. And Puebla isn’t alone in working bimodally between aeolian-harmonic-minor and phrygian: you only need to check traditional Cuban songs like Decimas a un niño and Tonada de corte andaluz to find the same pattern of bimodality. All of which takes us back in one sense to the early sixteenth century, to Glarean and the ‘hypomodes’ described on page 53 because it is possible to interpret the phrygian passages just mentioned as hypoaeolian. Applied to example 159, it would mean that the descent F#m E D C# , though registrally bounded both melodically and harmonically, by the final c#, can be heard more as a variant of its aeolian precedent than as phrygian, as suggested in the comments above the stave in example 160.
Hypoaeolian in F# for
Che
Guevara?
I have two problems with the interpretation just presented: [1] Glarean himself underlines the importance of the finalis (last note) in determining the keynote of a melody and there is no doubting the Puebla recording’s melodic and harmonic finality on c#/C#; [2] the phrygian cadence is tonally emphasised by not only one leading note (as in V®I), nor by just two (as in V7®I), but by three leading notes (arrows between final D and C# in ex. 160). Given such conspicuous semitonal directionality it’s hard to understand why so many otherwise competent musicians feel compelled to tack an extra iv chord to the end of a final phrygian cadence, as if that addition could somehow more conclusively finalise what had already been brought to an final conclusion.
The value of Glarean’s ‘hypomodes’ for popular music studies is that they link separate modes, whose tonal centres are a fourth or fifth apart, together in pairs: the ionian with the mixolydian, the mixolydian with the dorian and, as we’ve just seen, the aeolian with the phrygian (see Table 27, p. 234). Another way of understanding these bimodal pairings is to identify the two harmonic poles involved and to reverse the sequence between them. For instance, turning the C# phrygian sequence F#m E D C# in example 160 into [C#] D E F#m creates an immediately recognisable $VI-$VII-i aeolian cadence, while reversing the example’s F# aeolian i-iv-V into |hC# qBm qF#m | produces the unequivocally phrygian effect I-$vii-iv. Similarly, reversing La Bamba’s NI-IV-VO in ionian G from G C D to D C G leads, with appropriate metric and anacrustic treatment, to the NI-$VII-IVO of Sweet Home Alabama in mixolydian D.
But, as shown in the bottom row of Table 27 (p. 234), modes don’t have to be ‘hypo-linked’ in pairs at the fifth or fourth. Classical music theory’s pairing of relative major and minor keys (p. 99, ff.) suggests that the ionian and aeolian also make a great modal couple. For example, switching between ionian and aeolian (where I ® vi ionian equals $III ® i aeolian) was mentioned in connection with the Flûte indienne example on page 230, whose $VI-$III-V-i in E (C G B7 Em) consists of an ionian IV-I (C G) followed by an aeolian V-i (B7 Em). Although that sequence can be only partially reversed (Em B7 C G, Em B7 C D G, etc.), it is clear that the straight reversal of aeolian progressions like the [un]interrupted cadence formulae G D Em and G C D Em (I-[IV]-V-vi or $III-$VI-$VII-i) will turn them both into unmistakable ionian cadences, one ‘perfect’ —vi-V-I (Em D G)—, the other plagal —vi-V-IV-I (Em D C G).
Bimodal reversibility of progressions (examples only)
lydian F G C = I II V [I] « ionian C G F F = I V IV [I]
ionian C F G = I IV V [I] « mixolydian G F C = I $VII IV [I]
mixolydian G C F Dm = I IV $VII v [I] « dorian Dm F C G = i $III $VII IV [I]
dorian Dm F G Am = i $III IV v [I] « aeolian Am G F Dm = i $VII $VI v [I]
aeolian Am Dm E = i iv V [I]
aeolian E F G Am= V $VI $VII i* « phrygian E Dm Am = I $vii iv [I]*
phrygian Am G F E = iv $III $II I*
ionian Am G C = vi V I « aeolian C G Am = $III $VII i
It should in short be understood that the V-I cadence does not trump all others in modal music and that reversal, partial or total, of harmonic direction, as in the Carlos Puebla example, can establish two modes, each with its own tonic, inside the same short piece of music. With that simple awareness of bimodality, of harmonic reversibility, and of modal harmony’s relative independence from the unidirectional and tonally monocentric tyranny of V-I ‘perfect’ cadences, it is much easier to understand, accept and enjoy tunes like Mila Moja (ex. 140, p. 182). No longer do we need to hear it ending with an ‘imperfect cadence’ on an irrelevant ‘dominant’ which we frustratingly and meaninglessly expect to be ‘resolved’ on to the tonic, in the presumptuous belief that a tune that short and simple cannot possibly have two tonal poles of equal value. Put in more colourful terms, if we Westerners no longer accuse Buddhists of disrespect because they wear white instead of black at funerals, surely we can also learn to hear, understand, respect and enjoy music that doesn’t follow the same culturally specific rules as those we’ve been taught to follow.
Mediantal loops
Mediantal chord loops (selection)
Type Tune (Artist, Year: chords [detail])
(a)
I-$III-IV-
rock-
dorian
loop •Booker T and the MGs: Green Onions (1962: F A$ B$)
•J. J. Cale: After Midnight (1971: E G A E)
•Canned Heat: On The Road Again (1968: E×6 G A)
•Everly Brothers: The Girl Sang The Blues (1963: E G A E/A C D A)
•Led Zeppelin: Bron-yr-Aur Stomp (1970: G B$ C)
•Led Zeppelin: Candy Store Rock (1976: E A G short riff)
•Mission: Sacrilege (1986: D×6 F G)
•Slade: Shape Of Things To Come (1970: A C D F)
•Talking Heads: Take Me To The River (1978: E E G A)
•Tina Turner: Steamy Windows (1989: E×6 A G)
•Johnny Winter: Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo (1972: E A G)
•Stevie Wonder: Higher Ground (1973; E G A)
•Z. Z. Top: La Grange (1973: E E G A)
(b)
I-III… •Pink Floyd: Nobody Home (1979: C C E F C)
•Radiohead: Creep (1992: G B C Cm)
•Otis Redding: Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (1967; G B C A)
•Will.i.am: Yes We Can (2008: G B Em C)
(c)
I-iii-IV…
ionian
mediantal
narrative
•Abba: Knowing Me, Knowing You (1975c; A C#m D E: interludes)
•The Band: The Weight (1968; A C#m D A)
•Beach Boys: I Can Hear Music (1969: D F#m G A; verse starts)
•David Bowie: Rock And Roll Suicide (1979; C Em F G Am)
•David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust (1979; G Bm C C)
•Dexy’s Midnight Runners: Come On, Eileen (1989; C Em F C G)
•Eric Clapton: Easy Now (1970b: D$ Fm G$ A$)
•Housemartins: Happy Hour (1986: B$ Dm E$ F; hook)
•Manfred Mann: Just Like A Woman (Dylan) (1966b: G Bm C D)
•Marmalade: Make It Soon (1969: G Bm C D: chorus)
•Small Faces: Itchycoo Park (1967: A C#m G D)
(d)
i-$III-IV…
‘folk’
dorian •Dead or Alive: You Spin Me Round (1993: F#m A B)
•Smiths: What Difference Does It Make (1984; Bm D E D: intro.)
•Wishbone Ash: The King Will Come (1972; Dm F G: instrumentals)
•Yardbirds: For Your Love (1965: Em G A Am)
On pages 175-176 I tried to explain why I found so few I«III shuttles in English-language popular song, given that harmonic departures from I to iii or III, or from either I or i to $III are not at all uncommon in the repertoire (Table 28). The reason was, I argued, that, however normal it might be to depart from I to III, the process is not reversible without introducing at least one intervening chord on the way back from III to I. If that observation is valid, it explains why mediantal shuttles are so rare while mediantal loops are quite common.
Rock dorian and I-III
As mentioned earlier (pp. 120-121), pop use of dorian harmony falls into two categories: those with and those without a permanent Picardy third on the tonic. Blues-based rock progressions starting I-$III-IV, as in Alice Cooper’s Under My Wheels (1971) or AC/DC’s Shoot To Thrill (1980), belong to the first type, ‘folk’ ballads like Greenback Dollar (Kingston Trio, 1962: i-$III-$VI-$III) or Paul Simon’s Scarborough Fair (1968: i-$VII-i-$III-IV-i) to the second. Since none of these four progressions occur as loops, they don’t appear in the ‘rock dorian’ (a) or ‘“folk†dorian’ (d) sections of Table 28 but other, loopable, progressions do. The label rock dorian for group (a) of mediantal loops is, I think, reasonably unproblematic because the thirteen songs listed are all clearly qualifiable as rock and because nine of those thirteen are in the rock-guitar-friendly key of E, another two in D or A and only two in flat-side keys. As the number of recordings in that group suggests, rock dorian loops are quite common.
However, loops in group (b) that start with a I-III (major one to major three) departure are very rare, nor do they seem to return to the tonic in exactly the same way. One reason for their scarcity as loops may be that departing to III in classical and jazz harmony involves passing through VI, II and V before returning to I, a total of five chords that are not easily crammed into a two- or four-bar loop; indeed, as noted in the discussion of NI-vi-ii/IV-VO (pp. 202-209), even the mere four chords of a vamp can sometimes extend over durations too long to function as loops. Another reason may be that the initial change I-III, which I call the ‘Charleston departure’ because that’s how The Charleston (Mack & Johnson, 1923) starts, is too closely associated with old-style jazz hits for its use in soul or rock-influenced music to be considered stylistically appropriate. In fact it’s interesting to note that although one of the tunes listed in group (b), Yes We Can, proceeds in ‘classical’ fashion from III to vi, the other three do not. More importantly, none of the four return to the tonic via anything resembling a ‘dominant’ but all pass through IV on their way back, a harmonic trait that appears to reinforce the tendency of sharpwards rather than flatwards directionality in many types of post-war English-language popular song. Be that as it may, since the I-III departure is discussed at some length in the final chapter about the Yes We Can chords (p. 248, ff.), we’ll turn next to group (c) in Table 28 after first dealing briefly with an as yet unexamined chord loop phenomenon: the double shuttle.
Double shuttle excursion
Apart from a short middle section, the whole of Otis Redding’s Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay is based on the mediantal loop NG-B-C-AO (NI-III-IV-IIO). I hear the first change from G to B, four steps sharpward, mirrored in the third change from C to A, three steps sharpward. There is a to-and-fro not only inside each of these changes but also, at half speed, between G and C. The half-speed change from B to A creates a parallel scalar pattern that returns the loop to its initial G. Dock Of The Bay includes in other words two shuttles (G«B and C«A) contained within a third (G«C).
Double shuttles don’t have to be mediantal: they can also be bimodal. The Quiquenita loop, for example, NF-C-E7-AmO (ex. 158, p. 230), shuttles between an ionian IV-I in C and an altered aeolian V-i in A minor. Both those changes are repeatable as individual shuttles in popular Andean styles or they can be contained within one loop as a double shuttle. I even hear Solomon Burke’s Everybody Needs Somebody (NE-A-D-AO = NI-IV-$VII-IVO) as a mixolydian double shuttle, consisting of a I-IV in E and a I-V in D, all inside the larger shuttle E«D.
Ionian mediantal ‘narrative’ and ‘folk’ dorian
There’s no really clear stylistic common denominator for tunes listed in Table 28’s group (c). Except for The Weight, possibly categorisable as ‘folk rock’, most of tunes are qualifiable as pop rather than rock, including the Eric Clapton and Bowie recordings. Given that either II or vii must be present for tertial harmony to qualify as lydian, and that neither mixolydian, nor dorian, nor aeolian, nor phrygian modes feature the three tertial triads I, iii and IV, the group (c) loops must be given the modal label ionian. That would explain the lack of rock citations but it says very little about the I-iii-IV loop’s connotations. Nevertheless, the lyrics to all tunes in the group except I Hear Music (a blissful love song) involve some degree of worry, concern or reflection: the Abba song about the hardships of breaking up, The Weight about everyone else thrusting their problems on to you, Rock and Roll Suicide about a psychologically unstable friend or lover, and so on. As we shall see in Chapter 13 (pp. 257-258), I-iii, continuing usually to either IV or vi, is quite a common departure in popular song, more often with acoustic than electric accompaniment, in which singable ionian ‘folk-type’ melodies give space to lyrical narrative. It is for this reason that I’ve dubbed the group (c) loops ‘ionian mediantal narrative’. However, since chordal loops, not departures, are the subject of this chapter, the ‘narrative’ label may be a symptom of excessive interpretative license on my part, especially given that the sample of songs listed in the group is so small. The problem with group (d), ‘“folk†dorian’, is similar.
A few pages back I warned that ‘folk’ ballads like Greenback Dollar (Kingston Trio, 1962) and Paul Simon’s Scarborough Fair (1968) would not be listed in Table 28 because their i-$III… changes do not occur in loops. Nor do the any of the numerous i-$IIIs heard in harmonisations of rural popular music in the dorian or aeolian mode from the British Isles. Nor, even, does The House Of The Rising Sun (Animals, 1964) because its well-known Am-C-D-F (i-$III-IV-$VI) works not as a loop but as an anaphora leading in both eight-bar periods to a different cadence pattern: [1] Am-C-E-E (bars 5-8); [2] Am-E-Am-Am (bars 13-16). The simple truth is that ‘folk’ tunes don’t tend to be harmonisable as loops whereas pop and rock, as well as some Latin American styles, use them frequently. And that’s why the tunes listed in Table 28’s category (d) are such a motley bunch: one glam-synth-pop offering (Dead or Alive), one disturbingly existential piece of kitchen-sink pop (The Smiths), one slightly Tolkienesque prog rock recording (Wishbone Ash) and one quite convincing attempt by The Yardbirds to produce something to sound as successful and as similar as possible to House Of The Rising Sun. In short, it’s clearly impossible to draw any conclusions about the connotations or stylistic home ground of loops in group (d), even though ‘folk dorian’ may not be an altogether unreasonable name to give chord sequences starting i-$III-IV.
Mediants may be midway between a tonic and its fifth but, as already suggested, by moving from I to a major-key-specific III or iii, that tertial triad on the mediant becomes a mediator, an intermediary step between the tonic and another harmony elsewhere. Indeed, the irreversibility of I-III means, as I argued earlier, that mediantal shuttles are probably too few to be counted. Moreover, I’ve racked my brain and other musical resources to find a single III or iii acting as incoming chord in a three- or four-chord loop: outgoing (departure), yes, as in Table 28, sections (b) and (c); medial, yes, as in the verses of She Loves You (Beatles, 1963b: NG Em Bm DO = NI-vi-iii-VO); but incoming (arrival), no, not a single one.
This all means that mediantal harmony cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in a book whose harmonic scope has for practical reasons had to be limited to shuttles, loops and one-chord changes. Longer harmonic sequences, harmonic form, harmonic departures and so on must regrettably be topics for another book about everyday tonality. Nevertheless, even though the final chapter examines only one chord loop, I’ll be referring to those other topics and be devoting more attention to the meaning of particular chord sequences. After all, harmony is not primarily a theoretical issue: it is a practical matter of interhuman communication.
The ‘Yes We Can’ chords
This chapter started as a simple reply to a simple question sent by Carol Vernallis to the IASPM online list in January 2009. She asked the popular music studies community: ‘does anyone have thoughts on the chord progression of Yes We Can or on the music as well as the pop songs it might be echoing?’ Good question! By ‘Yes We Can’ Carol was referring to the Obama presidential campaign video of the same name (Adams 2008). IASPM member responses to Carol’s question can be summarised in the following six points.
[1] Mike Daley and Allan Moore reflected on the going somewhere else potential of the B major chord and on the relative comfort and security aspect of the plagal turnaround change (the chord loop ends on IV to be followed by I as the first chord in the loop). [2] Allan Moore suggested similar progressions in recordings like ELO’s Jungle (1973), Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted (1966) and Neil Young’s Southern Man (1970). [3] Barbara Bradby referred to Otis Redding’s Dock Of The Bay (1968), an intertextual similarity noted by several of my Montréal students. Bradby also observed melodic similarity between the Yes We Can phrase sung at 0:31 in the Obama video and the initial ‘When the night’ phrase of Ben E King’s Stand By Me (1961). [4] Matthew Bannister pointed to similarities with Bob Marley and The Wailers’ No Woman No Cry (1974), another connection noted by my students, and to possible anthemic connotations in Another Girl Another Planet by The Only Ones (1978). [5] Danilo Orozco suggested similarities to harmonic matrices of Spanish origin in Latin America. [6] David Uskovich referred to Journey’s Don't Stop Believing (1981).
This list of intertextual associations adds up to a fair set of IOCM, such as might occur in a good popular music seminar where musematic analysis is the order of the day and where all references are relevant, but some more so than others.
The four chords
Before starting on any musematic analysis, I need to be as clear as possible in conventional structural terms about the harmonic progression we’re dealing with. Like my IASPM colleagues, I heard a four-chord loop covering four bars of 4/4 running N G | B |Em |C O or, in relative terms,NI |III |vi |IVO (Fig.1).
The four Yes We Can chords as captured from YouTube (Adams 2008)
The sequence runs at q = 100 and is heard repeatedly for the first 2:28 of the song’s total duration of 4:26. It is played on an acoustic guitar with six metal (not nylon) strings. Apart from the B (III) in bar 2, taken as an A barré on the second fret, all chords are played in first position. With the exception of the C chord, whose higher c (first fret on the B string) is replaced by a d (third fret) to create a ‘droned’ Cadd9 effect, no chord contains notes extraneous to the common (tertial) triad in question. All four chords in the Yes We Can sequence are rhythmically articulated in similar (or identical) ways to that shown in Figure 2 for the tonic (G). The root of each chord is usually sounded as two quavers, the second slightly muffled, followed by the chord’s remaining notes as either one (q) or two strummed downstrokes (iq) covering three or four of the guitar’s upper strings: for example, the top g in the chords just shown is not always audible.
I can’t think of another piece of music answering exactly to all the traits just described. Intertextual references provided by my students and myself, as well as those from IASPM colleagues in the online exchange, all exhibit some common structural traits but, as we shall see, some comparison pieces may be more relevant than others. Intertextual references need in other words to be more focused.
Late renaissance and Andean bimodality
Danilo Orozco’s reference to harmonic matrices that Carlos Vega would have probably called bimodal is interesting because there is one common denominator between the Yes We Can chords and, for example, the recording of Guardame las vacas he refers to. The Guardame las vacas chords Orozco mentions are similar to those of La folia whose ubiquity throughout Europe in the late renaissance is probably comparable to that of the twelve-bar blues in mid-twentieth-century USA. One variant of the La folia chordal matrix runs as follows:
One La folia matrix variant in G/Em
bars 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
chords N G D Em B G D Em - B Em O
in Em N $III $VII i V $III $VII i - v i O
in G N I V vi III I V vi - III vi O
If the finalis, E minor, in this eight-bar matrix is regarded as the main tonic, its relative chord functions will be those of the middle line just shown. If, on the other hand, you hear the matrix in G major (the key of the initialis), perhaps the italicised line will be more correct? Well, not really, because the matrix so clearly ends with an unequivocal V®i (B®Em) perfect cadence. Besides, with La folia as shown above, E minor is preceded or followed only by major triads of either D ($VII) or B (V), both of which are, in terms of European classical harmony, dominantal to E, especially the chord on degree V (B, altered to include the key’s sharp seventh, d#, instead of the key-specific triads Bm and D with their d8). Moreover, there is at the turnaround point no cadential relationship, neither plagal nor dominantal, between the finalis and the following initialis. The same goes for many huayno-style chord loops, for example the four-chord NC-G-B-EmO in Los Calchakis’ version of Quiquenita (La flûte indienne, 1966; ex. 158, p. 230). I am unable to hear the totality of that progression in G (NIV-I-III-viO): it always sounds to me like N$VI-$III-V-iO, i.e. as principally, though not exclusively, in E minor.
The long and short of this brief excursion into late renaissance and Andean harmonic matrices is that, unlike the Yes We Can chords, they: [1] end with clear dominantal (V-i) cadences in the minor key; [2] start on a triad of the relative major or relative subdominant major; [3] are often twice as long. Considering other parameters of musical expression associated with the Yes We Can chords, it is worth remembering that: [4] the Andean/late renaissance IOCM’s tempo is more often than not noticeably faster than q=100; [5] that their metre is not usually 4/4 but either 3/4 or 6/8 or a hemiola mixture of the two; [6] that any strumming of stringed chordal instruments is much quicker; [7] that the timbre of a steel-stringed acoustic guitar is unusual, while that of a gut or nylon-stringed guitar is less unusual (a ‘Spanish’ guitar sound), and that of a more trebly, jangly sound of a bandola, tiple or charango much more common. It’s for these reasons that while it may be interesting to speculate in a possible general commonality of divergence from the tertial sonic image of ‘classical’ harmony and the sort of nineteenth-century urban Europeanness that goes with it, I don’t think those structural similarities are striking enough to make a case for further interobjective comparison in this direction. In what follows, I will therefore try to restrict comparisons to material that more closely resembles the Yes We Can chords on as many counts as possible.
Four chords, four changes
Investigating the meaning of a chord sequence means trying to find intertextual instances of all its chord changes. Tautologous though this may sound, it’s worth remembering that, unless the matrix starts and ends on the same chord, a three-chord sequence contains three changes, a four-chord sequence four and so on. This truism has to be stated because it is easy to overlook one of the chord loop’s most important tonal points: the turnaround change from the last chord back to the first one. In Yes We Can it’s the plagal (IV®I) move from C to G. In fact, it’s that change, rather than the V®vi (D to Em) in the middle of the loop, that owns any real finality potential.
Plagal movement sharpwards round the circle of fifths is almost as common in styles like gospel, modal country, folk rock and blues-based rock as it is uncommon in the flatwards circle-of-fifths world of Corelli trio sonatas, Wagner operas, Victorian parlour song, jazz standards and so on. Yes We Can’s plagal turnaround change may in fact be one reason why we are more likely to hear the tune as popular and North American rather than classical and European. We may even hear some Amen, gospel or major pentatonic folk song references in that sort of change, but it is difficult to be more connotatively specific about IV®I as a chord change in those styles because it is such an idiomatically common harmonic step. It can also be the preferred harmonic finality marker for many songs in the broad range of English-language popular song traditions just mentioned. So let’s investigate the first change in the sequence instead. It is after all less usual than IV®I.
First impressions: from zero to I
It is said that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. That adage certainly applies to harmonic departures because the second chord in any sequence is the one creating that first impression of harmonic change or direction. However, before discussing Yes We Can’s I®III departure, it’s worth considering the very first change, the change taking listeners from musical nothing to something, i.e. from before and outside the music to the first sound of the song. The first-position acoustic guitar G chord in Yes We Can is important because its sound creates the song’s truly first impression.
Initial first-position G chords, strummed or simply picked on a metal six-string acoustic guitar at an easy or moderate tempo, occur at the start of the following Bob Dylan recordings: The Times They Are A-Changing (1964a), It Ain’t Me Babe (1964b), John Wesley Harding (1968), George Jackson (1971) and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (1973). They also occur as first-chord tonics in a fair number of Woody Guthrie songs, for example in Oklahoma Hills (1937), Grand Coulee Dam (1945) and Two Good Men (1946?). The first sound in Yes We Can is in other words virtually identical to the first sound in several popular songs by well-known US singer-songwriters associated with progressive politics and social change. Whether such allusions were intended or not in Yes We Can, the new US president’s election promises of change and social justice could certainly have been linked to much less appropriate figures of the nation’s popular music traditions than Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. Just imagine the sights, sounds and words of artists like Alice Cooper, Charlie Daniels or Barry White as musical accompaniment for an election platform of responsible government! Obviously, there’s much more resonance, both lyrically and sonically, between Obama’s ‘It’s time for a change’ and The Times They Are A-Changing.
Another significant point about Yes We Can’s G chord, with its four open strings and doubled third (b8 on the A and B strings), is that, like the other two first-position chords in the loop (Em and C), it is easy for any party or camp-fire amateur guitarist to produce. G, Em and C are all chords about which millions of North Americans could say ‘Yes we can’. Nor does Yes We Can’s second chord, B, taken as a standard A major shape with a barré on the second fret, present any major technical challenge to the semi-skilled amateur. But it’s not so much that poïetic accessibility in itself that is semiotically important as its meaning to the non-guitar-playing majority. Thanks to the fact that those easy chords are within the capabilities of a significant guitar playing minority, the majority have through repeated exposure to such chords played in a simple way on guitar, learnt to associate them with the words, ideas and situations they accompany.
Harmonic departure: from I to III
I®III (G to B in Yes We Can) is neither the most usual nor unusual harmonic departure in English-language popular music: I®IV, I®V, I®vi, probably also I®ii and I®iii are probably all more common than I®III which, perhaps, may even be less usual than I®II, I®$III or I®$VII, but probably more common than I®$VI (see Moore, 1992).
Whatever the case, the number of pieces, or sections of pieces, that have come to my attention from an at least partially relevant repertoire and which start I®III is not very impressive. The eleven songs are, in alphabetical order: [1] Abilene (George Hamilton IV 1963); [2] Bell-Bottom Blues (Eric Clapton 1970a); [3] The Charleston (Golden Gate Orchestra 1925); [4] Crazy (Patsy Cline 1961); [5] Creep (Radiohead 1992); [6] Jungle (Electric Light Orchestra 1979); [7] Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out (Bessie Smith 1929); [8] Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding 1968); [9] Who’s Sorry Now (Connie Francis, 1957); [10] Woman Is The Nigger Of The World (John Lennon 1975); [11] A World Without Love (Peter & Gordon 1964). Without initially knowing why, I found that only three of those eleven pieces sounded enough like Yes We Can to be used as convincing IOCM for the chord sequence under analysis. Since that sort of ‘intuition’ is not much use in itself, I’ll try to identify and explain differences in parameters of musical expression operative in connection with the I®III departure shared by both Yes We Can and the eleven comparison pieces. That process of elimination ought to sharpen focus on the most salient features of the Yes We Can chord loop.
First of all there are two strictly harmonic features that seem to make a semiotic difference to the character of the I®III departure: bass lines and continuations. Bass notes in the Yes We Can loop are all on the root of the triad whereas Clapton’s Bell-Bottom Blues (1970a) uses a conjunct descending bass line so that the chords actually run I-III5-vi-[I5-]-IV (the bass notes in G would be g f# e [d] c, the chords G - Df# - Em - Gd - C), a progression containing two chords in inversion. Now, thanks to famous precedents like Whiter Shade Of Pale/Bach’s Air (I-V3-vi-I5 , etc., Bach, 1731; Procol Harum 1967a), chord inversions in conjunct bass lines are quite a reliable pop sign of ‘classicalness’. It’s a device which takes the tune in question out of the popular participation sphere of things like Yes We Can’s strum-along guitar and root-position triads, and which, by using both conjunct bass lines and inverted triads, gentrifies the piece in question. That’s just one reason for treating an obvious structural similarity like a shared I®III departure with caution. The second harmonic reason for doubting the relevance of some I®III comparison material is continuation. For example, only two of the eleven IOCM pieces (Dock Of The Bay and Creep) feature I®III at the start of a four-chord loop. Many of the others go on to include chains of flatward circle-of-fifths changes incompatible with the overall tonal idiom of Yes We Can. Moreover, parameters like tempo, accompaniment pattern and instrumentation can also make some I®III changes sound quite unlike Yes We Can’s.
The Charleston (q=96) and Who’s Sorry Now (q=88), for example, although performed at a tempo similar to Yes We Can (q=100), are very different in terms of instrumentation, rhythmisation and harmonic continuation. The trad jazz band orchestration of The Charleston, not to mention its lo-fi 78 rpm recording sound, and, in Who’s Sorry Now, the half-electrified 1950s pop combo, complete with constant piano triplets reminiscent of Stan Freberg’s ‘clink-clink-clink jazz’, are both a far cry from Yes We Can’s simply played acoustic guitar notes and triads. The continuation of I-III in The Charleston and Who’s Sorry Now into a string of dominantal falling fifths (I-III-VI-II-V-I in the brass-and-sax-friendly keys of B$ and E$) are other obvious indications of musical styles and connotations on a distant planet from those of Yes We Can. The two Country numbers (Abilene and Crazy) can also be eliminated from the IOCM for similar reasons of incompatibility of instrumentation, accompanimental pattern and continuation.
When You’re Down and Out (q . =90, 12/8), Sitting on the Dock of the Bay (q=103, 4/4) and Creep (q=92, 4/4), on the other hand, all go at a similar pace to Yes We Can and are all part of the international, Anglo-American, post-1955 pop repertoire. Although none of these three songs feature simply strummed acoustic guitar they do bear more resemblance to Yes We Can than do The Charleston, Who’s Sorry Now, Abilene and Crazy. Nevertheless, there are several important points of structural difference between the three tunes under discussion (Down And Out; Dock Of The Bay; Creep) and, on the other hand, Yes We Can. For example, all recordings of Down and Out, whether at q.= 90, as by Bessie Smith (1929) or Eric Clapton (1992), or, much slower, as by Clapton (1970) or Stevie Winwood (1966), all feature a slow blues shuffle accompaniment ( ¼ even if notated o ) using either cornet, piano and tuba accompaniment (Bessie Smith), or electric guitar, Hammond organ and drumkit (Clapton and Winwood), while the Yes We Can chords are stated in straight quavers (iiiq). Moreover, the initial I-III of Down and Out continues into a falling fifths progression including VI (E or E7), not vi (Em), then ii (Am) and, after passing through chords like #IVdim (C#dim), to II7 (A7), V7 (D7) and I (G). Neither diminished chords nor extended flatward circle-of-fifths movement is to be heard anywhere in Yes We Can. It is conceived in a different timbral, metric, rhythmic and tonal idiom altogether.
Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Redding, 1968), on the other hand, runs in straight quavers (iiiq) and presents the four chords of its sequence at virtually the same rate (q=104) as Yes We Can: I-III-IV-II (G B C A). This Dock of the Bay sequence is itself remarkable because it contains not a single plagal (IV®I) or dominantal (V®I) change. Only the 19-second bridge passage (1:24-1:43) of the song’s total duration of 2:45 includes a very brief $VII®V®I progression (1:37-1:43) to lead back into the virtually directionless sequence of chords occupying all but a few seconds of the recording. The Dock of the Bay sequence is also interesting because it consists of two pairs of chords: [1] I and IV (G and C) are next to each other in the circle of fifths; [2] III and II (B and A) are both well on the sharp side of I and IV and they are only separated from each other by VI (E) in the circle of fifths. But the four chords aren’t played in that sort of order —try G-C-A-B or G-B-A-C[-G] instead— because I and III (G®B) belong together in one phrase to which Redding sings ‘Sitting on the dock of the bay’, after which he breathes. After that halfway cesura he sings ‘Watching the tide roll in’ to the second half of the chord loop (its IV®II part, C®A), a sort of I-VI in C echoing the same sort of change as the I-III in the first half, G®B). There would be nothing remarkable about that division of the sequence if the two tertial triads in each half were closer to each other on the key clock, but that is not so. The second triad of each pair is situated not just one or two quintal steps away from the first but at a distance of four (I-III/G-B) and three (IV-II/C-A) steps respectively. This is what makes the Dock of the Bay sequence sound more like two similar chord shuttles played one after the other —constant to-and-fro movement— rather than like a chord loop such as I-vi-IV-V or I-V-$VII-IV. This to-and-fro movement in Dock of the Bay, enhanced by the addition of seaside sound effects like waves washing in and out, is of course absent in Yes We Can whose chord sequence contains two very clear neighbour-key chord changes: B®Em (III®vi, dominantal) and C®G (IV®I, plagal), giving it an definite loop rather than double shuttle character.
None of this means Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay is inadmissible as IOCM evidence for the Yes We Can chords. Even though the Redding recording’s shuttle character, its harmonic continuation and its orchestration differ clearly from Yes We Can, its bridge repeats a short melodic phrase type (at ‘Nothing’s gonna change’, ‘I can’t do what ten people tell me to do’, etc., 1:24-1:37) that recurs in similar guise at 0:31 in Yes We Can (‘It was sung by immigrants’). As Barbara Bradby pointed out in her IASPM-list posting, that phrase in Yes We Can is quite close to Ben E King’s initial ‘When the night’ declamation in Stand By Me (1961). I would add that those melodic phrases in each of the three songs can be characterised as proclamatory, sincere and passionate. I would also characterise the phrase type as typical of male soul lead vocalists from the 1960s (e.g. Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye) and associable with the Civil Rights struggle and with the sort of social processes that Haralambos documents in Right On! From Blues to Soul in Black America (1974). If there is any truth in this interpretation of the phrase at 0:31 in Yes We Can, the connection with the I-III in Dock Of The Bay becomes one of circular reinforcement by cross-association. That chain of connotations contains the following sort of indexical links: [1] a melodic phrase in Yes We Can resembles melodic archetypes sung by male vocalists in late 1960s soul music; [2] that music at that time was often associated with a more hopeful and assertive image among African Americans in the USA; [3] one of the most famous of those male vocalists was Otis Redding, one of whose biggest hits was Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay; [4] that song also contains the same I-III departure as Yes We Can, the Obama campaign song; [5] Obama’s presidency marks another major positive change in US civil rights.
ELO’s Jungle (1979), mentioned by Allan Moore, runs at the same tempo as Yes We Can (q=100). Its first three relative chord changes are identical to those of the Obama song: D F# Bm G (Jungle, in D) = I III vi IV = G B Em C (Yes We Can, in G). ‘Bingo!’, you might think and, indeed, you seem to have a 100% match. But there are problems because this perfect match doesn’t sound much like the Yes We Can chords. There are at least four main reasons for the mismatch. [1] the ELO chords aren’t used as a loop; [2] the ELO sequence continues into a repeated V®I cadence (A®D); [3] the four chords cover two, not four, bars and are spaced | h. q|h. q | with only one note for each chord, not a full bar of iq q iq q, or q q iq q, or any other similar pattern for every chord; [4] the instrumentation is totally different, filled with ’world-musicky’ tropical instruments associable, at least in an urban, non-tropical, ‘first world’ music culture, with the song title (Jungle). I hear instruments resembling agogo, güiro, cowbell, wood block, maracas, plus —outside that field (or jungle) of connotation— a very audible thick string pad. All these differences make me reluctant to use the ELO chords, despite their unmistakable similarity in terms of conventional harmonic theory, to those of the Obama song, as IOCM for Yes We Can. The two pieces just don’t sound very similar.
Similar reasoning, but for different reasons of difference, can be applied to John Lennon’s Woman Is The Nigger Of The World (1975). Apart from the fact that the Lennon sequence is not a loop but part of an eight-bar chorus sequence (|I III vi I IV iv I I |in E), the Lennon song’s beat is swung (12/8 feel), the overall volume effect much louder, the vocal register higher and timbre harsher than Yes We Can´s. There are also radical instrumentation differences between the two, the Lennon piece including a percussive piano track, electric guitar and bass, up-front wailing sax and loud drumkit events. None of these features are anywhere to be heard in the Obama song.
Only two pieces of I®III IOCM are left to discuss, the Lennon/McCartney song A World Without Love (Peter & Gordon, 1964) and Radiohead’s Creep (1992).
From 1964 until recently I laboured under the misapprehension that the first four bars of each verse in A World Without Love were set to the chords E |G# |C#m |A (I-III-vi-IV), i.e. to the same relative progression as the Yes We Can chord loop. The sequence in fact runs E | G# |C#m | C#m. I had even played it wrongly many times without any listener or fellow musician ever complaining, probably because the only melody note in the fourth bar, a c#, sounds just as good over A as C#m. The point of this anecdote is to suggest once again that an exact harmonic match is not necessarily the most important factor determining whether a chord sequence in one piece sounds like a chord sequence in another. In this context it means that the most important harmonic likeness between A World Without Love and Yes We Can is the fact that they both share the common departure changes I® III® vi. Now, the Lennon-McCartney sequence sounds different to Yes We Can’s mainly because: [1] the former runs at a faster pace (q=134); [2] the accompaniment is dominated by McCartney’s heavy q . e q . e ‘one-five oompah’ bass figures; [3] its I-III-vi is not repeated as a loop. That said, the I-III-vi-vi in World Without Love does occur regularly at the start of each verse in straight 4/4, with one chord per bar and with simply strummed acoustic guitar accompaniment, however low in the mix it may be. Moreover, World Without Love’s harmonic continuation I - iv - I - I - ii - V - I (E |Am |E |E |F#m |B |E) stays within the Yes We Can idiom of common triads in root position, while the simple pop instrumentation has much more in common with Yes We Can than do ELO’s Jungle, Lennon’s Woman Is The Nigger, not to mention The Charleston, Bessie Smith’s When You’re Down And Out, etc. Like Dock Of The Bay, the I®III in World Without Love does share some structural traits in common with Yes We Can. However, unlike Dock Of The Bay, the Peter & Gordon recording contains no elements of soul or gospel to point listeners toward any kind of civil rights connotations. If that is so, what sort of paramusical message does World Without Love contain?
[v.1, v.3] Please lock me away and don’t allow the day here inside where I hide with my loneliness. I don’t care what they say I won’t stay in a world without love. [v.2] Birds sing out of tune and rain clouds hide the moon. I’m OK, here I’ll stay with my loneliness. I don’t care what they say I won’t stay in a world without love. [bridge] Here I wait and in a while I will see my lover smile. She may come, I know not when. When she does I lose, so baby until then.
At first sight the musings of this lovesick young man have nothing in common with the struggle, hope and commonality found in the key phrases from Obama speeches that occur throughout Yes We Can. That said, you only need scratch a little below the surface of the Lennon/McCartney lyrics to find one parallel: an emotional process, expressed in simple terms, from relative despair and darkness to relative hope and light, all with some sense of determination.
The sequence in Radiohead’s Creep runs NI®III®IV®ivO (G |B |C |Cm) as a loop at q=92 throughout the entire four-minute song. Each loop covers four bars, with one chord per bar rhythmicised in straight crotchets or quavers in the drumkit and guitar parts (iiiq in hi-hat), and with simple q. eeq e patterns on bass. Taken as accompanimental motion in toto, these parts are even more similar than those of Dock of the Bay to the simple iq q patterns of Yes We Can’s acoustic guitar. They are certainly much closer to the Obama song than are ELO’s |h. q|, or Down and Out’s or Woman Is The Nigger’s swung |q eq e| or Who’s Sorry Now’s |iiq iiq|; and, as just stated, they are, like Yes We Can, looped over the same period of four 4/4 bars. Moreover, the Radiohead loop’s turnaround change from C minor back to G (iv®I) is plagal like Yes We Can’s and the accompanimental patterns are all paragons of a no-frills pop/rock style (simple, standard drum and hi-hat patterns, simple guitar arpeggiations, virtually no reverb or other noticeable signal treatment etc.). Creep’s bare essentials aesthetic tallies well with the no-frills character of the Yes We Can guitar sound.
Now, none of the similarities just mentioned can deny the fact that there are also clear differences between Creep and Yes We Can, the most obvious being Radiohead’s use of alienated, angry rock yelling and powerfully overdriven guitar during 39% of the recording. Another important difference is harmonic: while Yes We Can repeats I-III-vi-IV, the Creep loop runs I-III-IV-iv. This means that although the turnaround change in both songs is plagal, the IV chord (major) in Creep occurs one bar earlier in the place of Yes We Can’s E minor (vi) and that the latter’s C major triad (IV) is in the same loop position as Radiohead’s C minor (iv). This C minor chord, with its e$ enharmonically contrasted in terms of voice-leading directionality against the B major chord’s ascending d#, gives the Creep loop a unique character that may contribute to the song’s sense of dramatic despondency: the d# goes up and out to e8 but the e$ repeatedly reverses that movement back down and inwards to d8 and G. Yes We Can contains no descending chromaticism.
Nevertheless, despite these clear differences between Yes We Can and Creep, the two songs definitely share more in common than just the initial I-III change in a four-chord, four-bar harmonic loop in G. The question is how a song of angry self-deprecation about being a creep and a weirdo can share anything musically significant with one affirming the hopeful collective belief of Yes We Can. One reason may be contained in the sort of notion, hinted at by other IASPMites, that the I-III change has a strong going somewhere else value, the kind of up and out found in the ascending I-III-vi (bass) and 5-#5-6 (inner part d-d#-e) movement already mentioned, and that this up and out going somewhere else is just as essential to expressing confidence in overcoming difficulties —‘yes we can’— as it is to bawling out disgust at whatever it is that brings about self-disgust. The Yes We Can chord loop does not have the chromatic slide back down of Creep, nor is its I-III change followed by Dock Of The Bay’s second directionally equivocal IV-ii (C-A) change: it has none of the to-and-fro effect of that song’s double shuttle. In fact, to gain more insight into the meaning of the Yes We Can chords we will need to examine comparison material featuring the other two chords in the Obama song’s chord loop: vi and IV. To be more precise, we need to find IOCM featuring four-chord loops running I - x - vi - IV, where x is an alternative to III as an intermediary chord between I and vi. The most common x chord will of course be iii or V (in G major: Bm or D).
I - iii - vi - IV
The first four chords of What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? (Ruffin 1966) run B$ Dm Gm E$ or, in relative terms, I®iii®vi®IV, i.e. exactly what we are looking for. Unfortunately, this is not the IOCM jackpot we wanted because the chord sequence actually goes B$f Dmf Gm E$g (I5® iii3® vi® IV3): three out of the four triads are inverted. True, there is no conjunct bass line spanning a fourth or more in this sequence as in A Whiter Shade Of Pale (Procol Harum 1967a) or Clapton’s Bell-Bottom Blues (Derek and the Dominoes, 1970), but the triad inversions and the pedal-point character of the Ruffin song’s bass part make for a partly static harmonic effect that is not released into substantial movement until later in the piece. Moreover, like Clapton’s Bell-Bottom Blues (1970a), Brokenhearted’s initial sequence is not looped and its continuation contains harmonies incompatible with the consistent straight root-position chords of Yes We Can. On top of all that, the Motown tune is orchestrated quite differently, with piano, strings, backing vocals and percussion all in clear evidence. Perhaps the iiiq in 4/4 at q=100 and the male vocal timbre similar to that heard at 0:31 in the Obama piece can counteract some of the differences just mentioned. If so, eventual interobjective links between Yes We Can and Brokenhearted are unlikely to be related to audible harmonic resemblance.
Harmonic incipits running I-iii in root position are not uncommon in other types of anglophone pop music. For example Puff The Magic Dragon (Peter, Paul & Mary, 1963), The Weight (The Band 1968) and Daniel And The Sacred Harp (1970) all start I-iii-IV, while Sukyaki (Sakomoto 1963) and Hasta Mañana (Abba, 1974b) both feature a I-iii-vi progression. Later changes from I via iii to IV or vi also occur in Hangman (Peter, Paul and Mary, 1965) as well as at prominent places in Bob Dylan’s It’s All Over Now Baby Blue (1965: I-iii-IV) and I Pity The Poor Immigrant (1968: I-iii-vi). Except for Sukiyaki and Hasta Mañana, these songs all belong to the US folk and folk rock repertoires. Moreover, Hangman, the two Band tracks and the two Dylan tunes feature lyrics diverging from the normal pop fare of love, fun and teenage angst or antics. Only one of the songs, The Weight, uses a repeated chord loop, I-iii-IV-I at q=124 in regular 4/4 with one chord change per bar. Like Hangman, the lyrics of The Weight tell a story that contrasts negative and positive experiences, while the I-iii-vi of Dylan’s Immigrant accompanies the twist towards justice at the end of each verse. On the other hand, although all these songs feature simply strummed guitar over I-iii-IV or I-iii-vi progressions with all chords in root position, just one of them (The Weight) features a chord loop, and only then as a three- rather than four-chord unit. Moreover, none of the songs run I-iii-vi-IV which would have been the closest variant to Yes We Can’s I-III-vi-IV. In short, even if there may be some similarities and some possible references to US-American folk and folk rock songs with serious lyrics, we really need to look elsewhere for more convincing harmonic resemblance.
I - V - vi - IV
The second of our two alternatives to III in linking I to vi (between G and Em in Yes We Can) is V (D in G). The simple harmonic point here is that V is the relative major of iii, the key-specific triad on the root of the major scale’s third degree, and that, like ii or III, V contains two notes adjacent to the target triad of vi. This second-chord alternative changes the loop from I-III-vi-IV (Yes We Can) to I-V-vi-IV. Now, that sequence sounds quite similar to the start of Pachelbel’s Canon —NI V |vi iii |IV I |IV V O—, a harmonic pattern that seems to have acquired widespread currency in English-language pop music. That chord progression constitutes the entire harmonic basis of Liverpool band The Farm’s All Together Now (1990) with its tempo of q=108 in 4/4 and its rate of harmonic change at one chord per bar. More specifically, the I-V-vi-IV sequence, also in 4/4 and with one chord per bar, can be heard at the start of each verse in The Beatles’ Let It Be (1970: q=76 |C |G |Am |F) as well as, with two chords per bar, in the harmonic loop NI V3|vi IV O under most of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry (1974: q=78 NC G3|Am F). The same I-V-vi-IV also accompanies the chorus hook line of John Denver’s Country Roads (1971: q=80 |D |A |Bm |G) and of The Dixie Chicks’ Not Ready To Make Nice (2006: q=86 NG |D |Em |C O). Of course, the same chord sequence can occur in boisterous rock tunes like We’re Not Going To Take It (Twisted Sister, 1984: q=144) or Another Girl Another Planet (The Only Ones, 1978: q=156) but the tempo, rhythmisation, instrumentation and vocal delivery of these two tunes is a far cry from the relatively stately pace and relatively ordered, no frills aesthetic of the Yes We Can chords. Indeed, the Obama song’s chord sequence uses a tempo and a rate of delivery that has much more in common with the extremely popular songs mentioned earlier. But that is not the whole story. All Together Now, Let It Be, No Woman No Cry, Country Roads and Not Ready To Make Nice all have an anthemic character. They are eminently singable and all feature lyrics expressing hope or encouragement in the face of trouble and hardship. True, the lyrics of Country Roads mention only briefly a slight regret —‘I get a feeling I should have been home yesterday’— but all the others clearly present, as Table 30 shows, experiences of both hardship and hope (Table 30).
Key overcoming hardship phrases in the lyrics of anthemic pop tunes featuring the I-V-vi-IV variant of the Yes We Can chords.
Tune Troubles Hope, encouragement,
determination
The Farm: All Together Now
(1990) …‘forefathers died, lost in millions for a country's pride’; ‘All those tears shed in vain; Nothing learnt and nothing gained’. …‘they stopped fighting and they were one’; ‘hope remains’; ‘Stop the slaughter, let's go home’; …‘joined together’; ‘All together now’.
Beatles: Let It Be
(1970) ‘times of trouble’;
‘the broken hearted people’; ‘the night is cloudy’. ‘Mother Mary comes to me’; ‘words of wisdom’; ‘There will be an answer’; ‘Still a chance’; ‘A light that shines on me’.
Bob Marley: No Woman No Cry
(1974/5) ‘The government yard in Trenchtown’; ‘observing the hypocrites’; ‘good friends we’ve lost’. ‘No woman no cry’; ‘dry your tears’; ‘I’ll share with you’; ‘got to push on through’.
Dixie Chicks: Not Ready To Make Nice (2006) ‘I’ve paid a price and I’ll keep paying’; ‘too late to make it right’; ‘sad, sad story’; ‘my life will be over’. ‘I’m through with doubt’; ‘I’m not ready to back down’; [I won’t] ‘do what… you think I should’.
The Yes We Can video’s ‘Yes we can’ encapsulates the kind of sentiments listed in the hope, encouragement, determination column of Table 30. The Obama song’s Troubles column would be filled with quotes like ‘slaves and abolitionists’, ‘immigrants [braving the] unforgiving wilderness’, ‘workers [who had to] organise’, ‘women [who had to] reach for the ballots’, ‘obstacles [that] stand in our way’, the ‘chorus of cynics who grow louder and more dissonant’, and ‘the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon’. Apart from the all-encompassing slogan ‘Yes we can’, column three would contain ‘they blazed a trail’, ‘King who took us to the mountain-top and pointed the way to the Promised Land’, ‘opportunity and prosperity’, ‘heal this nation’, ‘repair this world’, ‘there has never been anything false about hope’, etc.
Although none of the four songs mentioned in Table 30 feature simply strummed six-string guitar accompaniment, they all, like Yes We Can, move at a steady pace with one chord per 4/4 bar in four-bar periods. Two of them (No Woman No Cry and Not Ready To Make Nice) repeat the I-V-vi-IV sequence at least twice in succession, while the lyrics of all songs, plus Yes We Can, juxtapose experiences of hardship and of hope.
IOCM in combination
It would have been very surprising if there had been one single piece of other music containing exactly the same chord loop as Yes We Can’s played at a similar tempo in a similar way on the same sort of instrument in the same key and same metre. On the other hand, the IOCM presented above shows how a range of different elements found in relevant English-language pop music traditions are incorporated in the Yes We Can chord sequence. It should also be clear that those specific structural elements are often associated in those traditions with notions, attitudes, emotions, activities, events and processes that together build a reasonably coherent connotative semantic field. The most important structural traits and their main paramusical fields of connotation (abbr. PMFC) are radically summarised in Table 31 (p. 262).
In short, there is good reason to believe that the Yes We Can chords, by drawing on specific English-language popular music traditions, contribute to the connotation of the sort of encouragement, affirmation, empowerment and democratic participation that seem to be part of the Obama ethos and agenda. Particularly striking is the juxtaposition of hardship and hope found in the I-V-vi-IV IOCM (Table 30, p. 260) corresponding to the Obama speech quotes about slaves, abolitionists, immigrants, workers, women and their determination to overcome various forms injustice. Zooming in on a much more recent and specific example, it is worth adding that The Dixie Chicks used the I-V-vi-IV variant of the Yes We Can chord loop to accompany their determination to defy personal threats resulting from the band’s shame over the fact that the previous president hailed from their home state of Texas. In Obama’s words, it was time for a change and, indeed, in Dylan’s words, the times they might change for real.
General summary of Yes We Can’s harmonic IOCM and its PMFCs.
General structural traits
(all 4/4 at moderate tempo) Genre[s]
(anglophone) Connotations
(PMFC)
G major and other easy chords on acoustic metal-6-string guitar folk-related easy to play, participatory,
democratic, progressive politics,
‘yes we can’
I - III pop up and out, possible problems
I - iii - vi folk, folk rock,
country rock storytelling, of the people
IV - I gospel, soul, rock anglophone pop, affirmative,
determined, participatory (‘Amen’)
I - V - vi - IV pop, rock from hardship to encouragement, determination and hope; anthemic, participatory, progressive politics
Of course, although this chapter already contains well over 8,000 words, there is much more to be said about the music of the Obama election video and its connotations. It might for example be argued that the anthemic character of the I-V-vi-IV IOCM is of minor relevance to Yes We Can and its mainly spoken lyrics. But such an argument misses at least one important point: that recordings consisting of one-line phrases presented as a string of statements by one artist after another has existed as a recognised pop song form since at least Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? (1984) and that songs in that form — the charity stringalong, as I call it— invariably involve a call to action for a just cause. This singing or declaiming consecutively rather than simultaneously is simply another way of musically presenting a sense of community compared to a hymn or anthem. Yes We Can combines, so to speak, the harmonic universe of the progressive Sing Out! community with the community of a charity stringalong for a humanitarian cause. The Yes We Can chords also refer to other popular anglophone music traditions like four-man-band rock (e.g. Beatles, early Radiohead), country- and folk-rock (e.g. The Band), and soul (Otis Redding). Moreover, Yes We Can adds rap and African-American preaching to that mixture of styles, fusing them all into one single production. That fusion certainly seems to align with Obama’s goals of unification and collaboration. However, all these issues —the musically inclusive expression of community, the role of rap and preaching in Yes We Can, and their relation to the political context in which the video was produced and used— are all topics regrettably beyond the scope of this book.
Addenda
Accompaniment
The general meaning of accompaniment is that aspect of music which is heard as subordinate to a simultaneous aspect of performance, musical or otherwise: for example, film underscore as accompaniment to on-screen action and dialogue, or a polyphonic choral piece sung with instrumental accompaniment as opposed to a cappella. In a more strictly musicological sense, accompaniment tends to denote that part of a musical continuum generally regarded as providing support for, or the background to, a more prominent strand in the same music. This text deals with accompaniment according to the second definition.
Accompaniment can only occur within a musical structure consisting of separate strands exhibiting different degrees of perceived importance. If a musical texture consists of several different strands of perceived equal importance, as in a round like Frère Jacques or as in some forms of West African polyrhythm, there is neither accompaniment nor any particularly ‘prominent strand’. Similarly, if the music consists of one strand only, as with Gregorian plainchant or a simple lullaby, there is no accompaniment. However, as soon as those performing monody tap their feet in time with the music, or the audience clap their hands in time with the tune, there is accompaniment.
Accompaniment can be provided by any number or type of instruments and/or voices, ranging from the simple foot stamp in Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz (1971) to the voluminous orchestral backing behind the Three Tenors’ rendering of Puccini’s Nessun’ dorma (1995). The notion of accompaniment’s supporting role is echoed in the word backing used to qualify the voice(s) and/or instrument(s) heard as musical background to the lead vocal(s) or instrument(s) in the foreground.
Although, for example, rap backing tracks constitute accompaniment to the spoken word, accompaniment is most often used to support a melody (pp. 57-79). The dualism between melody and accompaniment is one of the most common basic devices of musical structuration. Its increasing popularity during and after the Renaissance in Europe is concurrent with the rise of central perspective in painting and of a visual dualism between figure and ground. Both dualisms — visual figure/ground and musical melody/accompaniment — also concur historically with the gradual development of notions of the individual and of his/her relationship to his/her natural and social surroundings. Accompaniment (including its aspects of texture, reverberation, etc.) can in other words be visualised in general terms as the acoustic background or environment against which melody stands out in relief as an individual foreground figure (Maróthy 1974; Tagg 1994). Such stylistically diverse types of music as Elizabethan dances, opera arias, parlour ballads, jazz standards, Eurovision Song Contest entries and rock numbers all use the melody/accompaniment dualism as a basic structuring device. However, the accompaniment’s degree of subordination to melody can vary considerably, for example: [1] from a solo singer-songwriter’s guitar strum to the relative contrapuntality of multi-layered patterns of drumkit, bass, guitar, horn or keyboard riffs; [2] from the homophonically set alto, tenor and bass parts in the four-part harmony of traditional hymns to the cross rhythms of many types of Latin American dance music (e.g. cúmbia, mambo, murga, salsa); [3] from the continuous drone note(s) accompanying the chanter melody on bagpipes to the hocket techniques of funk music.
The relative importance of melody and accompaniment can also be highlighted by assigning varying degrees of prominence to one or the other at the mixing desk. For example, lead vocals on late twentieth-century recordings of pop songs from Italy, France and Spain tend to be mixed slightly louder, more ‘up front’, than those on recordings from the English speaking world. In addition to these general foregrounding practices, the melodic line is usually panned in the middle of the stereo array, while accompanying parts are more likely to be mixed within the acoustic semicircle behind and on either side of the melodic focal point (Lacasse 2000). Such acoustic positioning reflects the most common stage locations of lead vocalists and of the accompanying band members in concert.
The general pattern of acoustic positioning just described is often subject to changes in focus during the course of the same piece. For example, a rock guitar can emerge from its accompanying role of providing support in the form of chords or riffs into a full-blown solo. As it does so, the main focus of listener attention turns from the vocal line to what now clearly becomes the lead guitar. This change of focus works because the guitar is played more melodically than before and because its volume is usually turned up (on the guitar itself and/or on the guitar amp and/or at the mixing desk) for the duration of the solo. Moreover, the guitarist in concert will often go to the front of the stage at the start of the solo, be more visibly active during the solo, and retire to his/her previous position as accompanist after its completion. Similar changes of focus in the melody/accompaniment dualism occur in jazz, not only during the improvised solos which characterise gigs played by smaller combos and which usually span several choruses within the same number, but also in big band performances when instrumentalists stand up to draw both visual and musical attention to much shorter passages considered to be of particular interest or importance, sitting down afterwards to resume their accompanying role. When televised, these types of solo passage are usually marked by editing devices, for example by switching point of view from a general shot or close-up of the lead vocalist to a camera trained on the relevant soloist, or by zooming in on the individual or instrument in question.
There are occasions when (parts of) the instrumental accompaniment to a popular song can be more memorable, sometimes more easily reproduced and perhaps even more important than its lead vocal line. This is certainly true of the verse part of such popular recordings the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction (1965a) and of the chorus in both Layla (Derek and the Dominoes 1970) and Samba de una nota só (Jobim 1960) (see pp. 58-59). In Satisfaction and Layla the accompanying guitar riffs are infinitely more singable than the lead vocals while in One Note Samba it is the accompanying guitar’s chord progression which provides the greater sense of profile and direction. Indeed, some of accompaniment’s most common functions are to provide melody with: [1] an ongoing kinetic and periodic framework (metre, patterns of accentuation, rhythmic figurations, episodic markers, etc.); [2] tonal reference point(s); [3] a sense of harmonic direction and expectation; [4] suitable background textures and timbres. Given these basic parameters, it is clear that accompaniment, despite notions of its supporting role, can be just as important as melody, sometimes more important, in the communication of the music’s overall message.
For example, imagine the first phrase of the title tune for the TV detective series Kojak (ex.161), with its heroic unison horn calls and fanfare figures (Tagg 2000) accompanied, not by the actual driving rhythms and woodwind stabs used when it was broadcast, but by a single hurdy-gurdy drone, or by a kazoo band, or by techno loops, or by a wordless cathedral choir, or by massed mandolins. Such replacement of one type of accompaniment by another is similar to superimposing an identical visual foreground figure on different backgrounds, perhaps your favourite artist first amidst industrial decay and then in a village school playground on a sunny spring day. The figures or melodies may be objectively identical but such radical differences of background or accompaniment will alter not only the overall picture but also your perception of the foreground figure’s or melody’s character. To illustrate this important function of accompaniment, example 162 would probably put Kojak in the pastoral setting of a romantic soap opera, example 163 might place him amongst his African-American brothers, and example 164 would probably see him in the 1960s under a Martini parasol in Copacabana.
Goldenberg: Kojak Theme, first main melodic phrase
Kojak as romantic pop ballad in French or Italian vein
Kojak as funk
Kojak as bossa nova
Antiphony
Antiphony, from Greek antifonÃa (= ‘opposing sound’): umbrella term denoting performance techniques in which one line of music is alternated with another contrasting or complementary musical line of roughly equal importance. Although no absolute duration limit can be given, each antiphonal statement between different musicians, singers, instruments or recorded tracks is usually perceived as lasting at least the length of a musical phrase. For alternation of individual notes between different voices, instruments, etc., see Hocket (p. 272).
Most responsorial techniques, for example African-American call and response, the sawal-jawab (= ‘question and answer’) of Indian raga music, and the chanted dialogue between precentor and congregation in many forms of Christian liturgy, are also antiphonal. Antiphony that is not necessarily responsorial occurs when one part of a vocal or instrumental ensemble exchanges alternate phrases or sections of music with another, for example: (i) the brass section playing one passage and the whole big band answering with another; (ii) the jazz drummer or bass player performing two- or four-bar breaks and the rest of the band answering with passages of similar length, usually just before the final chorus; (iii) two sides of the choir or congregation singing alternate lines or verses from psalms or hymns. Stereo antiphony occurs either when the same sound is panned left (or right) for one phrase or passage and right (or left) for the subsequent one, or when two different sounds are assigned alternate phrases or passages at opposite panning positions.
Enharmonics
In music theory ‘enharmonic’ is normally used to refer to notes that have the same pitch in equal-tone tuning but which are spelt differently, i.e. notes which have different names and look different in sheet music but which as single notes out of context sound exactly the same. For example, the note b is more likely to be c$ (‘C flat’) in the key of B$ minor, but it will inevitably be b8 in F# and its own key of B, and virtually always b8 in the keys of C, G, D, A and E. Similarly, the individual note g can, apart from being itself, also be spelt fX (‘F double sharp’) if it is in, say, G# minor, or aº (‘A double flat’) in the phrygian mode with G$ as tonal centre.
This all sounds quite formal and technical. Surely ‘a note is a note is a note’… Not really, because enharmonics aren’t just a matter of formal correctness, even though seeing, or hearing people say, d# (‘D sharp’) when they mean e$ (‘E flat’) has a similar effect to having to read ‘I don’t no’ when the writer meant ‘I don’t know’. No, enharmonics are much more a matter of clarity and practical convenience.
Example 165 shows the ascending ionian-mode scales of F and F# major. Each note in each scale has its own unique place on the stave. So, even though the seventh note in F# major, e#, has exactly the same pitch as the white note f8, it is always written and referred to as e# in the key of F#. After all, the leading note is by definition situated on the sharp seventh degree. So, if you can count from one to seven and if you know the first seven letters of the alphabet, you will soon realise that if e8 is the major seventh in F (f=1, g 2, a 3, b$ 4, c 5, d 6, e=7) then the major seventh in F# will be e# (f#=1, g# 2, a# 3, b 4, c# 5, d# 6, e#=7) because f8 is the altered eighth (octave), not the seventh note in that same sequence. If the last three notes in an ascending F major scale are , then are the last three in F# major. In fact, are just as useless renditions of the top three notes in F# major or G$ major (should be ) as would be in F major. If you don’t call the fourth degree of an F major scale a# because the letter a already designates the third degree, then the seventh degree in F# has to be e#, not f, the fourth degree in G$ has to be c$, not b, and so on. The first rule of enharmonic spelling is therefore that, in normal non-chromatic contexts, each of the alphabet’s first seven letters should only be used once because none of the diatonic modes discussed in this chapter include, for instance, both a perfect and an augmented fifth (that would be both c and c# in F), nor both a diminished and a perfect octave (e.g. both f and f# in F#).
The second rule of enharmonics applies to both key-specific and to chromatic contexts. It has to do with direction or destination and works like this: you put the accidental (#, $ or 8), in front of the relevant pitch or note name so that it is different from the pitch or note name that follows it. For example, ascending chromatically from e$ to g, the five notes would be e$ e8 f f# g, while the same notes in descent should be spelt g g$ f f$ e$. One reason for this convention is that music moves forwards, not backwards, and that those who read music need to see what’s coming, not what they just played or sung. If musicians see a g followed by f# they’ll know the f# is much more likely to go back up to g than down to f8; and if the g is followed by a g$ they’ll know the next note is most probably f8 and definitely not another g8. It’s simple: if, in a sequence of notes, you see a flat in front of the note you just played or sung you know the music is on its way down and if you see a note sharpened you know it’s going up.
The third and final rule of enharmonics quite relates to key. While it is not unusual to hear or read music in G# minor, you will almost never see anything in G# major: A$ major, yes, but not G#. This enharmonic convention is due to the fact that while the key signature of G# minor contains only four sharps, the key of G# major would, if it existed, have a key signature containing eight accidentals: seven sharps plus one double-sharp. D$ minor, if it existed, would have the same problem in reverse: its key signature would have to include seven flats and one double-flat. A$ and D$ major, on the other hand, are quite common keys with their four and five flats respectively (see ‘key clock’, p. 100). Since making music in keys featuring six or seven accidentals (F#/G$, C# and C$ major plus D#/E$ and A$ minor) can be quite a challenge in itself, having to think in keys with eight or nine accidentals is, frankly, a pointlessly difficult task. That’s why the minor keys whose tonic is one of the piano keyboard’s five black notes are: B$, E$ or D#, G#, C# and F#, never A#, D$ or G$ and very rarely A$. Similarly, while common major keys are B$, E$, A$, D$ and G$ or F#, you will never find major-key music in A#, D# or G#, and only very rarely in C# major.
Hocket
From French hoquet and Latin hoquetus (= ‘hiccup’), hocket denotes a musical performance technique in which individual notes or chords within musical phrases, not the complete phrases (see ‘antiphony’, p. 269), are alternated between different voices, instruments or recorded tracks. Although the term is traditionally used to describe the technique in late medieval French motets (see In seculum, 1908), hockets are far from uncommon in modern popular music. A well-known example is the woman shifting to and fro between voice and one-note pan pipe in the introduction to Herbie Hancock’s 1974 version of ‘Watermelon Man’. Indeed, hockets are a prominent feature of several African music cultures, not only among the Ba-Benzélé (1965) featured on the Hancock recording, but also among the Mbuti, the Basarwa (Khoisan) and Gogo (Tanzania) (Nketia, 1974: 167). In a more general sense, fast alternation of one or two notes between voices, instruments and timbres not only contributes massively to the dynamic of timbral and rhythmic distinctness that is intrinsic to the polyphonic and polyrhythmic structuration of much music in Subsaharan Africa (Nketia, 1974; Chernoff, 1979): it also gives evidence of ‘social partiality for rapid and colourful antiphonal interchange’ (Sanders, 1980). Such partiality may also help explain the predilection for hocketing found in funk music where the technique is intentionally employed for purposes of zestful accentuation and interjection. Typical examples of funk hocketing are the quick, agogic interplay between high and low slap bass notes, or the fast interchange between extremely short vocal utterances, stabs from the horn section and interpunctuations from the rest of the band (e.g. James Brown, Larry Graham; see Davis, 2005). These affective qualities of hocketing were certainly recognised by medieval European clerics who characterised it as lascivius (= fun) propter sui mobiltatem et velocitatem. In 1325, Pope John XXII issued a bull banning its use in church (Sanders, 1980).
Another type of hocketing has been developed in response to restrictions of instrument technology. For example the Andean practice of sharing the tonal vocabulary of a piece between two or more pan pipes (zampoñas) and their players demands skillful hocketing to produce runs of notes that are in no way intended to sound like hiccups (see Morricone, 1989). Advanced hocketing is also practised in Balinese gamelan music where very short portions of melody are allocated to many different players to produce highly complex sound patterns.
Interval counting
We say that the interval between c3 and f3 is a fourth because, starting on c as 1, we count d as 2 (a second), e as 3 (a third) and f as 4, i.e. a fourth. So far, so good. There are, however, only three steps between 1 and 4: [1] from 1 to 2; [2] from 2 to 3; and [3] from 3 to 4. The interval between c3 and f3 should therefore more logically be a ‘third’ because interval, when applied to music, is defined as ‘difference in pitch’ and because the difference between 4 and 1 is 3, not 4! Counting confusion continues with the octave (the ‘eighth’) which, we learn, is pitch boundary for a heptatonic or seven-note scale. We also learn that the note situated one octave (8) or seven heptatonic steps (7) above c3 is c4 and that c4 is counted as 1 in the new octave. However, while the interval between c3 and f3 is designated as a fourth (4), the interval between c3 and f4, i.e. an octave (8) plus a fourth (4) higher, is not called a twelfth (8 + 4 = 12) but an eleventh (11 = 7 + 4 or 8 + 3). As if that weren’t enough, we learn that the second (2) and seventh (7), that the third (3) and the sixth (6), and that the fourth (4) and fifth (5) constitute complementary pairs of intervals within the octave, except that this time the numbers add up to neither 7 nor 8 but to 9.
All these inconsistencies are inevitable because we include no zero as starting point for counting intervals and because we mix cardinals with ordinals. We are dealing with the same anomaly as when we count years and centuries. Just as we had no year zero, starting in the year 1 instead, and therefore only 99 years in the first century but 100 in all the others, we call an interval of zero steps (no difference of pitch, total absence of interval) a prime (1), as if it were an interval of one step. We then call a one-step interval a second (2), a two-step interval a third and so on. There’s no point in trying to bring order into this ingrained confusion but it’s certainly worth bearing in mind. For example, if you need to work out what notes are involved in chords of the ninth, eleventh and thirteenth it helps to know you need to subtract seven, not eight, from those intervals larger than an octave, i.e. that the ninth is an octave plus a second (9 - 7 = 2), the eleventh an octave plus a fourth (11 - 7 = 4), the thirteenth an octave plus a sixth (13 - 7 = 6) and so on.
Mixolydian tune examples
This should have been footnote 23 in Chapter 10 but it was too long to fit on page 195 where it belongs. It merely lists a selection of mixolydian popular melodies from the rural British Isles. [1] Examples of English mixolydian tunes: The Lark In The Morning (Steeleye Span, 1971) and, from The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (ed. Vaughan Williams & Lloyd, 1959), The Banks of Newfoundland (p.16), The False Bride (p. 37), The Greenland Whale Fishery (p. 50), The Outlandish Knight (p. 80), The Red Herring (p. 86), Rounding The Horn (p. 90), The Whale-Catchers (p. 100), The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime (p. 108). [2] Scottish mixolydian tune examples: Campbell’s Farewell To Red Gap, Soor Plooms In Galashiels, The Wee Man From Skye, The Kilt Is My Delight, The Athole Highlanders, The Flowres Of The Forrest (in Campin 2009); A.A. Cameron’s Strathspey, An nochd gur faoin mo chodal dhomh (in Kuntz, 2009); Taladh Chriosda (Rankin Sisters, 1999), plus hundreds more, especially remembering that the chanter on Scottish bagpipes is basically set to produce tunes in the mixolydian mode. [3] Just a very few of the many Irish mixolydian tunes: Mug Of Brown Ale, Paddy Kelly’s Jig, The Red-Haired Boy (a.k.a. The Jolly Beggarman), Redican’s (all listed by title in the LMR) and The Lamentation of Hugh Reynolds (in Irish Street Ballads, 1939: 132). A Google search for |+mixolydian English Scottish Irish| produced 1,740 hits in June 2009.
Present-time experience
In one sense present time cannot exist, because there is, at least in conventional unidirectional notions of time, no gap between the immediate future and immediate past. However, the present does have an objective existence inside the brain. For example, the necessity, when walking, to put down your right foot after having just taken a step with your left foot or, when speaking, to know how to finish the sentence you just started, relies on short-term memory, also known as working memory, located in a different part of the brain to that used for medium- and long-term memory. The difference is similar to that between a computer’s RAM (random access memory) and its hard drive. The musical present lasts for about as long as breathing in and out, or as a few heartbeats, or as taking two or three steps, or as enunciating a phrase or short sentence, i.e. a duration equivalent to that of a musical phrase or a short pattern of bodily gestures or dance movements. Such immediate, present-time activities usually last, depending on tempo and degree of exertion, for between around one and ten seconds. For more on present time in music, see, for example, Wellek (1963) or Levithin (2006). See also p. 161, ff.
Roman numeral triad designation
Table 32 (p. 277) presents triads on the seven scale degrees of the five most widely used non-ionian heptatonic modes in Western popular music. Please note the following points when using Table 32:
The rudiments of roman-numeral denotation of chords are explained on pages 139-141 (Chapter 8).
The ionian mode’s triads are presented in Table 11 on page 138.
In Table 32 the triads of each mode are presented in pairs. The top line of each pair uses only the piano keyboard’s white notes to present the relevant triads for the relevant mode: D dorian, E phrygian, F lydian, etc. The lower line shows the same triads transposed to C dorian, C phrygian, C lydian and so on.
The tonic major triad alternative for the dorian, phrygian and aeolian modes —i or I— is discussed on pages 118-120 (Chapter 7), as is the same alteration on V (v or V). Since the latter is less common than tonic alteration, the altered third in the triad on the fifth is indicated by a small ossia note. Note that alteration to the major fifth only occurs in the dorian and phrygian modes.
The diminished triad on b in the upper lines of each pair and its equivalent when transposed to C is very rarely used on its own. I’ve added the seventh, shown as a small ossia note, to the triad in each line because the seventh chord (a tetrad) on those scale degrees is less unusual, especially the dorian vi7$5 and aeolian ii7$5. The ionian vii7$5 (e.g. Bm7$5) is also very common while the simple diminished triad vii° (e.g. B°) is seldom heard on its own.
The flat sign ($) preceding roman numerals in Table 32, e.g. ‘$VII’, is, in strict theoretical terms, unnecessary. However, given the hegemony of the ionian mode in conventional harmony teaching, and in the interests of minimising confusion, it is advisable to put the relevant accidental (usually ‘$’) before roman numerals denoting triads on scale degrees that do not conform to those of the ionian mode, i.e. ‘$II’ (‘flat two’) and ‘$vii’ (‘flat minor seven’) in the in the phrygian, ‘$VI’ (‘flat six’) in the phrygian and aeolian, ‘$III’ in the phrygian, aeolian and dorian and ‘$VII’ in the dorian, mixolydian and aeolian, etc. See also footnote 1, p. 138.
Roman numeral triad designation in ‘church’ modes
(explanations start on page 275; see also pp. 139-141 )
Glossary
accidental n. a sign used in musical notation, usually a sharp (#), flat ($) or natural (8) sign, indicating that the note it immediately precedes does not belong to the standard tonal vocabulary of the piece or section in which it occurs and that the note in question has been raised or lowered by a semitone.
aeolian adj. heptatonic diatonic mode equivalent to the ‘natural minor’ or ‘descending melodic minor’ of European music theory. It’s the ‘church’ mode which, with a as tonic, runs from a to a on the white notes of a piano keyboard. Its seven ascending tone (1) and semitone (½) steps are 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 and its scale degrees 1 2 $3 4 5 $6 $7.
aesthesic adj. (from Fr. esthésique, Molino via Nattiez); relating to the aesthesis or perception of music rather than to its production or construction; opposite of poïetic.
a.k.a. abbr. also known as, alias.
anacrusis n. a very short musical event having the character of an upbeat or pickup, i.e. a rhythmic figure and/or short tonal process propelling the music into whatever it immediately precedes; adj. anacrustic.
anaphora n. rhetorical device by which successive sentences start identically but end differently, as in Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech; transferred to music, a melodic anaphora means that successive phrases start with the same motif but end differently, while a harmonic anaphora means that successive chord sequences start with the same change[s] but end differently. Anaphora is the opposite of epistrophe (see pp. 71, 239).
anhemitonic adj. (usually of modes or scales) containing no semitone step; see pentatonic.
Ave Maria chord n. neol. (1989); a subdominant 6-5 chord with fifth in bass held over as second chord in a phrase from an initial major tonic root. Etym. the Dm7 (or F6) with c in the bass that comes as second chord in J.S. Bach’s Prelude Nº 1 in C Major (Wohltemperiertes, vol. 1) and which was used by Gounod for his setting of Ave Maria; also the second chord (resolved) in Mozart’s Ave verum corpus.
La Bamba loop n. neol. (c. 1983) chord loop running NI-IV-VO, as in La Bamba (Valens, 1958), the ionian (major-key) equivalent of the Che Guevara loop.
bimodality n. (Vega, 1944) type of tonality in which two different modes, and therefore two different tonics, can be heard either simultaneously or in succession one after the other (see Chapter 12).
bimodal reversibility n. neol. (2009) trait whereby a melodic or harmonic sequence in one mode becomes, when reversed, a sequence in another mode (see p. 234).
charity stringalong n. neol. (2009) recording made for a humanitarian cause in which individual artists sing or declaim single phrases in succession and only join together in concert or unison for the chorus or hook line, e.g. Do They Know It’s Christmas? and We Are The World; etym. string in the sense of ‘a string or line [succession] of persons or things’ and singalong, meaning ‘community singing’ or a tune to which anyone can sing along at the same time, usually in unison rather than in succession (Oxford Concise Dictionary, 1995).
charleston departure n. neol. (2000) chord sequence starting I-III like The Charleston (Mack & Johnson, 1923: B$ D7 G7, etc.), Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (Henderson, 1925) and other old-time jazz hits.
Che Guevara loop n. neol. (2008); chord loop running Ni-iv-VO, as in Comandante Che Guevara (Puebla, 1965; ex. 159, p. 231). It’s the aeolian/harmonic minor equivalent of the La Bamba loop.
chord loop n. neol. (2009) short repeated sequence of (almost always) three or four chords. Chord loops are indicated by a 180° arrow at each end. The familiar vamp loop, for example, runs NI-vi-ii-VO or NI-vi-IV-VO like the NB-G#m-E-F#O in Sam Cooke’s What A Wonderful World (1960b) or the NE$ Cm Fm B$O in Blue Moon (Rodgers, 1934). Most chord loops have no name but some are so common that it saves time and space if they are given mnemonic labels like ‘the La Bamba loop’ (NI-IV-VO, e.g. NC-F-GO) or ‘the Che Guevara loop’ (Ni-iv-VO, e.g. NAm-Dm-EO), so called because of its use in Carlos Puebla’s Comandante Che Guevara. Chord loops are discussed in Chapters 11 and 12. See also chord shuttle.
chord shuttle n. neol. (1993) oscillation between two chords, for example the to-and-fro between tonic minor (i, B$m) and submediant major ($VI, G$) in Chopin’s Marche funèbre (1839), or Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower (1968: Am«F), a.k.a. ‘aeolian pendulum’ (Björnberg 1989); or between ii7 and V in He’s So Fine (Chiffons 1963), Oh Happy Day (Edwin Hawkins 1969), or My Sweet Lord (Harrison 1970). Chord shuttles are indicated by double ended arrows, e.g. i«$VI or B$m«G$ for Chopin’s funeral march, and are discussed in Chapter 10; cf. chord loop.
‘church’ mode n., a.k.a. ecclesiastical mode; one of the six main heptatonic diatonic modes which, when arranged in scalar form with the initial note repeated at the octave, contain, in varying positions, two semitone and six whole-tone steps. The six main ‘church’ modes are: [1] ionian (c-c on the white notes of the piano); [2] dorian (d-d on the white notes); [3] phrygian (e-e); [4] lydian (f-f); [5] mixolydian (g-g);
[6] aeolian (a-a); see pp. 50-53.
constructional adj., neol. (2001) See poïetic.
counterpoise n. ‘1 a force etc. equivalent to another on the opposite side. 2 a counterbalancing weight’ (Oxford Concise English Dictionary, 1995); adapted (2009) to denote a tonal (melodic and/or harmonic) ‘complementary pole’ to the tonic, typically (though not exclusively) V in the ionian mode, $VII or IV in the mixolydian and dorian, $VI or iv in the aeolian, $II or $vii in the phrygian, etc. Counterpoise is not altogether unlike the Northern Indian concept of vadi (» ‘king’ of the melodic line in relation to main drone note, sa) or, perhaps, samvadi (the ‘queen’). The tonal rhythm generated by varying metric / periodic / temporal placement of change between tonic and counterpoise is a factor of interest in pre-industrial popular music from the British Isles.
cowboy half-cadence n., neol. (1987) progression from major triad on the flat seventh to major triad on the dominant ($VII-V), as in the main themes from The Magnificent Seven, Dallas, Blazing Saddles, etc.
crisis chord n. neol. (1991) chromatically embellished chord containing at least one diminished or augmented interval and occurring within the standard harmonic context of the European tertial idiom; most frequently occurring as m6 or m7$5, crisis chords can often be found about 75% of the way through a nineteenth-century parlour ballad.
diatonic adj. conforming to the heptatonic tonal vocabulary of any of the European ‘church modes’ in which each constituent note is in English named after one of the first seven letters of the alphabet, for example a b c d e f g (aeolian in A), d e f# g a b c# (ionian in D), g a$ b$ c d e$ f (phrygian in G). Arranged in scalar form, all diatonic modes contain five whole-tone (1) and two semitone steps (½), e.g. c d (1), d e (1), e f (½), f g (1), g a (1), a b (1) and b c (½) in C ionian. Semitone steps in European diatonic modes are separated by a fifth (e.g. e - f and b -c on the white notes of a piano keyboard).
doh-pentatonic, a.k.a. major pentatonic; see pentatonic.
doo-wop. n., primarily vocal genre with origins in black US gospel of the 1940s and in barber shop quartet singing. Originally sung a cappella or with simple percussion, doo-wop became part of US-mainstream pop in the 1950s and early 1960s. The term’s etymology is onomatopoeic (like fa la la la in Elizabethan madrigals), deriving from the style’s use of paralinguistic syllables vocalising approximations of instrumental accompaniment patterns, e.g. The Marcels’ version of Blue Moon (1961), Barry Mann’s Who Put The Bomp (1961).
dorian adj. heptatonic diatonic ‘church’ mode which, with d as tonic, runs from d to d on the white notes of a piano keyboard. Its seven ascending tone (1) and semitone (½) steps are 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 and its scale degrees 1 2 $3 4 5 (8)6 $7.
ecclesiastical mode, see ‘church mode’.
epistrophe n. rhetorical device by which successive sentences start differently but end similarly. A melodic epistrophe means that successive phrases start differently but end with the same motif, while a harmonic epistrophe means that successive chord sequences start differently but end with the same change[s]. Epistrophe is the opposite of anaphora (see p. 71).
equidurational. adj. neol. (2000) of equal duration, lasting for the same amount of time.
ex. abbr. music example. exx. = examples.
extensional adj. (Chester, 1970) relating to ‘horizontal’, syntactical aspects of musical expression extended over longer durations; opposite of intensional.
flat side. n. the left side of the circle of fifths (p. 100), where flats are included in the relevant key signatures: F, B$, E$, A$, D$ [G$].
flatward[s] adv. and adj. proceeding anticlockwise round the circle of fifths (p. 100); the opposite of sharpwards. For example, ‘the chord progression proceeds flatwards via Dm and G7 to C’ (adverbial); ‘Am7 Dm7 G7 C is a flatwards chord progression landing on the tonic, C’ (adjectival). Flatwards movement is so called because the number of flats in the major-key signature of the root note of successive chords in the progression increases or the number of sharps decreases. For example, in the progression Fm - B$ - E$ (ii-V-I), the number of flats increases from 1 (F) via 2 (B$) to 3 (E$), while in the flatwards progression Dm - G7 - C the number of sharps decreases from 2 (D) via 1 (G) to 0 (C).
heptatonic adj. (of modes or scales) containing, or having a tonal vocabulary of, seven different notes within the octave. Theoretically a heptatonic mode could contain c c# d d# e b$ and b8, or any other conceivable combination of different notes, but Western music’s familiar heptatonic modes all contain a note based on each of the first seven letters of the alphabet, e.g. a b c d e f g (aeolian heptatonic in A), d e f# g a b c# (ionian heptatonic in D), g a$ b$ c d e$ f (phrygian heptatonic in G); see also diatonic, pentatonic, hexatonic.
hexatonic adj. (of modes or scales) containing six different notes within the octave. For instance, The Tailor and the Mouse (example 147, p. 196) is hexatonic because it uses only g a b$ c d and f, nothing on e, neither e8 or e$; see heptatonic.
IOCM abbr., n., neol. (1979) Interobjective Comparison Material, i.e. music other than the analysis object which bears sonic resemblance to (part or parts of) the analysis object; a.k.a. musical intertext[s].
incoming chord n. neol. (2009) last chord before the tonic in a three- or four-chord loop; in a three-chord loop the medial and incoming chords are often identical; see outgoing chord and medial chord.
intensional adj. (Chester, 1970) relating to ‘vertical’ aspects of musical expression and to the limits of present-time experience (p. 275); opposite of extensional.
la-pentatonic, adj. a.k.a. ‘minor pentatonic’; see pentatonic.
leading note n. the seventh degree in the Central European major, ascending minor and harmonic minor scales, so called because in those modes it is a major seventh (#7) which normally leads into the tonic one semitone higher. Leading note can, by extension, designate any note that leads by a semitone step, ascending or descending, into another note contained within the subsequent common triad, e.g. the note f in a G7 chord descending to the e in a C major tonic triad. It is worth noting that a phrygian cadence from $II to I uses three leading notes: [1] from minor second to tonic ($2-1, e.g. f8 to e in E phrygian), from perfect fourth to major third (4-#3, e.g. a to g# assuming there is a Picardy third on the tonic E, as in flamenco music); [3] from minor sixth to perfect fifth ($6-5, e.g. c to b in E phrygian). Since a large, widely disseminated and influential body of popular music so often uses modes with minor sevenths ($7) that can just as well descend to the sixth or fifth as ascend to the tonic, the term leading note cannot be meaningfully used to designate the seventh degree in those contexts. The term subtonic (q.v.) will be used instead.
LMR abbr. List of Musical References.
loop See chord loop.
lydian adj. heptatonic diatonic ‘church’ mode which, with f as tonic, runs from f to f on the white notes of a piano keyboard. Its seven ascending tone (1) and semitone (½) steps are 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 ½ and its scale degrees 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7.
matrix n. (as in ‘harmonic matrix’, Vega 1944).
medial chord n. neol. (2009) the chord after the outgoing chord in a three- or four-chord loop; in a three-chord loop the medial and incoming chords are often identical.
mediant n., from Latin mediare = to come between, in particular the note that ‘comes halfway between’ the tonic and the fifth, i.e. the third., e.g. the note e8 in C major or e$ in C minor. Tertial chords based on the third scale degree, the mediant, as well as on ionian scale degrees 6 and 2, belong to a category of harmony which German theorists call Mediantik and which some anglophone disciples of Germanic theorising about European art music insist on calling ‘mediantic’. Since ‘mediantic’ sounds too much like media antics to be taken seriously and since the words dominantal (= relating to the ‘dominant’) and subdominantal (=relating to the ‘subdominant’) already exist, and since they both add the adjectival suffix -al to a noun ending in -ant, the only logical adjectival derivative of mediant in the English language is mediantal.
mediantal adj. relating to or having the character of the mediant.
minichromatics n., neol. (1976) a.k.a. ‘decorative chromaticism’ and opposed to ‘structural’ or ‘modulatory’ chromaticism. Minichromatics implies using chromaticism, within the standard triadic idiom of European tertial harmony, as a means of colouring and decorating the current tonality rather than as a means of modulating away from it.
mixolydian adj. heptatonic diatonic ‘church’ mode which, with g as tonic, runs from g to g on the white notes of a piano keyboard. Its seven ascending tone (1) and semitone (½) steps are 1 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 and its scale degrees 1 2 3 4 5 6 $7.
MoR n., adj., abbr. middle-of-the-road; genre label used in US media.
museme n. (Seeger, 1960) minimal unit of musical meaning; see also Tagg (2000: 106-108).
museme stack n. neol. (1979) compound of simultaneously occurring musical sounds to produce one meaningful unit of ‘now sound’; components of a museme stack may or may not be musematic in themselves.
outgoing chord n. neol. (2009) the first chord after the tonic in a three- or four-chord loop; see also incoming chord and medial chord.
paramusical adj. neol. (1983) literally ‘alongside’ the music, i.e. semiotically related to a particular musical discourse without being structurally intrinsic to that discourse; see also PMFC.
pendulum See chord shuttle.
pentatonic adj. (of modes or scales) containing five different notes within the octave. The most widespread type of pentatonicism is anhemitonic or ‘gapped’ and has two common forms, both reproducible using only the black notes of a piano keyboard: [1] major or doh-pentatonic —f# g# a# c# d#— and [2] minor or la-pentatonic —e$ g$ a$ b$ d$. Steps in these two modes are by either whole tone (1) or by three semitones (1½). Doh-pentatonic scales ascend 1 1 1½ 1 1½ (e.g. c d e g a c), la-pentatonic 1½ 1 1 1½ 1 (e.g. a c d e g a).
perceptional See aesthesic.
phrygian adj. heptatonic diatonic ‘church’ mode which, with e as tonic, runs from e to e on the white notes of a piano keyboard. Its seven ascending tone (1) and semitone (½) steps are ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 and its scale degrees 1 $2 $3 4 5 $6 $7.
plagal adj., via Latin plagius (=oblique) from Greek pl‹gioû (=sideways, slanting, askance, misleading), used only to qualify a cadence from IV to I, as in an ‘Amen ending’; opposed to ‘perfect’ or ‘full’ cadence leading from V to I. Plagal and perfect are terms developed by music theorists to denote cultural specificities of tonal direction in the Central European art music tradition. Plagal is not used in this book to suggest anything oblique, misleading or imperfect but simply to qualify tonal movement in either direction between a relative or absolute tonic (I) and a chord based on that tonic’s fourth degree (IV).
PMFC neol., n. (1991) Paramusical field of connotation, i.e. connotatively identifiable semantic field relating to identifiable (sets of) musical structure(s) (see paramusical); previously (1979) incorrectly called 'EMFA' (extramusical field of association).
poïetic adj. (from Fr. poïétique, Molino via Nattiez) relating to the poïesis, i.e. to the making of music rather than to its perception (a.k.a constructional); the opposite of aesthesic (receptional), poëtic qualifies the denotation of musical structures from the standpoint of their construction rather than their perception, e.g. con sordino, minor major-seven chord, augmented fourth, pentatonicism, etc. rather than delicate, detective chord, allegro, etc.
present-time experience, a.k.a. extended present, i.e. what we experience as ‘now’, as one single event in neither the past nor the future; the human brain’s equivalent to a computer’s RAM, i.e. what can be processed immediately. The musical present lasts for about as long as breathing in and out, or as a few heartbeats, or as taking two or three steps, or as enunciating a phrase or short sentence, i.e. a duration equivalent to that of a musical phrase or a short pattern of bodily gesture or dance movement; see Addendum on p. 275, and further explanations on p. 161, ff; see also Wellek (1963) and Levithin (2006).
quartal adj. (of chords) based on the stacking of fourths (see p. 125, ff.).
rec. n., v., abbr. recording, recorded by.
receptional adj., neol. (2001) See aesthesic.
rock n. and attrib. adj. (qualifying ‘music’); a wide range of popular and mainly, though not exclusively, English-language musics produced since the mid 1950s for a primarily youth audience, more usually male than female. The label rock covers everything from prog rock (e.g. Genesis) to country rock (e.g. Byrds), from punk rock (e.g. Sex Pistols) to folk rock (e.g. Steeleye Span) and from heavy metal (e.g. Led Zeppelin) through thrash (e.g. Metallica) to death and speed metal (e.g. Slayer) and so on. It’s well-nigh impossible to pinpoint stylistic common denominators for such a wide range of musics, apart from the fact that the music is usually loud and its tonal instruments electrically amplified. The heyday of rock, still much alive today, lasted from the mid 1960s to the 1990s and its musicians are mainly, though not exclusively, male. Fun, anger, opposition and corporeal celebration (‘kick-ass’) are aesthetic concepts frequently linked to rock.
rock and roll — basically synonymous with rock.
rock ’n’ roll n. is a much more restrictive term than rock or ‘rock and roll’; it denotes rock music produced only in the 1950s and early 1960s by such artists as Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
sharp side n. the right hand side of the circle of fifths (p. 100), where sharps are included in the relevant key signatures: G, D, A, E, B [F#].
sharpward[s]. adv. and adj. proceeding clockwise round the circle of fifths (p. 100); the opposite of flatwards. For example, ‘the chord progression proceeds sharpwards from F via C to G’ (adverbial); ‘F - C - G is a sharpwards chord progression landing on the mixolydian tonic, G’ (adjectival). Sharpwards movement is so called because the number of sharps in the major-key signature of the root note of successive chords in the progression increases or the number of flats decreases. For example, in the progression G-D-A ($VII-IV-I) the number of sharps increases from 1 (G) via 2 (D) to 3 (A); in the progression B$-F-C the number of flats decreases from 2 (B$) via 1 (F) to 0 (C).
shuttle See chord shuttle.
singalong n. a tune to which, when performed, it is easy for members of an audience to sing along; in general a tune easily sung by many people, or an occasion on which such tunes are performed (e.g. ‘Friday night singalongs at the old people’s home’); adj. attrib., e.g. ‘a singalong evening with pianist Fred Bloggs’ or ‘the singalong chorus part of the recording’.
stringalong; see Charity stringalong.
subtonic n. neol. (2009) the seventh degree in a heptatonic mode. Subtonic replaces leading note (q.v.) since the flat (minor) seventh, so common in so many forms of popular music, can just as easily descend to the sixth of fifth as lead to the octave/tonic.
tertial adj. neol. (1998) (of chords) based on the stacking of thirds (see p. 94, ff.).
tonatim adv., neol. (1992) tone for tone or note for note (cf. verbatim = word for word).
turnaround n. short chord sequence at the end of one section in a song or instrumental number and whose purpose is to facilitate recapitulation of the complete harmonic sequence of that section.
tunraround chord n. in chord loops, the final chord immediately preceding the repetition of the loop; i.e. the chord whose relation to the first chord works like a turnaround (q.v.). Turnaround chords are also incoming except for when the loop’s first and last chords are both tonic, in which case a turnaround device is needed to move from the the last back to the first.
vamp n. chord loop with several variants whose chords generically run NI-vi-ii/IV-VO.
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