Rolling Music Theory Thread

so what is the difference between "technical discussion" as in guitar player magazine (or some better representative mag, or any of them, i don't know them very well) and "technical discussion" in an academic context? do they discuss the same sorts of things? are there lacunae in either that the other addresses? or is it just audience and intent?

(my guess is that trade mags care _way_ more about equipment, partly because they exist as part of a complex whose purpose is to sell equipment, but my question is, does the lack of attention to equipment hurt academic writing? also i know some academic writing cares about the craft and production of instruments v. much. also a guess would be that the academic and the trade approach both don't address the social as much as some [we?] might desire, but fail to address it in radically different ways.)

guitar mag discussion is often looking at playing technique rather than the music in itself, but there is definitely overlap discussing innovation, phrasing w/e

Couple thoughts on Owen's pieces:

Sympathetic to the premise that "Get Lucky" is in the Dorian mode.

When "Teenage Dream" switches from the I chord in the intro to rooting that harmony on the fourth, it creates a major seventh chord on the IV. The softness of that chord is sort of the consolation for the song's weightless state of flux.

Yes, exactly. Theorists are more concerned with the larger-scale questions of what the vocabulary and syntax of a music are, how pieces of music can be understood structurally. Ogmor is definitely right that there can be some overlap, and in these areas, I would think that the difference is comparable to the difference between the academic and popular versions of any field of discussion (Psychology Today vs academic psychology journals, CNN or Fox vs a political science symposium, etc): the level of training that is usually expected and the peer-review process do imo tend to promote a certain level of rigour and originality, if not always readability. Honestly, discussion of theory in guitar magazines is often even riddled with incorrect terminology even for basic things. Doesn't mean (at all) that there's nothing useful there.

Where fgti and I might be on the same page is that its not always entirely clear to me what the ultimate goal or purpose is with a lot of academic analysis of popular music, aside from sheer scholarly interest (and lines on the CV, ha). With guitar mags, it's usually clear that the articles are there for people to learn specific techniques from. With the analysis of art music, it's easy for me to see how the work is useful for people who want to compose and/or play art music (who are the usual audience for these journals). While I still disagree with him that Radiohead (or, say, "Close to the Edge") is too easy to parse for someone with art music training, it's not 100% clear to me what the readers are going to gain from the exercise: it does not seem that this is going to have the direct benefit of helping (most) people learn how to write and play rock music. There can still be some value in understanding how the music 'works' or is put together, though, and it is actually possible for it to influence art music composition tbh (because those artists have probably influenced mine!).

xpost

(xp!)
Don't know what academic discussion you might be referring to, s. clover. You should realize that a good part of academic music studies- Sund4r can correct me if I am wrong- consists of professional programs offering Bachelors or Masters degrees in performance and education. Of course as part of this they teach composition and give instrumental instruction. The purpose of this is to give the students the skills -and accreditation - to enable them to hopefully make a living as player/teachers, so these institutions are not necessarily doing academic research as the word theory might lead you to believe. The theory as such is supposed to aid the awareness of students as composers and improvisers of what notes and chords are available to them at any given point. I haven't read any guitar mags in a bit, but in between the gear articles and the player interviews they always have transcriptions of tunes and, more to the point, regular columns where somebody explains that if you want to play in a certain style these are typical chord progressions and typical things you might play, with a little theoretical gloss thrown in. For instance, Bass Player magazine might have an article entitle "Funk 101: Dorian Octaves." This kind of thing is a bite-sized version of what you might get in one of those programs. Actually one of the authors of a long running popular and useful column in Bass Player was (don't know if he still does it) none other than everybody's favorite Daft Punk bassist, Nathan East.

well if you look at english departments, their main (or at least one main) social role is really to produce people capable of teaching undergrad level reading and composition, but also by dint of being part of the "academic world" one also produces analyses of rhetoric in milton or what have you, and one can argue that this is a good or a bad thing or was a good thing but now is in some ways a bad thing (by obscuring the labor function of academia as a way to explain away low salaries 'for the love of the discipline' or etc), but in any case, is this somewhat the situation in music/musicology depts?

Yes, but the majority of the guys I'm talking about don't have to publish anything like the equivalent of Milton Studies you mention. They are part of the professional side of academia, not the research side, and don't have to go through the same hurdles: orals, writtens, postdoc, maybe another postdoc, tenure track, etc, they just have to come out of a program like the one they end up teaching in, more or less.

That's only true of instrumental teachers (who are generally contract instructors), surely? Neither University of Ottawa nor University of Toronto will even consider someone for a sessional (adjunct) teaching position in composition, music theory, or musicology if he or she does not have a PhD in hand.

(I'll have a lot more to say later on. This is a big question, far bigger than a 'Rolling Music Theory' thread can support if we're going to really get into it.)

Interesting. From what I know in NYC a PhD is not required to teach at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, nor at the Columbia University Department of Music, The New School, or the Manhattan School of Music. A music professor with a PhD, such as Chris Washburne, is the exception not the rule.

Anyway I wanted to ask what people thought of Chord Scale Theory, it's uses and abuses, but maybe we've already bitten off more than we can chew on this thread.

Link to Sund4r's new thread: Music Academia

Still trying to get some eyeballs on this interesting, original idiosyncratic work: http://www.modalogy.net/. I was thinking about it in the context of the mother thread to this one, where the guy talks about the harmonic trick. Not so tricky when you realize that the resolution of modal cadences at weaker than those of a major/minor tune.

Also interested in the question of

• difference between a mode and a scale
• difference in use of term modal in Renaissance/ pre-equal temperament music and in "model jazz"

Ha, "modal jazz"

Thread of missing the "Greensleeves" thread.

Clearly there is some overlap between modes and scales, given that the major scale is also called the "Ionian" mode.

I'm not actually sure if there's a meaningful difference.

I think there might be, maybe. I think the scale is just the set of pitches plus the starting point and nowadays mode usually means exactly the same thing but in ye olde time Renaissance music the mode meant the, um, ordered set of pitches, plus the various conventional practices that went with them. This is something I feel like I have seen out of the corner of my eye somewhere , I'll have to track down a reference.

As I understand it, the standard modes are identical to major keys except the root note is a different step in the scale.

Mode is closer to key, while the scale is the ordered sequence of notes in the mode or key.

Yes, something like that. There is a discussion of this on pages 158-159 of Lewis Porter's John Coltrane bio. I can't type it in right now so you will have to refer to your own copy.

He refers to a paper called "Three Pragmatists in Search of a Theory" by Harold Powers which I find a brief reference to and quote from here: http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.3/mto.13.19.3.judd.php although I can't quite make head or tail of the quote or the surrounding article yet.

Then there is this

http://www.jazzstandards.com/theory/modal-jazz.htm

One contemporary (and widely-taught) approach to improvisation views every chord as having one or more scales that can be played over it. Although it involves the use of modes, this approach to soloing does not necessarily make a tune “modal.”

The language is too academic for people who're interested in Radiohead, and Radiohead is too easily parsed for people who can comprehend an academic theoretical approach.

I think I actually disagree with the first part of this too (sorry fgti): almost everyone in my PhD program was interested in Radiohead! I'm pretty sure I'm more interested in them than in Brian Ferneyhough.

Anyway, I think that this discussion has been helpful for me. I haven't written a theory paper in years and now I realize that it's because I wasn't actually sure what the purpose/value of it would be. I think that talking about this has helped me clarify what it could be; I actually feel enthusiastic about attempting it this summer.

I've read several rollicking music theory nerd discussions of radiohead songs.

Interested to hear what exactly inspired Sund4r in this discussion but maybe it's best just to wait for the paper.

It was this train of thought, where I started questioning the use of this kind of analytical work, then realized that this doubt was what was holding me back from doing any of it, then started thinking about what its use could be. (The last part is not completely fleshed out in the post below but I think I will articulate it when the time comes):

Where fgti and I might be on the same page is that its not always entirely clear to me what the ultimate goal or purpose is with a lot of academic analysis of popular music, aside from sheer scholarly interest (and lines on the CV, ha). With guitar mags, it's usually clear that the articles are there for people to learn specific techniques from. With the analysis of art music, it's easy for me to see how the work is useful for people who want to compose and/or play art music (who are the usual audience for these journals). While I still disagree with him that Radiohead (or, say, "Close to the Edge") is too easy to parse for someone with art music training, it's not 100% clear to me what the readers are going to gain from the exercise: it does not seem that this is going to have the direct benefit of helping (most) people learn how to write and play rock music. There can still be some value in understanding how the music 'works' or is put together, though, and it is actually possible for it to influence art music composition tbh (because those artists have probably influenced mine!).

Here is a guy talking about a few ideas that I found interesting but haven't fully digested yet in that book Modalogy I have been plugging: http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/22308-modal-cadences-modal-interchange.html

"Get Lucky" doesn't really have a Dorian feel to me. It just starts on the iv chord. B is never a point of resolution for the melody; it tends to resolve to F# ("like the legend of the phoenix"/"we've come too far") or A ("we're up all night to get lucky").

like, I wouldn't say "Get Lucky" is in the Dorian mode for the same reasons I wouldn't say a song with a looping ii-V-I-vi progression is in the Dorian mode

crut otm. nailed it imo.

I mean the "ky" in "lucky" isn't an F#, it's an A, but I agree that generally the song pulls toward F#.

Oh, I very much hear B as a point of resolution for the chorus melody. I hear the melody as a sequence that descends until it gets to B with that A as a blue note lower neighbor.

Where is the pulling toward F#? B minor is the chord that occurs in the strong measure. For me, the song pulls toward that.

http://forum.emusictheory.com/read.php?5,13517

Eg, a while back there was a long-standing (apparently interminable) debate on another site (or two) about whether Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" was in G major (V-IV-I-I) or in D mixolydian (I-bVII-IV-IV). Each camp was vociferous in its own absolute conviction.
The reason was that almost everyone genuinely heard it as definitely one or the other, and couldn't hear it the other way. Those who thought differently were simply "wrong" (and maybe deaf and stupid at the same time).

I'd agree that it's ultimately a matter of perception, but my gut tells me that F# minor is the resting chord. pretty sure the tempo & key of the song are an homage to Billie Jean, which is in F# minor.

I'm used to hearing minor key songs with a VI-VI-i-VII progression & I hear the Bm7 as a substitution for the first VI chord

obv the ambiguity of having two "strong" chords is part of what makes the chord progression infinitely loopable

I hear Sweet Home Alabama as G major fwiw

"Get Lucky" is clearly in Aeolean, but in the comments there are those who think it's in Dorian, and a guy who wrote an analysis for CoS who said it was in A-major (?!), and another guy who thought "Dreams" was in Aeolean???!!!

With the Gaga bit people I think are starting to pick up on the futility of this column I hope. All of the comment arguments we have been having have been about "oh you notated it wrong" or "oh you're writing about this in base-C? why?" or debates about differences between IV7 (classical) and IVma7 (jazz). Because of the disparity of language I can't help but just... feel like it's so fruitless. Even that Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" piece there was a part of me that was like "dude it's called a Neopolitan 6th let me introduce you to Strauss" which is of-course a bullshit response, that modulation is fantastic

I think there's something about Get Lucky that sounds almost like it would be a break or b-section in a song in F# minor, only it just keeps repeating instead of going back to the A-section.

Wait, did somebody day Aeolian?

Say.

(S is next to D, sorry)

Scanning through that blog, it looks pretty good, actually! I don't like the "learn the secrets" kind of angle but I'm all for introducing people to iiis and bVIs and correctly pointing out the link between The Crickets and early Beatles.

Marcello tweeted that it's unfortunate that people talk about "Born This Way" = "Express Yourself" but not "Holiday" = "The Look Of Love", (which I don't hear in the slightest)

With the Gaga bit people I think are starting to pick up on the futility of this column I hope. All of the comment arguments we have been having have been about "oh you notated it wrong" or "oh you're writing about this in base-C? why?" or debates about differences between IV7 (classical) and IVma7 (jazz). Because of the disparity of language I can't help but just... feel like it's so fruitless. Even that Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" piece there was a part of me that was like "dude it's called a Neopolitan 6th let me introduce you to Strauss" which is of-course a bullshit response, that modulation is fantastic

Are you saying that pop music analysis seems futile because there are different systems of terminology?

(But these debates about what the tonic even is in Lynyrd Skynyrd or Daft Punk songs demonstrate my point about why I don't think pop music is too easy for theorists to bother parsing. No one debates what the tonic is in a Bach chorale or Mozart piano sonata, at least most of the time.)

Well Sund4r there's "what do I think" and "what do I feel". I think that the kind of analysis that you read in that "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" piece where it's like "oh! this guy is identifying the most defining trait of this song and probably the cleverest harmony-coup of Elton's career". I think that when I scan through the "Aeolean" blog linked above it's like "oh! how interesting that they started using iii-chords in pop songs at a specific point".

But "what do I feel"? My own ears hear music in the abstract. I hear, say, a I-iii-IV-bII-V-I movement (and most movements that would be contained within pop music) without thinking about what chords or key it's in. My fingers naturally move to the keys, to the guitar chords. Most pop musicians I know work the same way-- even asking somebody "what key is the song in?" you've got a 50/50 chance that the musician knows or cares. I think a lot of pop music + music theory has misidentified the point of translation, if that makes sense? Using numerals and words to describe what's happening in a song is a compromise.

It's not that it's too easy, it's just that it's not that interesting. Only when Marcello mentioned "Holiday" did it occur to me that that song is not in a major-key but in a minor-one, and contains the same denial-of-major-key-tonic as "Teenage Dream". But what does that say about Madonna-songwriter? or Madonna-cultural force? or me, if I wanted to write a song like Madonna's? I dunno.

Though as an interesting note, there is a profession whose job it is to listen to newly-composed tracks for commercials and comment on their similarities to other tracks, the place-holder music, for example. That professional will then comment on what elements need to be changed-- usually getting quite specific, on a theory level, asking for a melody to go further upward or for reharmonizations. That professional will then be required to testify in court if any plagiarism charges are laid. I've only heard third-hand about this occupation actually being a thing, but man I've love to read a "my day at work" with one of them

Yes— “Lithium” is a good example. The way the melody rises up the the high D and falls to B-flat makes that B-flat chord sound a lot like “a second key centre”.

But also different than “Lineman”. B-flat in Lithium is bVI but isn’t functioning as a IV of a second key, it’s just this “other key centre”. Kurt just kinda moves his hand and his voice and it’s like “here we are”— perhaps only workable with power chords? I’ll try it at the piano.

“Sudden mediant movement” does naturally seem (to my ear) to create a surprise new key centre. Think the end of the verses of “Starman”. Verse goes ii I V I (bIII IV) ii I V III (!) iiadd9 and there’s a starman. That surprise III appears on the Morse code moment.

It’s funny— I picked up the connect between “Lineman” and “Sweet Dollar Bill” just while walking my dog (and was typing my post as I walked). Then I had dinner with a musician friend last night, and I mentioned I made this connect, and my friend told me he’s actually good buds with Louis and that “Lineman” is Louis’s favourite song. Fun! I said “make sure Louis knows that I have figured out his secrets”

Some thoughts on Angine De Poitrine-- I'd been hearing them ambiently, as they seem inescapable in my feed. Watched live footage and the KEXP session approvingly. Hadn't actually listened to the albums until this morning.

The Apple Music blurb says, about "Vol. 2": "...it's the fact that they've pushed discussion of microtonal guitar tunings and 17/4 time signatures from the darkest recesses of prog message boards into mainstream music discourse." I've always thought it's interesting, when music listeners and musicians wish to describe "prog rhythm", that numbers are just thrown into the air regarding time signatures-- a prime number like 17 or 19 in the numerator. I've always felt as if "not all prime numbers are obtuse as you'd think", knowing that 5 and 7, for example, can be slid into Top 40 hits ("Solsbury Hill", "Africa") without your average listener missing a beat.

But 17/4? That's a weird one. I think it was Bill Bruford who said, appreciatively, of his King Crimson gig, about how fun it was to have an audience for "17/8 time signatures", or some other tall order. That said, Angine De Poitrine (to the best of my knowledge) do not have any songs in 17/4. I heard 15/16 ("Yor Zarad") but that was as obtuse as it got.

Oops, I wasn't done and somehow it posted.

https://www.musicradar.com/guitars/they-describe-themselves-as-a-mantra-rock-dada-pythago-cubist-orchestra-and-the-band-name-translates-to-angina-of-the-chest-the-microtonal-music-theory-behind-viral-math-rockers-angine-de-poitrine

The above article's assessments:

Sarniezz is in regular old 4/4 with a triplet-y 12/8 feel, but it has peculiar accents.

This is correct.

Mata Zylek is in 10/4.

Yes, or just 5/4.

Fabienk is either in very strangely-grouped 7/4 or conventionally-grouped 28/4.

If I were to transcribe it, I'd do it in 7/8.

Finally, Sherpa is in 17/4.

This is incorrect, Sherpa is 4/4.

In fact, most of AdP's time signaturation features riffs that combine cells of "the obtuse", but once added up, reveal standard 4/4 structures-- it's a cool trick that I've enjoyed to do myself, it's the "reveal" where the compound time or beat elisions you've been hearing are suddenly grafted on to a 4/4 grid. "Yor Zarad" (which is in my opinion the band's most satisfying song) is the real outlier, it is 15/16 and furiously fast, and doesn't have any of that reveal, it's just a workout.

The loop-pedal foundation of AdP's performance means that the band is somewhat glued into these methods of dealing with rhythm-- there won't be any breakdowns or hidden bars. In a way, I feel as if this has a "taming" effect on the premise of obtuse time signatures. The audience may feel some disorientation, but either repetition or that "reveal" of a backbeat will stabilise the experience. I contend that it is this "taming" effect that has caused the band its runaway success with listeners-- this is, at its heart, comforting music.

I could apply the same thoughts to the application of "it's microtonal!" to the harmonic content, too-- despite the presence of microtones, this is highly tonal music, even monotonal-- many songs don't really contain any actual chord changes beyond riffs on I and bVI.

Years ago, like over a decade ago, I think I was posting on here about my skepticism toward any more complex scaling than 24-tet (quarter tones), that it seemed needlessly complicated to write in 31-tet et al. as most of the composers working in that idiom were effectively still making music that was effectively diatonic. My first exposure to anything more decimal'd than 24-tet was Wyschnegradsky, who used 6ths-of-tones-- but his music just sounded like a blue cheese version of Romantic harmony, the additional tones were effectively doing nothing more than flavouring what remained, essentially, diatonic music. I carried this bias on (and kinda still do), that I don't really feel as if any composer I've heard has made work that justifies a more complex tuning than 24-tet-- excepting spectral composers who seek to emulate the harmonic series, Grisey i.e.

Insofar as AdP are concerned, the microtonal aspect of what they're doing also have the a similar comforting quality to their approach to rhythm-- microtones as a flavouring agent to what essentially remains blues-based rock riffage.

All of the above is neither a criticism nor a commendation, just an observation, me thinking about why this band that is sold as having "obtuse time signatures" and "microtones" is having the runaway success they've been having. For my part I think they're terrific, the looping methods in particular are very satisfying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8iD5xS1hI

xp i'm not familiar with adp but your points about time signatures and "microtonality" also apply to king gizzard and the lizard wizard very well i think. adp are playing gizzard's colorado festival in august so there ya go.

I haven't listened closely to AdP yet (only seen the viral video), but generally I don't find time signatures like 17/4 useful. It would only be useful to describe something like a cycle of three bars of 4/4 and a bar of 5/4, but I would rather describe it as just that (after all, it could be divided into a bar of 5/4 followed by three bars of 4/4, or something else).

I had similar thoughts while watching the video, it was cool but the looping meant they couldn't do much in the way of longer structures, and that the riffs & grooves are mostly simple and familiar with just a sprinkling of prog weirdness that helps their appeal.

^this

"Yor Zarad" (which is in my opinion the band's most satisfying song) is the real outlier, it is 15/16 and furiously fast, and doesn't have any of that reveal, it's just a workout.

Sorry fgti but this is in 7/8 (or 7/4 if you prefer). :) Did you mean a different one?

They're not that far off of classic rock, and I think that's why their biggest fans seem to be in their sixties and seventies. (I think they're terrific, as well.)

Sorry fgti but this is in 7/8 (or 7/4 if you prefer). :) Did you mean a different one?

Betcha $100 you're wrong! It's 15/16.

Oh nooooo you're right and I owe you $100

C$100 at least!

I wrote a ballet in 2013 that attempted an Angine-style reveal at the end. I could type about it but I can't make it interesting, so I won't. Either way, the conductor hated the way I'd notated it, and yet, in the intervening thirteen years, I haven't successfully found a solution that improves upon my original notation.

Darn, I was hoping we could keep that going for at least half a Ludacris thread, lol.

lmao