Chapter 2 POP THEARY AND MUSICAL ANALYSIS How do we uncover the secrets of music structure? In this chapter I would like to introduce some of the styles of analysis the book will feature. As I stated earlier, musical notation represents the visual link between the composer and what they have created. The elephant in the room, then, is this: if reading music is so important, why do many songwriters not read? Questions like this inevitably float to the surface of the debate. Whilst it is invariably the case that thousands of songs over the years have been created by people who don t read, equally thousands are the product of people who do read and/or are the product of a process which is heavily dependent on the arrangement and therefore reliant on readers. People often cite the Beatles as a band that produced great songs; indeed this book will analyse several Beatles songs. But quite a lot of their output, particularly the later stuff, was arranged by George Martin, who came from an instrumental, reading background. This is one reason why many tracks featured such an array of instrumentation and had such colourful harmonies and textures. But arranging and orchestration is not just about creating stuff in the background to make a song sound nice; it can and does play a central role in the structure of the song and how it communicates emotionally and commercially. Instrumentation is not just something that happens to a song afterwards ; it is often a central, pivotal part of the process. I will discuss in chapter, Introduction to Arranging, the structural arranger and the stylistic arranger. Reading music Because of an inability to read and arrange, many songwriters do not have the skills to fully realise their own songs in the way they are eventually heard, which makes them a little detached from the process and the song and also partly not responsible for the way the song turns out. The arrangement of a song should not be looked at in isolation, as it often is, as if it is some post-composition process that is done to music. It can fundamentally alter how a song is perceived. Also, having a working knowledge of harmony is never a handicap; the fact that it is possible to create good work without such knowledge does not mean writers couldn't have created even better work if they had such knowledge. Many albums over the years have famously taken an eternity to create, record produce, and although the excuses traditionally offered for this slow process are put down to a need to make it perfect, many stages in the process could be quicker if more people had read music, both at the creative conceptualisation stage and at the recording stage. Some of the most prolific artists in Pop understand the harmonic context of what they re doing; artists such as Elton John and Billy Joel are just two such examples. Both have enjoyed longevity. There is of course another category of songwriter who shows what could be considered an excellent knowledge of harmony but who doesn t understand the chord names and therefore the context. They know the shapes and the sounds but not the terms of reference. In this environment knowledge of what chords or notes were actually called, in addition to the wider context, would definitely help the composer contextualise their knowledge more accurately. People often cite Stevie Wonder as an example of someone who doesn t understand theory. This is, of course, manifestly wrong. Stevie Wonder doesn t read music for obvious reasons but he understands the chords he s playing, knows their names and understands the wider context of their existence and use. Understanding harmony is about being able to understand the complexion and complexity of harmony and to know how, where and why to use certain harmonies and certain situations. To do this one must be able to categorise, classify and catalogue. Stevie Wonder does this better than most sighted composers not because he is an unfathomable genius but because he has a deep knowledge of harmony and can understand it in a larger context because he can name and classify the harmonic colours he uses. So it s not just about visualisation; it s more about knowledge and classification, which makes one able to understand music.
Musical structure Musical structure is simpler to understand than most people think. Decisions composers make are frequently dictated not by the idiosyncrasies, characteristics and eccentricities of the individual mind, but by the hugely powerful tolerances and traditions which bind musical structure together. These tolerances, structures, customs, rituals and conventions are quite narrow given that they respond to a public desire for relative uniformity and conformity; people don t like having to think hard when they listen and most people don t experience music critically. Why would they? They can t see the music and are dependent solely on their aural cognition, which means they are hampered from experiencing it critically and engaging with it in perhaps the way they would engage with the spoken or written word. And in any case people are not accustomed to having to experience music critically; music is primarily supposed to be entertaining. As a testament to the consistency of music structure and how relatively quickly it takes shape during the conceptualisation and composition process, it s interesting to note that many songwriters concede that the further they get into a piece, the easier it becomes. This is often wrongly and typically attributed to a composer s greatness but in truth the piece becomes easier the further you go primarily because the journey becomes more and more obvious, predictable and knowable as the process goes on and the existing structures of music kick-in and begin to shape the piece. We are enticed into making decisions based on what we already know, tolerances we understand and the safe seductive territory of familiarity. We re reluctant, unwilling or perhaps genuinely incapable of thinking outside the safe confines of simple music structure. Ideas we sometimes think are original to us are frequently a result of the construct of musical structure itself. Therefore the degree to which we are prepared to slightly subvert musical structure often determines how original we can claim to be and also how successful we might become. There is still considerable scope for enormous creativity and originality even within the constraints of regular tonality, tradition and structure. If you examine every successful piece of music which appeals to you personally, invariably the reason for its success, its appeal and its emotionally communicative qualities are the result of something within it which is subtly different; something we didn t expect and are mildly surprised by; our expectations have been quietly confounded. People refer to pieces having an individual and specific style or character but the reason these moments communicate so strongly is usually because in some small way they confound our expectation; they engage us. This is where the composer did something different. Having analysed hundreds of popular songs over the years as an arranger, composer and session musician and also as an academic, in almost every example of a piece which was effective, successful and remembered, the reason was probably that in some small or subtle way something in the piece subtly challenged the listening experience, skewing what we expected. If the piece had been completely full of such strangeness it would have been difficult to listen to; so the basic skill appears to be to be this: create something which has enough tradition and regularity to ensnare us but also enough of something new to engage us without disorientating us too much. Even the successful composers (the ones who offer something that challenges our expectation) seem to fall into two categories; those who lead and those who follow. Such categories are usually not acknowledged; they don t appear as categories in record shops, but in every generation of composers there will be those who genuinely break new ground - those who skew what we expect to such a degree that it eventually slightly redefines what normal is - and those who, although undoubtedly producing music which communicates emotionally, are essentially treading an existing path. Composers chip away lightly at the structural blocks but not many manage to fundamentally change the context of music. I do not beat a moral drum here; ultimately a slow, cumbersome evolution is better than none at all.
Music and architecture People see architecture as a technical skill more than an artistic endeavour; this is because they understand the process, to a degree. We refer to architects designing buildings. We do not literally imagine they create the things from thin air. We know the bricks are there already, which is why we see their ability as skill rather than creativity. We know there are only so many ways of building things so we accept that this is more a skill and less of an act of creative individuality. It is the design we appreciate, but we tend not to go over the top with praise because we realise, if one is being honest, that buildings are built to be functional and in terms of functionality and structure, one is pretty much like another; they have walls, they have roofs and they have floors. We would rarely say one song pretty much like another although in fact in terms of structure this sentiment applies to music too, to a point. Most have introductions, most have verses, most have choruses and most come in under four minutes. Also, we would never imagine authors literally created words themselves; they create the order of delivery and therefore, to a degree, they are responsible for the specific meaning and context. But most books have introductions and they have chapters; structure is not just a convenience; it is a necessity; it is embedded deep inside the creative process. We have some reverence for authors because for the most part, the vast majority of people aren t able to write books themselves (although, as many authors have said, what most people who think they can t write books actually lack is an eye for organisation, design, method, structure, assembly, arrangement, placement etc. The idea or the concept is only a small part of the plan). Most people don t write books not because they lack the great idea but because they lack the organisational skill to design it, to build it, to pull it all together and to finish it. But still, most people understand the individual words in a book and the implied meaning they create because they can see, hear and interpret the words. But because most people can t see and interpret music with the same degree of literal understanding as words, and don t in most cases listen with heightened musical knowledge, they often don t understand music to a great degree. They are emotionally moved and manipulated by something they fundamentally do not rationalise on a deep level. I m not saying people who don t read music can t understand music at all and aren t capable of commenting intelligently on music; I m saying that most people will never have the same relationship with music that they enjoy with the written or spoken word. They can t visualise or contextualise music to the same degree so they are dependent on their aural cognition alone and are not aided by the liberating ability to be able to categorise, decipher, untangle or decode the harmony. I m not saying that listeners ought to be able to read; indeed part of the charm of music and how it affects us is precisely because we are moved emotionally be something we can t properly understand. Some, particularly the refusenik composers who can t visual their own music and/or understand the harmony and who therefore develop a mantra to defend this lack of contextual knowledge, sometimes interpret this as blissful ignorance, but it is not; ignorance is rarely bliss. Because most listeners don t possess the ability to visualise / categorise the harmonic shapes in the music they hear, into the vacuum created by this lack of understanding often come unbridled respect, reverence and veneration for the people who create music. With words or pictures people can see and realise how they re affected emotionally, but with music any understanding is purely aural. Listeners don t usually deeply understand the structure of music and most cannot appreciate it or see it or even hear it outside the context of the finished article. We ve all watched building slowly going up so we appreciate the gradual process. We ve all read articles in newspapers so we appreciate and to a degree the writing of a book. But most Pop artists don t release partial recordings or stems, so all people hear is the wonderful finished article. Because of this sometimes people talk of composers creating music, of them creating something quite literally and utterly new, when usually all that is brand new is the specific complexion, the precise order of the notes and chords (and these are often very similar) and the specific complexion of the sound. Once again, as I have gone to great lengths to say before, none of this means composers aren t hugely talented people who do things very few others do. All I try to do in this project, as in my other books, is to place skills in a realistic context.
One of the fundamental aims of this project is to try and get rid of some of the non-essential context that pervades music discourse. For example, the fact that we call music art and not craft or skill is itself revealing because, as we will discuss later, music composition is a creative skill usually aided by creative craft. If we call it what it is - a skill, a craft - we can rationalise it easier. What composers make may be referred to by others as art, depending on their opinion, but since art is a perception, not a reality, it is best if we talk about composing music as a skill. Content, structure and form People sometimes imagine that the art of composition is somehow separated from the much more mundane possession of knowledge of structure that enables creation to happen in the first place, but this isn t entirely true. Composition is the result of an internal collaboration between different parts of your character and ability, different parts of your knowledge and different parts of your memory, all of which distil to create music. The product may be now but the constituent parts are accessed from a combination of intellect, memory and the skill it takes to access it them and place them into a realistic and workable context. The now element is tied up in how we specifically interpret our existing knowledge; but this is the culmination of a process, not the process itself. Mozart, like all great composers, had his head permanently filled with an almost endless and permanently percolating knowledge of structure, harmony, orchestration, placement and architecture. So for someone like that, channelling his immense imagination and sculpturing it into something that could be played in a few hours was more about how focussed he was, how dedicated, how resolute, how tenacious, obsessive and driven he was. One of the reasons people revere the art of composition is because they wrongly think it s all about content i.e. the stuff the composer thinks up. They think form and structure is a convenient readymade shell into which the composer pours his or her uniqueness and individuality. They imagine that form is a receptacle that the composer simply empties their imagination into and that structure is a vessel into which the composer simply empties their uniqueness. The belief then is that form and structure is less important than whatever it contains. This is misleading; form has no inside and outside. Form is just as much a part of what makes music sound unique or great as the content it accompanies. Form guides content. And yet form is not something composers necessarily invent or create. Form is a template, a pattern, an approach or methodology. This is similar to how authors use the concept of the sentence to contextualise their thoughts. When listeners react to the exciting bits in music or the sections that really engage them they could just as easily be responding to something which is more form and structure than content. If, as a listener, you react to the way an inversion really gives the piece a sense of lift, a sense of purpose and an element of drama, you re responding to something the composer decided to make use of, not something the composer can be said to have created. Even the stuff composers think up is itself heavily guided by the need and desire and propensity to follow existing structures and forms. It s highly unlikely and very rare that a composer can be said to have thought up an entirely new chord sequence. And even if they had, they didn t invent the chords so they can t be responsible for the fact that it works; they are responsible for realising it works, not for making it work. Innovation Innovation has become a bit of a buzzword in recent times. Generally speaking it means originality and is invariably associated with modernism. But the context in which the word is used has evolved. Academic institutions are very keen on nurturing a sense of innovation; corporations pride themselves on being seen as innovative. Academic institutions pride themselves on rewarding work which takes creative gambles. But historically and practically, innovation is a natural occurrence; it is an occasional consequence and by-product of the creative mind. To presume that we can somehow separate this concept from the music which creates it is misleading.
To presume that we can somehow force creative artists to be innovative merely by asking them, can indicate a lack of understanding of what innovation actually is and when and how it can happen. It is something which is so embedded in the creative process that trying to annex it and make it happen to order can be difficult and ill-advised. In some ways innovation has been turned from a concept, an ideal, to more of a mantra and a refrain. Like words such as genius and art it is simply an opinion, not a fact. It s turned from something we can say, on reflection, about a piece which, with hindsight, might be deemed to have been innovative, into a something you can do now and know now. It also presupposes that innovation can be recognised as such at the time of its creation. Most musical innovations weren t recognised as such at the time, only on reflection. Sometimes only the context of time tells you whether something was, on reflection, ground-breaking. Artists who were innovative and ground-breaking were rarely aware of it at the time. It is actually comparatively rare that composers create genuinely new music? If you ask most composers why, they tend to interpret new as bold or brave or weird. But truly the thing that normally prevents us from being innovative is the tendency to live within what we perceive to be normal and thus become victims of expectation. Many composers think that in terms of normal or popular music there is nothing left to discover; that the only roads left to explore without going off the deep end centre around style, sound, arrangement and production. But even within the shackles of rational harmony there are almost limitless possibilities, avenues, subtleties and shades which are rarely explored. Music shares similarities and characteristics because inherently most of it is very similar in makeup and design. The central DNA strands of music act as a magnet for composers; conformity is a powerful construct. So if we re trying to escape the shackles of overt normality how do we tap into the structure of music and learn how to capture, develop and subvert it? Will standard traditional notation reveal musical structure, or do we have to rely on our aural judgement? Will our ears tell us everything? Standard musical notation, harmonic groupings (chords), allow you to view music in its conventional sequential order i.e. left to right - the manner in which you listen to it. Music notation is not really used or taught to be used to analyse, only to follow and reproduce. The written version therefore seemingly conveys no artistic merit; it suggests no pecking order of creative importance and it usually conveys few obvious structural secrets. It shows you a finished product, not the means by which it was achieved and not the manner of its conception. It shows you the destination, not the journey. Mostly we are conditioned to read music to play and reproduce, not to interpret the secrets of its success. But these assumptions are misleading; music notation, harmony and chord symbols not only offer ways and means of identifying music s structures and secrets, they are some of the principal means of identifying how and why music is the way it is. We just have to know what to look for and how to identify and interpret. Although chord symbols can only be interpreted by those who understand music theory, they succeed in giving a name and a description to the precise way in which simultaneous groups of notes are communicated to everyone, not just people who understand them. In this way one could say everybody understands chords to some degree; it s just that most people don t realise they do. In many ways a chord name is a name we can give to an emotion or a feeling. If I was talking to a bunch of songwriters it might take ages to explain the kind of chord which produces a nice, romantic if slightly cheesy feel; or I could just say add2 and people would instantly know what I was talking about. They would know the chord and its context. If I was talking to a group of film music students it could take ages to explain the kind of chord that would produce a sense of strangeness, or I could just say #4. If I wanted to name a chord that would produce a mischievous, furtive feeling (the kind of thing we might hear in James Bond films), I could just say Em9 (maj) Fig. If you played the chord in fig. to almost anyone, they would instantly name a popular film character. In this respect, the chord symbol is more than a mere name or a description; it communicates a feeling, an emotion, How Pop Music Communicates which Vol. we have Text come Brian to associate Morrell 20 with a specific context.
Everybody hears chords, not just people who understand them. Everyone is a beneficiary of the effect of a how a certain, specific chord is constructed, not just those who read or who understand how and why they re being emotionally affected. We all hear, but only readers will have the vocabulary to interpret fully. Only someone who can classify and categorise harmony can truly understand the context of how and why it works. I say all this because to understand chords and harmony is not just to understand and appreciate what music looks like; it is to understand why music sounds the way it does. When you look at a chord, you re looking at music theory, but more than anything else you re looking at music. To give a name to specific chords or types of chords is the same as giving a name to the way you feel or a name to a colour or a person. Imagine meeting someone, finding them extremely interesting but never, ever knowing who they were or what their story was. That s the kind of relationship you have with music if you don t read and can t interpret. Knowing chords isn t just about being able to communicate; it s a means of expression and understanding. To describe and interpret is to understand and to know. Back to the beginning Fig.2 To be able to glean anything from musical notation which allows us to be an analyst as well as a reader, we have to briefly go back to the very beginning. We start with the chromatic scale of C (below) and then we dispense with some of the notes to produce the all-powerful and world-dominating major scale on the stave underneath. As we can see from the spacing, the major scale may sound normal but it is far from straightforward. It is the result of intervention and choice. If a scale based on the chromatic scale but featuring fewer notes was mathematically normal then it would be a whole-tone scale (third stave) which, as we know, sounds far from normal. Chromatic Major Wholetone Classical theory tells us that notes in a major scale (top stave) equate to specific chords. This helps us rationalise how music theory itself rationalizes frequency into pitch and turns it into music. Fig. C Dm Em F G Am
Fig.4 The chords in fig.4, displayed in scalic order, evolve from the key centre of C. Most music in the key of C would feature a combination of these chords. Frequently in terms of song, if something was in C, these are all the chords they would use. The template above is probably responsible for about % of the world s popular music. Obviously all music isn t in the key of C the key of C is purely representational. The chords used in relation to the key centre are transferable to all keys, but the maths is the same. Unfortunately the chord chart in fig.4 is fairly useless because it is sequential; no one would ever write a piece of music where the primary chords in the key of C were delivered in this précises mathematical and sequential way. The chords used in fig. also have the same key centre, around which the same chords exist. Unfortunately in practical terms this template is gibberish because it shows the chords randomly displayed, not in their harmonic order or placement in relation to the key centre. This is why most chord charts, although being great for playing a piece, are less good at explaining or revealing the context. Fig. The figure to the right is the familiar cycle of ths Fig.6 Imagine instead if chords were displayed as below (fig.), where the chords are laid out horizontally, not in the C, Dm, E, F, G, Am sequence but instead according to where the different keys would fall having the flat keys (the ones with flats in the signature) to the right and the sharp keys (the ones with sharps in the signature) to the left. The enharmonic crossover points are displayed in boxes at either end of the horizontal sequence of chords. This is a style of harmonic analysis I will use numerous times within the text of the book for the purposes of understanding chord changes.
Fig. In fig. to the left we have chords down a 4 th each time (G, D, A etc). To the right we have chords up a 4 th (F, Bb, Eb etc). The red boxed chords are enharmonic crossovers. C# F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fig.8 In the example below (fig.8) the key centre is still C but we have dispensed with the duplicative enharmonic crossovers, choosing the chords which are more appropriate and easy to rationalise and not all possible enharmonic alternatives. B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb In the example below the key centre is F. The centre of gravity of the key centre has shifted to the right but in order to retain the integrity of the display and methodology, F has now visually shifted virtually centre stage. Fig.9 E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fig.0 In the example below the key centre is A. The centre of gravity of the key centre has shifted again but, again, in order to retain the integrity of the display, A has now shifted centre stage Eb Ab Db F# B E A D G C F Bb In the graph below (fig ), which is back in the safe key centre territory of C, complete with an enharmonic overlap, I have added the relative minor chords underneath the major ones. Chords are contained in bubbles but empty bubbles lie above and below the chords displayed. Also I have added perforated lines to display the level to which the chords in this territory lie outside the key centre.
Fig. As I said before, the inner perforated circle represents chords we find in about % of most popular music (relative to key). In the version in fig. these revolve around the key of C. Outside this key centre we see chords laid out in the order not of their literal proximity, but their harmonic proximity to the key centre. The major and relative minor chords cannot be altered. These exist with the presumption of a key centre existing at all. The empty bubbles above and below can be used to display any kind of altered chord (extensions, slash chords, inversions based on the chord they lay on top of or underneath) and are therefore almost limitless. In the version below I have added some examples of chords underneath and above the primary chords, which is simply be a selection of possible types of extension chords that might be used. They exist in their correct harmonic context, lying above or below their host or primary chord.
Fig.2 In the example below (fig.) the chords underneath and above the primary chords are simply an alternative selection of possible types of chords which might be used; this time including slash chords and inversions. Again, they exist in their correct harmonic context, lying above or below their primary chord.
Fig. This type of analysis, which we can call the Chord Grid, enables composers to study the work of other writers, looking at choices made and avenues explored. If we design a chord grid for a favourite song we can see how composers used the chords available to them, and crucially, which ones they did not use. This type of analysis of chords also enables musicians to contextualise the vast possibilities harmony offers. Using this system of displaying abbreviated harmony (chord symbols) we can potentially spot other important structural similarities or peculiarities. If you select songs from a whole host of famous artists over the past few decades, take the chord symbols from their songs and place them over a grid, it can be quite interesting to see what a harmonic analysis looks like. When we see a normal chord chart we look at the chords in sequence and so we tend to analyse bit by bit. When we extract a chord sequence and place it over a chord grid we tend to see all the song in one hit. Characteristics tend to become more obvious in terms of how music navigates round a key centre. By displaying harmonic possibilities using a grid of chords we see straight away that harmony offers a much richer abundance of major chord extensions, inversions and slash chords than minor.
The make-up and harmonic complexities of major chords offer more variation; minor chords less so. This is why grids have more major chord possibilities. Nevertheless when composing we tend to choose a fairly even variety of major and minor chords which means that actually we choose a disproportionately higher number of minor chords in relation to how many there are available. The major chords are ripe for use because there are so many available extensions. The ones below represent a few extension types 6 th th maj th maj 9 th 6/9 add2 add9 th th Aug th (+) Dim (o) b9 b0 (#) In addition there are then a vast array of inversions and slash chords. In this context minor chords are harmonically less able to be altered. Below are pretty much the main extensions used. m m9 m6 m Fig.4 With minor chords less slash chords are available because there are fewer chords on which to base such chords. Now I want to look at some fairly obvious chord relationships; chord sequences that work because of common notes. Chords of C & Ab connected by the note of C Chords of G & Eb connected by the note of G Chords of A & F connected by the note of A B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Chords of E and C connected by the note of E Chords of D and Bb connected by the note of D
Fig. It s worth pausing here for a moment to consider how these simple chord exchanges work. On a crude level they work, quite simply, because they share a common note. There is a common relationship, which, as listeners, we respond to. But on a deeper level we respond to something else; a different context and meaning. This different context and meaning is featured in many of the songs analysed in this project. If we look at the two simple chords to the left, we presume the only movements are the bottom two notes (from C and G to F and A). We assume that this alone dictates how we perceive the chord changing. The top two notes are physically unchanged so we assume they are completely unchanged. The issue is that, as musical notes they remain the same, but what they represent as intervals (something we as listeners respond to) has changed. The C and E on the treble clef stave represent root and major rd but in bar 2 the same two sounds and notes now represent th and maj th because they have been recontextualised by new notes underneath. Most people are happily oblivious to this fact but it still affects their listening experience. They are beneficiaries of the change in intervallic context without neccasarily understanding it. When we hear notes move in chord sequences we respond to two realities, not one; there are two types of movement taking place, not one. Taking the relationship between the chords of D and Bb and their common note of D, during the transition we hear the note of D once and then again as part of its new surroundings. We hear the same note (this is the musical context) but we hear another context (how the note relates in terms of its interval in the new chord) too. As a note it doesn t move; it goes from D to D. As an interval it moves from the root of the D chord to the rd of the Bb chord. As listeners this is the intervallic manoeuvre we notice and one which forms a large part of our listening experience. This is part of what music is. Each and every melody note and each and every note in each and every chord have, potentially, two possible meanings; two realities: the musical and the intervallic the note and what it means. This, more than almost any other aspect of harmony, defines how we respond to what we hear. This central point will appear regularly in this book in varying degrees of complexity. Words One very simple way of rationalizing this form of analysis is to compare it to words. Let s take the word chair and then the word choir. When we change one letter in the second word we change everything. We change the context, the perspective and the meaning. The same would apply with the words plate and plane. We change one letter but by definition we also completely change the meaning of the rest of the letters because we change the meaning of the word itself. Let s look at how one letter can change everything in a 24-word sentence: the following sentence was what should have appeared in a national newspaper referring to Prince Charles relationship with his then secret lover Camilla Parker-Bowles: His comments followed claims that the Prince has secretly seen Mrs Parker-Bowles for more than a decade, and as often as once a week However, due to a catastrophic typo, what appeared was this: His comments followed claims that the Prince has secretly been Mrs Parker-Bowles for more than a decade, and as often as once a week. One doesn t need to be a genius to realise that the error completely changes the sentence and its meaning. The picture to the left is a still from an American news show which was discussing the disgraced former champion cyclist Lance Armstrong, whose use of drugs, not rugs, was pivotal in his fall from grace. A by-line in a London evening paper once referred to Andrew Lloyd Webber s hit musical by mistakenly moving the apostrophe and printing Andrew Lloyd Webber shit musical. True story.
Fig.6 In the chords we looked at earlier in fig. the two top notes remained static but their meaning was changed because we d changed something else lower in the chord. Now let s look at the chord sequence underneath. How many notes change in this exchange? How many notes change in this exchange? Physically only one note changes in each sequence but in reality all notes change; one changes physically but the rest change intervallically, as shown below. Fig. Intervals 9 # 9 6 2 When we listen to the first two chords being played, we are aware that this is a particularly effective transition; a very colourful sequence where the character and complexion of the second chord in each sequence changes completely, but with only one note actually appearing to change. Fig.8 In order to simplify the issue of the musical note versus intervallic context, the stave below features several chords all voiced on bass clef. The note at the top of each chord is an E, represented by a straight line which shows the contour of the E.
Fig.9 This time the line which runs over the top of each stave is a visual representation of the note of E (top of each voicing) in context of what it represents as an interval within the chord. maj th maj th maj rd th th + th b 0 th 2 nd 2 nd The note of E therefore has two qualities, two characteristics, two contexts, two realities: the musical context and the intervallic context. The musical context doesn t shift but the intervallic context goes on quite a musical journey.
Chord voicing Fig.20 Another example below helps to contextualise these issues in terms of chord voicing. Below we have a succession of chords, all of which are in root position. This makes the journey from one to the next chord clinical and parallel sounding, as displayed by the notation and the somewhat exaggerated perforated contour lines underneath, displaying the contours of the notes. Fig.2 As we can see from the figure below, the intervallic movement (the intervals in relation to overall chord they create) show a predictably virtually identical pattern of movement Fig.22 maj maj m m m m m m maj maj
Fig.2 The same chords below are now revoiced to allow variable movement. Underneath we can now see the contours of the notes have variation. We have placed a 9 th in the Fm chord to allow for a smoother contour Fig.24 If we now look at the revoiced notes of each chord as intervals we can see that they too are now variable and not identical like they were in fig.22 G as 9 th B as maj D as th Bb as m th D as maj G as th B as th G as th C as th E as rd G as rd Eb as rd Ab as rd G as rd G as rd C as root E as root C as root F as root Eb as root
Perhaps the best way of displaying the magnitude of the difference between the note and the interval it represents relative to the chord created by the collective harmony, is by placing both contexts side by side (below, fig.2). Before you look at this have a glance back at fig.2 and 22 which contain the musical and intervallic context of the root-positioned version (both of which are nearly identical). Looking at music in D Fig.2 The notes / the sound The intervals, i.e. what the sound means This is what the chord sequence looks like in terms of notes (top) and intervals (bottom). This is what we listen to when we hear these chords written this way, voiced appropriately to ensure movement and variation. This is why harmony is much more than simply a bunch of notes. Perhaps this way of seeing the link between notes and intervals is like looking at music in D. One of the most effective ways of using harmony is to create the feeling of a lot of movement but without much actual physical note movement. The intervallic context changes but not the notes. As listeners we are in two worlds at once. The crucial thing here is that when a note changes intervallically but not physically, the listener is much more involved in the process, because it requires a stronger degree of involvement and reinterpretation. A physical note change is fairly easy to hear but a note remaining static whilst the interval it represents changes is a much more in-depth process to experience.
Fig.26 2 (add2) (2/6) Am G F 6 2 (b) maj The chords to the left are more examples of the same issue. The context of the top three notes of the three chords changes purely because of movement in the lower stave. The other interesting thing is that the notes on the bottom stave go physically down; the notes on the top stave stay physically static but the intervallic context of the notes on the top stave moves up. Fig.2 Another example is below, where, solely because of the movement of two notes on the lower stave, what the chord is changes profoundly. It could be said that the chord symbol name is simply a name. But people hear in much more complex ways than we assume. They are able to detect and respond to the changing context of the top notes. They hear the same notes but are aurally aware that they seem different. They are emotional beneficiaries of the evolving intervallic context that takes place. The changes in chord symbol name, therefore, represent an accurate example of the scale and magnitude of the change (omit ) (omit /add ) (m6) (omit ) Cadd2 Dm Eb6/maj Em F6/9 th 2 nd st th 8 th th maj rd maj th 6 th min rd th m6 th 9 th 6 th th When the same notes mean different things in different contexts, we can sometimes change chords completely by only actually changing one note (see below). Fig.28 In order to change chords we don t need to always change all the notes. We need to simply change one note which will recontextualise what the remaining notes represent.
Bars and 2 (of fig.28) feature a treble stave of identical notes but which have different names due to their context within the chord they represent. The same applies to bars and 4. The defining context in the chords in bars and 2 is a singular bass note; this changes everything. It changes the context of the notes above without moving what they are, merely what they represent intervallically. This is an important issue because it helps composers employ subtlety and refinement, sensitivity and delicacy. Opening our minds to different ways of viewing music can help unlock doors that remain closed simply because of how we rationalize music. Traditional theory is essential but one of the pitfalls is that it is designed not to analyse and discover new ideas, but to chronicle, annotate, interpret and perform existing music. That is the context of its existence. In order to use what music theory offers, try to use it to analyse and identify patterns and characteristics in music. Fig.29 The chord chart below shows a few examples of chord changes. Bars - begin with a chord, the context of which evolves into something else when the lower stave notes are added halfway through the bar. Sometimes composers can gain mileage from making one chord fit into an entirely new chord by manipulation and the utilization of extensions. Composers normally change from one chord to another in rather more obvious ways; occasionally they add extensions, embellishments or inversions but the basic design of music means most chord changes are a little obvious. Underneath is what can happen when you evolve a chord by retaining as much of it as you can but adding other notes to reshape existing notes. th becomes rd becomes st becomes.9 th.maj. th maj th becomes th becomes rd becomes st becomes..# th.9 th.maj th. th th becomes rd becomes st becomes th.9 th. th (maj) th becomes rd becomes st becomes.m0 th (m rd ). th.m rd th becomes rd becomes st becomes th.9.maj. th rd becomes st becomes th becomes. th th.b9 Fig.0 Below we have the harmonic movement of each of the bars above contained in a graph, in which the musical note movement of the treble clef voicing is displayed, along with its representational movement. Top stave notes th 9 th th Intervals th rd st 9 th th # maj th 9 th maj th th rd st maj th th th rd st
Top stave notes th Intervals m0 th th 9 th maj th th b9 m rd th rd st th rd st Fig.0 Also composers all-too rarely benefit even from what a more enlightened and artistic use of an inversion might bring. Most use inversions as stepping stone chords, transitory in nature. Remember, chords are defined by two things: what they are but more importantly how they re used. A chord is only as good as the way you use it. There is, for example, as I have stated elsewhere, no such thing as a great chord. A great chord in isolation is robbed of the context which makes it great. Below are a handful of chord changes which, again, make use of some notes remaining physically static but changing their intervallic status. Arrangers and orchestrators are frequently tasked with ensuring smooth movement of voicing between chords and adding extensions to both colour chords and consolidate chord relationships. To the right of each chord I have listed the interval stated by the notes. The ones to focus on are the ones that stay physically static. 4 m maj 2 b 0 # 8 4 9 8 maj 6 maj 2 Although the two lower notes move upwards by only a semitone, the bottom two notes of the RH move intervallically down a semitone. Also the top note of the second chord - because of the nature of the voicing - moves from being a th to a th. What this all means is that the movement is intervallic and therefore involves a different kind of interpretation by the listener. The changes are slightly less obvious and involves us more The third chord in this manouvre is at the start of bar two. This time the top three notes have changed again. Not only are we more involved in this kind of transition because the move is intervallic rather than physical, the destination intervals (#, and b0) are not conventional. This manouvre is a lot simpler to listen to because both chords are what we might call soft pop chords. The first one is the type of voicing which appears frequently in ballads. The add2 is buried in the middle of the chord and it contains an extra dramatic lift from the inversion. The voicing is vertically quite open. The final sequence on bar four, which is arpegiated in bar five, is quite an effective change. The change in colour in these chords is particularly effective, not least because the bottom C# moves physically a semitone but intervallically from rd to root. Also in these chords we have the A and B side by side. In the first chord this is not noticeable but in the second chord these two notes represent the maj6 and the maj, two intervals you would rarely see in the same chord; this is not just because they are side by side but also because as intervals they fulfil quite different roles in terms of the colour they give to the chords. The arpegiated version distributes the harmony horizontally which makes the effect slightly different in that it is gradual and cumulative rather than vertically parallel and instantaneous. In the pages that follow I have placed some more chord changes, but this time onto the chord grid so we can gauge how far the second chord has travelled away from the harmony of the first chord.
Fig. Fmaj9 to Em both share the G note, which moves from being a 9 th to being a rd F#maj9 Bmaj9 Emaj9 Amaj9 Dmaj9 Gmaj9 Cmaj9 Fmaj9 Bbmaj9 Ebmaj9 Abmaj9 Dbmaj Gbmaj Emaj and Eb both share the D#/Eb note, which moves from being a maj to the octave of the Eb chord F#9 B9 E9 A9 D9 G9 C9 F9 Bb9 Eb9 Ab9 Db9 Gb9 F#maj Bmaj Emaj Amaj Dmaj Gmaj Cmaj Fmaj Bbmaj Ebmaj Abmaj Dbmaj Gbmaj F#6 B6 E6 A6 D6 G6 C6 F6 Bb6 Eb6 Ab6 Db6 Gb6 F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb D#m G#m C#m F#m Bm Em Am Dm Gm Cm Fm Bbm Ebm D#m G#m C#m F#m Bm Em Am Dm Gm Cm Fm Bbm Ebm D#m6 G#m6 C#m6 F#m6 Bm6 Em6 Am6 Dm6 Gm6 Cm6 Fm6 Bbm6 Ebm6 (b) C#m F and Ebm6 both share the C note ( th to maj6)
Fig.2 D (b0) to Dbmaj share the F note (b0 to maj) and the C note ( th to maj th ) (b0) D Bb(#) to Am share the G note( th to th ) E note (# to ) C note (9 th to rd ) (#) Bb F#maj9 Bmaj9 Emaj9 Amaj9 Dmaj9 Gmaj9 Cmaj9 Fmaj9 Bbmaj9 Ebmaj9 Abmaj9 Dbmaj Gbmaj F#9 B9 E9 A9 D9 G9 C9 F9 Bb9 Eb9 Ab9 Db9 Gb9 F#maj Bmaj Emaj Amaj Dmaj Gmaj Cmaj Fmaj Bbmaj Ebmaj Abmaj Dbmaj Gbmaj F#6 B6 E6 A6 D6 G6 C6 F6 Bb6 Eb6 Ab6 Db6 Gb6 F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb D#m G#m C#m F#m Bm Em Am Dm Gm Cm Fm Bbm Ebm D#m G#m C#m F#m Bm Em Am Dm Gm Cm Fm Bbm Ebm D#m6 G#m6 C#m6 F#m6 Bm6 Em6 Am6 Dm6 Gm6 Cm6 Fm6 Bbm6 Ebm6 (b) C#m G to C#m(b) share the G note (root to b) B note ( rd to th )