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Tonality of popular music

25K views 205 replies 21 participants last post by  kinzopiano 
#1 · (Edited)
How much does it differ from CP tonality? How "functional" (whatever that means!) it is? I don't think the V-I cadence is actually all that important for "establishing tonality" in popular music. I mean, I guess it's fairly common to end a piece/section with those chords but I think that's more likely just a consequence of them both being major chords in the key (and major chords are popular). According to this, it is equally common to precede the I chord with the IV chord (actually a bit more common in fact!).

Also in the minor keys, while the major V chord and the leading tone is certainly common, my intuition says that it is also common to use only natural minor through the song. That would be quite un-CP. Am I wrong?
 
#148 ·
If your objecting to me saying that in minor keys it is vi instead of I that is emphasized (rather than talking about say i, III, VI, and VII), I did that deliberately to make it clear that in both major and minor it is often the same exact scale and chords. No disagreement that i-VI-III-VII would be an unusual chord progression from the perspective of 17th, 18th and 19th century tonality.
 
#149 ·
But they are neither the same chords nor do they use the same scale from a tonal perspective. Tonality is a system based on the relationships between harmonies, not the collection of notes used.

Put simply, you can no more say that something is "based on vi" from a tonal point of view than you can claim that in a C major song that never modulates C can be thought of as IV because from the perspective of G major, it's IV. There are in fact some pop songs that only ever use the I and IV chords, just as in classical music there are those simple pieces or sections which use exclusively the I and V chords. These chords may have the same names in the right pair of keys, but they necessarily have a different relationship to each other, and tonality is about that relationship, not the names of the chords.
 
#150 · (Edited)
The scales of C major and A natural minor are the same collection of notes. The triads C major, F major and G major and A minor are in a sense the same chords whether the center is perceived as A or C (they are "the same thing from a different perspective"). This is not a sophistic point, particularly because the perception of a centre can often be ambiguous/subjective.
 
#151 · (Edited)
I didn't disagree with any of that.

I'm just saying it's not relevant from a tonal perspective.

The scales are not the same, though they contain the same notes (assuming the natural minor only, of course).

Of course a G major triad is G major whether it's V, IV, I, or anything else. But whether it's a G major triad isn't as important to the tonal identity as its relative relationship to the tonic.
 
#157 ·
I have no idea where that progression came from, unless its a typo. To clear this up, it is a well-known fact that the typical rock/pop progression is I-vi-IV-V, which is the typical "doo-wop" progression. Does this clarify the issue?
 
#163 ·
I think the deceptive cadence of major keys (V - vi) has become a normal cadence of minor keys (VII - i) in pop music.
 
#167 ·
flat-VII to I has been a normal cadence in rock and pop for a half century. Whether it is tonal or not …
 
#164 ·
There's so little sense of function in that chord cycle that I'm not sure they're really "in" anything.

The Marc Antony song ends on the minor chord so I'd say i - VI - III- VII makes most sense.

The Beyonce song ends on VII (or V), with a fermata, sounding like it wants to resolve to III (or I). So actually vi - IV - I -V might be a better description there.

What is more interesting to me is why the pop music industry began repeating this particular chord cycle so obsessively around 2006.

There are of course earlier examples. I'll cop to liking this song as an angsty Midwestern teenager.
 
#168 · (Edited)
Many pop songs are circular and repetitive, so they do not stand up to CP Tonal analysis as chord progressions, but instead are "successions" of chords which are circular and to not lead to a definite goal. This is not bad; it's simply that pop music, or folk, does not need a goal, and it is repetitive by nature.

"Every Breath You Take" by the Police is a good example of an ambiguous succession of chords: G-Em-C-D-Em/G-Em-C-D-G. So is it in Em or G? Who knows, who cares, let's just dance. Here, take a hit off of this. Don't worry, we're in Colorado.

This is an example of how different forms of music embody different lifestyles , ideologies, and worldviews. To analyze pop music in terms of CP Tonality, and implying that it "makes no sense" or is somehow deficient only reveals the absurdity of such a criticism.
 
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#169 ·
[/I]This is an example of how different forms of music embody different lifestyles , ideologies, and worldviews. To analyze pop music in terms of CP Tonality, and implying that it "makes no sense" or is somehow deficient only reveals the absurdity of such a criticism.
I've never meant to say any such thing. What I have said is that the way people sometimes think about these things as if the prototype for one's harmonic language is always the major scale even when a different center is emphasized makes no sense, not that the music doesn't.

If the music made no sense to people, I doubt that they would make it so popular in the first place.
 
#174 ·
Many pop songs are circular and repetitive, so they do not stand up to CP Tonal analysis as chord progressions, but instead are "successions" of chords which are circular and to not lead to a definite goal. This is not bad; it's simply that pop music, or folk, does not need a goal, and it is repetitive by nature. To analyze pop music in terms of CP Tonality, and implying that it "makes no sense" or is somehow deficient only reveals the absurdity of such a criticism.
 
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#176 · (Edited)
I see the net result of your involvement on this thread as discussing popular music in terms of traditional CP Tonality, and I'm not interested in using that as a reference. I don't care what point it is you are trying to make, and I did not quote you in my statement (post #168); I was speaking generally, as the OP seemed to be asking for answers to pop music in CP terms. That's an area I'm simply not interested in pursuing.
 
#178 ·
Don't use the word "modal" around here, or you will get ensnared by the Gregorian Brotherhood of Darkness.

This is Wilson Pickett, "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love."

The chords are I-IV-b7-IV, in a repeating cycle or "succession" of chords which lead to no goal as a "progression" would do in CP Tonality.

So, the b7 could lead you to say it is based on a "mixolydian" scale, which in jazz terms is a major scale with a flatted seven, or the fifth "mode" of a major scale.

I hear his singing as being pentatonic, though, a majorish pentatonic, which I relate to blues music. There is no flat seven in his vocal line, just those "riffs" he is singing.

Blues can use both major and minor pentatonics, interchangeably, as you can hear in B.B. King's guitar playing. These combine into a blues "super-scale:" In C, the M pent is C-D-E-G-A, and min pent is C-Eb-F-G-Bb, which combines into C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb. Add the "blue note" of F#, and you have a very flexible scale, from which either majorish or minorish sounds can be derived.

I still insist that pentatonics were used in African music, and was brought over during the slave trade, and became blues and jazz, regardless of what my tormentors might say.
 
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#181 · (Edited)
I think a point that anyone familiar with jazz should realize is that:

...music theory principles (such as tonality, scales, root functions) can be extracted from "proper Tonality" as a Western tradition, and abstracted and used to define 'tonality' in other forms of music.

This is especially true of the concept of "modes" used by jazz and pop music composers, such as 'the third mode of the melodic minor scale' and 'the dorian mode,' etc.

These are flexible, practical, useful ideas which should not be confused with traditional 'proper' notions used when referring to "Tonal" music or "modal" music.

I've seen in the past how Taggart and Mahlerian have used the traditional definitions and ideas of 'modality' and 'tonality' seemingly to confuse the issue, or to "be right and correct", but certainly not to clarify the issue.

If you need practical knowledge and terminology in order to analyze and define 'popular' music (and much jazz is based on the "pop" songs of Gershwin, Mercer, Cole Porter and others), you should come from a flexible jazz perspective, and avoid being bogged down by academic thinkers & approaches.

I'm not trying to offend anybody, but if your real interest is in clarification and reaching a true flexible understanding, you will agree with what I am saying. If you just want to 'play', debate, or obfuscate, it's a waste of everyone's time who are seeking real answers to the OP's query.
 
#187 · (Edited)
I was listening to a great song of Randy Newman, In Germany before the war, and even if it's harmonically a simple song there's a passage where he uses bitonality (well I guess it's bitonality, I hear minor and major together at 1:30 on "A little girl has lost her way") that gives to the song that unsettling mood

 
#188 ·
Yeah, that is a good song; that's the first time I've heard it. I wouldn't call that 'bitonality,' I'd say he was doing it, as you said, to unsettle us.
 
#191 ·
popular music is usually heavily reliant on the repetition of chord progressions, other common features include a "groove" underneath the chord progression.
But if we're talking metal, heavy chromaticism over usually a tonic, often Eminor or Dminor.
Not that hard to understand :tiphat:
 
#200 ·
I've been listening to Doo-wop music. This is an interesting area of popular music, because the harmonic models are all consistent in all the songs, with a few variations; it is usually I-vi-IV-V7.


...and this is based on Western progressions, not blues or pentatonic. This is also seen in jazz, with its ii-V7-I progressions.
 
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#201 ·
I've been listening to Doo-wop music. This is an interesting area of popular music, because the harmonic models are all consistent in all the songs, with a few variations; it is usually I-vi-IV-V7.

...and this is based on Western progressions, not blues or pentatonic. This is also seen in jazz, with its ii-V7-I progressions.
Yes, I adore doo-wop too, regardless of how harmonically uncreative it might be.
 
#203 ·
Forget the internet. Too many potential distractions, not enough consistency, too much change.
You should use a book, with your instrument at hand. Keep theory books by the bed, and read every night to fall asleep. Libraries are not good sources of sheet music and books on music, music stores are, and used bookstores.

You're going to end up like all the rest of the internet generation: inconsistent, impatient, distracted, unfocussed, with no drive.
 
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