42 Years of Popular Music Analysis

Teaching in 21 Minutes [2 years per minute]

Philip TaggVisiting Professor, Universities of Huddersfield and Salford

(UK)www.tagg.org

http://tagg.org/Clips/Nantes130531.mp4 or http://youtu.be/GbDG8ApNhRs must be accessible

A short audit of a few problems in the denotation ofmusical structure, with suggestions for

improvementPresentation at Popular Music Analysis Conference,University of Liverpool, 4 July, 2013

Previous versions ‘The Trouble with Tonal Terminology', ‘Too Important to Fail', etc. presented in Rome, Glasgow, Århus, Göteborg, Durham, Liverpool (2011); Newcastle, Lancaster, Nottingham, Berlin, Granada, London (City), Manchester, Granada, Cáceres, Huddersfield (2012), Cambridge (Anglia), Naples, Trento, Nantes (2013).

Overviewpresentation overview as intended in Liverpool, 4 July 2013

• ‘Time’• ‘Totality' or ‘form’• Que faire?

• Background and aim• ‘Tonality’

BACKGROUND

Background [potted CV 1]

• 1957-62 Organ, composition, trad. jazz• 1962-65 BA in Music (Cambridge);

Scottish country dancing, soul/R&B

• 1963 -66 Cert. Ed. (Manchester); mainstream blues/jazz, pop demos

• 1966-71 Various gigging combos (Sweden)

• 1971 Full time employment as music teacher‘unusually

eclectic’

Background [potted CV 2]• 1968-72 Choir (sing & arr.)• 1971-76 Agitrock band• 1971-78 Keyboard harmony, etc.• 1971- History and analysis (incl.

euroclass., pop, jazz, ‘world’, etc.)• 1993- Music & Moving Image courses• 1998-2001 EPMOW articles• 2009 Everyday Tonality• 2012 Music’s Meanings: a musicology

for non-musos

Visited 2012-05-03

Sets and subsets (1)Rain

Hail

Snow

PRECIPITATION

‘MUSIC’

‘popular’‘ethno’‘world’‘dance’

‘contemporary’‘medieval’

‘jazz’etc.

‘avant-garde’‘early’‘rock’etc.

TONALITY

Sets and subsets (2)Rain

Hail

Snow

TONALITY

Euroclassicalc. 1730 – 1910

― ‘functional’ (!?)―—‘tonal’ (!?)—

‘modal’‘pretonal’ (!)‘posttonal’ (!?)

‘contemporary’‘medieval’

‘jazz’etc.

‘atonal’ (!?)‘primitive’etc.

Tonal Terminology• Aspects of musical structure

compatible with Western notation:• i.e. a system of graphic

representation developed to encode mainly monometric music whose pitches conform to the twelve notes of our chromatically divided octave.

• (a v. small % of all music at any time anywhere)

Basic definitions• TONE : note with audible fundamental

pitch• TONAL : consisting or characteristic of

tones• TONALITY : system of tonal

configuration• TONIC : central reference tone in

relation to which other tones in a piece or extract of music are audibly related

One problem :Tonalité/tonalidad/tonalità, etc. =

key/Tonart—idiome tonal for ‘tonality’/‘Tonalität’— ?

PLEASE DISTINGUISH

betweenTONE and TONIC

‘ATONAL’ !?

Linguistic derivative pattern 1

— -al -alityNoun Adjective Abstract nounroot derivativederivative

brute brutalbrutalitycrime criminalcriminalityform formal formalitymode modal modalityTONE TONALTONALITY

Linguistic derivative pattern 2

-ic -ical (-icality/-icism)Noun Adjective Noun Adjectivecleric clerical clinic clinicalcomic comical critic criticalethic[s] ethical lyric[s] lyricalmagic magical musicmusicalmystic mystical physic[s]physicalsceptic sceptical rhetoric rhetoricaltactic[s] tactical topic topicaltropic[s] tropicalAbstr. n. musicality, physicality, topicality OR criticism, mysticism, scepticism HENCE TONICALITY OR TONICISM

ergo:

ATONICAL or

NON-TONICAL,

ATONICALITY,

etc. TONIC TONICAL

Tonality v. Modality

ionian (heptatonic/diatonic)

phrygian (heptatonic/diatonic)

Nawa Athar (heptatonic)نوى أثر

doh-pentatonic (anhemitonic)

ré-pentatonic (anhemitonic)

hirajoshi (pos. 4: hemitonic, pentatonic)

Which of these modes are tonal and which are modal?

All MODES are by

definition

TONAL

Chordal mystery category

QUARTAL‘triadic’? ‘functional’ ? ‘diatonic’?TERTIAL

PLEASE DISTINGUISHTETRAD FOURTHTRIAD THIRD

Tonal terminology conclusions

• Don’t confuse TONE with TONIC. Tonal music without a tonic is ATONICAL, not ‘atonal’.• Don’t confuse TRIADs with THIRDS. If harmony

based on stacked fourths is quartal, harmony based on stacked thirds is TERTIAL.• Don’t propagate false contradictions like ‘TONAL v.

MODAL’. Please conceptualise all modes, including the ionian, as modes. Please also consider all modes as tonal.• Don’t use TONAL and TONALITY in a musically,

culturally and intellectually restrictive manner. Please consider the MULTIPLICITY of TONALITIES (tonal systems).

TIME

SORRY. NO TIME FOR TIME THIS TIMEexcept to mention just a few terms

Time: a few problem terms —under construction—

• syncopation • polyrhythm• polymetricity• cross-rhythm• extended

present

— only possible in monometric music with unequivocal downbeats

— arises when >1 rhythmic pattern is heard at the same time

— more accurate designation of rhythmic traits in many Subsaharan musics

— term used by Subsaharan music scholars and practitioners to cover ‘polymetricity’ (a eurocentric term)

— neuroscientifically established concept essential to understanding how batches of ‘now sound’ (syncrisis, groove, etc.) work

FORM“a shape; an arrangement of

parts” (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1995)

Visual “form” (‘composition’, ‘shape’, etc.)

Musical “form” (‘composition’?)Exposition | Exposition | Development |

Recapitulation Chorus | Chorus |Middle 8/Bridge| Chorus A | A | B | A

diachronic, extensional form

synchronic, intensional form

vessel formed as a coffee pot

bushformed

as amushroo

m

Play video

http://tagg.org/Clips/Nantes130531.mp4or

http://youtu.be/GbDG8ApNhRs

QUE FAIRE?

What to do? (1)• Ostrich strategy. ‘Nothing is wrong’. Carry on as

usual. ‘We may be in the minority but we’re always right.’• Defeatist (‘realist’) strategy. Take note but no

action: ‘interesting; some valid points but we have to deal with music theory “as is”. You can’t change >100 years of dubiously ethnocentric labelling. Get used to it!’• Tokenist strategy. ‘We’re broad-minded and

modern. We have ethnomusicology and/or popular music studies and/or music technology on the curriculum but we see no need to change the basics of music theory.• Laissez-faire (‘anti-authoritarian’) strategy. New

terms are as bad as old ones. You’re forcing everyone to think like you. Let things develop organically, man!

What to do (2)?• Risk alienation from conservative musicology

(both ancient and modern) by making life easier for the popular majority of students through: - simple reform of a few basic terms; - recognition of vernacular musical competence; - reintegration of music as a specific form of symbolic production on a par with others.

What to do (3)• Establish a forum of interested parties

in music education, media education, etc.

• Get together to decide on priorities for a reform of music theory terminology.

• Involve experts from as many musical territories as possible so as to minimise risks of producing new ethnocentric concepts.

• Collaborate across cultural, disciplinary and professional boundaries to produce a music theory primer (max. 100 pp.) to take us into the 21st-century and the age of globalisation.

Further edificationMusic’s Meanings: a modern musicology for non-musos (2013) tagg.org/mmmsp/publications.htmll [710 pp.]Everyday Tonality (2009) tagg.org/mmmsp/publications.html [334 pp.]

Dominants and DominanceMusical Learning & Epistemic DiffractionScotch Snaps: the big picture

Troubles with Tonal Terminology (2011-13)—tagg.org/articles/xpdfs/Aharonian2011.pdf [32 pp.]

‘Not the sort of thing you could photocopy’ (2013)A short idea history of notation with suggestions for reform in music education and research [21 pp.]—tagg.org/articles/xpdfs/Frith1301.pdf

THE END

Philip Tagg — tagg.org — MMXIII