42 years of popular music analysis teaching in 21 minutes [2 years per minute]
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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
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