Triadic Modal and Pentatonic Patterns in Rock Music

Biamonte, Nicole

doi:10.1525/mts.2010.32.2.95

Cited by 89 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(1 reference statement)

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“…My focus on Radiohead provides the answer to such a question. Systematic studies of rock harmony by Moore (), Nicole Biamonte () and de Clercq and Temperley () all aim towards an assessment of older rock practices. Everett () and Christopher Doll (), while including more modern musical examples, aim to represent practices as disparate as that of the Beatles (highly tonal with functional chromaticism) and non‐tonal metal that utilises parallel tritones and other non‐functional dissonances.…”

Section: Three Primary Systems For Voice Leading and Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To privilege contrapuntal structures in ‘Lotus Flower’ and other Radiohead songs is to depart from mode‐based theories of rock harmony, such as that advanced by Biamonte (), which is perhaps the most sustained and systematic argument on the topic. Because her methodology is not only based on chordal collections, but also incorporates melodic voice leading, Biamonte avoids conflating pitch centricity and hypermetre .…”

Section: Functional Modal (Fm) Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rock Harmony Reconsidered: Tonal, Modal and Contrapuntal Voice‐Leading Systems in Radiohead

Osborn¹

2017

Music Analysis

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A great deal of the harmony and voice leading in the British rock group Radiohead's recorded output between 1997 and 2011 can be heard as elaborating either traditional tonal structures or establishing pitch centricity through purely contrapuntal means.1 A theory that highlights these tonal and contrapuntal elements departs from a number of developed approaches in rock scholarship: first, theories that focus on fretboard-ergonomic melodic gestures such as axefall and box patterns; 2 second, a proclivity towards analysing chord roots rather than melody and voice leading; 3 and third, a methodology that at least tacitly conflates the ideas of hypermetric emphasis and pitch centre.Despite being initially yoked to the musical conventions of punk and grunge (and their attendant guitar-centric compositional practice), Radiohead's 1997-2011 corpus features few of the characteristic fretboard gestures associated with rock harmony (partly because so much of this music is composed at the keyboard) and thus demands reconsideration on its own terms. This mature period represents the fullest expression of Radiohead's unique harmonic, formal, timbral and rhythmic idiolect, 4 as well as its evolved instrumentation, centring on keyboard and electronics. The point here is not to isolate Radiohead's harmonic practice as something fundamentally different from all rock which came before it. Rather, by depending less on rock-paradigmatic gestures such as pentatonic box patterns on the fretboard, their music invites us to consider how such practices align with existing theories of rock harmony while diverging from others.Functional tonal systems (FT), the first of three systems I will apply to Radiohead's voice-leading practice, will corroborate the observation made by such scholars as Walter Everett (2008) and Drew Nobile (2011): that many rock harmonic structures can be fruitfully understood as elaborating a highly functional tonal syntax which relies on descending-fifth root motions to harmonise2 and7 (leading note) converging on the tonic. Pitch centres that are not created through FT structures may also be established through relatively simple passing, neighbour and plagal motions and thus belong in my second category, contrapuntal systems (CP). In the wake of a rigorous definition and illustration of the first two systems, a clear niche emerges for functional modal systems (FM), in which the minor dominant is used to support2 and b7 (the subtonic) converging on the tonic. 5 Rather than identifying modes through mere scalar construction, this third system recognises modal syntax only in terms of Music Analysis, 36/i (2017) 59

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Section: Three Primary Systems For Voice Leading and Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Functional Modal (Fm) Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rock Harmony Reconsidered: Tonal, Modal and Contrapuntal Voice‐Leading Systems in Radiohead

Osborn¹

2017

Music Analysis

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“…Conclusion: Timbre, Pitch, and Identity [8.1] Recent popular music theory continues to offer important findings that broaden scholarly discussion of the harmonic (Everett 2007(Everett , 2009Biamonte 2010;Temperley 2011) and formal (Spicer 2004;Biamonte 2011) aspects of rock music. The October 2011 issue of this journal expanded on the complex function of form within musical analysis, addressing an important and problematic feature of popular music analysis.…”

Section: Neutral Milk Hotel "The King Of Carrot Flowers Part 1"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Timbre as Differentiation in Indie Music

Blake

2012

MTO

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[1.1] Scholars have long understood the ideology of rock-based Anglo-American popular music genres to be based on difference, whether against generational, political, generic, or indistinct hegemonic forces. This thesis has received special attention in scholarship scrutinizing independent or "indie" music, a motley collection of genres and styles (indie pop, indie rock, indie folk, etc.) unified through associations with small record labels, college or noncommercial radio, and alternative methods of distribution. Numerous studies have demonstrated how Indie music foregrounds discourses of differentiation against mainstream music from social, political, economic, and/or cultural perspectives, while it simultaneously profits from mainstream processes of institutionalized capitalism and social privilege (Lee 1995;Thornton 1996;Hesmondhalgh 1999;Hibbert 2005;Newman 2009;Dolan 2010). Such studies accurately describe the complexities of indie music's claims of differentiation from a cultural standpoint, but they tend to obscure the genre's most salient feature: the music. How does music serve to aurally project "independence" in indie music? How can extramusical differentiation connect with musical sound? [1.2] This article asserts that timbre, more than any other musical parameter, expresses extramusical differentiation in independent music genres. Timbre is the primary vehicle by which indie music is produced and heard as different from its contemporaneous mainstream. Timbral choices intended as different from stereotypes of mainstream sound connect with discourses of differentiation on cultural, political, economic, and/or generic planes. I demonstrate this claim through three ABSTRACT: The divide between "independent" and "mainstream" crucial to popular music discourses of the past twenty years has garnered scholarly attention from cultural studies and sociology, but not from music theorists. This paper argues that timbre, more than any other musical parameter, musically expresses differentiation from mainstream sounds in indie music. Phenomenological theories of Merleau-Ponty and Edward Casey are used to proffer a methodology of timbral analysis premised on contextually meaningful, complementarily perceived adjectives. Three case studies examining music of My Bloody Valentine, Neutral Milk Hotel, and the Shins exemplify this analytic framework.

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“…Lilliestam (1996) discusses compositional processes in pop music, and refers to many sources that cite the influence of instrumental topographies, such as Turner (1976, p. 44), Martin (1983, p. 70), and Santoro (1986, p. 58). See also Everett and Covach (2004) and Biamonte (2010) and Moore (2001, pp. 59-60 also 83-8).…”

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confidence: 99%

On the interaction of alliteration with rhythm and metre in popular music

Salley

2011

Pop. Mus.

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A number of scholars have written on characteristics of vocal melody in popular music, but little attention has been paid at the level of phonetic detail. This study argues that the phonetic structure of a melody can contribute in important ways to a song's reception and success, given the ways that listeners react and respond to vocalised melody. This article discusses different ways in which stressed syllables in familiar pop songs alliterate, and it investigates the way these patterns interact rhythmically with metre.

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Triadic Modal and Pentatonic Patterns in Rock Music

Cited by 89 publications

References 2 publications

Rock Harmony Reconsidered: Tonal, Modal and Contrapuntal Voice‐Leading Systems in Radiohead

Rock Harmony Reconsidered: Tonal, Modal and Contrapuntal Voice‐Leading Systems in Radiohead

Timbre as Differentiation in Indie Music

On the interaction of alliteration with rhythm and metre in popular music

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