Category: Theory Thursday

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By now the world has learned of the death of the great composer, songwriter, and pianist Burt Bacharach. He studied with, among others, Darius Milhaud, and elevated the pop song in so many different ways.

Since we haven’t done a Theory Thursday in a while, I thought it would be cool to talk about what makes Bacharach’s work so…well, cool.

In a lot of pop music – and in a lot of non-pop music – there are certain structural and tonal expectations. Two of the most common ones are:
1. Phrases (complete musical ideas ending with some kind of closure) are four measures in length
2. The most important relationship when defining a key is the dominant-tonic relationship (V-I).

Let’s listen to the song “Always Something There To Remind Me,” one of my favorite Bacharach tunes (co-written with the legendary Hal David). First up, the demo version from Miss Dionne Warwick:


Pretty cool, huh? Now let’s listen to the version I first heard in the 1980s, the synth-pop cover by the band Naked Eyes:

What jumps at you is the phrase structure. Instead of nice four-bar phrases, Bacharach gives us a verse with a phrase structure of five-five-three.

Example 1: The opening phrase, five measures long.

The asymmetry, coupled with the ending ii half-diminished chord (not a chord normally associated with the end of a phrase, though Robert Schumann uses one to great effect at the end of a phrase in “Widmung,” the opening song of the op. 25 collection), adds musical interest. Things are off-kilter. A romance is no more, but there’s always something there to remind you. Bacharach thwarts the first of the two expectations listed above.

The other expectation is thwarted as well; there’s not a V-I until you get to almost the end of the chorus, with “I was born to love you, but I will never be free.” Listen again. There’s not a root-position dominant The piece is clearly in a key (Naked Eyes uses D, so I shall use that as my reference point), but the V-I – the defining tonal relationship – is only barely present. You can go almost the entire form of the tune before you hit a V-I.

One last little bit: Naked Eyes’ version takes the descending chromatic line from the soprano in the original down to the bass. This doesn’t actually change anything harmonically, but it does add the dimension of possible reference to the lament bass, or a descending chromatic bass line used as the basis for a lament or sad song. (Purcell’s “When I am laid in Earth” from Dido and Aeneas is the go-to model.) Some websites list the second chord as A/C#, but as I hear it there’s not enough there to think in terms of it being a dominant, and even if you could hear it that way, it’s an inversion with strong chromatic linear motion, which goes a long way toward undercutting the idea of it being a V.

Example 2. The opening phrase as performed by Naked Eyes.

Bacharach was a titan for so many reasons, but for me it’s because he thwarted expectations, and in doing so created tiny masterpieces. May his memory be a blessing, and may he rest well.

WF

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(This was originally posted on Facebook.)

I am back home with my beloved and my kittens. Everything is unpacked.

It is no secret that I have a turbulent history with the discipline of music theory. The dissertation took far too long, and not all of that was my fault. I couldn’t get my work published or into conferences. The curriculum felt stale, like it was designed by people more interested in producing future graduate students than in actual pedagogy.

I was ready to walk away. Admin pays better, anyway.

Then some things happened.

We redid the curriculum. After about six years of the new curriculum, I feel like I’m getting a handle on it. In fact, I’m in the process of writing a textbook that aligns with our curriculum. It’s still loose and informal, but I’m happy to send it along for your perusal.

I got a couple of things published. The Journal of Band Research, the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and most recently Gamut provided receptive outlets and a non-adversarial review and editing process.

I got into a couple of conferences. CMS was particularly good for this, but I also made it into a regional conference. The feedback was good, and I felt like what I was doing was working.

But there was still SMT.

Nothing I sent in seemed to get any traction. I submitted something like 13 times. Dissertation research, Carlisle Floyd, Morton Gould, pedagogy, the Overton window, nothing could get in.

Look, I’ve carved out a good life and career. I have tenure. I have the respect of my colleagues (and it is mutual). We own a home.

But there was still SMT.

I wanted that imprimatur, and it was denied me. So I made a decision: this was going to be the last time I submitted. I decided to swing for the fences and put in something that was unlike anything I’d put in before (or anything I’d ever seen there). If it didn’t get in, I was going to wash my hands of the organization and concentrate on other things.

April came, and people started posting the “Thrilled to announce” posts. A couple of hours into that day, I still hadn’t heard. I was preparing myself for the worst. Then I saw the “Well, not this year” posts, and was wondering if mine had somehow slipped through the cracks.

I checked the spam filter, and my world changed.

I wrote up the paper, practiced it, practiced it again, trialed it on Zoom and at UMM. Checked, rechecked, and re-rechecked everything. Got my travel grants, booked my flight and my room.

Saturday came. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was on HBO that morning, which I took as a good omen. I walked in. I set up. Stephen Rodgers introduced me. I started.

Four minutes in, an example failed to play. For a half-second, I saw it all fall apart. The laptop is old, man. Some quick thinking on the part of the room monitor and we were back on. The laugh lines (mostly) hit. The rhythm snapped back into place. “Live long and prosper.” Applause. “Are there any questions?”

Harald Krebs had been cited in the paper. Harald Krebs approached the microphone. I imagined a Marshall McLuhan moment (“You know nothing of my work!”) and steeled myself. I had told myself I didn’t care about the response. I got in, after all. But in reality, I *totally* cared, and I prepared myself for a explication of my ignorance.

“That was the most entertaining paper I’ve heard.”

Then he asked a question about emotion and Shatner’s performance. Apparently my answer was satisfactory, as he thanked me and sat down. Mark Spicer asked a good question and also remarked that he enjoyed the paper. A couple more questions, more applause, and I sat down, for the first time in ages feeling like a true music theorist.

I love music theory.

WF

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Something happens in the third semester of music theory. Sometimes it’s early in the semester, sometimes it’s later in the semester, depending on which book (if any) you’re using and how the class is overall. Currently, it’s happening right now for my Theory III kids this year.

It’s the point where we’ve cleared most of the *conceptual* framework and can start getting more into analyses and study of entire pieces. There are still concepts to cover (extended chords, other modulatory techniques, etc.), but most of the puzzle pieces are in place. We can move into analysis that transcends the descriptive and start thinking in terms of prescriptive; that is to say, we can start applying what the analysis yields to actual performance.

For various reasons, most books/sequences use German Lieder as the springboard into this new analytical world. There are piano pieces, chamber works, and symphonic works that could show these concepts equally well, but it is almost always Lieder that we use. Part of this is because there are so many songs out there; you could get the entire third semester and a good hunk of the fourth just with four composers (Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Schoenberg for the fourth). Part of it is because you can bring in text for discussion, taking things out of the realm of absolute music and into something more programmatic. And part of it is simply because it’s just so wonderful. Schumann’s cycles especially do such a great job at showing the totality of human emotion.

I leave you with a video. This is tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Graham Johnson with what is my favorite Lied – Robert Schumann, Myrthen, Op. 25, no. 1, “Widmung.” Du meine Seele, du mein Herz…

WF

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Pedagogical question this week: How many of you out there in Theoryland incorporate what the students are doing in lessons/ensembles on a regular basis? I’m always looking for ways to do that. I believe the more the students can do theory on their instruments/in their voices, the more likely they are to understand the concepts.

WF

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For today, since Conference Submission Deadlines are approaching, I thought I’d throw it open to the readers and solicit your advice on getting papers into conferences.

A few years back, I had the opportunity to hear a paper at SMT about this very topic. I recently rediscovered the handout, which is in a place of honor at the office. Since I have a couple of papers I’m prepping and need to get the proposals done fairly soon, I’ve been thinking about the submission process. You all know that this is not one of my more successful endeavors, though after hearing from some Big Time Theorists who haven’t gotten papers into SMT in nearly seven years I feel much better about all those rejections.

Here’s what I try to do:

(1) Read the call for papers.

(2) Reread the call for papers.

(3) Reread the call for papers.

(4) Write an abstract/submission that gives a lot of information, but doesn’t give away the ballgame.

(5) Edit said abstract.

(6) Reread the call for papers.

(7) Attach examples/bibliography/other requested materials.

(8) Make sure all identifying metadata is gone.

(9) Reread the call for papers.

(10) Submit.

Any suggestions?

WF

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I have submitted – and am optimistic that it will come to pass – a proposal for a new course. This will be an undergraduate music theory seminar. First topic: 20th century analysis. I recognize this is an involved topic, so I’m trying to think of ways to narrow it slightly.

By way of background, our students get a rudimentary knowledge of atonality and 12-tone music in the second half of Theory IV. I also add a little bit of minimalism into the mix, and the year always ends with an in-class performance of In C.

These are what I’d like you, Gentle Reader, to think about:

(1) Given a seminar for undergraduates, what topics do you think are appropriate? An overview of techniques that would help them with the totality of 20th/21st century music, or paring it down to one to three ideas and working the heck out of them?

(2) The class will meet twice a week for 100 minutes at a time. I am thinking that, say, Tuesday meetings will feature discussion of the readings and Thursday meetings will feature analysis projects. Thoughts?

(3) Any recommended books/articles? I do like Miguel Roig-Francolí’s Understanding Post-Tonal Music, but I will admit to a certain bias: Miguel was and is a faculty member at CCM, and was both on my dissertation committee (and always helpful and appreciated) as well as a colleague for a year.

(4) I remember taking Danny Mathers’s Copland seminar at CCM back in 2000, and the seminar included a performance component (though added after the fact and at the instigation of the students in the seminar). Do you think a seminar such as this would benefit from a performance component?

I look forward to the discussion.

WF

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There may be more to this tomorrow, though tomorrow is an insanely long day and I don’t know if I’ll have time to update the blog. (I have been doing better lately!)

I’ve been working on some analyses of The Rocky Horror Show. I was originally going to do it through the prism of queer theory and the “othering” of the aliens vis-a-vis the humans, but it’s looking more and more like a Baudrillardian simulacrum might be the operative model. Of course, this is not new for me, as my work on Susannah used Baudrillard as well.

My fear is that, because I understand the Baudrillardian approach, I’ll try to shoehorn everything I analyze into that. So I ask you, Gentle Reader, to help me keep my focus.

More bulletins as events warrant.

WF

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The local PBS station (which seems to be very good) has been showing the Metropolitan Opera’s most recent production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. Tonight is opera number three, Siegfried.

As most of you music types know, Wagner was a big fan of the Leitmotiv, or motive connected to a person, place, thing or concept. The Ring uses tons of these, but they’re probably used to the fullest in Tristan und Isolde. Like a development section, the interaction of the Leitmotivs with each other show the evolution of the plot and of the characters. Many theorists and musicologists have charted these motives; I encourage the reader to seek out some analyses.

WF

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I’ve taught one session of every class I will be teaching this semester. So far so good, though getting through the syllabus took longer than I would have liked.

Teaching aural skills for the first time in a *very* long time now. Scared, but excited as well. Good to stretch out and get some experience with what may be the single most important part of the undergraduate theory curriculum. Plus, given the textbook I use for Form and Analysis and what I can see doing with Counterpoint, I may redefine the AS curriculum as an ongoing thing rather than just the four-semester basic undergraduate sequence. Ideally, you never stop using these skills.

(I guess this technically qualifies as Theory Thursday!)

WF

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I’m teaching Theory I, Theory III, and Form and Analysis this semester. Since the Theory III kids already have their old textbooks, I am not changing their texts. Textbooks are expensive enough as it is.

So, here are the books I’m using for Theory I and for F&A.

Theory I:

The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis – Jane Piper Clendinning and Elizabeth West Marvin
The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills (both volumes) – Clendinning, Marvin, Joel Phillips and Paul Murphy
MacGamut – Ann Blombach
Music for Sight Singing – Robert W. Ottman and Nancy Rogers
There will be several articles as well.

Form and Analysis:
Hearing Form (with anthology/workbook) – Matthew Santa
Scores – Beethoven, Symphony no. 9, op. 125 and Schubert, Quintet in A major, D. 667, “Trout”
There will be several articles as well.

The goal is to have the students *writing* about music as early and often as possible, including the Theory I kids.

Thoughts?

WF

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(This has also been posted on my Facebook timeline. I’d like to bring it over here as well.)

One of the things I want to do at the new gig is get students writing earlier and more. I’d like to have them read some articles to get a sense of what academic writing in this discipline is all about, but I don’t want to throw them into the deep end. Can anyone recommend good articles (solid, good research and analysis shown) that are geared more toward people who are starting out in the field? I figure if they get used to this early on, they’ll have a better sense of how to write.

Some articles/books that have been suggested include Deborah Stein’s Engaging Music, Joseph Kerman’s Contemplating Music, Leonard Meyer’s Music, the Arts, and Ideas and Explaining Music, David Epstein’s Beyond Orpheus, David Lewin’s article “Figaro’s Mistakes,” and Edward T. Cone’s article “Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story – or a Brahms Intermezzo.”

WF

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(Heh. I guess this qualifies as a Theory Thursday.)

Kind of a metaphysical moment today in Form and Analysis. Follow me for a moment – you know the transition to the Turkish march in the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th? We’re solidly in D major, moving to A (the dominant, what one might expect), then all of a sudden BAM – F/A dyad, implying an F chord. Next thing you know, this 6/8 thing in B-flat. Janissary instruments (triangle, cymbals, bass drum), and the Freude theme, but in the wrong meter and key. (The recording I use, Bernstein with the NY Phil from 1964 or thereabouts, also features a tenor soloist who sounds like he’s about 3 feet tall and wearing a huge Kaiser Wilhelm helmet. That’s why I love that recording.)

Why is that?

Here’s the way I went with it.

“Alle Menschen werden Brüder.” These words are the underpinning of the Enlightenment. Sadly, the leading lights of the Enlightenment – those who first gave voice to this most noble of sentiments – usually fell well short in their actual application of this belief. In America, the young nation founded on these principles, thousands were held in chattel slavery because of the color of their skin. Western Europeans weren’t much better. Vienna was arguably the most cosmopolitan city in Europe at that point because it was both the capital of a multicultural empire and centrally located, but even it treated the exotic as an “other.” Janissary bands were still a novelty item, loved and sought out but still viewed through the filter of what Edward Said would later term “Orientalism.” Still, Beethoven – even as a vaunted master – knew what people liked to hear, so he threw one in. Give the people what they want.

It’s in B-Flat, a key that has been the “Other” key throughout the work. A Viennese audience with any level of sophistication would have caught the Janissary thing immediately, and consciously given it no more thought than “Oh, cool, Janissary stuff.” Subconsciously, though, might something have registered?

What does the Janissary band/soloist/men’s chorus perform? The Ode to Joy. This same theme that was the great Enlightenment ideal set to music. After the statement, the soloist sings a wonderful line over the top of it, and the chorus comes in to reinforce. Here is the Other, the different, the swarthy, the non-Westerner, performing this incredible Ode. This catches the Enlightenment off-guard. “What? These…Not Us-es wanting to hold to *our* ideals?”

A fugue ensues, as the Enlightenment wrangles with one simple question – are these ideals truly universal? The standard Western response has been that these incredibly lofty ideals are reserved to them and to them alone, at least at this point. Perhaps someday, the non-enlightened ones will be worthy of this, but until then, we have to keep them from it. The Janissary setting of the tune destroys that. If what was considered “exotic” in Vienna in 1824 can pick up the tune, what of the slave? The non-European? The native American?

Beethoven gives his answer. After the fugue, the Freude theme returns. It’s in its original key of D major, but now in 6/8. His answer is a resounding “Yes.” Alle Menschen werden Brüder, indeed. If these ideals apply to anyone, they must apply to everyone. Alle Menschen. Every last stinkin’ one of us on this ball of mud.

That was a radical idea for 1824. Still is. And perhaps this is why several composers have written ninth symphonies, but there is only one Ninth. When the orchestra in the Congo featured on 60 Minutes this past week performed, what did they perform? The Ninth. For Beethoven, the “Other” as a concept simply doesn’t exist, and this is his way of telling us that.

It’s a thought, anyway.

WF

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I’ve been thinking more and more about the theory curriculum and how it is structured. Nothing new there; many a theorist has given thought to the basic four-semester undergraduate curriculum. That’s not where my thoughts are lately, though.

I’ve been teaching Scoring and Arranging this semester (a class I’ve taught before many times), but for some reason during the score study portion of class I’ve been paying extra attention to how contrapuntal and formal events affect timbral choices. This got me thinking – rather than three separate classes for form, orchestration and counterpoint, how about a one-year superclass in which all three topics are interconnected? (In case you haven’t noticed, the interconnectedness of the different aspects of the music curriculum is something that has always been an interest of mine. I blame thank my first undergraduate theory teacher, Dr. Christopher Gallaher, because he was big into Gestalt theory.)

It’s a thought, anyway. What do you think?

WF

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Although I might live to regret mentioning this in case any potential employers find the blog, there is an area of music theory in which I have not had much teaching experience.

I haven’t taught aural skills/musicianship in a while, and I’m rusty.

What is the pedagogical purpose of musicianship/aural skills? We require aural skills because – and this is not meant to be sarcastic or obvious – it makes a musician better. The ability to sing a melody at sight will improve performance accuracy. The ability to internally hear intervals, chords and progressions will improve analysis, which in turn will lead to a performance that is a better reflection of the composer’s intent.* A musician needs to hear a piece internally before he or she plays/sings it.

What is the proper balance of theory/analysis and aural skills? Whoever unties that particular Gordian knot is going to be the King/Queen of All Theory Pedagogues. Even though I don’t officially teach the Aural Skills classes at my current institution, I do incorporate hearing and singing intervals/chords/bass lines into my theory classes as well as a small keyboard component. Music is, after all, an aural art.

Fellow theory teachers – what sorts of materials and techniques do you use in your aural skills classrooms?

*Ah, yes, “composer’s intent.” That old canard.

WF