[Smt-talk] I - II- IV as a progression

[David H Smyth]

Dear Listers,

Possibly the best known example of I-II (=V/V)-IV occurs at the end of "Yesterday."  The aforementioned chromatic descent from scale degree five (to three) occurs in an inner voice here, but nicely highlights the enigmatic melodic ending on three.

I too am curious about "classical" precedents for this.  Since one fairly common deceptive resolution of V is to IV6, there must be many examples of V/V resolving directly to I6, though none jumps to mind at the moment.

Best,
David Smyth
Lousiana State University 
dsmyth at lsu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: smt-talk-bounces at societymusictheory.org on behalf of Reed,Smith Alexander
Sent: Sun 8/30/2009 12:24 AM
To: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
Subject: [Smt-talk] I - II- IV as a progression
 
Dear Collective Wisdom:

Today I heard Donovan's 1968 "Atlantis," which prominently 
features a I - II - IV chord progression, not unlike the verse of 
The Beatles' 1965 "Eight Days A Week."  (I refer to the second 
chord here as II rather than V/V because the dominant never 
figures into the equation, except perhaps as a marked absence.)  
Clearly, part of the interest in such a progression is the 
chromatic descent from scale degree five but I am curious as to 
whether there is a more compelling and complete discussion of this 
harmonic move anywhere, and also whether anyone knows of classical 
precedents for its use.

Thanks,

S. Alexander Reed, Ph.D.
University of Florida

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