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

[Walt Everett]

On Aug 30, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Dmitri Tymoczko wrote:

>> 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."  [. . .]
>
> Off the top of my head, I suspect that I-II-IV is indigenous to  
> rock, and wonder whether it might derive from the more bluesy bVII- 
> >I->bIII.  (If you reinterpret bVII as the tonic, you end up with I- 
> II-IV.)  It would be interesting to trace its history in 20th- 
> century popular music. [. . .]
>
We should note some important distinctions between such chord  
successions as II - IV - I and bVII - I - bIII as they typically work  
in rock contexts.  The former succession, II - IV - I, inhabits the  
diatonic system but for the "domestication" (as Naphtali Wagner so  
elegantly terms it) of the raised 4th scale degree, which is tamed  
into its natural form before moving.  (This is a favorite construct  
for the Beatles and others in 1964-69.)  The latter succession, which  
Dmitri correctly ascribes to blues-based rock, inhabits the minor- 
pentatonic world, whereby scale degrees 1 - b3 - 4 - 5 - b7 are each  
doubled in major triads; usually, no voice leading is present or if it  
does exist, it is of secondary value to the underlying chord changes.   
Thus, one succession chromaticizes the diatonic scale, and the other  
is pentatonic.  One progression makes a bold voice-leading move, and  
the other presents only doublings with no voice leading at all. The  
coincidence in that, in each situation, the roots combine for  
identical [025] collections is irrelevant to style and syntax, as  
discussed in my Foundations of Rock.

One example of how apparent voice leading can work against the  
parallel nature of triad-doubled pentatonic scale degrees might be  
heard in the guitar voicing in the intro to "Proud Mary"; here, the  
false relations involving ^b7 and ^7 in moving from bVII to V, and a  
few chords later, involving ^b3 and ^3 in moving from bIII to I,  
inject new interest into the bVII - V - IV - bIII - I succession  
borrowed from "In the Midnight Hour" and elsewhere.  Guy Capuzzo's  
essay on Neo-Riemannian theory and rock music in Spectrum 26/2 is  
relevant.

--Walt Everett
>
>

Walter Everett
Professor of Music
Chair, Department of Theory
The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance
1100 Baits Dr.
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-2085

weverett at umich.edu
voice: 734-763-2039
fax: 734-763-5097

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