[Smt-talk] Sequences

[Jeremy Day-O'Connell]

"Waldstein"/"Hey Joe" sequence appears also at the beginning of Aretha  
Franklin's "Natural Woman" (which is similarly expressive of a  
mournful/sinking text).

JDOC
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Jeremy Day-O'Connell
Assistant Professor, Music
Knox College
Box K-95
Galesburg, IL 61401

(309) 341-7301
jdayocon at knox.edu
fax (309) 341-7605

On Mar 3, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Dmitri Tymoczko wrote:

>  Thanks for the sequence suggestions, everybody.
>
> Jay Hook also noted two other very clear ascending minor-third  
> sequences:
>
>  1. Grieg, first Norwegian Dance, middle section.
>   2. Tchaikovsky, Symphony 4, movement 2, m. 110
>
> Interestingly, in almost all of the sequences mentioned so far, the  
> voice-leading is (mostly) parallel and ascending.  This suggests to me  
> that composers typically think of the ascending minor-third sequence  
> in harmonic rather than contrapuntal terms -- at least, they don't  
> seem to be interested in exploiting the potential for *descending*  
> voice leading.
>
> A cool example of the "Waldstein" sequence C-G6-Bb-F6 is "Hey Joe"  
> (which I know only in the Hendrix version: C-G-D-A-E).  Here the  
> descending stepwise voice leading is very clear, both in the melody  
> and the upper guitar strings, and perhaps contributes to the mournful  
> "sinking" feeling ("I'm going down ...").  The effective-but-unusual  
> ascending fifths harmonies were always a bit of a mystery to me, but  
> they perhaps make more sense if you think in terms of voice leading.
>
> DT
>
> Dmitri Tymoczko
> Associate Professor of Music
> 310 Woolworth Center
> Princeton, NJ 08544-1007
> (609) 258-4255 (ph), (609) 258-6793 (fax)
> http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri
>
>
>
>
>
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