[Smt-talk] I - II- IV as a progression (counterpoint)

[Nicole Biamonte]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Ildar Khannanov <solfeggio7 at yahoo.com>wrote:


>   As for supertonic triad as a substitute for subdominant triad, it does
> not exist! If we are talking about root position supertonic  triad in major,
> it is used very rarely because there is a serious problem connecting it with
> tonic, and that is a very serious voice leading problem : there are no
> common tones indeed and no purpose of resolution. In minor this chord is an
> absolute nonsense. Only Snoop the Dogg uses it after the tonic triad ( "I've
> been a sittin in a Holiday Inn...etc).
>

I don't know the Snoop Dogg song, but adjacent parallel triads with no
common tones are plentiful in the rock repertoire, although--as noted
earlier in this thread--progressions with major II are rare.  One example of
a I-II oscillation that came up in a private exchange with Paul Steinbeck
is the repeated Fmaj7-G of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."  However, because of
the melodic prominence of A and especially E, and the lack of Fs in the
melody, it is also possible to parse these chords as bVI-bVII in A minor, a
harmony that is stated only briefly in the bridge.  I wonder if this might
be one of Mark Spicer's "absent tonics."  I don't know of any other examples
like this; it's actually easier to find examples of Phrygian I-bII
oscillations.

bVII-I and bVII-i oscillations are far more common, in folk music as well as
in rock.  The subtonic in this context could function as dominant,
subdominant, or linear neighbor-chord to the tonic; which of these
interpretations makes the most sense depends on other factors in the
particular song.

Just to bring this thread back around to the original topic of I-II-IV-I, I
heard another example today: the verse of Queen's "A Kind of Magic."

Nicole Biamonte
University of Iowa
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