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

[rschultz at music.umass.edu]

Following Nicole back to the original topic, the second half of the verse to
Billy Joel's "Scandinavian Skies" (starting with "we climbed towards the
sun...") also contains the progression in question, though here it is with
respect to a tonicized IV, i.e. Bb-C-Eb-Bb in F. Of course, the minor
pentatonic implications a la Midnight Hour/Proud Mary are clear (indeed, the
subsequent return to tonic passes through Ab, not A), but the tonicization
is strong enough that I distinctly hear I-II-IV-I of IV rather than
IV-V-bVII-IV.
Here's the cut off the album, minus most of the intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjNzpy667zY&feature=fvw

And a live version with the intro fully intact (starts at 1:05):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQZjjTI2pUg


Best Wishes,
Rob

------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Schultz, Ph.D.
Lecturer, Music Theory
Department of Music and Dance
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003


On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 8:12 PM, Nicole Biamonte <nbiamonte at aya.yale.edu>wrote:

> 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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