[Smt-talk] Smt-talk Digest, Vol 62, Issue 9

[Richard Cohn]

There's been a lot of circulation on the web about Owen Pallett's analysis
of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. I listened to the song, and two things
struck me about it, both conforming to my current obsessions, and neither
having to do with harmony:

1. In the succession from verse to pre-chorus to chorus, the location of
the downbeat migrates with respect to the line of text. In the verse, the
downbeat sounds at the end of the line (without any makeup ON); in the
pre-chorus, the downbeat migrates near to the  beginning (let's go ALL the
way); in the chorus, the downbeat occurs at the beginning of the line (YOU
make me).

This is easy enough to identify once someone points it out, and you don't
need fancy technical overhead to communicate it.  Although  if you want to
dress this up fancy you can say that there's a progression from Anbetonte
to Inbetonte to Abetonte (Riemann's categories).

And this sort of transformation of grouping with respect to meter across
major formal boundaries is absolutely characteristic of American popular
music over a number of decades. I haven't seen this written about anywhere;
has anyone else? (If not, and you're looking to do some research on popular
music, take it and run, it's a wide-open field out there.)

2. Pallett talks about the rhythm of the chorus in terms of "syncopation,"
a term that is a mile wide and an inch deep. We can be much more precise
about what kinds of syncopation it is: it is one of Jeff Pressing's prime
generated rhythms, 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 4. This rhythm is ubiquitous in
Afro-diasporic traditions,  which includes American pop. It's a sure way to
make any pitch material sound funky.

Now "prime-generated" does sound music-theory-technical enough to alienate
a pop-music anti-snob. Fortunately, though, the mathematics it uses does
not require a higher education; an attentive 10-year-old knows that 3 does
not divide 16, and so there's got to be some left over if you add by 3's
and want to stop at 16.

If anyone's interested, I theorize rhythms of this genus in a web-posted
lecture, "A Platonic Theory of Funky Rhythms, or How to Get that Swing"
with examples from Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, James Brown, Baden Powell,
and the Sherman brothers (Disney's Jungle Book).

http://music.sydney.edu.au/research/research-activities/alfred-hook-lecture-series/

The first 20 minutes lay an abstract and historical background; the
rhythmic model and examples start around 20 minutes in.


--Rick Cohn


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 3:11 PM, <
smt-talk-request at lists.societymusictheory.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: music theory on slate (Andrew Schartmann)
>    2. Re: music theory on slate (johnrcovach at gmail.com)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:42:19 -0400
> From: Andrew Schartmann <andrew.schartmann at yale.edu>
> To: smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] music theory on slate
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CACRmEZ_tCPGcSfADG5aUtk6hwqDv+zmB73hHW-JtPdSdoOB03A at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> For anyone interested, here is the article that inspired Pallet to write a
> theory-based analysis of a Katy Perry song:
>
> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/18/music-criticism-has-degenerated-into-lifestyle-reporting.html
> .
> Needless to say, Gioia's article generated quite a controversy online.
>
> Also, I'm pretty sure Pallet's title ("Explaining the genius of Katy
> Perry's 'Teenage Dream'--using music theory") is meant to be facetious.
>
> Andrew Schartmann
> Graduate Student
> Yale University
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> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 23:33:53 -0400
> From: johnrcovach at gmail.com
> To: "smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org"
>         <smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org>
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] music theory on slate
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> I have to admit that when I first read Ted's essay online I had to wonder
> what was new about these observations.  I mean, a magazine like Rolling
> Stone has always been a lifestyle magazine.   What we do and what they do
> are very different things.
>
> John Covach
> University of Rochester
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:42 PM, Andrew Schartmann <
> andrew.schartmann at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> > For anyone interested, here is the article that inspired Pallet to write
> a theory-based analysis of a Katy Perry song:
> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/18/music-criticism-has-degenerated-into-lifestyle-reporting.html.
> Needless to say, Gioia's article generated quite a controversy online.
> >
> > Also, I'm pretty sure Pallet's title ("Explaining the genius of Katy
> Perry's 'Teenage Dream'?using music theory") is meant to be facetious.
> >
> > Andrew Schartmann
> > Graduate Student
> > Yale University
> > _______________________________________________
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> End of Smt-talk Digest, Vol 62, Issue 9
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