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

Thu Mar 27 12:19:10 PDT 2014

Great points, Rick. (Should I admit how much this song has been running through my head the past few days, when I should be doing other, more important things?) 

Related to your first point about the migrating downbeat, it's also interesting that in the verse the words never fall on a downbeat (if we think of the words "you think I'm pretty without any make-up" as fitting into one 4/4 measure), in the pre-chorus they fall on every other downbeat ("let's go ALL the way tonight, no regrets, just love, we can DANCE until we die"...), and in the chorus they fall on every downbeat ("YOU make me feel like I'm livin' a TEEN-age dream..." etc.). Maybe that's partly what creates the "feeling of suspension" (and also of resolution).

Okay... back to the 19th century I go...

Steve

Stephen Rodgers
Associate Professor of Music Theory and Musicianship
School of Music and Dance
1225 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1225
541-346-5589

On Mar 27, 2014, at 7:24 AM, Richard Cohn <richard.cohn at yale.edu> wrote:

> 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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>    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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