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<TITLE>Re: [Smt-talk] I - II- IV as a progression (counterpoint)</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Yet another perspective (hopefully, I’m not overstaying my welcome):<BR>
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This, or some variant of this, may have already been recognized either in this thread or in the pop-music literature (if so, forgive the redundancy and my ignorance), but one way to singularize the I - II# - IV progression is that, when abiding by the two preferences of 1) maximizing tertian consonance (e.g. major preferred to minor, triad preferred to seventh chord) and 2) using chords closest (via the circle of fifths) to tonic, I - II# - IV - I is the <I>optimal </I>harmonization of the descending, stepwise, and linear melody ^5 - ^#4 - ^4 - ^3.<BR>
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If one allows tonic harmony to be minor as well as major, then I suspect that optimal, or near-optimal, harmonizations of other descending, stepwise, and linear melodies that span tonic triad members (e.g. ^8 - ^7 - ^6 - ^5, ^8 - ^b7 - ^6 - ^5, ^3 - ^b3 - ^2 - ^1, etc.) yield other common pop-rock chord progressions. (Be sure to allow for repetition of scale degrees and their non-repeating harmonizations: this is what allows I - bVII - V - I to be equally optimal to I - II# - V - I in harmonizing ^3 - ^2 - ^2 - ^1. Yet I - V - bVII - I ranks just as high, I suppose.) I do not know this music and the music-theoretic literature on it terribly well, but this relatively simple scheme seems to work fairly well as I mentally rummage through, among other things, my high school prom songbook.<BR>
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Scott<BR>
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-- <BR>
Scott Murphy<BR>
Associate Professor, Music Theory<BR>
University of Kansas<BR>
<a href="smurphy@ku.edu">smurphy@ku.edu</a><BR>
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on 9/27/09 11:03 AM, Walt Everett at <a href="weverett@umich.edu">weverett@umich.edu</a> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>The descending line, ^5 - ^#4 - ^4 - ^3 ("How dry I am"), appears often in the classical literature, but almost always as part of a circle of 5ths, as in the support of Susanna's part in the second-act trio of <I>Figaro</I> (mm 40-45), where the applied leading tone's resolution is elided. The Beatles' first use of II# - IV for this descent comes in "She Loves You," and after "Eight Days a Week" it became a pop mainstay.<BR>
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