Music Analysis and Decomposition - 3
Harmony
This is part 3 of a 7 part series on musical analysis and decomposition! It’s been a while, but it’s back.
Last time,
we talked about the effects of time signatures on music and how they play into the creation of pieces themselves. This time,
we’re gonna discuss one of the fundamental building blocks of musical terminology: harmony.
To begin, we should first give a rudimentary definition of harmony so that we’re all on the same page. Simply put,
harmony is the process by which invidiual sounds (or superpositions of sounds) are analyzed by hearing. We do
this by studying combinations of pitches (known as chords) and looking at the transitions between chords in a piece
(known as a chord progression), all the while keeping in mind the relationships and principles of connection between
the chords.
Harmony comes in many flavors, and in most genres, there are certain conventions and prevailing styles of harmony depending
on what that genre is known for. Rock harmony, Jazz harmony, Classical harmony, etc. tend to be separate (with some overlaps), and
as such cannot be treated identically. One interesting concept arises in the practice of “reharmonization”, which can
drastically change the feel of a song/piece and turn it into a totally different composition (as we’ll discuss in a later article; check out
this reharm of “Hello” by Adele to see what I mean.)
Let’s start with the basics before doing any analysis. Western music is broken up into a 12 tone, equal temperment system. “Equal temperment” just means that the amount of space between each note is equal, as opposed to systems that make use of natural harmonic
frequencies like “just intonation”. A scale is a repeating sequence of notes, with a root note. Scales are composed of intervals,
which are gaps between two notes. Intervals come in a few types: major, minor, augmented, diminished, and perfect. I won’t
get into the meaning of those, but using different combinations of intervals, we end up with scales that posess different properties
(such as major scales, minor scales, whole tone scales, pentatonic scales, modes, etc). A scale degree is the position of a note in
a scale (read more here). They go both by names and numbers,
where the root note of a key is always labeled with a I. The names imply the function of the note, while the number implies location.
A chord is built up of stacked intervals on top of each other, with the simpliest being a triad. Chords can be built up by stacking
different intervals (3rds, 4ths, etc) with stacked 3rds being the most common. As you can probably guess, chords can also have different
properties (major, minor, augmented, diminished, etc) but interestingly, chords also have extensions. An extension is when you stack more intervals on top of each other, adding more color to each chord. These are commonly seen in music with Jazz influence. Lastly,
a chord progression as I said earlier, is the sequence of chords followed by a song/work. While this may seem arbitrary, it is anything but; the chord progression of a song sets the tone for how it feels, and even changing one chord in a progression leads to a drastically
different sound (even with the same melody!)
I know, lots of backstory. And I really rushed through it too. That said, we should have enough background to start analyzing our choices.
Surprisingly, this time, one of our songs we’re analyzing isn’t instrumental! In any case, let’s get started.
Song 1: Spectrum (ft. Matthew Koma) - Zedd
Melodically, this song is pretty simple overall. The reason this song is so appealing, besides the vintage 2012 Zedd beat drop, is the chords;
this song diverts away from the normal pop music progression and does so spectacularly. Pop music tends to follow a “4 chord” structure,
so much so that it’s the subject of musical memes.
The pattern, regardless of key, follows (either exactly or with a slight deviation) the following: the tonic (a.k.a. the I chord or the root chord), the dominant (a.k.a. the V chord), the submediant (a.k.a. the VI chord, a minor chord), and the subdominant (a.k.a. the IV chord). This pattern is also pretty commonly applied to major keys, though it sort of works for minor keys as well.
Spectrum, on the other hand, has a much more creative progression. The song is in the key of C minor (3 flat notes), and it makes full use of the crunchier textures provided by the extra flats. The progression stays constant throughout the entire piece, and goes as follows:
We start on an Ab9 (the submediant VI chord with an extension for color), then progress to a Bb6 (the subtonic flat VII) before landing on a
CminVII (the dominant I with an added dominant 7 for color). From there, we go up to an Eb major (the mediant III) followed by a F minor with a flat 10 extension (the subdominant IV). So far, other than the fancy chord extensions, we’ve got ourselves a nice walking bass line
that kind of goes where we expect. We repeat that Ab9 and the Bb6 from earlier, so our ears by now have settled into the loop and would
expect to once again hear that CminVII
Instead, the song jumps out and goes to a Cmaj9 (the 9 added for color) (Zedd you madlad) before circling around to the top via a Fminb10,
GminVII cadence. This progression is repeated (with rhythmic variations through) over the course of the entire song. Why is this change so striking? Well, as mentioned before, C minor has 3 flats (Bb, Eb, and Ab) and the Cmaj9 chord consists of the notes C, E major, G, and D.
This clashing between the expected notes of the key and the notes of the chord would normally be extremely dissonant, but due to the leading
tones of the Ab and Bb chords beforehand, our ear is primed to hear both C minor and C major equally. Our expectations (set up by the key
signature and the previous progression) tell us to expect the CminVII chord. The melody is perfectly ambiguous; it reaches a G, which is a note shared by both chords, and as a result doesn’t dictate where we should expect to go harmonically. This leads to the chord hitting us
as a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
One way that this progression adds a lot of creative freedom to the song is that it allows for harmonic improvisation as well as really
fun solo potential (as evidenced in the instrumental solo section starting at 2:00). In interviews, Zedd has mentioned that the chord progression for this song was written before the melody was, which may explain why the lines chosen are so unconventional and set up the
really interesting chord change.
Song 2: Thing of Gold - Snarky Puppy
Okay, so before we start lemme address some stuff. Yes, we’re doing another Snarky Puppy song (and this isn’t the last one I have planned
for the series). Deal with it, this is my blog. Yes, this song is very dense, but we’re only analyzing the chords of the main riff.
Doing the entire song would take a long time; frankly, though I’d love to, I’m pretty sure anyone reading this other than other fellow
music nerds would get bored. So, we’re gonna analyze the part starting from 1:11 (but listen to the entire song cause the intro of the main
riff at that point is soooooo much more satifying after hearing the intro).
This song, in Bb major, has a ridiculously simple melody line. It just starts at the tonic note, walks up to the III, jumps to the leading tone VII, then works its way back down the scale with the only spicy change being that on the way back down the III is flattened by a half step. For those who perfer note names, it is this:
Bb -> C -> D -> A -> G -> F -> Eb -> Db -> C -> Bb
This entire thing could be played over a droning tonic Bb, but that would not be very cash money of Snarky Puppy to do so. Instead, the song
opts for a progression that starts on a Bbmaj7add2 (tonic), down to a Gm7 (submediant), down a half step to a Gbmaj7add2 (technically the dominant I guess.. not really though. Anyone know what to call this?) followed by a Db2 (mediant) and an Ebmaj7add2 (the subdominant) to get us back to the Bbmaj7add2. This is the main meat of the progression, and it gets repeated at multiple points throughout the song in different
keys (like at 2:39, 3:45 (with slight variations this time), 4:05, 4:27, 4:48… you get the point. Shaun Martin launches into a filthy Moog solo during one of the repeats though ooh boi it is tasty.)
Anyway, the moral of the story is this: no matter how cool your melody may be, backing it up with some crunchy harmony is a surefire
way to turn your song from “alright” to a borderline jam. But that’s not the entire story; most music isn’t just random notes but instead
has a sort of structure, and we’ll be looking at how that structure affects how we listen to different genres of music.
If you really like this stuff, check out Adam Neely, he posts
a lot of videos explaining music theory in general (and harmony in specific)!
Additional Songs
If you like what you’ve heard, here are some more:
- In the Bleak Midwinter by Jacob Collier.
- Moon River by Jacob Collier.
- Moon River by Voctave. Note how the differences in harmonic influence lead this version to sound totally different than Jacob’s, even though it’s the some song!
tags: music - music-theory - music-analysis - decomposition