Redefining Popular Musicology in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Western Tradition

Redefining the Study of


Cultural Theory, Tonality, and Popular Musicology in the


Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Western Tradition

Research thesis completed under the direction of


Dr. David Pereira at UC Berkeley by


David Wesley Woo


Preface
The purpose of this paper is not, as I had originally intended, simply to point out harmonically complex concepts of tonal theory found in the popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and discuss them as relevant aspects of tonal evolution. Establishing the relevance of tonal theory in popular music, in fact, is far more complex than simple analysis, but is rather crucially tied to cultural relevancy both in terms of compositional process and audience perception and reception. Of course, popular musicology as an academic study today is already well versed in cultural relevancy, and this paper is certainly not intended to challenge the way that academia defines popular culture through its reflection in popular music either. More accurately, I might suggest, my intentions are found in a compromise somewhere in-between these two points of contention. Rather than attempt to challenge the practice and study of half a century’s worth of established popular musicology in the discourse of a relatively short research paper, I would instead suggest that there is a profound facet of such academic study that is quite frequently overlooked. At the risk of being redundant, I would say again that the purpose of my research is decidedly not to challenge either the definition of “popular musicology” or the definition of “common practice” tonality, but rather to reexamine both of these studies in the context of twentieth and twenty-first century popular music for deeper, more musically refined qualities of compositional prowess, and relate them to the refined qualities of tonal evolution seen in the literate European tradition. This is not to suggest that there is anything necessarily incorrect about the current definition of “popular musicology” or “common practice” tonality, but rather that there still remains something to add to these definitions; a universal goal, I might suggest, of all those who conduct research in musicology.
The purpose of this sort of reexamination, however, is also not just about finding specific concepts of harmonic tonal innovation in 20th and 21st century popular music, as the results of such examination would inevitably be shortsighted and biased. Without composing an exhaustive, five hundred page textbook on the subject a la Walter Piston or Edward Aldwell, there doesn’t really seem to be a way to choose a handful of musical and cultural examples, and claim them to represent an entire, undiscovered facet of musicology and/or tonal theory. What I might suggest this paper can serve as, however, is at least a prologue to a discussion of popular music that is both innovative and thorough. The topics of discussion and examples which I’ve chosen, in fact, do not just demonstrate innovation, but also demonstrate why their innovation is culturally relevant. How does harmonic innovation represent a distinctive culture of compositional process, audience reception, and audience perception that make this facet of the study of popular musicology and tonal harmony evolutionarily relevant? Finding unique harmonic innovation, and defining cultural relevancy, as my research will show, are two necessarily codependent challenges.
Lastly, before beginning my discussion of popular music and harmony, it is first necessary to establish the parameters by which I will be drawing examples from. In the course of my research, two limitations have presented themselves to be necessarily excluded from this paper for the sake of brevity: first, the genres of popular music discussed, and second, the use tonal harmony in the twenty-first century literate European tradition not discussed. The first limitation presented itself to be a necessary restriction simply because not all genres of popular music employ the same techniques of tonal harmony. Those found in the Classic Rock repertoire of the 1960s and 70s, for example, are not necessarily the same as those found in the Hip Hop or Punk Rock genres of the 1990s and the twenty-first century. Thus as a means of avoiding the development of an overly generalized discussion here, I will be using examples exclusively from the repertoire of the 1960s and 70s Classic Rock genre.
The second limitation concerning the tonal harmony employed in the twenty-first century literate European tradition is necessary simply because of the nature of this discussion. The purpose of my research is to contradict the conventional perception that popular music and the non-literate European tradition lack harmonic innovation relevant to the study of cultural musicology. While it is true, in fact, that the literate European tradition continues to employ tonality through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (including composers such as Benjamin Britten, Dmitri Shostakovich, and others), the same conventional perception that suggests the genre lacks harmonic innovation is not necessarily apparent in these genres of the literate European tradition. There is less to contradict, in other words, about the tonality of the literate European tradition, since the study of musicology already frequently discusses such tonality. For this reason, the examination of twentieth and twenty-first century popular musicology and harmony presents more space for original academic discussion than that of the literate European tradition, and thus merit this restriction.



Cultural Popular Musicology vs. Musicology and the Literate European Tradition
The term “popular music” or “pop music” in the twentieth and twenty-first century musical vernacular has for much time carried a level of implied connotation. The concept of “pop” tunes, “pop-ish” aesthetics, and “pop” culture, in fact, have developed over the last half century into terms which allude to a genre of music and art not intended for academic study. Cultural relevancy aside, the musicality and techniques of harmony and melody used in the composition of popular music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are frequently overlooked in defining the contour of the evolution of music in the Western world. Musicology in academia today, in other words, finds popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to be a culturally relevant genre of music, but essentially mundane and static in terms of the development of tonal harmony. Up until the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, I might argue, the development of tonality and the evolution of music were considered to go hand in hand in the contour of musicology, where the historical relevance of a composer, composition, or genre of music was very much linked to the role which he/she/it played in the growth and evolution of tonality as a technique of composition.
Although I wouldn’t be so bold to claim an exact moment in history where the development of tonality stopped being relevant and the development of atonality, serialism, and other avant garde concepts started, it is reasonable to conclude that at some time in the first decade of the 20th century, musicology as an academic study stopped tracing the historical development of music through the evolution of the tonal system. This means, of course, that the techniques of composition used in the tonality found in the non-literate tradition of popular music in the last century is not considered relevant enough to find a place in the final chapters of the harmony and theory textbooks we study today. Mark DeVoto in his preface to the 1987 fifth edition of Walter Piston’s authoritative textbook Harmony says that the final four chapters of the text take on the “complicated subject of harmony after common practice;” “common practice” being the phrase of contention here. What defines common practice and, more importantly, what defines harmony after common practice? According to DeVoto, the definition is exactly as one would expect. “The Decline of Dominant Harmony,” “The Reevaluation of Counterpoint,” and “New Definitions of Tonality” comprise the first three of DeVoto’s four sections on harmony after common practice. Not a single reference, I assure you, to the development of tonal harmony in mid to late twentieth century Motown R&B or Classic Rock, for example (Piston, xi).
That is not to say, of course, that the genres of popular music like Classic Rock or Motown R&B are not considered culturally relevant. Plenty of academic sources, textbooks, and college lecturers, in fact, discuss the cultural importance of these genres. Motown R&B was pivotal to the growth and development of African American music in the twentieth century and its development into African American genres like Jazz and Hip Hop as they’re known today. Likewise, the cultural history of Classic Rock and the genre’s function in developing cultural musical ties between British and American traditions are fundamental in defining the musical culture of the twentieth century. What seems to be absent in these discussions, however, is any reference to the importance of the harmonies and techniques of composition used in these genres. Are these techniques of tonal composition at all relevant to the history of Western music? Is it possible to continue to trace the contour of popular music history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries not just through cultural relevance, but through the development of tonality?
I might suggest that for many musicologists, the answer is quite simply “no.” The harmonies used in genres like Motown R&B and Classic Rock are simple, mundane, and quite clearly an employment of techniques of tonal harmony that were invented centuries ago, and thus cannot possibly be historically relevant. The advancement and evolution of compositional style in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, according to many history books, is carried on primarily through what can be considered “post-tonal” techniques of composition. Serialism, atonality, and the myriad other techniques of avant garde composition of the literate European tradition that DeVoto explores in his section on harmony “after common practice” are typically the topics that dominate the discussion of compositional style in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The term “literate European tradition,” at this point, now becomes a term of contention. Why does musicology and the study of compositional technique only discuss the literate tradition (that is, music that’s written down)? What kind of harmonies, tonal concepts, and compositional aesthetics are created out of the tradition of aural, non-literate music composition? I might suggest that it is the aforementioned conventional perception that popular music harmony is simple and mundane that has resulted in this sort of oversight in the discussion of the non-literate tradition. In other words, it is the common consensus that music that is not written down does not employ innovative techniques of composition, and thus does not merit a discussion of the harmonies, tonal concepts and compositional aesthetics found in the genre.
Ferruccio Busoni in an excerpt from his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music included in Richard Taruskin and Pierro Weiss’ Music in the Western World put it quite eloquently in his discussion of tonality as it is perceived today that most music employing tonal harmony in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries falls into what he calls a “stereotypical” form of expression. According to Busoni, it is no longer possible to compose with conventions of tonal theory without referencing these stereotypes.
“So narrow has our tonal range become, so stereotyped its form of expression, that nowadays there is not one familiar motive that cannot be fitted with some other familiar motive so that the two may be played simultaneously (Weiss, 358).”
Though of course I don’t mean to frame Busoni here as some sort of dissenter of tonal composition, his opinion does more or less reflect the common understanding of the genre as it is studied today. The tonality and harmonic tools of composition used to compose popular music today have not developed significantly over the last century, and thus the academic study of this aspect of the genre is inevitably fruitless.
It is because of this sort of perspective, I might argue, that the divide between cultural musicology and the history of compositional style is more distinct than ever today. Allan Moore said in his introduction to his text Critical Essays in Popular Musicology that
“cultural theory…[is]marked by concern for the under-represented. For some of the more radical scholars, the [discussion] becomes identified less with the musical sounds to which listeners attend than with the listeners themselves who attend to musical sounds (Moore, ix).”
Moore’s poetic contradiction, in fact, seems to identify exactly the way that popular musicology in academia today is studied; that is, far more concerned with audience reception and cultural impact than with the style of compositional technique and how the music is written. The result, as Moore continues, is an indelible line that distinguishes “musicology” from “popular musicology;” the former dealing with compositional technique, and the latter dealing with “cultural theory.”
Of course, Moore’s assertion raises multiple, equally contentious claims about the study of music history. What is compositional technique, what is cultural theory, and in what fashion do they become two distinct studies of musicology? Before the end of the nineteenth century, tonality as a concept of compositional style was a recurring theme in defining the contour of cultural music history. The study of cultural musicology in the pre-nineteenth century common practice literate European tradition is crucially linked to the study of compositional technique or, more specifically, the study of tonal evolution. An analysis of the music’s harmonic composition and how it is constructed, in other words, is essential to understanding how the music is culturally interpreted (and vice versa, for that matter).
Deconstructing this perspective on the study of musicology, one could, for example, discuss the development of keyboard music in the mid to late eighteenth century. Without, of course, digressing too much from my initial point, it is interesting to discuss the development of instrumental music as an artifact of musicological study because of the wealth of cultural-compositional ties that exist between the era’s musical aesthetics and its means of composition (ties that do not exist, I would suggest, in the study of popular musicology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries). F.E. Kirby put it quite succinctly in his text A Short History of Keyboard Music that the development of the mid to late eighteenth century’s aesthetic of “strong domestic overtones” parallel the development of the keyboard into the instrument as it is known today, particularly with respect to the genre’s use of dynamic contour and the capacity to portray a wider range of “emotional contrast” within a single piece.
“…this new aesthetic ideal, with its decisive influence on the procedures of musical composition, was equally decisive in the realm of musical instruments. For the constant changing of character, in which dynamics are important, required an instrumental medium capable of registering such changes easily and rapidly. While the harpsichord is capable of some dynamic variation…this clearly is not one of the instrument’s strong points; it is rather the piano that responds readily to such changes in dynamics, so that inevitably it came to be the instrument par excellence of the new music (Kirby, 145-146).”
Kirby’s discussion here is in reference to the development of instrumental keyboard music in the Romantic era salon genre that proceeded to become popular in the nineteenth century, and likewise resulted in the wealth of Romantic era piano music that exists today. Kirby, in fact, continues his discussion with an emphasis on the simultaneous decreasing of technical complexity along side the increasing of emotional complexity in the keyboard music of the era for domestic amateur use. The result, as Kirby suggests, is the gradual decline of music for instruments like the organ (an instrument which was typically not played by amateurs nor existed in domestic settings) or the harpsichord (an instrument not capable of the emotional dynamic contrast which Kirby claims the genre called for).
What I might suggest is a corollary to Kirby’s assertion that dynamic contrast and instrumental development are necessarily codependent in the development of keyboard music in the mid to late eighteenth century is that there are compositional choices which develop directly as a result of this development in dynamic contrast. The early piano of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was capable of creating textures and colors out of articulations and dynamics that were otherwise not possible before its invention, and thus reflect such innovations in the music that was written for it. Harmonic innovation that complements the development of emotional dynamic contrast in Romantic era domestic keyboard music, in other words, develops in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries largely because of the instrument which it was written for.
Franz Schubert’s two collections of solo piano Impromptus Op. 90 and Op. 142 written specifically for the piano demonstrate exactly this sort of development in harmonic and melodic texture which crucially links the development of compositional culture to the development of the keyboard instrument. Richard Taruskin in his Oxford History of Western Music calls the emotional character of Schubert’s collection of works “discursive, ruminative, luminous…[and] sooner induc[ing] reverie than excitement (Taruskin, 86);” an observation, in fact, that largely falls in line with Kirby’s description of the Romantic era keyboard genre and its adaptation for the domesticated use of the piano. More emotional than technical, the character of Schubert’s privatized, introverted keyboard style is definitively of the style of the time. The question becomes, thus, how is this character achieved, and how much is it related to the instrument which it was written for?
Observing the first of the four impromptus included in the Op. 90 collection, I would suggest that it is the piece’s contrasting themes of articulation and dynamic contour that create the ruminative, luminous aesthetic of the piece that set the composition (and the genre, for that matter) clearly apart from the more dramatically heroic, Beethovenian style which otherwise characterized the Romantic era. While it is true that, as Kirby quite astutely predicts in his text, the impromptu features a drastic decrease in technical complexity both harmonically and melodically (remaining for the most part in the key of c minor and sticking to a mostly homophonic texture for the first exposition of the main theme up until measure thirty-seven), I would suggest that it is more than harmonic and melodic simplicity that creates the aesthetic of reverie. Rather, perhaps more importantly, it is the tied, lyrical articulation of the interjecting melodic lines such as those in measures 1-5, or 9-13, in a quiet pianissimo dynamic that contrast against the staccato, at times fortissimo homophony which otherwise dominates the piece that creates such a mysterious sentiment. The dramatic contour of the piece, thus, is created out of this use of contrasting dynamics and articulations; a contour, in fact, that would otherwise not be possible if the piece were written for an earlier styled keyboard such as the harpsichord, for example. The instrumentation of Schubert’s impromptu, thus, is crucial in defining the aesthetics of the piece, and therein, the aesthetics which predominantly characterize the era of domesticated salon music.





Ex. 1(a) Schubert, Impromptu, Op. 90 No. 1

With this in mind, we can now return to Allan Moore’s perspective on popular musicology as an academic study of “cultural theory,” and discuss how such an exemplary musicological study of the Romantic era and the value with which cultural influences like instrumentation have in the discussion of compositional style differs from the study of popular musicology. There is a difference, I would suggest, between the way that twentieth and twenty-first century popular musicology is approached, and the way that musicology of the literate European tradition (such as that which I just discussed, for example) is approached. A divide between tonality as a relevant compositional technique and cultural music history occurs circa 1910, and proceeds to designate the study of popular musicology as one predominantly about the genre as a cultural, rather than musical artifact. Music history continues to be defined by the relationship between compositional style and musical culture, but only within the parameters of the literate European tradition. While the study of post-tonal compositional techniques in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is in fact conducted in much the same fashion as that which Taruskin and Kirby approach their analysis of Schubert and Romantic era salon music (that is, with instrumentation and culture considered as an influential aspect on compositional technique), the same cannot be said about popular musicology of the same time period.
Academia today typically focuses its discussion of popular music on the importance of the audience, rather than compositional technique, characterizing popular musicology as a study less concerned with how the music is written, and more concerned with what the music represents about the culture that it exists in. Moore’s text on popular musicology continues:
“…the way in which listeners construct their identity…on the basis of the music they use, attests to [the degree of the listener’s involvement]. The interpretation does not need to be conscious, nor does it need to be involved, but is something that we are inevitably engaged in. Now it tends to be a commonplace amongst musicians, at least, that such music is not to be understood, but merely to be experienced (listened to, danced to) and, hopefully, enjoyed (Moore, xi).”
Moore’s text perceives the study of popular musicology as one clearly different from what we previously found necessary in our analysis of Schubert’s impromptus. While it was critical to understand the culture of instrumental innovation in the Romantic era in order to understand the aesthetics of the composition, Moore implies that the same is not necessarily true for popular musicology. It is, according to him, the nature of popular musicology to place less relevance on understanding the musical aesthetic, and more relevance on understanding the musical experience. Popular musicology, in other words, is the study of musical experiences.
Of course, I wouldn’t presume to take a single person’s discussion of popular musicology to be representative of the field of study as a whole, but I would suggest that, in my research, this sort of perspective seems to be a consistently recurring theme. Most texts written about the Rolling Stones, for example, detail the history of their long and illustrious career, and make a detailed account of the role which the band played in the 1960s British invasion, but don’t seem to get too seriously involved with the music’s harmony, melodic structure, or general musical aesthetics. The culture of compositional technique, in other words, is typically overlooked in most of the texts which I have come across. Why is it that the study of musicology and “literate European tradition” maintains a connection between culture and technique through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but popular musicology does not? The culture of popular music genres like Classic Rock is historically relevant because it defines cultural history, but the cultural significance of the techniques used to write this music are rarely discussed. To be clear, I am not refuting the cultural relevance of music history and composition after common practice. However, I would question why the cultural context which popular music is written in (such as instrumentation, for example) isn’t considered to be just as authoritative in defining new and innovative aspects of tonality as a compositional aesthetic, similar to the way which instrumentation can be considered relevant to defining the aesthetics of Schubert’s impromptus and Romantic era salon music, for example.

Defining Evolutionary Tonality in Common Practice Music
The primary counterargument that has presented itself in the course of defining innovative tonality as a product of cultural influences in twentieth and twenty-first century popular music is the inherent contradiction between complexity and innovation. The non-literate tradition of popular music today largely functions on harmonic simplicity and the employment of traditions of tonal harmony of the common practice era. The general understanding about popular music is that its harmonies aren’t as complex, as varied, or as contrapuntal as that of the literate European tradition, and thus make it difficult to consider popular music harmony as one employing relevant evolutionary compositional techniques since the tonality used is already so characteristic of the common practice era (this is, of course, a claim that I will necessarily return to in a moment). Without the development of harmonic complexity in popular music, in other words, the compositional techniques of tonal harmony derived out of popular genres is too much representative of the genres from which it originated to be considered definitive to the culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and thus doesn’t merit the same kind of evolutionary discussion of cultural influences either.
This is, of course, not to claim that the aesthetics of twentieth and twenty-first century popular music don’t reflect its era, but rather the lack of compositional innovation limits the discussion quite drastically from one about culture and compositional technique to one essentially about culture alone. Thus before discussing the culture of twentieth and twenty-first century popular music and its relation to its compositional style, it is first necessary to define the tonality used in the genre as one that is, in fact, evolutionarily relevant. If it can be proved that the tonality in modern popular music is more relevant to tonal evolution than currently understood despite its lack of complexity, then popular musicology can begin referring to the genre’s compositional technique with much more cultural relevance than is currently done.
Harmonic complexity and rhythmic variation are two qualities that are suspiciously lacking in the tonality of popular music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The former refers to the employment of harmonic structures that are predominantly defined by the traditional four bar, tonic-predominant-dominant-tonic form, and the latter refers to the consistent recurrence of the same harmonic structures throughout the genre. Of course, I wouldn’t attempt to support such a conclusion based on any singular musical example, but I would suggest that it is possible to single out chord progressions that are atypical of the genre, and identify the qualities of harmonic simplicity about them. The common recurrence of the I-V-vi-IV progression, for example, is not only one of exemplary rhythmic simplicity, but moreover is one that has recurred throughout the popular genre time and again. For the sake of thoroughness, I’ve included a brief list of songs from the Classic Rock genre in which the progression recurs:
Journey-“Don’t Stop Believing”
The Beatles-“Let it Be”
Bob Marley-“No Woman No Cry”
Jimi Hendrix-“Bold as Love”
Bob Dylan-“Don’t Think Twice”
The Who-“Real Good Looking Boy”
Of course the preceding is only a partial list of repertoire employing the same chord progression, but the point has certainly been made nonetheless. The same, identifiable chord progression recurring throughout the Classic Rock genre is more or less a quality that has come to define the genre’s aesthetic of harmonic simplicity. One of the many reasons, in other words, that popular music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is conceived as less varied than other genres is exactly because long, extensive lists such as the aforementioned can be made with regard to the music’s harmonies.
Perhaps more important than the progression’s prevalence, however, is the general lack of rhythmic and harmonic complexity indicated by the progression. The elements that comprise this progression are solidly drawn from the common practice era, and are by many definitions lacking in rhythmic and harmonic complexity. In each of the aforementioned songs, the progression is used in a strict four bar phrase, and the cadential motion is created by the use of both the deceptive and plagal cadences. Nothing extremely unique about the progression, in other words, can be said without drawing definition from the terms of the eighteenth and nineteenth century common practice tonality. It is for this reason as well, I would suggest, that so much of popular music is regarded as overly simple and lacking in complexity.
Disproving this perspective, thus, requires a reflection on the definition of historical relevance. Concepts of tonality are considered historically relevant any time an existing harmonic idea is redefined in function. This is, of course, not to suggest that harmonic ideas are only considered historically relevant when they are redefined in function, but it is at least one valid way of defining tonal evolution, since the term by definition means the redefining of a nineteenth century harmonic concept over the course of history. Landmark harmonic concepts in tonality are frequently considered historically relevant when, as isolated concepts, they’re built on the foundations of tonality, but are fundamentally unique in function and context; function indicating the purpose that a given chord serves, and context indicating the relation of a chord to those around it.
Hugo Riemann explains quite succinctly in Carl Dahlhaus’ text Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality that chord function in tonal harmony is largely defined by a given chord’s relationship to its context. Tonality, by Riemann’s definition, is defined entirely by function and context.
“Hugo Riemann defines “tonality” as “the special meaning that chords receive through their relationship to a fundamental sonority, the tonic triad. Since Riemann termed these chordal meanings “functions,” ”tonality” is thus the embodiment of chordal functions (Dahlhaus, 7).”
Tonality and thus “chord function” by definition means the relationship of a chord to the tonic triad, making innovation in tonality and chord function defined by the creation of new and innovative relationships of a chord to the tonic triad. Applying Riemann’s postulation, thus, the conclusion can be drawn that many harmonic ideas as isolated events are frequently not at all vertically innovative (that is, distinguishable as isolated harmonic events), but horizontally innovative in terms of function and context (that is, distinguishable via its relationship to the chords around it). Innovative harmony in common practice tonality, in other words, is defined by an innovation of function and context.
The development of the applied dominant in the context of the evolution of dominant harmony is an excellent demonstration of Riemann’s definition. The concept of V/V, for example, demonstrates well how a root position dominant triad can serve a considerably innovative harmonic function based exclusively on a renewal of its context. Observe, in Ex. 2(a), a root position C major triad serves the function that a V/V dominant triad traditionally serves; that is, preceded by the predominant harmony, and resolving to the dominant of F Major via the raised fourth scale degree. Likewise, in Ex. 2(b), the same C major triad in exactly the same voicing serves a completely different harmonic function; that is, as a tonic triad.
Ex. 2(a)

Ex. 2(b)

The difference between these two seemingly identical chords demonstrates the considerable progression of innovative tonality through their contextual innovation. While the applied V/V dominant demonstrates the function of a root position major triad through the development of dominant harmony and the use of tonicization in tonal harmony, it is nevertheless no more innovative in an isolated context than a root position, major triad. Of course, this is not an uncommon observation, and I wouldn’t suggest that this sort of approach to the applied dominant is in any way distinctive in the study of musicology or music theory. However, it is precisely for this reason that this sort of discussion functions so well in the discussion of popular music harmony of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Defining Evolutionary Tonality in Popular music
Referring to the traditions of popular music and harmony of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, now, it becomes apparent that this seemingly intuitive analysis of the German sixth as a root position dominant seventh triad can now be applied to the study and practice of popular music composition, and help define innovative tonality through parallel analysis. This sort of innovation of tonal harmony through a renewal of function and context, I would suggest, is common place in the traditions of popular music harmony, yet for whatever reason remains unanalyzed and rarely discussed in academia today. Likewise, the prevailing innovation in popular music harmony of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in this fashion despite its simplicities and distinctive ties to earlier traditions (as touched upon previously with concern to the I-V-vi-IV progression) indicates a necessary discussion of the genre’s compositional process. If, in other words, it is provable that concepts of tonal harmony in twentieth and twenty-first century popular music exist that are innovative in the similar fashion which the German sixth is considered (as Riemann and Dahlhaus explained), then a broader cultural analysis of compositional process can be approached, and the scope of popular musicology can be expanded beyond audience perception and reception (as Alan Moore explained) to one that significantly analyzes the compositional process and employment of tonal harmony in popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The power chord is the best exemplification of innovative tonality in twentieth and twenty-first century popular music created through a renewal of function and context. A more or less informal name assigned to the chord that commonly recurs in modern popular music genres (Classic Rock in particular), the power chord is, out of context, a very simple harmonic structure, composed of a perfect fifth, a perfect octave, and a notable lack of any substantiating chord tones (that is, a major or minor third). In standard notation, the power chord would be notated as so:
Ex. 3(a) Ex. 3(b)
.
G Power C Power
Chord Chord
(6th String) (5th String)

As is observable in the isolated examples shown above, the power chord is not an innovative concept of tonal harmony without substantial reference to its function and context. Perfect fifths and octaves of this nature frequently occur in common practice tonal harmony, often serving to emphasize a bassline, using the overtone sonorities of the perfect intervals to create greater dynamic contour (a particularly necessary technique on early eighteenth century pianos, as discussed earlier).
Observe, the example included below demonstrates well how the perfect octave functions in emphasizing a bassline with chordal structures occurring above the interval. The first ten measures of the Chopin Nocturne referred to in Ex. 4(a) uses the overtone sonority of the perfect interval on beats one and three to complement the relatively low voicing of the bassline as a means of creating the harmonic color which results. Notice, in particular, that the progression i-VI-V-i in c minor remains clearly delineated via the harmony which consistently occurs on beats two and four throughout the example (and, in fact, most of the piece). While the perfect octaves on one and three occur as a means of harmonic color, the harmony remains clearly delineated throughout. Chopin demonstrates well, in fact, the common practice technique of the bassline doubled at an octave as a means of harmonic color via overtone sonorities to complement the harmonic trajectory that occurs above the interval. The function of “power chord” as it occurs in the common practice era, in other words, is a tool of melodic contrast, but certainly not functional harmony.
Ex. 4(a) Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 48, No. 1

Returning, now to my original discussion of popular music and innovative harmony created out of a renewal of function and context, it is now possible to contrast the function of the “power chord” as it is found in the common practice era seen above, and begin the discussion of the renewed function that the power chord finds in popular harmony of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Twentieth and twenty-first century popular music harmony, I would argue, treats the power chord as functional harmony with entire harmonic phrases written with no quality-defining thirds in any of the chords; quite unique from the melodic, dynamic, and textural use of the perfect fifths, fourths, and octaves seen above. Unlike Chopin’s use of the perfect intervals as a technique of emphasis used in conjunction with clearly defined chord qualities and harmonies, the power chord in popular harmony lacks both. I would suggest, in fact, that the power chord functions as its own identifiable chord quality in popular harmony. It is, in other words, neither major, nor minor, nor diminished, but its own harmonic color entirely; a harmonic innovation of functional context that is entirely a result of the popular music genre of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The function and context of the power chord in Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold as Love,” for example, gives an excellent demonstration not only of the power chord as it occurs in the tonality of twentieth and twenty-first century popular music harmony, but the cultural aesthetic from which it originated, and the compositional process from which it necessarily developed. Although the implied harmonic structure of I-V-vi-IV remains clearly distinguished, chord quality is functioning in a completely innovative manner. Unlike the Chopin examples explored previously, Hendrix’s employment of the power chord does not have chordal structures above it creating harmonic trajectory, nor does it serve the sole purpose of dynamic contour. The progression I-V-vi-IV, in fact, finds an innovative harmonic context here, as it is composed almost entirely without thirds in any of the chords. The harmonic color of the power chord is featured almost exclusively throughout the composition, substituting quality defining thirds with effects of timbre; namely, amplified distortion created out of the electric guitar. The harmonic innovation displayed here, I would suggest, is that of timbre. The instrumentation and amplified distortion of the electric guitar is as crucial to defining the quality of the power chord as a third is in defining the quality of the major triad. Chord quality, in other words, is defined by timbre. The result is an innovative harmonic concept of tonal harmony developing exclusively out of the popular music genre of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Of course, the question arises here, “how is this possible?” How can functional harmony be defined by qualities of timbre? Harmonic color in the common practice era is traditionally defined by chord tones (that is, major thirds, minor sevenths, and so on). Linking harmonic innovation with aesthetics of timbre, thus, is a relatively unconventional tactic of harmonic analysis. I would suggest, however, that the cultural aesthetics and compositional styles from which the power chord arises from necessitate this link between harmony and timbre because of the growing importance of instrumental timbre in popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The compositional practice of the non-literate tradition in the modern era of popular music, in other words, directly produces not just innovative concepts of tonal harmony, but innovative concepts of harmonic analysis as well. Referring, now, back to my original statement of research intentions, the study of cultural theory and compositional process in popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries now becomes much more relevant in popular musicology once the prospect of innovative harmony enters the discussion.
Distinct cultural ties exist that have caused the harmonic simplicity of the power chord to develop distinction in the compositional style of the popular music genre of the last century; namely, instrumentation and concert performance. Instrumentation, of course, is a topic that has been briefly discussed already with reference to the influences that the muddy timbres created out of the distortion of the electric guitar has on the harmonic color of the power chord. Additionally, however, I would suggest that the guitar also functions in the development of the power chord because of the nature in which the chord is played on the instrument. Rhythmic articulation on the electric guitar particularly in the Classic Rock genre is distinctly different from the way which the guitar was previously played in its use of down-strums (that is, striking the lower three or four strings of the guitar first). You will notice, for example, in “Bold as Love” that every time Hendrix plays a power chord, it is articulated very sparsely, emphasizing only the down beats, and is almost never played with an up-strum (that is, emphasizing the top three or four strings of the guitar by striking them first).
A quick study of the shape of the chord on the guitar as shown in guitar tablature in Ex. 6(a) and (b) demonstrates why the chord is played in this fashion. Hendrix uses power chords to create the sparse, downbeat-heavy articulation that is common in the Classic Rock genre specifically because the power chord typically only involves the bottom three or four strings of the guitar (depending on which power chord is played). This, of course, is relevant because the top two or three strings of the guitar are the strings used to articulate the third of the chord from which the power chord originates (see Ex. 6(a) and (b) for this correlation). Thus by articulating the power chord in the down-strum fashion demonstrated in “Bold as Love,” Hendrix necessarily creates the power chord without the third simply because the top two or three strings of the guitar don’t produce sound as easily when played with the down-strum articulation that Hendrix uses. The harmonic simplicity of the power chord, in other words, is a product of the way both that the chord is traditionally articulated as well as the nature of the chord shape on the guitar in the Classic Rock genre.
Observe, Ex. 5(a) gives the two most common shapes used to play the power chord. Most distinctive about these two chords is that they only use the lower three (for the sixth string power chord) or four (for the fifth string power chord) strings of the guitar, leaving the top three or two strings unsounded. Ex. 5(b), in comparison, shows the chord shape from which the power chord originates. You may notice in these four shapes that the third of the chord is always articulated in the top three (for the sixth string major and minor chords) or two (for the fifth string major and minor chords) strings of the guitar, necessitating an articulation of the top two or three strings of the guitar in order to produce the quality defining chord tones of the chord shape. The growing popularity of down-strum accents which predominantly emphasize the lower three or four strings of the guitar, however, frequently cause the third of the chord to go unaccented, resulting in the creation of the power chord without a quality defining third as it is played today.
Ex. 5(a) Ex. 5(b)
G Power C Power G Major C Major g minor c minor
Chord Chord Chord Chord Chord Chord
(6th String) (5th String) (6th String) (5th String) (6th String) (5th String)
Likewise, just as the power chord is attributed to the down-strum patterns of the Classic Rock genre, so I would suggest that the development of twentieth and twenty-first century concert culture and extended guitar improvisation are products of the harmonic simplicity of the power chord. The sparseness of the power chord created out of its articulation, timbre, and general lack of chord tones allows for the creation of more open harmonic space, thus making possible the long, extended guitar solos that occur so frequently in the Classic Rock genre (the extended interlude that succeeds the final vocal chorus in “Bold as Love,” for example). Simplified harmonies and power chords with no chord qualities such as that used in the I-V-vi-IV progression of “Bold as Love” creates more open space or “caravans” for elaborate and extended instrumental solos. The result, I would suggest, is a development of concert culture and compositional style created directly as a product of development and innovation of tonal harmony in the popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
“Bold as Love,” along with the majority of the Jimi Hendrix repertoire, for example, displays exactly this link between harmonic simplicity and the growing importance and foregrounding of the instrumental guitar solo. You may notice in “Bold as Love” that, even when Hendrix is singing, there is a substantial degree of guitar improvisation occurring on the off-beats in-between each power chord. The extensive improvisation that Hendrix makes important in his repertoire, I would suggest, is significantly linked to the structural harmonic simplicity of the chord shapes that he plays. More broadly, in fact, I would suggest that instrumental improvisation of this kind grows in popularity in the Classic Rock genre directly as a result of simplified harmonic concepts of tonality such as the power chord. Compositional style in popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in other words, is directly influenced by the development of tonal harmony in the genre.

Concluding Remarks
The purpose of my research has never been to exhaustively prove every aspect of innovative tonality in the popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Approaching the topic with such ambition, I would suggest, is tantamount to approaching a lifetime’s worth of work in the course of a single study. So vast and numerous are the variables in the discussion of such a topic as broad as “popular music” or “tonal harmony” that the process of finding all-encompassing musical examples and theoretical concepts is not just daunting, but out of the realm of possibility, in fact. Creating space for the serious study of tonal harmony in twentieth and twenty-first centuries popular music is not a task for any single musicologist, but rather one for an entire generation of academia to approach. My discussion of Jimi Hendrix and the power chord is only the beginning of a very articulate musicological discussion of the concept of tonal harmony and harmonic simplicity in popular music that awaits discussion. Most important about this paper is the idea that innovative tonal harmony can be a product of developing function and context, as the power chord is not the only concept that merits discussion by this proof, but in fact a wealth of concepts from the repertoire of twentieth and twenty-first century popular music as well (plagal motion, the four bar form, and the function of the chord vamp are only a handful of the concepts not discussed in this paper). In other words, with the proof that the extended improvisation that is common in the concert performance of the Classic Rock genre is fundamentally linked to the tonal innovation of the genre’s use of the power chord, popular musicology can now approach the much more thorough study of the vast wealth of tonal innovation that exists as a product of the popular music genre of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Thus what I would hope this paper might serve is not just proof that the power chord is an innovative concept of tonal harmony in twentieth and twenty-first century popular music, but moreover the way that I have gone about discussing the power chord in asserting its innovation can become relevant to the future study of popular musicology in academia.
Likewise, just as this paper is not meant to make specific additions to the study of tonal harmony, the intentions of my discussion on Jimi Hendrix and the Classic Rock genre only just begin to expand on the development of tonal harmony in popular music. While the concept of the power chord as an innovative concept of tonal harmony might be most relevant to the Classic Rock genre, I would suggest that the broader concept of harmonic simplicity producing innovative techniques of tonal harmony can be used to derive evolutionary tonality in most if not all of the genres that are considered a part of the popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. If, for example, the concept of harmonic simplicity were used to derive relevant tonal evolution out of the genres of Motown R&B, what kind of harmonic concepts could be discussed? What about Hip Hop? Rap? The discussion is limitless. The prospect of defining tonal evolution through harmonic simplicity, I would suggest, does much more than find relevancy in a single concept (that is, the power chord) and a single genre (that is, the Classic Rock genre), as I have shown here, but opens up an entire, un-traversed space of popular music theory and popular musicology that remains to be discussed, redefining the study of popular musicology and tonal theory at the most rudimentary level.

Works Cited

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