Study Questions and other Resources    back to syllabus

Everett    Folio    Butterfield   Spicer   Garcia   Burns   Martin   Larson  Neal


STUDY QUESTIONS: Walter Everett. Making Sense of Rock's Tonal Systems. Music Theory Online, Volume 10/4 (December 2004).  http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.04.10.4/toc.10.4.html.

What are the author's basic premises?

How does he focus or limit his study?  

Listen to the songs he discusses. Some of them I list here:

Billy Joel, She's Always a Woman, The Stranger, 1977
Beatles, Julia, 1968
Beatles, The Long and Winding Road, 1969
Paul Simon, The Sounds of Silence, 1964-65
Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows, Revolver, 1966
Beatles, P. S. I Love You, 1962
Rolling Stones, Brown Sugar, 1971
Beck, Get Real Paid, 1999
Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years
Chuck Berry, School Days
Robert Johnson, Walking Blues
Robert Johnson, When You Got a Good Friend
Wilson Pickett, In the Midnight Hour, 1965
The Kinks, All Day and All of the Night, 1964
Jimi Hendrix, Spanish Castle Magic, Axis: Bold as Love, 1968
Beck, Lonesome Tears, Sea Change, 2003  

What do the author's graphs reveal? Be ready to discuss the graphs and ask questions.

What do you gain in understanding harmony and voice leading through this study?  

Do you disagree with any of the author's basic premises?Are there important aspects of harmony in rock not considered in this study?  

Come up with more songs that you are able to discuss in terms of Everett's classifications:.

COME READY TO PLAY AND DISCUSS EXAMPLES YOU HAVE EXPLORED. Let's use all our performance resources in class to consider how familiar chord patterns map to the guitar and keyboard, and, how they may serve as vehicles in songwriting.


Folio, Cynthia. 1995. “An Analysis of Polyrhythm in Selected Improvised Jazz Solos.” Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, ed. Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann. University of Rochester Press, 103–34. eReserve  

STUDY QUESTIONS:

Familiarize yourself with the audio clips by Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman, and Eric Dolphy (Links are below.)
 
Be ready to discuss these key words and concepts:
     polyrhythm (three types: a, b, and c)
     meter
     hypermeter
     structural downbeat
     structural anacrusis
     accent
     displaced downbeat
     rhythm/contour analysis
 
Cynthia Folio compares artists through their treatment of polyrhythm. Let's see if we can do this ourselves, but bringing in our own polyrhyhtm examples for discussion. Let's try to find some polyrhythm examples from a broad variety of musical syles.
 
The article discusses emotional effects of polythythm. Let's try to continue that discussion. How do polythythms shape meaning and the affective qualitites of music?

Listening:

Example 1. "Bag's Groove." Miles Davis Quintet, 1954 (Take 1). With Miles Davis, trumpet; Milt Jackson, vibraphone; Theonius Monk, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums. (Solo by Theonius Monk near 6.48.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHKnvwoGg0Y

Example 2. "Played twice." Thelonious Monk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPju4j3jG4M&list=RDLPju4j3jG4M

Example 3 & 4. "Criss Cross." Thelonious Monk, Criss-Cross, 1962. With Thelonious Monk, piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor sax; John Ore, bass; Frankie Dunlop, drums. (Solo starts at 2.43) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LLl02pm23A

Example 5, 6, & 7. "Lonely Woman." Ornette Coleman, The Shape Of Jazz To Come, 1959. Album credits: Ornette Coleman, alto sax; Don Cherry, cornet; Charlie Haden,bass; Billy Higgins, drums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbD1JIH344

Example 8 & 9. "Rally." Ron Carter with Eric Dolphy and Mal Waldron (Dolphy's solo at 2.48). Album credits: Ron Carter, bass; Eric Dolphy, sax, clarinet, & flute; George Duvivier, bass; Charles Persip, drums; Malcolm Waldron, piano. Access from UH library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6IpPQfT8Wk

Example 10. "You Don't Know What Love Is." Eric Dolphy. Last Date. 1964. (Eric Dolphy plays bass clarinet, flute, & alto sax on the album. )https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmdU8cGE4z8


STUDY QUESTIONS: Matthew W. Butterfield. The Power of Anacrusis: Engendered Feeling in Groove-Based Musics. Music Theory Online 12/4 (December 2006). http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.06.12.4/mto.06.12.4.butterfield.html

How does Butterfield build upon but also differ from Charles Keil in conceptualizing expressive microtiming?

Discuss Christopher Hasty's theory of metric projection, as explained in the Butterfield article.

In what ways are metrical projections hierarchical?

How can a backbeat be timed to change the feel of a groove pattern?

What are some empirical threshholds mentioned in the article that limit boundaries of human perception of rhythm?

What are Butterfild's main points in studying the Chameleon pattern?

What have you learned from this article concerning the timing of swing patterns?


STUDY QUESTIONS: Mark Spicer.   “(Ac)cumulative Form in Pop-Rock Music.” 20th-Century Music 1/1 (2004): 29-64. eReserve

Explain Spicer's concepts of cummulative and accumulative form. Cite examples.

Discuss connections between minimalism and pop/rock as explored in the article.

Explain the main points of Spicer's analyses of songs by the Police and Yes.

Comment on Spicer's closing remarks, discussing some ways that pop-rock recordings "tend to foreground the temporality of the music text."


STUDY QUESTIONS: Luis-Manuel Garcia. "On and On: Repetition as Process and Pleasure in Electronic Dance Music." Music Theory Online, Volume 11/4 (October 2005). http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.05.11.4/toc.11.4.html

How do issues of authenticity figure in valuing repetition?

How have the writings of Freud, Adorno, and Schoenberg each contributed to notions about repetition?

How does Garcia bring together elements of ethnomusicology, popular music criticism, and music theory in establishing his methodology for studying EDM?

Can you propose counter-arguments to critique ideas in the essay? Can we really locate “pleasure” and “process” within repetition itself? Are those not attributes or byproducts of some entity that undergoes the repetition?


Study Questions: Lori Burns. "Feeling the Style: Vocal Gesture and Musical Expression in Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong." Music Theory Online 11.3 (2005). http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.3/toc.11.3.html

How does Lori Burns provide context for her analysis? Discuss her categorizations of vocal quality, vocal space, and vocal articulation.

Listening:

Bessie Smith. "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," recorded 1923
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VKEKkTQU-k

Billie Holiday. "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," recorded 1949
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbMlxUhjTs

Billie Holiday. "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," recorded early 1950s?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVwxCRy2jfI

Louis Armstrong. "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," recorded 1933
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uyeKxbiZx8

Billie Holiday. "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," recorded 1939
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wJST-aOwXQ


Study Question: Henry Martin. "Charlie Parker and 'Honeysuckle Rose': Voice Leading, Formula, and Motive." Music Theory Online 18.3 (2012). http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.12.18.3/mto.12.18.3.martin.php

Discuss how Henry Martin frames his study of Parker's style in terms of formula, melody, motive, and voice leading.

Listening:

Charlie Parker. "Honeysuckle Rose" / "Body and Soul," recorded 1940
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPBvRPi7Dw

Ray Brown Trio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n450NHhpbI

Django Reinhardt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QATIHWbN-sM

Lena Horne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkSKzz0GyyM


Study Question: Steve Larson. 2006. “Rhythmic Displacement in the Music of Bill Evans.” Structure and Meaning in Tonal Music: A Festschrift for Carl Schachter, ed. Poundie Burstein and David Gagne. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 103–122. eReserve.

Compare Larson's approach to the other recent readings in terms of motive, rhythm, and meter.

Listening:

Bill Evans on Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland - Part 1 (recorded 1978)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIfHtPwF8wY

Bill Evans on Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland - Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRH6W3YVgYw

All of You - Bill Evans Trio, from the 1961 album, Sunday at the Village Vanguard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMyM6_Ygq60

Fred Astaire singing "All of You" in the film, Silk Stockings (song by Cole Porter, 1954)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGJoLVbRItw


STUDY QUESTIONS: Neal, Jocelyn R. 2007. “Narrative Paradigms, Musical Signifiers, and Form as Function in Country Music.”  Music Theory Spectrum 29.1: 41-72. eReserve

Discuss how Neal frames her study, with regard to genre, tradition, and musical form in country music. Be ready to explain how narrative strategies and time-shift relate to her analyses of form, harmony, and phrase structure. Can you apply these ideas to other songs you know, either within or outside country music styles?