The first 4 bars of the refrain comply with customary harmonic logic, with the descending bass line underpinning diatonic chords from the aforementioned minor modes (together with chord inversions), permitting for easy voice main earlier than climbing again as much as the D-minor. It’s a departure from the i-♭VI back-and-forth motion we’ve heard so far, and it represents a coherent development of the track’s harmonic improvement. This all pertains to the idea of “functional harmony” — a tonal framework through which each chord has a predefined job to carry out. But when the A♭Maj7♭5 chord arrives, what perform does that chord serve? Does it even have a perform?
In normal, a chord constructed upon the interval a tritone away from the tonic (residence) chord can act as passing chord — which you’ll consider as a harmonic lubricant that enables the tonic chord to glide by way of it with ease towards the IV chord. In Twentieth-Century jazz (particularly swing and bebop) and within the Tin Pan Alley days of American widespread music, it wouldn’t be unusual to discover a DMaj7 (I) chord sliding right into a GMaj7 (IV) by way of a passing A♭min7♭5 — and even an A♭Maj7♭5. Passing chords are ephemeral by design. You may hear them for one or two beats at most. In “Standing Next To You,” the A♭Maj7♭5 makes too huge a press release — and for too lengthy in length — to behave as a passing chord or merely as some form of harmonic ornament. Clearly, it’s not a jazz-influenced “tritone substitution.” And I don’t assume it’s an instance of “prolongation” both (an idea from Schenkerian Analysis, which is a posh and fraught subject, maybe appropriate for us to deal with one other time).
When the A♭Maj7♭5 arrives, it displaces the track’s whole heart of gravity in a sudden, spectacular method. So possibly that’s its perform. The seismic shift introduced on by this chord emphasizes the lyrics describing the figurative depth of Jung Kook’s dedication when he’s “Standing Next To You.” The rhythmic phrasing within the melody then goes to make the part really feel much more off-balance as a result of the sample is asymmetrical. (Again, see Figure 4, above.) Jung Kook is singing extremely syncopated phrases that group notes collectively in clusters of three beats, over 4/4 time. This ends in a polyrhythmic 4:3 “over-the-barline” really feel. Coupled with the already-surprising concord, it makes the entire surprising passage sound actually hip.
It’s amusing to watch the place the A♭Maj7♭5 chord we’ve been referencing comes from. It’s a sort of chord popularized by post-bop tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. You can hear totally different Maj7♭5 chords threaded all by way of his basic tune “Inner Urge.” Check it out:
In “Standing Next To You,” the A♭Maj7♭5 ultimately melts right into a G Major chord following the road, “when it’s deep like DNA,” gently dissipating all of the dramatic pressure constructed up within the earlier two bars. Finally, the G Major strikes to an implied G minor, resolving in iv-i cadence, bringing us again residence to D minor. I discover the musical structure fairly ingenious.
Have You Heard This Elsewhere?
Can you consider one other piece of music that strikes from the minor tonic to a Major chord a tritone away, after which sits on that chord for 2 complete bars earlier than resolving to the IV? One related instance that involves thoughts is from the Jack Wagner ballad “All I Need.” In that track’s refrain part, the bass line strikes from the tonic A to D#, a tritone away. But the chord atop the D# is a B Major, so it’s successfully a 1st-inversion II chord in an A Lydian development. Not precisely what’s occurring within the Jung Kook track — however compelling, nonetheless.
In Pink Floyd’s “Breathe,” we hear motion from B minor to F Major (a tritone away), however these chords are the iii and ♭VII, respectively — i.e., not based mostly across the tonic as within the Jung Kook track. Again, related — however not the identical.
The solely instance I can consider that employs a tonic-tritone-IV development in a way that resembles what’s occurring within the refrain of “Standing Next To You” is within the track “Would” by Alice In Chains. Listen to the coda, after the second refrain, when Layne Staley sings “Am I wrong?”. We hear a DMaj to G#Maj (that’s the tonic-to-tritone transfer), which then resolves right down to GMaj (the IV), adopted by an E7 (a secondary dominant). The G# chord is enharmonic to A♭ (which means similar pitches, totally different word names), and the tonic chord is a DMaj fairly than Dmin. So the Alice in Chains and Jung Kook passages aren’t equivalent, however they’re harmonically comparable. Check it out:
Have you observed the rest important in regards to the A♭Maj7♭5 chord in “Standing Next To You”? The melody Jung Kook is singing over that chord contains an A♮, which turns into a ♭9 altered chord extension. (Figure 4, above.) This makes the entire affair much more riveting, extra intriguing. I wouldn’t be shocked if “Standing Next To You” seems to be the one single within the historical past of the Billboard charts to have used an A♭Maj7♭5♭9.
Harmony vs. Sound Design
As a reminder, I didn’t single out this Jung Kook track to investigate as a result of I feel the composition is uncommon inside the context of Ok-pop music. To the opposite, we’re inspecting this track exactly as a result of it embodies the sorts of daring harmonic selections we generally discover in Ok-pop — and that are conspicuously scarce in Western pop as of late. Listen to the wealthy concord in “Superhuman” by NCT 127 and witness all of the surprising twists and turns. Check out “snowy night” by Billlie, for some tasty and nourishing chord adjustments. Behold “One (Monster & Infinity)” by SuperM and “Pink Venom” by Blackpink for sinuous modal mixtures (e.g., Phrygian Dominant to Aeolian to Mixolydian.). And on and on, the record continues.
If it’s true that Ok-pop sphere values considerate concord and melody as a genre-defining attribute, why doesn’t mainstream Western pop emphasize this worth in the identical method? Why was concord burdened extra in Western pop in earlier generations than it’s now? More to the purpose: why do songwriters right now, as a matter after all, intentionally make use of extra refined chords and melody when working in Ok-pop than after they’re working in mainstream Western pop? I haven’t discovered satisfying solutions to those questions — and possibly there are none. But on the danger of greedy at straws, maybe we are able to strategy one thing resembling a cogent clarification by broader musical tendencies within the West.
Over the years, music within the West has change into extra sound-design pushed than concord pushed. Certainly, we are able to hear this in movie scoring — and the music of Hans Zimmer could also be the obvious exemplar of this tendency. Tools for sampling and synthesis (subtractive, wavetable, FM, granular, spectral, bodily modeling) have developed and grown in abundance, as have instruments for post-processing (modulation, time-based, dynamics, filters). And the proliferation of digital-audio workstations (DAWs) has made these instruments orders-of-magnitude cheaper than they had been a long time in the past. In Western pop music, author/producers have drifted in the direction of utilizing sound design as a method of constructing pleasure, evoking pathos, and sparking listeners’ imaginations — whereas, beforehand, these duties fell extra into the area of melody, concord, and counterpoint. Indeed, as we explored in a earlier In Theory article, on Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” to fashionable ears, chromatic traces and chords that includes higher extensions (and altered extensions) shifting by way of moments of pressure and launch by way of circle-of-fifths-type relationships can sound nostalgic or old style — and to jaded listeners, maybe corny. Even in Twenty first-Century up to date classical music, you’re prone to discover that essentially the most celebrated works assiduously keep away from established harmonic strategies. If composers like Kaija Saariaho, Nico Muhly, or Max Richter had been to make use of conventional musical grammar — and even Twentieth-Century atonal constructs — as a central characteristic of their music, listeners would invariably discover it sounding dated.
We can additional perceive the state of affairs utilizing an analogy from the sector of telecommunications: the “message” sign is the data you need to transmit, and the “carrier” sign is the technique of transmission. Traditionally, for those who had been to listen to an A Major chord performed on a piano, the “message” could be the notes that mix to create the A Major chord, and the “carrier” could be the sound of the piano. Both alerts are crucial for the music to succeed in your ears, they usually every play a definite position in transmitting the data. In fashionable Western music, more and more, the roles of “message” and “signal” have change into reversed. Today, the sound of the instrument (sound design) has assumed the first position of “message,” whereas the A Major chord (the concord) has change into the technique of transmitting the sound-designed instrument. For higher or worse (no judgment right here), this position reversal has change into a vital ingredient to creating music sound fashionable.
Earlier, I posed a rhetorical query about who’s gatekeeping the boundaries of Ok-pop and mainstream Western pop with respect to concord and manufacturing. I’m not conscious of any mustache-twirling aristocrat or cat-stroking James Bond villain dictating these items from record-company headquarters. On the opposite: I feel the songwriters/producers themselves have merely internalized the notion that when working in Western pop, it’s crucial that the sound design and manufacturing seize the listener at the beginning, with concord assuming a secondary position. And if the chords and melody are “saying too much,” the music dangers sounding outmoded — and even treacly. It’s simply one thing producers/songwriters instinctively know, and maybe a lot of them have by no means questioned the underlying musical/cultural assumptions. As the considering goes, if you would like successful, simply use rudimentary concord and make the track attention-grabbing by way of artistic sound design, efficiency, and manufacturing.
The music of Silk Sonic (examined in a earlier In Theory article) can function an edifying case. I believe Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars needed to bask in a stew of wealthy concord, they usually acknowledged the one method they may get away with it in right now’s pop milieu was by inventing an overtly retro façade through which to wrap it. If you pair refined harmonic language with kitschy Nineteen Seventies leisure fits, possibly fashionable audiences will settle for it. Indeed, their collaboration represents virtually a unique subgenre of mainstream fashionable pop. And what about Ok-pop? I’m wondering if writers/producers working in Ok-pop could also be doing one thing related: smuggling stimulating concord into a contemporary pop presentation that they perceive Western audiences will settle for on the idea of its Korean “otherness.”
Paging Edward Said
OK, right here’s the place we get to the awkward a part of the article. It’s at all times perilous to make broad pronouncements about totally different music genres, and maybe I’ve already waded in too far with sweeping generalizations about Ok-pop versus Western pop. (After all, we are able to simply discover exceptions to the style distinctions I outlined above.) But I’m curious in regards to the extent to which Western audiences are desperate to embrace the advanced concord present in a lot Ok-pop on account of an unacknowledged “Orientalist” distinction. (I’m referencing the Edward Said idea of Orientalism right here.)
This additionally raises questions on what’s stopping Ok-pop from escaping its otherness in order that it merely turns into a part of “pop” in mainstream music. Is the “K” marker holding again the style? And would Ok-pop danger shedding its most compelling traits within the strategy of flattening itself into mainstream Western pop? I don’t have good solutions right here, and possibly the premises on which I’m basing these questions are flawed themselves. What do you assume?