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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\u2019s a departure from the i-\u266dVI back-and-forth motion we\u2019ve heard so far, and it represents a coherent development of the track\u2019s harmonic improvement. This all pertains to the idea of \u201cfunctional harmony\u201d \u2014 a tonal framework through which each chord has a predefined job to carry out. But when the A\u266dMaj7\u266d5 chord arrives, what perform does that chord serve? Does it even have<\/em> a perform?<\/p>\n In normal, a chord constructed upon the interval a tritone away from the tonic (residence) chord can act as passing<\/em> chord \u2014 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\u2019t be unusual to discover a DMaj7 (I) chord sliding right into a GMaj7 (IV) by way of a passing A\u266dmin7\u266d5 \u2014 and even an A\u266dMaj7\u266d5. Passing chords are ephemeral by design. You may hear them for one or two beats at most. In \u201cStanding Next To You,\u201d the A\u266dMaj7\u266d5 makes too huge a press release \u2014 and for too lengthy in length \u2014 to behave as a passing chord or merely as some form of harmonic ornament. Clearly, it\u2019s not a jazz-influenced \u201ctritone substitution.\u201d And I don\u2019t assume it\u2019s an instance of \u201cprolongation\u201d both (an idea from Schenkerian Analysis<\/a>, which is a posh and fraught subject, maybe appropriate for us to deal with one other time). <\/p>\n When the A\u266dMaj7\u266d5 arrives, it displaces the track\u2019s whole heart of gravity in a sudden, spectacular method. So possibly that\u2019s<\/em> its perform. The seismic shift introduced on by this chord emphasizes the lyrics describing the figurative depth of Jung Kook\u2019s dedication when he\u2019s \u201cStanding Next To You.\u201d 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<\/em>, 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 \u201cover-the-barline\u201d really feel. Coupled with the already-surprising concord, it makes the entire surprising passage sound actually hip.<\/p>\n It\u2019s amusing to watch the place the A\u266dMaj7\u266d5 chord we\u2019ve been referencing comes from. It\u2019s a sort of chord popularized by post-bop tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. You can hear totally different Maj7\u266d5 chords threaded all by way of his basic tune \u201cInner Urge.\u201d Check it out:<\/p>\n In \u201cStanding Next To You,\u201d the A\u266dMaj7\u266d5 ultimately melts right into a G Major chord following the road, \u201cwhen it\u2019s deep like DNA,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cAll I Need.\u201d In that track\u2019s 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\u2019s successfully a 1st-inversion II chord in an A Lydian development. Not precisely what\u2019s occurring within the Jung Kook track \u2014 however compelling, nonetheless. <\/p>\n In Pink Floyd\u2019s \u201cBreathe,\u201d we hear motion from B minor to F Major (a tritone away), however these chords are the iii and \u266dVII, respectively \u2014 i.e., not based mostly across the tonic as within the Jung Kook track. Again, related \u2014 however not the identical.<\/p>\n The solely instance I can consider that employs a tonic-tritone-IV development in a way that resembles what\u2019s occurring within the refrain of \u201cStanding Next To You\u201d is within the track \u201cWould\u201d by Alice In Chains. Listen to the coda, after the second refrain, when Layne Staley sings \u201cAm I wrong?\u201d. We hear a DMaj to G#Maj (that\u2019s 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\u266d (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\u2019t equivalent, however they\u2019re harmonically comparable. Check it out:<\/p>\n Have you observed the rest important in regards to the A\u266dMaj7\u266d5 chord in \u201cStanding Next To You\u201d? The melody Jung Kook is singing over that chord contains an A\u266e, which turns into a \u266d9 altered chord extension. (Figure 4<\/em>, above.) This makes the entire affair much more riveting, extra intriguing. I wouldn\u2019t be shocked if \u201cStanding Next To You\u201d seems to be the one single within the historical past of the Billboard charts to have used an A\u266dMaj7\u266d5\u266d9.<\/p>\n As a reminder, I didn\u2019t 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\u2019re inspecting this track exactly as a result of it embodies the sorts of daring harmonic selections we generally discover in Ok-pop \u2014 and that are conspicuously scarce in Western pop as of late. Listen to the wealthy concord in \u201cSuperhuman<\/a>\u201d by NCT 127 and witness all of the surprising twists and turns. Check out \u201csnowy night<\/a>\u201d by Billlie, for some tasty and nourishing chord adjustments. Behold \u201cOne (Monster & Infinity)<\/a>\u201d by SuperM and \u201cPink Venom<\/a>\u201d by Blackpink for sinuous modal mixtures (e.g., Phrygian Dominant to Aeolian to Mixolydian.). And on and on, the record continues.<\/p>\n If it\u2019s true that Ok-pop sphere values considerate concord and melody as a genre-defining attribute, why doesn\u2019t 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\u2019re working in mainstream Western pop? I haven\u2019t discovered satisfying solutions to those questions \u2014 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. <\/p>\n 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 \u2014 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\u2019 imaginations \u2014 whereas, beforehand, these duties fell extra into the area of melody, concord, and counterpoint. Indeed, as we explored in a earlier In Theory article<\/a>, on Mariah Carey\u2019s \u201cAll I Want For Christmas Is You,\u201d 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 \u2014 and to jaded listeners, maybe corny. Even in Twenty first-Century up to date classical music, you\u2019re 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 \u2014 and even Twentieth-Century atonal constructs \u2014 as a central characteristic of their music, listeners would invariably discover it sounding dated.<\/p>\n We can additional perceive the state of affairs utilizing an analogy from the sector of telecommunications: the \u201cmessage\u201d sign is the data you need to transmit, and the \u201ccarrier\u201d sign is the technique of transmission. Traditionally, for those who had been to listen to an A Major chord performed on a piano, the \u201cmessage\u201d could be the notes that mix to create the A Major chord, and the \u201ccarrier\u201d 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 \u201cmessage\u201d and \u201csignal\u201d have change into reversed<\/em>. Today, the sound of the instrument (sound design) has assumed the first position of \u201cmessage,\u201d 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n Earlier, I posed a rhetorical query about who\u2019s gatekeeping the boundaries of Ok-pop and mainstream Western pop with respect to concord and manufacturing. I\u2019m 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\u2019s 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 \u201csaying too much,\u201d the music dangers sounding outmoded \u2014 and even treacly. It\u2019s 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<\/a> and make the track attention-grabbing by way of artistic sound design, efficiency, and manufacturing.<\/p>\n The music of Silk Sonic (examined in a earlier In Theory article<\/a>) 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\u2019s pop milieu was by inventing an overtly retro fa\u00e7ade 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 \u201cotherness.\u201d<\/p>\n OK, right here\u2019s the place we get to the awkward a part of the article. It\u2019s at all times perilous to make broad pronouncements about totally different music genres, and maybe I\u2019ve 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 \u201cOrientalist\u201d distinction. (I\u2019m referencing the Edward Said idea of Orientalism<\/a> right here.) <\/p>\n This additionally raises questions on what’s stopping Ok-pop from escaping its otherness<\/a> in order that it merely turns into a part of \u201cpop\u201d in mainstream music. Is the \u201cK\u201d marker holding again the style? And would Ok-pop danger shedding its most compelling traits<\/a> within the strategy of flattening itself into mainstream Western pop? I don\u2019t have good solutions right here, and possibly the premises on which I\u2019m basing these questions are flawed themselves. What do you assume?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nHave You Heard This Elsewhere?<\/h2>\n
Harmony vs. Sound Design<\/h2>\n
Paging Edward Said<\/h2>\n