Description
‘Dominant’, ‘subdominant’, ‘perfect cadence’, etc. — handy terms when studying the standard euroclassical and jazz repertoires but not much use if you want to understand the tonal idioms of rock, rebetiko, flamenco, son-bolero, news jingles, traditional music from the British Isles or Balkans, and all those other musics in which final cadences don’t have to be ‘perfect’, where ‘interrupted’ cadences can be final, and where a subdominant (if any) has no dominant to which it can be ‘sub’. This book replaces the ethnocentric confusion of conventional music theory with concepts that make sense of everyday tonality —like the melodic hexatonicism of “It’s Not Unusual”, unusual in music theory but not in real life. The quartal sounds of mountain banjo tuning, corporate underscore, Bartók quartets, TV themes and folk-rock backing are another focus of attention, as are the functions of non-ionian harmony’s chord loops and shuttles, ‘flat-two modes’, bimodal reversibility, tonal counterpoise, etc.
“A fantastic read — worth it for the preface alone!” (tweet by #musicology, 2014)
“The single best explanation... of how harmony works across a broad spectrum of the world’s music” (Ethan Hein, New York University, 2017)
“‘Come out of the nineteenth-century music theory closet’, writes Tagg. With inimitable wit... and attention to detail, he rewrites the rule book and makes you question commonly held assumptions about music theory. In a chapter on ‘one-chord harmony’ Tagg demonstrates tonal elaboration and its relation to groove and style using sixteen different popular music examples showing how a single chord on a lead sheet does not imply harmonic impoverishment. He also shows how chord shuttles are ongoing states, not the narrative processes that traditional theory would have us believe to be of prime importance. I recommend you get inside Tagg’s terminology, try out his ideas with music examples of your own and make up your own mind.” (Sue Miller, Leeds Beckett University, 2017).
600 pages, 289 music examples, numerous figures, tables and charts.
“A fantastic read — worth it for the preface alone!” (tweet by #musicology, 2014)
“The single best explanation... of how harmony works across a broad spectrum of the world’s music” (Ethan Hein, New York University, 2017)
“‘Come out of the nineteenth-century music theory closet’, writes Tagg. With inimitable wit... and attention to detail, he rewrites the rule book and makes you question commonly held assumptions about music theory. In a chapter on ‘one-chord harmony’ Tagg demonstrates tonal elaboration and its relation to groove and style using sixteen different popular music examples showing how a single chord on a lead sheet does not imply harmonic impoverishment. He also shows how chord shuttles are ongoing states, not the narrative processes that traditional theory would have us believe to be of prime importance. I recommend you get inside Tagg’s terminology, try out his ideas with music examples of your own and make up your own mind.” (Sue Miller, Leeds Beckett University, 2017).
600 pages, 289 music examples, numerous figures, tables and charts.
Details
Publisher - Philip Tagg
Language - English
Paperback
Contributors
Author
Philip Tagg
Published Date -
ISBN - 9780990806813
Dimensions - 21.0 x 14.8 x 3.2 cm
Page Count - 600
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