it's finally here...
A place where people who like music theory can mention their deepest, darkest, nerdiest theory revelations.
I have much to share. Let's start with an idea I had.
Take progressions in the major key...let's do "Can't Buy Me Love" by the Beatles (this may become a recurring example.)
Chorus: iii | vi | iii | vi | iii | vi | ii | V
Verse: 12 bar blues in C, with dominant 7 chords
Let's transform it into minor keeping the relative chord placements:
Chorus: bIII | bVI | bIII | bVI | bIII | bVI |ii half dim| V |
Verse: 12 bar blues in C minor, with minor 7 chords
Wow, that really doesn't work! bIII will sound like a tonic chord in a major key! I think minor keys need more emphasis on that tonic minor chord, known as i.
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This is an interesting thought experiment, to find that even this fairly simple progression falls apart if the mode is changed to minor.
ReplyDeleteMajor tonality seems so much more stable, more easily established. It's easier to destabilize the minor tonality, *relatively* speaking (pun intended). Minor needs more reinforcement through iteration of the tonic triad and, I think even more importantly, of the major dominant triad with its leading tone.
But why?
Is the major key more stable because its major tonic triad is almost identical to the first six partials in the natural harmonic series? (This is the jumping-off point for Paul Hindemith and Heinrich Schenker.)
And is minor unstable because the minor scale includes a subtonic, a note that lends so much more acoustic strength to the minor's mediant, i.e. relative major?
Or is it entirely culturally constructed? Have we simply become acculturated to the stability of the seven notes of the major scale and their tendencies, and to the fluctuating sixth and seventh scale degrees and their perceived weakening effects?
~ML
Mark - thanks for the questions! A minor chord is sort of the "inversion" of a major chord (inverting a 0 4 7 set to a 0 3 7). So all of the qualities of the chords in a minor key are opposite of those in major (excepting ii and V). Maybe I should try "inverting" the progression...mapping iii to LVI instead of LIII, and etc.
ReplyDeleteChorus: LVI|LIII|LVI|LIII|LVI|LIII|LVII|IV|
Verse: weirdo 12 bar blues
I'm not really onto anything here. :)
OK, so the question of nature vs nurture about the major and minor keys. I'd like to say it's both cultural and acoustically inherent. Suppose another culture stumbled on the same tonal system we use...they might have the same sort of revelations, they might use it completely differently from there. That is a DIFFICULT QUESTION haha!