Title: Funnel Tonality in American Popular Music, ca. 1900-70
Abstract: Most tonal music utilizes as its basic formal background and fundament some realization of the tripartite principle of statement, departure, and return, that is, A-B-A in its broadest sense. At the level of harmony and key area, for example, Schenker's Ursatz, I-V-I, is such a realization. Beginning a piece with a firm tonic has its advantages: it insures to a great extent the achievement of the unique rhetorical character we expect from an opening phrase what Monroe Beardsley labels simply quality.' Over the course of time, so-called serious composers have developed a number of stock procedures that enhance the attainment of this introduction quality, including the pedal point in all of its guises, and such simple mannerisms as the three repeated tonic chords that seem to open almost every work of the Mannheim School-and to which Mozart pays tribute in the opening of the Jupiter Symphony. The overwhelming majority of popular songs also begin on the tonic chord. Many, indeed, continually reemphasize this tonic by using as their harmonic scheme the kind of repeating series of progressions known to the trade as a 'vamp pattern. These patterns, with their circular, looping, and turn-around effect, create the kind of tonal anchor that is normal in a well-founded opening statement. Two of the many popular standards whose harmonies consist of vamp patterns are
Publication Year: 1993
Publication Date: 1993-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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