BunnyBlinks

Still, I live for (and through) open ears, so I thought maybe I just wasn’t listening closely enough. Of course, that’s as true here as anywhere. Something about the music prompted me to listen more closely to the words, which as Wayne says, “are actually quite laudable in an era when women are more likely to appear as strippers than equals in R&B and hip-hop depictions.”

Here’s a link to what Wayne wrote that got me thinking.

Copied below is where I went with it. “Effervesynth”? “Ne-Yo Schenkerian?” That’s some wonderfully p(h)unny stuff. Thanks for all you are, Wayne.

Ne-Yo’s “Miss Independent,” harmonically speaking, isn’t going to fit into any neat Schenkerian plan, and not just because of your and my justifiable skepticism of music-analytical reduction.Because of the meter, I’d argue (and maybe I’ll even use the present, non-conditional tense starting now) that we have to hear the first chord as some sort of I. But we can’t, if we’re gonna be Zocchian about it. (For the benefit of anyone reading this who’s not Wayne or I, I’ll just say “Zocchian” is an inside-joke, a reference I use with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It’s a shout-out to a mutual friend, who’s an awesome pianist who can provide a play-by-play harmonic analysis, score, unseen, of even the fastest, most complicated tonal music.) So, straight off the bat, we lose the ability to proceed through a convincing harmonic analysis of this song in any traditional sense.

Of course, we can (and I will) do so anyway, which isn’t a bad exercise. In fact, the process might help us connect to the music on another level.

With philosophical disclaimers out of the way, I’m thinking we have to hear the song as being in B-flat minor. With no altered keys (five flats: BEADG, if you’d like a refresher).

Whereas the Romantics (not the band, as far as I know) — perhaps in an attempt to ride the coat-tails of Beethoven after the “controversy” — which stemmed from the fact it opens with a series of V-I, not I-V or I-V-I progressions — of his First Symphony, we can’t say it’s surprising or innovative that “Miss Independent” doesn’t start on I. Starting on IV is a little weirder, but not really too weird, because the producers are likely not thinking tonally, per se.

As a side note, this goes well with my theory that contemporary music (lots of dance music, but lots of other music, too) has effectively replaced V with IV. IV used to serve to prepare V (so sayeth the Schenkerians), or otherwise it was simply used to expand I. Today, IV tends to be the place I moves to and from — thus playing a role traditionally given to V — but IV still retains a sense that it’s “expanding the tonic” (another word for I, the root harmony, which defines the key), which is why the music we both love so much keeps flowing, pushing forward even as it asks us to listen to things that aren’t harmonically relevant.

Back to the beginning of the song: the first chord is E-flat minor. But because we initially hear it with that gay (sorry, I couldn’t resist) effervesynth, which starts on — and folds back to — D-flat, the chord is effectively a seventh chord. So it starts on a (minor) IV-7.

So the progression, as I (am asked, for the historical record, to) hear it is:

iv7 — i — VI — VII

(Note: I’m capitalizing major chords and not minor, as most theory students are asked to do unless they attend UW-Madison.)

This (non-)progression is repeated over and over until the bridge, which, by the way, I haven’t given much thought to yet, other than to briefly think about how cheesy it sounds to me. Have fun with that!

Now, I could spend way too long on this. Hell, I probably already have. But one thing is worth noting in particular. If you were to remove the iv7 (which would likely change the song beyond recognition), you get a familiar progression of some pop music (and note: it’s not really a classical progression, since it doesn’t — to Zocchian ears — “progress”). I’m thinking of some hardcore metal songs, the verse of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” or the entirety of Stevie Nicks‘(s) “Edge of Seventeen.” Weird, actually, I think the Prince reference would be on key. Keep in mind we’d have to hear both those songs as I — II — iii instead of VI — VII — I.

So yeah, it’s complicated, mostly because we’re forcing harmonic theory where it doesn’t belong. Still, even leaving that opinion aside, it’s also complicated because the iv7 makes it complicated. It’s a lush, energetic chord that displaces the tonic (i) harmony on the downbeat. When you play it on the piano …

D-flat D-flat
B-flat D-flat
G-flat F
E-flat F

… you can feel and hear how the iv7 results from a double-appoggiatura of sorts. G-flat and E-flat narrow in on F, and when they get there, it’s just a i-chord.

Jammin!

To help you out, let me finish by writing out for you how I’d play it to really feel what I’m getting at. The middle lines are the right hand (start with your pinky on the top note, thumb on the bottom). It looks like four lines, but think of it as triads. I just want you to see (and feel) the two pitches converging into one. The bottom (bold) line is the left-hand bass line, which I think matches the bass of the song. I positioned the right-hand triads to give smoother voice leading between the first and second chords, and also so that you can hear the riff’s melody on the top, which is where it is in the actual mix. Finally, I just noticed that the melodic instrumental riff follows what I had already notated as the top line of the right-hand triads, but it fills in the F-to-D-flat interval stepwise, while rhythmically anticipating the chord changes. This melodic hook (for your own safety, don’t try to play it at the same time) is in italics at the very top, but there’s no space to notate anything other than each pitch the first time it’s heard. (I’m not notating repeated pitches or rhythm there.)

Yesterday’s speech was given to a general (not exclusively religious) audience, and so I wasn’t dreading the eventual onset of offensiveness that inevitably spills from the mouths of most other famous preachers. In fact, I quite enjoyed the romp. It was funny (check out the part beginning @ 3:05 in the above clip).

What got me most, though, was the music lesson (beginning @ 5:40). Sure, a musicologist would want to nuance Wright’s words a bit more, in an effort to be critical of the race-based generalities he discusses as if they were absolute truths. Still, it’s not often we get the chance to hear (ethno)musicology mentioned in the mainstream media, let alone the chance to hear time signatures discussed and solfege performed as if both were shared components of American cultural practices.

Wright’s pretty much right on this one, doncha think? I know James Brown liked to think he shifted the beat of his band to “the one,” but that doesn’t jive with where we clap, does it?

It started with “Poolboy,” who earned his nickname in part with his handiness and helpfulness, but mostly, to be sure, on account of his appearance. Poolboy rolls with lots of different folks, including his young, cute, and clever kids, and a large, diverse group of friends and family. Perceptions of Poolboy vary remarkably from person to person and situation to situation, and he’s well aware of this phenomenon. So frequently it’s surreal, he’s asked oddly personal questions by strangers and acquaintances alike.

“Are you gay? But don’t you have kids? and wasn’t there a girlfriend?” he might get asked in the local gay bar.

Then there’s the just-as-frequent line of questioning: “You’re straight? But the purple hair!” someone will ask when they notice his lingering glance at a physically attractive woman I somehow failed to notice. (The hair, I’ve observed, is a conveniently mentionable symbol for any confidently expressed flamboyant mannerisms that usually go unmentioned.)

Generally, acquaintances feel forced to conclude, usually in a whisper, that “he must be bi.” All this unnecessary–and to him, pointless– speculation gets to be a little much for Poolboy. If pressed, he’d probably admit that his resistance to these categories is partially a political response. Mostly, though, the questions just annoy him. “I’m a doer, not a labeler. Can’t I just be ‘Poolboy’?”

Of course, without labels we’d have no language; without categories, education as we know it would be impossible. (We might, however, pay more attention to which sorts of words make for the best labels, describing processes, not things.) Moreover, many of us feel that gay (somewhat more so than lesbian) politics is based in the knowledge that people are born gay, and so “gay” must be a category.

In academic circles, there’s a push to embrace more and more narrowly defined labels as we specialize in ever smaller areas of expertise. I will admit to consciously resisting this trend in my own scholarly and pedagogical endeavors. But there’s no denying that labels–some helpful, many meaningless–are at the heart of “music analysis,” whose apparently jealous sibling discipline, “music theory,” constantly strives to label bigger and better systems.

Academic careers can be built on the coining of a new term or theory, especially once people adopt and/or reproduce it. This might not be a musically sensitive process, but it’s power. After all, academics are capitalists, too; especially, so it sometimes seems, when they claim not to be.

Admittedly, in talking about labels and categories we could be talking about any cultural phenomenon. Think: advertising and political demographics, like “Soccer Moms,” “Nascar Dads,” “Green-collar workers,” and “Obamicans.” How many tags–or should I say labels?–should I affix to this post? and why?

Poolboy, I think, is right to resist. Sure, the rest of us initially teased him, throwing what we first heard as trivial protest back at him. Now, though, questions like “Why do you have to label her a ‘bartender’?” have become a way of poking fun at each other while embracing the absurd. The childlike banter has evolved beyond the “your mom” joke into surprisingly sophisticated real-life sketch comedy.

A lot of power lies with those who frame a debate. We can, however, challenge and teach the debate framers, and refuse to answer with a simple, confirming or denying “yes” or “no.” We’re better off reformulating those questions that serve no purpose other than to divide us.

Poolboy reminds us that we can fight the power by playing around it.

It’s an (invertedly) charming tune, playfully capturing the lyrical sentiment in the distorted sounds of the perfectly crafted (yes, “structurally simple”) pop-song style, which is an imprecise but acknowledged tribute to The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 debut album Psychocandy.

I think one could argue that a successful musical analysis demonstrates an alertness to comorbidity. It’s possible that certain composers were similarly attuned. Alfred Schnittke’s “polystylistic” music might be a good starting point for this conversation: bringing out the triads, for example, hides the underlying twelve-tone row. Let me listen more and get back to you on this one. Better yet, share your thoughts in the comments.