I complain a lot on this blog about traditional approaches to teaching music theory. Fortunately, there are some alternatives out there. One such is Everyday Tonality by Philip Tagg. Don’t be put off by the DIY look of the web site. The book is the single best resource I know of for how harmony works across a broad spectrum of the world’s music.

Tagg brings an ethnomusicological approach to music theory. Rather than starting with a particular theoretical approach and trying to fit it to different kinds of music, he looks for patterns across different kinds of music as they are practiced, and generalizes from there. Tagg’s model of harmony is less tidy than the standard classical theory text, but then, so is the world he’s describing.

Common-practice tonal theory was invented to explain the harmonies in the European classical canon, not in every kind of music in the world. The problem is that the academy teaches this theory of a particular aspect of the music of a certain time and place as if it were the foundation for understanding any kind of music. Euroclassical tonal theory is fine for explain large-scale linear harmonic structure over the course of sections and movements of classical works, but it fails when you try to apply it to the static, loop-oriented harmonies structures of most of the music that people currently listen to.

Tagg gives the example of “La Bamba.” On its face, the chord progression to “La Bamba” couldn’t be any simpler: I, IV and V, over and over. A classical theorist looks at that and says, it’s tonic, subdominant, dominant, repeat.

But “La Bamba” doesn’t feel like a narrative of being at rest, then mild tension, then more extreme tension, then being at rest again. The chords go by too fast and with too many repetitions for that. The song isn’t a linear narrative; it feels like one continuous mood. Tagg points out that trying to explain this song in terms of tonic, subdominant and dominant doesn’t make sense, because they assume that these harmonies have linear direction. “La Bamba” has no “direction”; it’s one continuous mood. Tagg argues that in order to understand the cyclical ambiance of groove-based harmony, we need a theory of “the extended present” (p. 10), not of linear narrative function. Euroclassical theory ignores metricity, periodicity, timbre, groove, and sonic staging. Those last three parameters are beyond the scope of Tagg’s project, but he offers some useful ideas about bringing meter and repetition into the study of harmony.

One of Tagg’s useful concepts is the idea of “one-chord changes,” as in Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools.”

There’s only one chord in “Chain of Fools,” C minor. By Euroclassical standards, the song should be boring and static, but when you listen, it is neither of those things. The single chord doesn’t just repeat mindlessly. There are complex interlocking rhythmic figures that accent different parts of C minor and its extensions in different metrical positions. When you consider the way that the musicians deploy different pieces of C minor to support the groove, you start to understand “Chain of Fools” as the rich and exciting piece of music that we intuitively experience it to be.

Tagg’s next useful concept is the “shuttle,” a groove that switches back and forth between two chords. One of his examples is the Gm7 to C7 groove in Pink Floyd’s song “The Great Gig In The Sky.”

What key is this groove in? Classical theorists would say that it’s a ii-V progression in F major. Jazz theorists might also argue that, since F never appears, it’s really a i-IV progression in G Dorian. Tagg thinks that neither description is correct, though he’d probably agree that the latter one is closer to the truth. Instead, Tagg says we should hear the groove as being in the “key” of Gm7/C7. Neither of the chords is “a place you pass on the way to another destination”; Instead, we need to understand them both as comprising “a tonical neighbourhood” that “is itself somewhere to be” (p. 377). Rather than hearing a teleological pull to either of the two chords, we hear a unified “dynamic ongoing tonal state” (p. 23). This is the most accurate description I have ever read of my own mental approach to playing or writing a two-chord groove.

Tagg offers another way to think about two-chord shuttles: the idea of “dual tonicity” (p. 426), two different modes with two different tonics coexisting in superposition. Even if the two chords have a V-I relationship (e.g. G7 and C), that doesn’t necessarily imply a dominant-tonic function. Instead, we might be hearing the simultaneous modes of G Mixolydian and C major. This is a common situation in Latin music, not to mention about half the pop songs currently on the radio.

It should in short be understood that the V-I cadence does not trump all others in non-classical tonality and that reversal, partial or total, of harmonic direction… can establish two modes, each with its own tonic, inside the same short piece of music (pp. 439-440).

This reminds me of the way that West African drummers hear their rhythm patterns as being simultaneously in duple and triple meter. It’s no surprise, then, that African diasporic musical traditions would take a similarly ambiguous view of harmony.

Tagg uses the term “loop” for loops of three or four different chords. Chord function in loops is more a matter of metrical position than the contents of the chords themselves. Harmony in groove-based music doesn’t have functions like dominant and subdominant. Instead, Tagg suggests we label chords as tonic, outgoing, medial, and incoming. Each of these functions occupies a particular position in the metrical structure of the loop, describing points on a circular rotation, rather than a linear journey.

The loop might represent any length of musical time, depending on the harmonic rhythm. Each chord might last for two beats each, or one measure each, or two measures each, or whatever. The metrical functions of these chords override whatever other functions the progression might suggest, whether they happen to be tonal or modal or blues or seemingly random.

Using the loop concept, we can now make better sense of the “La Bamba” progression. The C chord is the tonic, the F is the outgoing chord, and G is both the medial chord and the incoming chord.

We can also understand a basic I-vi-ii-V jazz turnaround in these terms: Cmaj7 is the tonic, A-7 is the outgoing chord, D-7 is the medial chord, and G7 is the incoming chord. It so happens that you can explain this progression in functional harmony terms as well, but when you loop the chords endlessly, it’s more correct to think of them as being a single mood, not as markers in a linear narrative.

This analysis aligns better with modern jazz practice than tonal theory. It sounds corny to play the leading tone over G7 resolving to the root or third of C; instead, modern jazz musicians will use more ambiguity, like playing the leading tone on the C chord and avoiding it on the G7 chord.

In the examples I’ve given so far, classical and jazz theory would agree with Tagg’s analysis of what the tonic chord is. For an example where they differ, consider “Sweet Home Alabama,” an endless loop of D7, C, and G. Classical theorists usually say that the chords in this loop are the dominant, subdominant and tonic in G major. Tagg’s theory says no; look at the metrical positions.

Since D7 occupies the tonic position, it must be the tonic chord. The tune is therefore in the “key” of D Mixolydian, not in G.

Note that if we disregard rhythm, both “Sweet Home Alabama” and “La Bamba” are the “same” chords (if we transpose the latter down a fourth.) Thinking about loop function shows us how the two progressions nevertheless form different tonalities.

Here’s a tougher one: what key is Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” in?

There are four chords here: B minor, D major, F-sharp minor, and E major. I can think of five different keys that these chords might plausibly imply.

If B minor is the tonic chord, then the progression is i-III-v-IV. This puts us in B Dorian mode, though that’s only weakly established by the minor v chord.

If D is the tonic chord, then the progression is vi-I-iii-II. This puts us in D Lydian mode, which is unlikely for a pop song. Besides, now there’s no dominant or subdominant chord.

If F-sharp minor is the tonic chord, then the progression is iv-bVI-i-bVII. This puts us in F-sharp natural minor, which would be reasonable, except that now the tonic is in a metrically weak position.

If E is the tonic chord, then the progression is v-bVII-ii-I. This puts us in E Mixolydian mode, which also has a weak minor v chord.

Since all of these scales are modes of A major, maybe that’s really the key. Maybe the progression is ii-IV-vi-V. This would make perfect sense, except how can A be the tonic chord if it never once appears in the song?

Tagg would say: we’re asking the wrong question. The song is in all of these keys and none of them. The rules of functional harmony are no help. Instead, we should ask about the metrical function of the four chords. Using Tagg’s terminology, B minor is the tonic because it’s in the tonic position. D is the outgoing chord, F-sharp minor is the medial chord, and E is the incoming chord.

If you were going to improvise a solo over these changes, you could use any of the five scales mentioned above (they’re all the same seven pitches anyway.)

How about the chorus of Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke“?

The chords are B, Fm7, C#m7, and F#7. If you ignore the second chord, it’s a straightforward ii-V-I in B, but how do we understand Fm7? Tagg would say, who cares? It’s the outgoing chord. The fact that the other three chords happen to be “functional” doesn’t make the Fm7 sound strange; in the context of Stevie’s groove, it sounds perfectly fine. You could put any chords into the four slots as long as they don’t clash with the melody.

Not all repeated chord progressions are loops. Tagg argues that if the loop is longer than about eighteen seconds, we’re more likely to hear it as a “cyclical matrix” like twelve-bar blues or rhythm changes. You could probably create a more complex diagram of circles within circles to better understand the metrical function of harmonies in those bigger forms, but that’s a topic for another post.

Tagg shares my frustration with the Euroclassical world’s arrogance toward other musics. Institutional theorists often impose their own value system onto any other music they encounter, in a cultural holdover of colonialism.

[N]o-one in their right mind would dismiss Beethoven quartets (for example Op. 131 in C# minor) on grounds of monometricity (no cross-rhythms), monotimbrality (just a string quartet) or monospatiality (no variation of acoustic ambiance) because it’s obvious that the main dynamic of those quartets comes from thematic and harmonic development over time. By the same token it’s silly to dismiss Chuck Berry’s Nadine because it spends 70% of its time on one chord, or Bo Diddley’s Bo Diddley because it’s all on one chord (p. 353).

Actually, plenty of people in their right minds do dismiss Beethoven, for exactly those reasons. Most contemporary Western listeners strongly prefer music with cross-rhythms, varying timbres and wildly diverse acoustic ambiances. We call that music rock, or hip-hop, or EDM, or reggae, or any of the other popular musics descended from the African diaspora.

Too many music educators from Euroclassical culture sneer at everyone else for their lack of interest in “great” music. These same educators too often display ignorance of the music that everyone else finds meaningful and enjoyable. We the pop-oriented progressives have our work cut out for us.

Canons are institutionally useful. It’s a pain to constantly have to be revising and updating curricula, textbooks and exams. Nevertheless, if we’re going to teach music responsibly, we should at the very least be teaching it correctly. We should treat Euroclassical theory as the specialized topic that it is. If we’re going to impose a single, universally learned music theory on every student (and I don’t think we should), then I’d prefer that it look like Tagg’s.

If you’re interested in more theory resources in the spirit of Tagg, you might enjoy these posts:

And definitely check out Tagg’s other books. Ten Little Title Tunes is particularly good.

Update: this post is in an Adam Neely video!

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