In Theory: 'Dream On' by Aerosmith

By Jarred McAdams

These days, when we think about the harmonic structure of music—if we think about it at all—we tend to view it in terms of a single-note melody supported by a chord progression. This approach to music, known as monody, seems natural enough; it’s certainly the way most of the music we encounter is constructed. So it makes sense that when we study music, we learn about chords, how they fit together, and what scales to use to create melodies over them.

But this wasn’t always the case. The harmony that we know today has its origins in medieval and renaissance polyphony—that is, music constructed from multiple voices with independent rhythmic and melodic ideas happening simultaneously in each voice. The rules of counterpoint governed the sorts of intervals that could occur between the voices, when dissonance could occur, and how it had to resolve—but the concept of a chord progression providing the underlying structure of the music didn’t exist yet.

Over time, certain patterns became stereotyped. The homophonic chorale displaced the polyphonic motet as the most prominent form of sacred music. Instead of voices moving in different rhythms, all the voices moved together, forming what we’d now call chords. It was in this form that the modern notion of a chord progression began to take shape.

So what does any of this have to do with Aerosmith? Well, when we sit down to break down a piece of music, we often approach it with the familiar tools of functional harmony and Roman numeral analysis. But sometimes in trying to crowbar a passage into this mold, we lose sight of what’s actually happening—multiple musical voices moving and aligning to create the sound we hear. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the iconic introduction to “Dream On.”

All this happens over a droning F note in the bass. Now, it’s quite possible to label each harmony and assign those traditional Roman numerals to each chord:

Fm – Cm/F – Fm6 – Csus4(add b9)/F – Fm

Or, in simplified Roman numeral form:

i – v – i – V – i

The F and C notes are droning through the whole thing, making the underlying harmony of the passage F minor, with the apparent harmonic motion simply being an example of harmonic expansion—using a short chord progression to take the place of a single chord.

But this all seems a little forced. What’s really going on here? Three things:

1. F and C notes drone throughout, with the C coming in on the upbeats.

2. A descending melodic fragment on the green string walks down from F to Db with a chromatic passing tone on D-natural. We see this exact same descending pattern later on in the bass line.

3. An alternating half-step pattern on the purple string (Ab-G-Ab-G). Again, we see this half-step pattern reappear multiple times in different contexts, particularly in the build-up sections.

So try as we may to make these sonorities fit our notion of how a chord progression should work, these chords are really just the result of complexly interacting melodic patterns—which, as we have learned, is where chords come from anyway.



Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry performing live at Hellfest 2017 in France.

Steven Tyler, who wrote “Dream On,” is letting his ear and his musical intuition guide his choices rather than falling into stock patterns. Music theory, terminology, and rules are helpful when describing music, but they are just conventions, not universal truths about the nature of sound. When it comes to your music, try not to put theory ahead of practice.

Jarred McAdams joined the Rocksmith team in 2011. He studied composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and hold a Master's degree in composition from Mills College. Jarred has served as a composer, performer, writer, and video producer for a wide variety of artistic and commercial projects and has worked on a number of music game franchises since 2008.

"Joe Perry solo" by Japrea is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

"Aerosmith at 2017 Hellfest" by Selbymay is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.