Friday, January 30, 2009
Hailing Frequencies Open
Not exactly visual culture, but I think this link has quite a bit to do with questions of taste, of intertextuality, of interpellation, of "hailing frequencies" if I may.
They missed two thousand other songs, but still this video is a great text to study. Why is this progression, or a blues progression for that matter, so popular? Is it to do with iconography, as discussed in chapter one of visual literature? Have these combinations of sounds, like a collection of lines on a page, been given a specific meaning through their repetition. Or is there another element at work? Just as the human eye follows certain patterns when viewing a painting, does the human brain recognize patterns in music? Are these progressions popular just because they sound like other songs? Is there any sort intrinsically universal nature of these patterns which naturally produce a certain response in the listener? Monika you mentioned studying music in other cultures, are there any similarities in the composition of music? I know that not all cultures use chords, so I am lead to believe there is nothing intrinsic in the way music affects people. This makes me think the ideas of iconography are relevant, and that these chord patterns follow “conventions of representation” as the textbook puts it (Tucker, 15).
Put down your guitars Luke and Monika, I figured it out. (or can you do it by ear?)
The progression is 1, 5, 6, 4.
Perhaps most commonly played with C, G, A, F.
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Braden!
ReplyDeleteTo start off i need to point out that in your transcription you forgot to add a (min) to your A thus making it a minor chord. Apart from the nitty gritty, the reason this chord progression is so famously used is its emphasis of the plagel cadence, which in theory is this. The first chord is the tonic which is the strongest chord is C or any progression for that matter then proceeded by the dominate which is the strongest resolution you get in western music. Then they bring in the 6 or sub-mediant which acts kinda like a 2 chord in some contexts but is the downer chord in the progression which provides the downward motion to the next interval for the 4. Now the 4 is important because it is the sub-dominate and creates this mega-tension for the listener and needs to be resolved to fulfill the listeners needs. While it is a predictable chord progression that tons of pop artists use the science behind it provides it with the idea that people like to feel a resolution at the end of a song, this could be why theloinius or Davis are not so wholly embraced. And in the pop music spectrum the whole strive for easy, unchallenging harmonies is key. I hope this help settle anything, and I hope Monica can help here to as my harmonic theory is a little rusty.
Have you seen this (http://www.sixsongs.net/)? Pseudo-individualization within music seems to be on a lot of minds these days, especially with recent court disputes among artists duking it out about musical copyright (Joe Satriani vs Coldplay).
ReplyDeleteI don’t think you need to be able to play a guitar to figure this one out. If people dig a song, they are highly likely to dig other songs which sound similar. The music industry is a business and if ensuring profit means having ‘Maroon 5’ rip ‘Journey’ off then that’s how such familiar songs continually rise up on ‘Ryan Seacrest’s American top 40.’
I think the real issue is what messages are embedded within these songs we are all hearing. Should we be thinking about first kisses and unrequited love while wars continue to take place? Does the rampant homophobia in Western society have anything to do with the continual reinforcement of heteronormative relationships in the content of these songs? Could the shortened hemlines of the skirts on female artists have anything to do with why women are still often treated as second-rate citizens?