Siegfried Knoepfler

Von: Siegfried Knoepfler

Gesendet: Sonntag, 19. August 2001 02:11

An: 'Cyberpluckers'

Betreff: Chords & modulation (long posting, music theory, definitely RAR)

With this posting I would like to discuss some music questions of a - at first sight - rather theoretical nature but with - for me at least - practical consequences.

What finally urged me to sit down for a lengthy (Warning!) elaboration, were a passage from a recent posting by Terry, quoted below, a contribution by Bud Taylor some time ago, also enclosed, and a - as far as I see - still open question regarding the chord numbering method, put forward by John Dallas some weeks ago, enclosed as well.

Following these references and their examination, I will illustrate my points using the chords I employ for melody playing the gospel song "In the Garden".

-----Original Message-----

From: Terry Johnson

Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 9:15 AM

To: Siegfried Knoepfler

Cc: 'Cyberpluckers'

Subject: Re: ... June Carters "Press On" A New Perspective

[S.Kn.] < ...>

"Softly and Tenderly" is a well beloved song in the South especially at

a Billy Graham or any revival meeting. "In the Garden" is tailor made

for autoharp as a tender "spiritual love song", and "I'll Fly Away" is

of course in everyone's repertoire as a downright fast picking, feel

good song.

[S.Kn.]

< ... >

[S.Kn.]

Von: Lyman Taylor

Gesendet: Dienstag, 24. Juli 2001 16:43

An: ...

Cc: Cyberpluckers

Betreff: Re: C vs D

[S.Kn.] < ... >

While most melodies of simple tunes are

diatonic, many of the harmonies are chromatic. In other words, the

chords which are used with those melody notes use notes which are

not found in the seven note scale.

[S.Kn.]

< ... >

[S.Kn.]

Von: John Dallas

Gesendet: Donnerstag, 7. Juni 2001 16:21

An: Cyberpluckers

Betreff: Re: numbers instead of chords?

Eileen Roys wrote:

>This is so the piece of music can be played in any key, and is sometimes

referred to as "The Nashville Notation System"...<

As a somewhat advanced beginner, I am already familiar (through this list,

of course!) with the "Roman numeral" notation. However, a posting by Clay

Bonser got me thinking, when he mantioned a tune "going into another key"

than the one it started in. There are a lot of tunes that modulate like

this, and I have one particular one in mind - Siegfried Knöpfler knows it

too - it's the German song "Aennchen von Tharau". The first line of the

song is in C major (as I sing it), but the second line is in G major. It

then reverts to C major for one line, then modulates to and stays in G

major until the last line, which is again in C. On the autoharp, I notice

that I'm constantly shifting my hand from the "home position" for C major

to the "home position" for G major and back. When I play it on the Anglo

concertina, I'm shifting my fingers back and forth from the C row to the G

row. It's not just a matter of a single chord here and there, which I

could reach from the main home position for C. The lines genuinely have

different tonalities, though of course they are related, being adjacent in

the Circle of Fifths. The actual melody, by the way, has no accidentals in

it, using only the notes of the C major scale!

Question: How do you handle this in the Nashville Notation System?

The chords I use are

Line 1: C, F, G7

Line 2: G, D7

Line 3: C, F, G7

Line 4: G, D7

Line 5: G, D7, G7

Line 6: C, F, G7

Line 1 would be "I, IV, V7", obviously. But would Line 2 be "V, II7" or

"I, V7" but on a shifted fundamental? Or is the D7 in this case a "V7 of

V"?

I don't expect to be able to play the tune any better for knowing the

answer to this, but it would be interesting... <s>

Cheers,

John

[S.Kn.] Indeed, I find this question very interesting, too! For the song "Aennchen von Tharau" you may want to look up the URL http://ingeb.org/Lieder/Annchenv.html where you'll find the German words (quite a lot of them, in fact!) and two MIDI files playing the tune.

I've collated the three of the above references, because

1.) knowing Terry as a hot diatonic aficionado, I wonder how he can play "In the Garden"; he would need at least a 3-key diatonic autoharp (as I will try to show below);

2.) I suspect that many of Bud's cases of non-diatonic chords for diatonic melodies belong to the class of John's example, where we have a *modulation* to the neighbouring key (in the circle-of-fifth), other such examples being:

BYCICLE BUILT FOR TWO (key of G):

[G]Daisy, Daisy,

[C]Give me your answer [G]do,

[D7]I'm half [G]crazy,

[A7]All for the love of [D]you,

...

Here we have with the syllable 'All' modulation into the key of D, starting with its *dominant* chord A7. In the next line, omitted here, the tune returns to its "home" key of G.

SILVER THREADS AMONG THE GOLD (key of G):

[G]Darling, I am [D7]growing [G]old,

[D7]Silver threads among the [G]gold

Shine upon my [D7]brow to- [G]day,

[D7]Life is fading fast a- [G]way,

[D7]But, my darling you will [G]be, will be

[A7]always young and fair to [D]me.

[G]Yes, my darling ...

Same case as before: start of modulation with line 6, end with line 7. A similar example would be HOME ON THE RANGE (cf. ... Where the [G]deer and the [A7]antelope [D]play. Where [G]seldom is heard ...) as well as the Christmas songs O SANCTISSIMA (O THOU JOYFUL DAY), ADESTE FIDELES (O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL) and HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING.

One could certainly find a lot more such tunes, "intermittently" (i.e. for a short time, perhaps repeatedly as in "Aennchen", see John's posting, or ADESTE FIDELES) modulating, which share a certain property: Looking at the notes, you will *not* find any accidentals!

So the tune itself does not at all hint at the modulation, it appears "strictly diatonic", whereas needed chords cannot be built up from the notes of the scale, e.g. for chord A7 (or A) you need note c#, not belonging to the scale of G.

There are a lot more of those intermittently modulating tunes, but actually *with* accidentals. To these I count I'VE BEEN WORKIN' ON THE RAILROAD, FLOW GENTLY SWEET AFTON and JEANIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR as well as the Christmas song DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF HOLLY, to name but a few.

Now, I think that there is no class difference between these two groups of intermittently modulating songs. The first group avoids accidentals by sheer luck, i.e. the melody just happens to use only notes which belong to both keys, the "home" key as well as the one into which the modulation shifts.

So what is the point?

Instead of speaking of a tune being in, say, the key of G with some foreign chord at one or the other odd place, it would be more helpful IMO to say that it modulates into the key of D, clearly to mark the start and the end of such "excursions" and thus to *motivate* the special chords.

For example, I remember the difficulties I encountered many years ago when I tried to learn melody playing J.S.Bach's Minuet on my autoharp. Nearly everybody is well acquainted with its A part, which is quite straightforward anyway. Its B part, however, is a bit tricky and I didn't really know it from hearing.

Well, I had the melody line as printed music (in the key of Bb) from a collection for alto recorder. I transposed it to the key of C, lifting it all one tone higher, becoming aware of accidentals in the process. But it took me quite some time to figure out what's actually goin' on in the B part, until I discovered that it is best to start the excursion into the key of G with the first beat of measure 2 of part B and to return home to the key of C with the second beat of measure 10. In other words: While on this excursion, I use the chords G, D7 and C as tonic, dominant and subdominant chord, respectively, and otherwise C, G7 and F, respectively. After having analyzed the tune this way, what at first seemed complicated, became then really easy. (To make it sound more interesting, today I'm tinkering with using the Am (A minor) and E7 chords in measure 3 of the B part.)

And now the application to IN THE GARDEN ("home" key of C, modulating to the keys of G, Am and F, at least) with giving *all* the chords for melody playing:

[C]I come to [G7]the [C]garden [G7]a- [C]lone,

[G7]While [C]the [F]dew is [G7]still [F]on the [C]roses,

[G7]And [C]the [G7]voice I hear, [F]fall- [G7]ing [C]on [G7]my [C]ear,

the [D7]Son [C]of [D7]God dis- [G7]clo- [C]os- [G7]es

[C]And [G7]He [C]walks with me, [G7]and [F]He [G7]talks with me,

And He tells me I [C]am [Cm]His [C]own;

And [G7]the [C]joy we [E7]share as we [Am]tar- [C7]ry [F]there,

None [C]other has [G7]ever [C]known.

From all the interesting places in this tune, the first one is near the start of line 4, where with the syllable 'Son' the tune modulates into the key of G. This first excursion ends, when with the first (partial) syllable of 'closes' the tune returns back home.

The second interesting place is, of course, the last two syllables in line 6, where I give the chords which, in fact, I use, but ... I confess, I'm cheating here: this part probably should look as follows:

And He tells me I [C]am [B7]His [Em]own;

[C]And [G7]the [C]joy ...

or

And He tells me I [Em]am [B7]His [Em]own;

[C]And [G7]the [C]joy ...

However, my left hand fingers are not quick enough to jump from the C (or G7) button all the way down to the B7 button and back again from Em (I'm having the standard (factory) OS 21 chord layout); for so short an excursion into the key of E minor I do not want to run the risk of unintended open chording on a chromatic autoharp! And, on the other hand, the C minor chord provides the required d# note quite comfortably in easy reach! (This is evidence that I'm not having a purist attitude towards my theory! :))

Finally, in line 7, we observe a modulation through the key of A minor, starting with syllable 'share', into the key of F, starting with the second syllable of 'tarry' (yes, there are some quite risky jumps here, too, but it mostly turns out well :)); the excursion ends in line 8 with the first syllable of 'other'.

Conclusion

I tried to underpin the theory that most, if not all, accidentals in tunes in the western (occidental) music tradition can be analyzed as manifestations of modulation into another key (not necessarily a neighbouring one in the circle of fifth) and that, moreover, also tunes without accidentals are often properly analyzed as containing such modulations. These modulations usually occur as rather short "excursions", i.e. the tune usually soon returns to its "home" key.

I contend that viewing tunes according to this theory results in an easy and logical way of determining the chords for melody playing them on the autoharp. While there may be, in certain situations, more fancy or interesting chords usable, the theory yields at least viable chords. Furthermore I contend that such a view motivates "foreign" chords that are traditionally employed in certain tunes; in other words: the theory gives an explanation of such chords' usage.

As a corollary, one has to assume that, in principle, melody comes first and chords are secondary.

This is not contradicted by the fact that *today* composers may start with a chord progression and then find a fitting melody line, because, based on (maybe unconscious) knowledge of a wealth of existing melodies *and* their accompanying chords, a composer today can "feel" what are viable chord progressions that yield an acceptable melody, acceptable for a singer, acceptable for a listener accustomed to the music tradition.

Well, I hope that there are theoretically inclined cyberpluckers left that have read up to this point! I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Oh, and what is, now, the answer to John's question: How does the Nashville numbering system handle "excursionary" modulations?

Cheers!

Siegfried in Cologne, Germany

Comment (23 Jan 2007): Today I prefer to play "In the garden" in the key of G and in fact according to the last one of the alternative chordings mentioned above. This is facilitated partly due to a certain re-arranging of my minor chord bars. I followed – partly! – an advice given by Bud Taylor, namely to shift the minors row two steps to the left in order to align the relative minor with its plain major chord button: Well, I shifted the minors just one (1) step to the left.

Carey Dubbert looks with consternation at this guy trying to play one of Carey's own compositions and even Mike Fenton interrupts his meal at this incredible impudence!

Photo by Nadine White taken on 19 May 2001 in the living room of her former home in Drayton near Abingdon, England

By the way, the chromatic Oscar Schmidt model OS-110-21 I'm playing here was converted into an FC diatonic by Mike Fenton in the spring of 2002; but I'm playing it very seldom these days: my chromatic 'harps are always so demanding!