# Tonality in Modern Pop Music



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Hey folks,

Now, let me just start with a disclaimer: _this is in no way a loaded question_. So those passionate atonal lovers of you out there try not to take it as such. 

Anyway, I don't know how I should refer to the music I'm quizzing you about - popular music (in its broadest sense)? Commercial music? I don't know, but what I'm wondering is why the vast majority (anyone have some counter-examples for me?) of this music has not only _not_ developed into a separate musical language like atonality, but remains firmly grounded in traditional tonality.

Honestly, I'm just completely clueless as to why this is case and was wondering if someone could give me a little historical perspective - is it just laziness and familiarity in the consumer? Thanks


----------



## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Well... most rock music uses G major. Probably most other popular music where the guitar is the main instrument, too. That's about all I know.


----------



## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I don't know historically but I think it's more of a consumer-friendly sound thing than not wanting to explore


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

kv466 said:


> I don't know historically but I think it's more of a consumer-friendly sound thing than not wanting to explore


Why should that kind of music be consumer-friendly though? Is it all just to do with cultural conditioning making it the only mass-marketable kind of sound?


----------



## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

Could it be that the people who write and play popular music aren't trained in advanced compositional methods? Not to knock the Beatles, for example, but none of them could even read music.

-Vaz


----------



## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Pop is about dressing up the same old thing over and over again as something new. Tonal music is more popular for whatever reason, so it's just good business sense to not put out something that will be perceived as "tuneless" or to try to spur on multiple schools of pop songwriting. I think everyone in the industry with music knowledge has enough sense to know they're moving a product.



> I'm wondering is why the vast majority of this music has not only not developed into a separate musical language like atonality, but remains firmly grounded in traditional tonality.


As crudely simple as this sounds, there is somewhat of a separation, but it's a lot more broad and less musically strict: very commercial music and varying shades of less commercial music. For real diversity, people have to dip into the latter.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Pop is about dressing up the same old thing over and over again as something new. Tonal music is more popular for whatever reason, so it's just good business sense to not put out something that will be perceived as "tuneless" or to try to spur on multiple schools of pop songwriting. I think everyone in the industry with music knowledge has enough sense to know they're moving a product.


Just as a way of summarising that point then, is it fair to say that the tonality of the music in question is coincidental to the popularity of that same tonality when music began to become heavily commercialised, and now that there is such a huge industry, it's highly unlikely for anything as drastic and fundamental as tonality to change?


----------



## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

That's what I think. Tonality vs. atonality is a very classical-centric issue, anyway. Pop would have long way to develop in its own little formula before moving ground like that. Maybe some day before I die the idea of "emotion" in a hit single will mean more than the contrast between sassy or angsty verses and a ~melodic, sweeping chorus~ in the first minute of the song.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Could it be that the people who write and play popular music aren't trained in advanced compositional methods? Not to knock the Beatles, for example, but none of them could even read music.

The term "advanced" seems to imply a value judgment... yet it is quite possible that many works by so-called popular musicians/composers may far outlast those of many "advanced composers". Personally, I suspect a good deal by Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis Duke Ellington... or even a song by the Beatles such as Norwegian Wood may long outlive anything by Stockhausen and Xenakis.

By the way... there are any number of works by Jazz composers such as Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and even Miles Davis that make use of non-traditional tonalities.


----------



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> By the way... there are any number of works by Jazz composers such as Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and even Miles Davis that make use of non-traditional tonalities.


This thread is about pop music though.

Try to focus on relevant information.


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

This is how pop musicians deal with tonality:


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Cultural, intuitive and because tonality sells records. It's what folks want.


----------



## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The term "advanced" seems to imply a value judgment...


Oh, I implied nothing of the sort. It can't be gainsaid that non-tonal compositional methods, such as for instance those employing pitch-class set theory, are usually not familiar to amateurs or remedial music composition students. Any claim that the work of Stockhausen or Xenakis will outlive the Beatles in popularity is one that only your delightfully magical imagination concocted.

-Vaz


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Cultural, intuitive and because tonality sells records. It's what folks want.


Intuitive _because_ of its overwhelming presence in culture, or _intrinsically_ intuitive (or both, of course)?


----------



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

I can think of a number of reasons why tonality is so prevalent in pop music.

1. Pop music is mostly made by people who like pop music. This means they like most of the aspects that pop music contains, tonality being one of them.

2. Song and dance. Lots of pop music is based around being able sing along with the record and also dance to it. Tonality is good in the singing department and a regular rhythmic pulse helps for dancing, hence why most of it is not free time but in simple meters like 4/4, 3/4 etc.

3. A lot of pop is written by people who are fairly unaware of atonal music there is out there so it won't even register on their radar as being relevant to them.

4. As has been said by others, why fix what ain't broken.

Here's one for Stlukes as I know he's partial to some Sabbath (HC will get a kick from it as well). Atonal Sabbath:


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

This thread is about pop music though.

Try to focus on relevant information.

Who defines "pop music"... you? Jazz, country, rock, disco... are all commonly defined as a form of "pop music" as opposed to "classical" or "serious" music... whatever that may be.


----------



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This thread is about pop music though.
> 
> Try to focus on relevant information.
> 
> Who defines "pop music"... you? Jazz, country, rock, disco... are all commonly defined as a form of "pop music" as opposed to "classical" or "serious" music... whatever that may be.


Yeah, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy are clearly pop.:lol:

Yes, some jazz can also be considered pop music, but you must be on some good **** to call this pop:


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Any claim that the work of Stockhausen or Xenakis will outlive the Beatles in popularity is one that only your delightfully magical imagination concocted.

That what I love about the sworn Modernists. They are so quick to call others "snobs" when in reality they are the biggest "snobs: out there. You deny that your use of the term "advanced music" was intended as a value judgment, and then you turn around and make a blatant value judgment about the merits of the supposed "advance music" vs "popular music." The problem is that you are essentially clueless as to how a work of any art enters into what me termed "the canon". It is bu partially to do with the opinions of academics or "experts". Art survives... or doesn't... as the result of a continued audience among future generations of artists, in academia, and among art lovers. In the field of literature there are works that have survived largely as the result of a continued popularity with the educated readers (Alexander Dumas and the Sherlock Holmes books for example). On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have works that have survived almost exclusively as a result of academia (James Joyce Finnegan's Wake, for example, which is read by virtually no one outside of academia).

Popular music is not something new. The peasants in Renaissance Italy were not listening to Palestrina and Gesulado unless they overheard them during church services. What was played in the taverns at at festivals would have been what now get's termed "folk music"... essentially the popular music of the time. Little of this has survived as a result of the fact that the composers didn't read music and so there was no way to preserve it. Only a few works got passed down through the generations... songs like "Greensleeves".

This changed with the advent of audio recording. Popular musicians who could need read music could not read or write music could still preserve their efforts through recordings. The term "classical music" became employed as a clear form of value judgment. It was intended to define "serious music" vs all the popular stuff like jazz. But is all classical music "serious"? Is the Magic Flute really intended to be serious? Offenbach? Johann Strauss? Massenet? Classical music has more than its share of music that was intended as little more than entertainment... and more than its share of music that might easily be defined as "popular". What you define as "classical music" is not a style nor a genre. There is a world of difference between Byzantine chant, a Baroque concerto grosso, a Romantic opera, and the Rite of Spring. How is the term "classical music" different from "classic literature" or "classic art". With both of the latter two examples the intention is purely to denote a value judgment. The term "classic literature" denotes the best literature and that which has survived. Among "classic literature" there are any number of works by writers who lacked an "advanced education" and there are any number of works in a genre that was initially intended as popular entertainment.

So why is it a fantasy that Miles Davis and Duke Ellington may long outlast Stockhausen and Xenakis? David and Ellington have already survived well beyond a few generations and still may claim a sizable audience. I would greatly suspect far more are listening to either of them than are listening to Xenakis or Stockhausen. What is seems to come to is that the sworn Modernists are the ultimate elitists. They would have us believe that the only audience that matters is that audience with the proper "advanced education". Intriguingly enough... many current Post-Modern composers make frequent use of elements culled from popular music. One might also point out that any number of musicians/composers from the various "popular" realms actually do have "advanced education" (Lennie Tristano and Chales Mingus come to mind) Philip Glass suggested that the only difference between the "classical" or "art music" composer and the "popular" musician/composer was that the "art composer" invents a new musical language where the "popular" composer employs existing languages. Glass further admitted that in many cases the popular composers are able to put these existing ideas to far better use... create music which resonates with a far larger audience... the best of which has just as much of a chance of survival as the best "classical" or "art music".

Of course if you look upon "classical music" as a style representing the most advanced theory and education, the admiration of which surely defines the listener's own advance intelligence and sophistication... well then one could understand why one might not be quick to admit that the best popular music may be every bit as good.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Yes, some jazz can also be considered pop music, but you must be on some good **** to call this pop...

Again... who defines "pop"? Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Offenbach's operettas, and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker might all qualify as "pop" by certain measures. Were Coleman and Mingus aiming at the "classical audience" with their "advanced theory and education"?


----------



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

The primary goal of the people who produce pop music (meaning the composers, performers, technicians and suits) is to have a "hit". There are few, if any, people in the business who are in a position to make art-for-art's-sake. Whether singles, or albums, or both - they have to sell enough product to make it worthwhile for them to continue doing what they do. 

My guess is that there is a magic threshhold to popular music. If the consumer takes more than half a dozen listens to "get it", it's not going to work. 

Given that model, who is going to have the guts to experiment with atonality?


----------



## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> That what I love about the sworn Modernists. They are so quick to call others "snobs" when in reality they are the biggest "snobs: out there. You deny that your use of the term "advanced music" was intended as a value judgment, and then you turn around and make a blatant value judgment about the merits of the supposed "advance music" vs "popular music."


First off, I never used the term "advanced music," I said "advanced compositional techniques." Isn't pitch-class set theory just such an advanced technique?

Secondly, I wasn't making a value judgment. I was pointing out that the people who have composed some of the most popular pop music ---such as the Beatles--- simply aren't trained in such techniques.

Thirdly, you're the one who pointed out that the Beatles' music will likely outlive Stockhausen and Xenakis, and I merely pointed out that no one said it wouldn't.

Last but not least, you should get a grip. Are you always such a raving cyber-bully?

-Vaz


----------



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Yes, some jazz can also be considered pop music, but you must be on some good **** to call this pop...
> 
> Again... who defines "pop"? Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Offenbach's operettas, and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker might all qualify as "pop" by certain measures. Were Coleman and Mingus aiming at the "classical audience" with their "advanced theory and education"?


Genre boundaries aren't well defined, that's why I said something can be both jazz and pop (or rock and pop etc). But there is stuff that is jazz that can't in any way be described as pop. Anthony Braxton, Sun Ra, Sonny Sharrock, Cecil Taylor are in no way pop. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Michael Buble could be equally well described as jazz or pop (or pop jazz).

Why is this so hard for you to grasp? Pop is a type of popular music.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Vesteralen said:


> The primary goal of the people who produce pop music (meaning the composers, performers, technicians and suits) is to have a "hit". There are few, if any, people in the business who are in a position to make art-for-art's-sake. Whether singles, or albums, or both - they have to sell enough product to make it worthwhile for them to continue doing what they do.
> 
> My guess is that there is a magic threshhold to popular music. If the consumer takes more than half a dozen listens to "get it", it's not going to work.
> 
> Given that model, who is going to have the guts to experiment with atonality?


What I'm trying to get at though is _why_ something has to be tonal for it to be so popular. As suggested earlier, is it just a perpetual cycle where we grow up with tonality and so demand more tonality? Another way of looking at it: if, when music was radically commercialised, atonal methods were popular (to a mass market) in other forms of music, would we still see a homogeneous music industry, just one that's broadly atonal rather than tonal?

Another point, which I thought of after something written by Stlukes (and which is probably more convincing than the above point), is whether or not you think it is fair to consider pop music a sterilised, commercialised, repackaged folk music?


----------



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

I define "pop" music in a different way than "popular" music. The Wikipedia article on it has references to a number of sources, that, in general agree that "pop" music is commercial, relatively simple music aimed at a youthful market. 

To put it in a seventies context - The Bellamy Brothers, Bread, The Carpenters, even Blood, Sweat and Tears would be considered 'Pop'. Led Zeppelin, Genesis, and yes Yes would not be. 

This is how I interpreted the OP's question. Maybe that's not what he meant.

(Sorry, I posted this before I read your last post, Polednice. It seems obvious that you really didn't mean "Pop" music as a category, but simply popular music in general. And, it doesn't really answer your first point at all.)


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Sorry that I didn't make it clearer in my OP; I just wasn't aware what terminologies would be most helpful.

I don't really know enough to even say now where to draw the line. 'Pop' music as a specific category is certainly too narrow for my question, but 'popular music' seems a bit unwieldy and useless - _how_ popular does something have to be before it's popular?!


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I don't really know enough to even say now where to draw the line. 'Pop' music as a specific category is certainly too narrow for my question, but 'popular music' seems a bit unwieldy and useless - how popular does something have to be before it's popular?!

As Argus, he seems to presume to know what is so hard for the rest of us to grasp... such as the musical superiority of Black Sabbath and AC/DC to Mozart and Beethoven.


----------



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Sorry that I didn't make it clearer in my OP; I just wasn't aware what terminologies would be most helpful.
> 
> I don't really know enough to even say now where to draw the line. 'Pop' music as a specific category is certainly too narrow for my question, but 'popular music' seems a bit unwieldy and useless - _how_ popular does something have to be before it's popular?!


Going back to the 1960's and 1970's again (we old people do like to do that sometimes) - there used to be advertisements in magazines all the time for people to join record clubs. The Columbia Record Club, and the RCA Record Club are two that come to mind right away. Now, if you looked at the sample discs offered for new subscribers, you would find quite a variety, including, in addition to a lot of pop, rock and country, quite a selection of jazz, and yes, classical. Some of the classical offerings were of the "crossover" variety, but a lot of them weren't. Columbia had Bernstein and Ormandy. RCA had Munch and Reiner.

You could see this as recognition of the existence of significant audiences for all types of music. They even asked you for your favorite category of music so the monthly records and/or catalogs they sent you would be in the genre you liked best.

The fact that these recordings were offered, however, never meant to me that somehow this music had become "popular" music. "Popular" music was, quite simply, the stuff you could expect to hear on commercial radio stations. That was the music listened to by the widest audience in those days.

These days, it's a little harder to say. Radio isn't the force it once was. But, I think if you go on I-Tunes and ask to see their Top 100 singles or albums, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's popular. I don't think you'll find too much jazz or classical on those lists unless it's a "crossover". "Crossover" in itself is a telling term - it means something that is designed to appeal to a wider audience than the genre to which it belongs would ordinarily garner for it.

There's a lot of material that isn't in the Top 100, of course. The question I would ask, though, to determine whether it is "popular" music is - did the producers of the product release it in the expectation that it *would* be?


----------



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Polednice said:


> What I'm trying to get at though is _why_ something has to be tonal for it to be so popular. As suggested earlier, is it just a perpetual cycle where we grow up with tonality and so demand more tonality? Another way of looking at it: if, when music was radically commercialised, atonal methods were popular (to a mass market) in other forms of music, would we still see a homogeneous music industry, just one that's broadly atonal rather than tonal?


From what I can tell by researching this on the Internet, philosophers disagree on this. Hence, knowing the different viewpoints held by people on this forum, it seems impossible to imagine we would ever come to total agreement here.

Personally, it's really hard for me to believe that my perception of what is a satisfying combination of sounds, and what constitutes tension, relaxation and fulfillment in music is just a product of the environment in which I've grown up. Yet, that is what some very knowledgeable people suggest. It's hard not to believe that what *seems* to be *is*.

On the other hand, it's hard to argue with the fact that children raised in Indian or Chinese traditional music cultures have a much different way of listening to a lot of things than I do.

So, I can't even agree with myself..


----------



## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Polednice said:


> What I'm trying to get at though is _why_ something has to be tonal for it to be so popular.


There's a saying: "You can't hum a Webern tune." Of course that's not entirely true, but it is true enough in most cases and can usually be applied to atonal music (and sometimes 12-tone music) in general.

This: http://www.classicalmusicisboring.com/archive/2011/07/cmib00206.html


----------



## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

You gotta be out of touch if pop means jazz and blues to you.


----------



## samm (Jul 4, 2011)

Argus said:


> This thread is about pop music though.


Any music that's not classical is popular to me. You could say it depends on what you call "pop" music, be it a single style or popular music in its broadest meaning. Basing on what's been discussed from the beginning of this thread, I beliebe we're talking about popular music and not only about one of its subsets that pop music is. Given this, we can say jazz is popular music too. (Some would say "advanced" popular music.)


----------



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

samm said:


> Any music that's not classical is popular to me. You could say it depends on what you call "pop" music, be it a single style or popular music in its broadest meaning. Basing on what's been discussed from the beginning of this thread, I beliebe we're talking about popular music and not only about one of its subsets that pop music is. Given this, we can say jazz is popular music too. (Some would say "advanced" popular music.)


Popular music is music that is popular i.e. liked by many people.

Pop music is a style of music, having nothing to do with the popularity or a lack thereof. That's why you can get obscure pop music.

It's common sense. Don't tell me you consider guys like Albert Ayler or Derek Bailey to be pop musicians?


----------

