Unpopular Opinions

[Todd]

The entirety of black commercial pop music (I use that term in its most generic sense to encompass all song-based popular/commercial music), including all of jazz, blues, R&B, funk, hip-hop and everything else, is fundamentally based on the cultural appropriation of the European invention, unique in the history of human music, of diatonic functional harmony. Nothing remotely like it is indigenous to any African, Asian, or New World culture.

Hmmm:

"[T]he analytic study in this chapter [Chapter 1, pages 3-62 in Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development] shows that every musical element – rhythm, harmony, melody, timbre, and the basic forms of jazz – is essentially African in background and derivation."

Gunther Schuller

[Karl Henning]

And of course, the phrase all of jazz is very nearly as worthless as all of classical music.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Mahlerian]

Here is one by this Jonathan Dore commenting on a blog:

The entirety of black commercial pop music (I use that term in its most generic sense to encompass all song-based popular/commercial music), including all of jazz, blues, R&B, funk, hip-hop and everything else, is fundamentally based on the cultural appropriation of the European invention, unique in the history of human music, of diatonic functional harmony. Nothing remotely like it is indigenous to any African, Asian, or New World culture.

Is anyone complaining? Of course not. It's Europe's gift to the world.

If popular music and jazz were stuck in the European functional harmonic system, they would never have developed their most interesting features, some of which they had from the beginning.

I agree that functional harmony is unique.  I disagree that it's the sine qua non of harmonic practice, and I should think that the richness of both the popular and the classical traditions in the 20th century (which often drew inspiration from each other) should be enough to discredit such an idea.

[Brian]

Here is one by this Jonathan Dore commenting on a blog:

The entirety of black commercial pop music (I use that term in its most generic sense to encompass all song-based popular/commercial music), including all of jazz, blues, R&B, funk, hip-hop and everything else, is fundamentally based on the cultural appropriation of the European invention, unique in the history of human music, of diatonic functional harmony. Nothing remotely like it is indigenous to any African, Asian, or New World culture.

Is anyone complaining? Of course not. It's Europe's gift to the world.

As unpopular an opinion these days as unashamed white supremacy. Oh, wait...

[Mahlerian]

As unpopular an opinion these days as unashamed white supremacy. Oh, wait...

Yes, unfortunately, that does seem to be gaining ground.

[Ken B]

Andrei baited the hook and caught some fine fish I see.

Dore's quote does not say, as some seem to imply, that the ONLY source for black popular music is diatonic functional harmony. It says that it uses it. This quote, which Andrei got from me, was part of a discussion of what a foolish notion "cultural appropriation " is. The context was someone objecting to a white person even quoting a black pop performer. That was, we were lectured, cultural appropriation. (The exact bit quoted, in its entirety was 'As Beyoncé says  "To the left, to the left"') That actually happened. Dore was pointing out how selective and baseless that complaint was by noting, correctly, that commercial pop music is based on diatonic harmony. As it is. Does anyone deny it? Ellington observed of jazz that it was a fusion of black rhythms with white theory. That is the same as what Dore is saying on jazz. But Dore's point holds a fortiori for rock music, the kind which was quoted. And so it too, under the rubric of that objection, would itself be objectionable. The truth is whites and blacks influence each other, and that's a good thing. (He must be a white supremacist! )

Andrei knew he'd get people beating their breasts about how racist others are, how unracist they are. Without context, and without a basis in the text. I'd ask those who called it "white supremacy" if they feel chastened , but I know they won't be.

Congratulations Andrei, on a good haul. 

[Mahlerian]

Andrei baited the hook and caught some fine fish I see.

Dore's quote does not say, as some seem to imply, that the ONLY source for black popular music is diatonic functional harmony. It says that it uses it.

No, it says that functional harmony is the foundation of popular music and jazz, which is misleading at best and false at worst.  Later on in this post you confuse diatonicism with functional harmony; functional harmony is a concern of European music from roughly 1600-1900.  No other culture anywhere, including present day America and Europe, has given a damn about using the dominant-tonic relationship as the only possible relationship for closure.  No other culture has been so obsessive about voice leading and the avoidance of any dissonant intervals without resolution.  Why should we take an exception as normative, except to assert some kind of false superiority?

Commercial pop music is indeed based on diatonicism, but it's not functionally tonal.  Why does that matter, and how should that connect it to Europe in particular?

[Ken B]

No, it says that functional harmony is the foundation of popular music and jazz, which is misleading at best and false at worst.  Later on in this post you confuse diatonicism with functional harmony; functional harmony is a concern of European music from roughly 1600-1900.  No other culture anywhere, including present day America and Europe, has given a damn about using the dominant-tonic relationship as the only possible relationship for closure.  No other culture has been so obsessive about voice leading and the avoidance of any dissonant intervals without resolution.  Why should we take an exception as normative, except to assert some kind of false superiority?

Commercial pop music is indeed based on diatonicism, but it's not functionally tonal.  Why does that matter, and how should that connect it to Europe in particular?

Remove the "functionally tonal" then, just for argument's sake. You admit the diatonic part is right then? So how does that disprove Dore's contention that there is "cultural appropriation ", that is influence? It doesn't. It concedes he is right. So essentially you are left saying that "oh he's wrong about the dominant, what a white supremacist he must be".

[Ken B]

No, it says that functional harmony is the foundation of popular music and jazz, which is misleading at best and false at worst.  Later on in this post you confuse diatonicism with functional harmony; functional harmony is a concern of European music from roughly 1600-1900.  No other culture anywhere, including present day America and Europe, has given a damn about using the dominant-tonic relationship as the only possible relationship for closure.  No other culture has been so obsessive about voice leading and the avoidance of any dissonant intervals without resolution.  Why should we take an exception as normative, except to assert some kind of false superiority?

Commercial pop music is indeed based on diatonicism, but it's not functionally tonal.  Why does that matter, and how should that connect it to Europe in particular?

Once more, let's see if we can get the logic understood.

A says "White people cannot quote black pop musicians. It's cultural appropriation."
D says, "Let's have a little consistency. Black pop music relies a lot on ideas borrowed from whites."

Tell me exactly why D is a white supremacist? In your answer explain why D can't be Duke Ellington.

[bwv 1080]

No, it says that functional harmony is the foundation of popular music and jazz, which is misleading at best and false at worst.  Later on in this post you confuse diatonicism with functional harmony; functional harmony is a concern of European music from roughly 1600-1900.  No other culture anywhere, including present day America and Europe, has given a damn about using the dominant-tonic relationship as the only possible relationship for closure.  No other culture has been so obsessive about voice leading and the avoidance of any dissonant intervals without resolution.  Why should we take an exception as normative, except to assert some kind of false superiority?

Commercial pop music is indeed based on diatonicism, but it's not functionally tonal.  Why does that matter, and how should that connect it to Europe in particular?

I dont understand.  all classic jazz and blues is funtionally tonal the ii-V-I is the bedrock of jazz and what about 12-bar blues?

[bwv 1080]

Not an unpopular opinion, but all American popular music is a fusion of African and European traditions.  Minstrelsy is the core and foundation of all white American popular music

[aleazk]

People in Indonesia could say that the lack of complex polyrhythms and microtones in the standard repertoire of western "white music" makes it inferior to the supreme achievement of humanity that is Indonesian Gamelan music.

Of course, if we value our music by our own standars (which are, casually, the good points in our own music, like complex polyphony and  functional harmony), then it always is going to be "superior"...

These type of hypes and comparisons leave me cold, to be honest... I really don''t think functional harmony is the supreme achievement of humanity in music...

[aleazk]

Oh, those nasty americans appropiate the culture from the pure europe... oh, wait, are we in the epoch of the independence wars of the american states from europe? 

By now, 200 years later, western culture concerns all of the western civilization, i.e., both europe and america (the whole of the continent, not just the u.s.. oh wait, are we the rest of non u.s america also appropiators?).

The opinion expressed by dore is falacious... with that reasoning, we appropiated the press too, the glasses, the penicillin? America is in many senses an extension of european culture to other geographies by the european themselves, doh, massive immigration...

Black americans are an intrinsic part of america, therefore they are part of its modern western culture and its development... to segregate their culture is just pure racism... makes me want to vomit that in the 21th century we still have to read that kind of stu*id sh*t.

[Mahlerian]

I dont understand.  all classic jazz and blues is funtionally tonal the ii-V-I is the bedrock of jazz and what about 12-bar blues?

The use of chords rooted on those degrees in various formations is used, yes; the system of tonal functionality where dissonances have specific resolutions and there is a hierarchy of functions is not.  In jazz and blues music the "tonic" chord is very often a dominant seventh chord, which would require resolution in functional harmony.  Why ignore the uniqueness of these styles in order to make them fit into a different system?

There's a confusion here between the generic use of "harmonic function" to refer to the use of diatonic triads, regardless of how they're used, and the system of hierarchies that characterized the common practice.  The latter is "functional harmony."  I don't think there's anything superior about functional harmony, it's just a way of describing a specific practice.

If anything, functional harmony is inferior, because it fails to deal with the vast majority of harmonic types and has a limited palette of stable sonorities.

[bwv 1080]

The use of chords rooted on those degrees in various formations is used, yes; the system of tonal functionality where dissonances have specific resolutions and there is a hierarchy of functions is not.  In jazz and blues music the "tonic" chord is very often a dominant seventh chord, which would require resolution in functional harmony.  Why ignore the uniqueness of these styles in order to make them fit into a different system?

There's a confusion here between the generic use of "harmonic function" to refer to the use of diatonic triads, regardless of how they're used, and the system of hierarchies that characterized the common practice.  The latter is "functional harmony."  I don't think there's anything superior about functional harmony, it's just a way of describing a specific practice.

If anything, functional harmony is inferior, because it fails to deal with the vast majority of harmonic types and has a limited palette of stable sonorities.

You are using the term in an idiosyncratic way.  functional harmony is simply that chords have a harmonic function, not that all the rules of 19th century voice leading are followed.  Jazz theory differentiates between functional and non functional harmony - bebop uses functional harmony whereas most modal jazz does not (they ma

[Ken B]

I dont understand.  all classic jazz and blues is funtionally tonal the ii-V-I is the bedrock of jazz and what about 12-bar blues?

Indeed. I'm not a musician but this description of "diatonic functional harmony" seems to fit one whole hell of a lot of pop music

http://www.franksinger.com/Amusic/functional_harm.htm

It also matches the little bit of music theory I can remember being taught.

[aleazk]

Gulda once told Erroll Garner that his music reminded him to Debussy... to which Garner replied "who's that guy?" 

Jazzists invented and discovered many things by themselves.

[Mahlerian]

You are using the term in an idiosyncratic way.  functional harmony is simply that chords have a harmonic function, not that all the rules of 19th century voice leading are followed.  Jazz theory differentiates between functional and non functional harmony - bebop uses functional harmony whereas most modal jazz does not (they ma

I know jazz has its own ideas about how harmonies and progressions work, but the progressions in jazz are not those of the common practice, nor are those of the common practice the same as jazz harmony.  Functional harmony in the sense that was originally under discussion, as a European invention, is not the foundation of jazz music or popular music today.

Much of jazz practice is closer to things analyzed in classical terms as non-functional harmony, like Debussy or early Stravinsky, though, as aleazk notes, this doesn't imply any kind of influence.

[aleazk]

[The use of chords rooted on those degrees in various formations is used, yes; the system of tonal functionality where dissonances have specific resolutions and there is a hierarchy of functions is not.  In jazz and blues music the "tonic" chord is very often a dominant seventh chord, which would require resolution in functional harmony.  Why ignore the uniqueness of these styles in order to make them fit into a different system?

There's a confusion here between the generic use of "harmonic function" to refer to the use of diatonic triads, regardless of how they're used, and the system of hierarchies that characterized the common practice.  The latter is "functional harmony."  I don't think there's anything superior about functional harmony, it's just a way of describing a specific practice.

If anything, functional harmony is inferior, because it fails to deal with the vast majority of harmonic types and has a limited palette of stable sonorities.

Indeed... it seems we like europe when it is useful but we put under the carpet the details of it when they are not convenient to our agenda...

[Ken B]

Oh, those nasty americans appropiate the culture from the pure europe... oh, wait, are we in the epoch of the independence wars of the american states from europe? 

By now, 200 years later, western culture concerns all of the western civilization, i.e., both europe and america (the whole of the continent, not just the u.s.. oh wait, are we the rest of non u.s america also appropiators?).

The opinion expressed by dore is falacious... with that reasoning, we appropiated the press too, the glasses, the penicillin? America is in many senses an extension of european culture to other geographies by the european themselves, doh, massive immigration...

Black americans are an intrinsic part of america, therefore they are part of its modern western culture and its development... to segregate their culture is just pure racism... makes me want to vomit that in the 21th century we still have to read that kind of stu*id sh*t.

Did you read my comment giving the context? Dore is NOT saying this was "cultural appropriation." He is NOT complaining about cultural appropriation. He is making the exact same point that you are in re glasses. He is criticizing the notion of cultural appropriation.  He is doing EXACTLY what you did with glasses. For the same reason.