On Jan 18, 2009, at 10:11 AM, John Howell wrote:
One danger in the early days was that the chord symbols too often
represented the right-hand chord (for the pianist), but did NOT
indicate function or bass note. That was still true as late as the
sheet music of Richard Rodgers, and you can't always trust his chord
symbols to mean what we think they should.
This remains a danger when using "original" published music as the
basis for contemporary interpretation, even before any consideration
of alternate harmony. Bass notes (inversions) are either not
considered or sometimes incorrectly indicated.
And I don't recall seeing fractional notation, indicating an
inversion and/or a bass note, prior to the early '60s, although my
experience at that point was not drastically broad. I believe that
it was the songs of Bert Bacharach, among others, that required that
notation, since it was he who popularized the subdominant over
dominant bass as a cadential chord rather than just a pre-cadential
chord. (IV/V - I, rather that V7 - I)
I don't know if Bacharach was early in this practice or not, but
"alternate" bass notes are characteristic of his music (not only in
the cadential example indicated here), and he was intentional in his
choices. (I tried to "improve" the bass line of a piece of his I
played probably a thousand times in the pit of "Promises, Promises."
It was a short lived attempt and Burt was quick to let me know he
wasn't pleased. I didn't like his bass lines either, but it was his
music (and his money!).
Chuck
The thing I have to remind all my jazz theory students is that jazz/
popular chord symbols have nothing to do with the key. They are
completely independent. A C7 is the same four notes no matter what
the key signature is.
Exactly so. On this we are in complete agreement, but to me it is a
clear differentiation from figured bass. Same problem, same need;
totally different solutions.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
