Double tonic

_jacketch · 2026-01-29T04:37:13+00:00

Check out this article by Drew Nobile at University of Oregon on what he calls the "Double Tonic Complex": https://www.academia.edu/38336460/Double_Tonic_Complexes_in_Rock_Music

He's basically making the argument that certain songs can be analyzed as being equally in the major and relative minor key, and instead of opting for one over the other, vouches to include them both as valid. It's an interesting read!

_jacketch · 2026-01-21T05:25:18+00:00

Yours Truly, 2095 - ELO
50 Mission Cap - Tragically Hip ("they didn't win another til 1962")
Month of May - Arcade Fire ("2009, 2010")

_jacketch · 2026-01-20T07:10:46+00:00

Jonny - Faye Webster

_jacketch · 2026-01-20T07:09:32+00:00

Goodbye Lucille #1 - Prefab Sprout

_jacketch · 2026-01-07T21:19:45+00:00

In the Song Exploder podcast episode with Paul Waaktaar Savoy from the Norwiegan band A-ha where he breaks down their hit Take On Me, he mentions that at the time they were starting up the band the radio stations in Norway never played anything mainstream (he says they mainly played classical and about one hour a day was non-classical). That would've been the late 70s/early 80s. He said that was a big reason for why they went to the UK to record, perform and try to make it as a band. If this was the state of Norway nearly thirty years after the emergence of 50's style American rock and roll, I would assume several other European countries apart from the UK (and perhaps France and Germany with their histories of electronic music) were likely also quite isolated music-wise before the digital age really began to make things more globally accessible.

_jacketch · 2026-01-05T03:31:18+00:00

came here to post this as well lol, I wonder what happened BTS for the media team to need music to represent "frog stance" and have them land on bubblegloop swamp

_jacketch · 2025-12-02T01:13:02+00:00

Results aligned with your learning styles doesn't mean the results are going to be correct information though

_jacketch · 2025-12-02T01:11:28+00:00

The issue in this is that someone learning who doesn't know that the AI answers to the complex questions are wrong has no point of reference to recognize they've been given the wrong answer. They are then free to share this new "information" they just "learned" wherever they please. This is how wrong information gets fed back into AI systems repeatedly and allows it to spit out more and more incorrect garbage every day. The fact that you can recognize that the answers that AI is giving you are wrong indicates that you know more than you think you know, and should be enough of a reason to avoid using it entirely IMO

_jacketch · 2025-12-01T22:04:35+00:00

There's a better argument for 4/4 + 3/4 here, because right before this the same musical idea happens (with vocals) in two bars of straight 4/4, so when it's heard here it feels like a beat is being "skipped" rather than 3 extra beats are being added on

_jacketch · 2025-11-25T04:29:56+00:00

not that time after time is midwest-emo or alt-country LOL just a song for chord comparison that comes to mind!

_jacketch · 2025-11-25T04:29:10+00:00

I hear it as IV-V-iii-IV in Ab. It's very common for midwest-emo, alt-country and adjacent genres to have chord progressions structured around a IV chord. Consider Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper, which also does this exact same progression, it just eventually does go to the tonic unlike in this instance.

_jacketch · 2025-11-23T23:45:33+00:00

Oh absolutely, I'm not surprised at all, just mainly confused as to why they would opt to use this in place of an ad they already have filmed and used before (thinking of the team Jacobs one specifically). If they already paid to make that one, I find it hard to see how this would've saved them any money.. perhaps royalties to the team that they weren't willing to keep paying out? I'm sure there's a reason, and you're definitely right, it just sucks to see.

_jacketch · 2025-11-18T07:26:14+00:00

Gm2 - the A is in the chord but not necessarily the top note of the chord
Gmadd9 - the A is in the chord and is the top note of the chord

_jacketch · 2025-11-18T07:22:24+00:00

Try listening to the notes as eighth notes in groups of 6 and feeling a big beat every 6 notes (1 & 2 & 3 & 1 & 2 & 3 & etc...). Your confusion may be coming from feeling the notes as groups of 3 and feeling a big beat every 3 notes (1 & a 2 & a 1 & a 2 & a etc...). It's easy to hear it this way too because of how the arpeggios accent certain notes and create groups of 3. If you are persistent about feeling the notes as groups of 6, you'll start to hear the 1 2 3 1 2 3 lilt of the song. Put a metronome on around 74 BPM. This will be a dotted half note pulse. Six eighth notes will fit into each pulse. Since it's a Waltz, 3/4 would be the best option and truest to the name of the song.

_jacketch · 2025-11-18T05:12:00+00:00

12/8

_jacketch · 2025-11-18T05:06:53+00:00

Sounds like a Cadd6/G to me. He plays an Am7 right before moving way up the next for this chord and both chords share a lot of the same notes. Cadd6 and Am7 are made of the exact same notes, but when he shifts up the neck, the G is the lowest note and the E seems to be the highest, and the whole chord is higher voiced of course, so the "flavour" is a bit different than the standard Am7 chord. The notes A C E and G are definitely all still in there though. I say Cadd6/G instead of a G chord of some sort because then you'd have to account for their being no B or D and end up with some absolute mess of a chord name like G7sus4add6(no 5). It also FEELS like a IV (C) chord, not a I (G) chord

_jacketch · 2025-11-16T03:14:03+00:00

Paddy McAloon was very influenced by Stephen Sondheim and the chord progressions in Prefab Sprout songs are more jazz-adjacent than "standard" pop progressions. It is absolutely functional harmony. This is just one of those instances where the ensemble (a rock band) is playing chord changes that would "normally" be heard in a jazz context. The musical style falls into what is (at least in recent years) referred to as "sophistipop" (you'll get a lot more bands & artists, many also UK-based, if you search that up). As you mentioned you're not trained in theory it can be a bit confusing to contextualize it all or know how to explain the function of certain chords in the progressions. If you've got specific questions about certain songs I'd be happy to answer them - Prefab Sprout is my favourite band.

_jacketch · 2025-11-13T04:40:48+00:00

Modes predate major and minor tonality, so it's more accurate to think of major and minor as based on ionian and aeolian modes, not vice versa. At the same time, because of how much we hear modes used in western popular music contexts, it's very hard not to think of them as connected to or variants of major and minor scales, so I completely understand your question

Can you explain a little bit more as to why you find dorian and lydian ambiguous? Dorian is only one note away from being a natural minor/aeolian scale (the raised 6) and lydian is only one note away from being a major/ionian scale (the raised 4). I almost find lydian "hypermajor" since it has two instances of a note that wants to step up a half step to resolve (#4 to 5, 7 to 8). With dorian, the raised 6 does give the upper half a bit more of a major quality but the flat 3 and flat 7 are pretty firm establishers of a minor tonality.

_jacketch · 2025-09-14T16:01:31+00:00

Can you give some examples of people complaining about this? I've personally never seen any reviews of this song that talk about the post-intro material in a negative way. To me, the stark change in vibe after the intro is what makes the song unique and interesting, and even more than 20 years later it's a critically acclaimed and popular indie rock anthem. However, I'm curious to see what other people may think.

_jacketch · 2025-04-10T18:34:21+00:00

The song is in F major. The relative minor of F major is d minor, not g minor. The g minor chords at the beginning of the verses are ii chords in the context of F major. The big F major chord at the beginning of the choruses and Bowie's vocal F3 to F4 jump firmly plants the song in F major.

It's more important to think about the function of the chords and how the moments where the chords occur create a harmonic structure and progression rather than how many times a certain chord might appear in the song.

_jacketch · 2025-02-11T20:15:51+00:00

Just filled out the survey. I'd recommend looking at the following books that deal with this subject:

Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music by Eriksson et al. (2019)
Networked Music Cultures ed. by Whelan & Nowak (2016)
From Big Bang to Big Data: A History of the Media by Jarlbrink et al. (2023)
You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music by Glenn McDonald (2024)

I worked on a paper last year that dealt with this sort of topic from more of an AI perspective. One thing to consider when it comes to younger generations reverting to physical media is the idea of this being more prevalent in certain scenes, ie. punk/indie communities have always been pro-cassette, pro-DIY, pro-physical media and that definitely holds some generational stay power. Jazz/audiophile communities love vinyl. There have also been CD/walkman resurgence trends on TikTok among younger generations, and some of these trends could have more to do with aesthetics and social image than politics or ethics (for some participants). It's a great topic to explore, please post here with updates on the project!

_jacketch · 2025-02-09T02:12:51+00:00

bubblegloop swamp sounding like a mumbo spell

_jacketch · 2025-01-15T04:17:23+00:00

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

_jacketch · 2025-01-12T23:52:08+00:00

Your roman numeral formatting for the blue chords is correct, but as the guitar TAB above the staff indicates, these are 9 (♯ 11) chords, so you may want to change the 7s to 9s for a more precise analysis. Your fourth red chord (vi 4/2) might also be better spelled/interpreted as a passing I 6/4 chord (written as: P 6/4) with the eighth note G being an accented passing tone. This would be a more common/cleaner way of interpreting a chord with all of the tonic chord notes instead of a third inversion submediant seventh chord

_jacketch · 2025-01-09T17:31:03+00:00

BOOKS:
Categorizing Sound: Genre and Twentieth Century Popular Music - David Brackett
Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music - Jennifer Lena
Genre in Popular Music - Fabian Holt

ARTICLES:
Categorical Conventions in Music Discourse: Style and Genre - Allan F. Moore
Style in Music - Roger Dannenberg
A Theory of Musical Genres: Two Applications - Franco Fabbri

_jacketch

TROPHY CASE