The Future of Music: A Chaos Theory (part 2)

So.

Let us see if progressing through the different periods of European art music (“Classical European Music”) would yield any evidence for this entropic theory.  The history of European music is normally broken down into the following periods:

1. Medieval (500 -1400)
2. Renaissance (1400-1600)
3. Baroque (1600-1760 )
4. Classical (1750-1820)
5. Romantic (1815-1910)
6. Impressionist (1890-1940)

The music of these periods have characteristics unique enough to set them apart from the music of other periods, and, as we shall see, these defining characteristics became more and more experimental, chaotic, and disorderly over time.

The 1. Medieval (500-1400) period basically gave birth to Western music. During this time, earlier, cruder versions of instruments like the guitar (the “lute“), the trombone (the “sackbut“), the flute (made out of wood instead of metal e.g. the “pan flute“), and the violin (the fun-to-say “hurdy gurdy“) were prominently used to create music. Much of Medieval music, especially during the beginning of the era, was sacred music used in churches and monasteries. However, more important for our discussion was the fact that early medieval music was also largely homorhythmic and monophonic. In terms of music, this is about as orderly and anti-chaotic as you can get, for it says that a typical song or piece of music consisted of one melody with no harmony or accompaniment (monophonic), with each part moving in the same rhythm (homorhythmic). Think Gregorian chant… Towards the later Medieval period, regular harmonies began to be introduced, and our increase in entropy or disorderliness in Western music began. However, things are still pretty orderly, for the only prevalent harmonies in this late Medieval period were octaves, 5ths, and 4ths; harmonies that were considered “pure”, “stable” or “consonant” in relation to the melody.

Often grouped with the Medieval  period, the 2. Renaissance (1400-1600) period further developed the instruments used in the Medieval period; and by the end of Renaissance period the four basic categories for musical instruments that are still used today (brass, strings,woodwind, and percussion) had emerged. This is something that I would like for you to remember, that since the end of the Renaissance period no new types of musical instruments used to make popular music have emerged. Rather, instruments such as the piano, electric guitar, the drum set, and even the modern day kazoo are all just modernized versions of a type of instrument that already existed back in the Renaissance period or maybe even earlier. Sure, you could say that electronic keyboards like the one I am sitting next to right now can make sounds that a Renaissance musician would never have dreamed of hearing, yet the basic way in which you manipulate the instrument (via a “keyboard”) is not at all new. As we all saw in the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Beethoven had absolutely no problem playing the three  double-tiered keyboards (even though he was too deaf to hear the 80’s music emanating from them in the beginning). So, holding on to that point, besides finalizing the array of popular musical instruments today, the Renaissance period also gave rise to the popular use of “polyphony,” which is the use of two or more independent melodic lines in a song. Also, the interval of a 3rd became accepted as a consonant interval (which was probably made by the same person who decided Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore…who has the authority to decide these things???).

After the Renaissance period came the 3. Baroque (1600-1760) period of music. During this time composers such as Bach, Handell, and Vivaldi really began to incorporate even more elaborate musical ornamentation, experiment with new playing techniques for the instruments already set down in the Renaissance period, and began to make changes in musical notation to better notate the new music. Tonality was in full swing, and the polyphony from the Renaissance era now became counterpoint. In fact, I would probably say that by the end of the Baroque period the true roots of the music we listen to today took shape  in terms of instruments used; how the instruments are played; how melodies, chords, and harmonies interrelate; and how music is notated. And people in instrumental bands rejoice! During this time it started to become all about the instruments. During this time people would actually listen to a group of instrumentalists without singing! Holy crap where did that go?!

Next came the 4. Classical Period (1750-1820) that contained some of our most famous early composers like Mozart good ole’ Ludwig Van. Now, the Classical period is a bit tricky to talk about when I’m trying to develop a theory that says our popular music is growing more and more unorganized, complex, and experimental because during this period there was actually a big push towards simplicity of form in all things such as music, art, and architecture. Known as “Classicism,” the Europeans tried to emulate Classical antiquity, especially the Greeks, and favored order, clearer divisions between parts, and simplicity. This simplicity was shown in the music with the rise of homophony

O Amadeus. You're so silly.

instead of polyphony, where one main melody was harmonized by underlying chords, rather than have 2 or more separate melodies. In other words, people were being retro. The past was cool. Does this put a hole in my theory? Nah. Just shows that the past was more structured and ordered, implying that the future becomes less structured and ordered. At least that’s the way I’m spinning this. Moving on…

The 5. Romantic period (1815-1910) more than made up for the apparent oxymoron that is the Classical period. Experimentation was abound in this time! Composers widely expanded previous “acceptable” forms of music like the “sonata” or the “minuet” and developed free-form songs like “nocturnes” and “fantasias.” The music suddenly was getting more chromatic, dissonant, and doing crazy stuff like switching in and out of different key signatures. Nowadays the use of resolving dissonance and the changing of key signatures, or modulation, are no big deal; but it was back then.

The experimental fervor of the Romantic period naturally flowed into the 6. Impressionist (1890-1940) period. Still the experimentation was taken a step further. Whereas the Romantic period still used the common major and minor scales predominantly, the Impressionist period started using uncommon scales like the whole-tone scale, and dissonance (like the dissonance found in the beginning of our Alice in Chains song from part 1) was even more common.

Well. This one is getting a little long. So I will bid you farewell for now. The next post will conclude this whole spiel, where we discuss the implications of what was just laid out and see what this may mean for the future. Until then, enjoy Beethoven rocking out on the electronic keyboards:

The Future of Music: A Chaos Theory

Most of us can probably remember our high school physics or chemistry teacher mentioning the word “thermodynamics” at some point during the semester. Maybe as you were drawing random geometrical shapes in your notebook you also picked up that there were these “laws” of the thermo-whats its. And as the end of the class drew near, you may have even heard over your impatient pen-tapping a brand new word that was recorded as… “trophy??” in your notebook just before it was slammed shut for the day. It wasn’t until the night before the test that “trophy??” became “entropy,” and fit nicely in a set of parentheses on the reverse side of a flash card entitled “Second Law of Thermodynamics.”

Hello again.

As I tried to illustrate with the trippy-looking image above, the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in any isolated system (not in equilibrium) the amount of entropy or disorderliness will tend to increase over time. When explaining this to me, my Physics teacher reminded us that at the beginning of time and space as we know it, the Universe was one big organized point of energy. You basically can’t get more “orderly” than this. The Big Bang then hurled all this energy and newly created mass in all directions, and since then the Universe has been constantly expanding, getting more and more unorganized.

Keeping all this in mind, I happened to listen to Alice in Chains’ newest single called “Check My Brain” over the weekend. It’s a pretty rockin’ song with a catchy chorus and your typical Alice in Chains vocal harmony arrangement.

However, the main Intro and Verse guitar riff of this song really threw me off guard. The riff basically revolves around one note, on one fret, on one string of the guitar that is bent to create the particular sound. When I first heard this riff and realized that it played a very important part in the song,  I immediately thought:

“Huh, that’s interesting. It seems as if they have chosen to abandon any sense of melody or chordal progression. Well, why shouldn’t they, when there are people like me yelling at other bands for using the same chord progressions. I guess that is one way to avoid copying other artists’ melodies or chord progressions in your “hook”…just abandon traditional concepts of melodies and chord changes. Interesting.”

Alice in Chains

After thinking this over a little more last night, this particular decision that Alice in Chains made in writing this song reminded me very much of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Would it not make sense, given that there are a finite (although large) number of chordal progressions, melodies, harmonies,etc., for the art of writing music or writing a “song” to follow the Law of Entropy? Since the number of chord progressions and melodies not yet “written” decreases everyday, how can songwriters continue to press out new and interesting music everyday? The solution seems to be to branch out, to experiment, to mold or even sometimes completely abandon the available orderly set of melodies, harmonies, and chords dictated by the concept of Western tonality.

Does there exist other evidence throughout the history of the music we have been listening to that suggests this trend towards disorderliness and experimentation? If so, just how disorderly can you get? Will this continue? What does this mean for the future of music?…

O darn. Looks like we are out of time. Tune in later on this week to see what I’ve found out.       Later.

DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!!

The Clave: Hip Hop/Rap’s I V vi IV Chord Progression

Welcome back. Let’s review.

Previously, we discussed:

1. Many pop, R&B, and alt. rock songs past and present have relied on the I, V, vi, IV chord progression.
2. This progression probably stemmed from the I,vi, IV, V chord progression popular in the 50’s and 60’s.
3. Judging by recent popular songs, this progression which hints at some serious musical stagnation is not going anywhere. (See the end of this post.)

We now turn our attention to some on-going trends in different genres of music that were not really talked about in the last post: Hip Hop and Rap. Analyzing chord progressions of popular Hip Hop and Rap songs would not be very fun at all. Mainly because the majority of the songs in these genres make use of creative beats and riffs (repeated musical phrases) to create the “hook” rather then chord progressions and melodies.  Some of these songs do not have any discernible chord progressions, or rather seem to hang on one note or chord for most of the song. So I guess you could say that there is a chord progression trend in Rap music; that is, to not have one. But that is not where the true trend lies. And, believe me, each and every genre of music has its true trends that so often play an integral part when writing its music. So what is Hip Hop’s I V vi IV chord progression? For this answer, we need to look to the beat…

Meet the “Son Clave:”

The Son Clave

The “Son Clave” is a musical beat. A rhythm. For those who can’t read music that well, this  is one and the same with that catchy little beat from the hit song “I Want Candy” (that song that Aaron Carter sang when he was like 8. Seriously look at the video. Judging by his prepubescent voice in the beginning, he can’t be older than 10 .) It’s that “Boom Boom Boom… BOOM BOOM” going throughout the whole song. This particular beat, mainly due to its syncopated first half followed by the forceful two beats at the end, can be quite memorable.

I would also like to introduce a different type of clave rhythm, the “Bossa Nova Clave:”

Bossa Nova Clave

The “Bossa Nova” is only slightly different from the Son, with the last note shifted one “eighth” note further, giving the beat a revolving quality and even more syncopation.

Together these two clave rhythm formulate the underlying beat behind almost all modern day Hip Hop and Rap songs. (A bold statement indeed!) Take that beat from prepubescent boy’s “I Want Candy,” slow it down a heck of a lot, maybe chop off that last quarter note, insert Snoop, and you’ve got yourself a Top 20 song on Q93. How the clave rhythms came to find their place in Hip Hop glory is a very interesting story, I’m glad you asked.       Let’s do it!

The clave rhythms derive from early Afro-Cuban music. For instance, the “Son Clave” was a particular clave rhythm that accompanied the Cuban musical style called “Son.” Clave rhythms were a central part of many different types of Cuban music such as the salsa and rumba, hence the name “clave” which means “key” in Spanish (since they were a “central” or “key” part of the music.) Claves like the “Son Clave” were very popular, but there existed other claves like the “Rumba Clave” and the “Bossa Nova Clave” as mentioned. Since Cuba, as well as the other surrounding Caribbean islands, saw heavy European and African influences during the slave trade, it only makes sense that Cuban music became a mesh of both European and African influence. However, it was the African cultures, cultures whose music relied heavily upon beats and polyrythms, that probably influenced these different clave beats the most. Thus the African influence on American music began. The syncopated clave beats made their way to America through ports like New Orleans, were integrated and accepted into American music largely through jazz music (look out for the “Son Clave” during Mardi Gras…it’s out there), while a syncopated “African type music known as “Ragtime” had already begun to sweep America off its feet.

Scott Joplin, King of Ragtime says: "Chicks dig Syncopation."

Fast forward a few years (just a few), and we get to Hip Hop and Rap music and…what do you know, the clave and other African influenced syncopated beats are still very much alive, and helping to shape a genre of music that will come to be a very important symbol of African-American culture.

So is the clave beat as pervasive as the I V vi IV chord progression? Yep. However, while all the songs I presented in my last post truly had that particular chord progression, the following popular Hip Hop and Rap songs don’t all follow the clave rhythm precisely. Like I said, sometimes a quarter note is chopped off, sometimes an eighth note is added, etc. It really is up to you to see whether all these songs really do have something in common or if I’m just crazy. So without further ado, the following songs all have a clave based beat that form the backbone of song:

1. “Drop it like its hot” by Snoop
2. “Say Aah” by Trey Songz
3. “Carry Out” by Timbaland feat. Justin Timberlake
4. “I think they like me” by Dem Franchise Boyz
5. “Laffy Taffy” by D4L
6. “Crank That” by Soulja Boy
7. “Bed Rock” by Lil Wayne
8. “How Low” by Ludacris

The best representative of the “Son Clave” is probably “Drop it like it’s hot.” The snare drum during the riff at around 0.19 seconds replicates the “Son Clave” with an added quarter note where the first quarter rest is located. Ludacris’ “How Low” pretty much truthfully represents the “Bossa Nova Clave.”

So what do you think? Am I crazy? I don’t think I am. As far as how and why this beat has survived for so long, and why it came up in the first place, I think it all pretty much has to do with syncopation. African tribal music was mainly about dance, thus African music centered around danceable beats. And there is something about syncopated beats that make your brain and your body want to both locate and move to the actual beat, that is, the “1,2,3,4” or “1,2,1,2” pulses of the song. Use the clave at a slow tempo in a song, and watch the listener’s body sway to the “1,2,3,4” in a smooth, slow manner. After all, isn’t that what most of the Hip Hop and Rap songs are about? Being smooth, cool, gangsta, whatever. Maybe that’s why slow motion is so popular in music videos (see “Drop it like its hot”), why there is so much dancing associated with this music, and why syncopated beats like the clave are still being used. See you next time.

*Back to the whole I V vi IV thing…In his transition into the world of alt. rock, Lil Wayne’s right on track with the rest of ’em! He’s no dummy!

• “Knockout” by Lil Wayne