"Peace" chord function question

[engelbach]

Jeff,

The disagreement here is over the expectation and establishment of a key. Your ears tell you one thing and mine and HaVIC's tell us another.

In this tune, the momentum of the melody and chords hints to me at Eb, beause my ears have been influenced by my experience with other tunes that begin this way, as well as delayed endings that substitute the tritone half-dim and then move down chromatically to the tonic.

However, I can also hear the direction towards Bb, in the parallel construction of the first four bars. If we leave out the C7 and BΔ chords, but play the melody over ...

| Aø - D7 - | Gm7 - - - | Cø - F7alt - | BbΔ - - - |

... we have (1) a sequential pattern and (2) bass movement that takes us through the circle of fifths to Bb. If we leave in the BΔ, but play just the bass note, the B natural sounds like an appoggiatura that resolves to the C.

The C7 after Gm7 might make one think that we're going to F, but that chord is irrelevant, as the melody itself does not resolve on F but says, "I'm not done yet." The Aø - D7b9 also make sense if we consider them as a secondary dominant progression towards Gm7, tonicized as the relative minor of Bb.

Another tune that starts the same way is Brubeck's In Your Own Sweet Way, and I'm sure there are others.

Cheers,
Jer

[Fred]

Hi Jeff Brent,

how would be your analysis of Dave Brubecks "InYour Own Sweet Way"?

[HaVIC5]

BUT, the first two bars are so ambiguous that, to my ears, I honestly don't hear a Bb tonic implied at all (until one finally arrives in bar 4).

Solfeggio-ing the strong Eb in the melody doesn't explicitly imply to me an upcoming Bb landing either.

I find this hard to believe. Consider the syllables....

Re Mi Fa Fa Fa, Mi Re Mi Re Do Do. Do Do Te Le, Le Te Sol in Bb. All of the syllables and their tendencies make perfect, logical sense. Tension is created by hitting "Fa," which immediately resolves to Mi, and falls down to a stable Do. Modal interchange occurs in a line that moves down to Le, which has a very strong tendency to resolve to Sol, which it does at the end

La Ti Do Do Do, Ti La Ti La Sol Sol. (Sol Sol Fa Me, Me Fa Re) in Eb, parenthesized are the syllables that don't much much sense in context.

Sol La Te Te Te, La Sol La Sol Fa Fa. Fa Fa Me Ra, Me Ra Do. in F. Really, there is hardly logic in these syllables. It would essentially have you believe that the second phrase (which ends on Bb) ends on Fa, which is a highly unstable note in the tonal plane, but your ear doesn't tell you that at all. Also, it would have you believe that the melody is in F Dorian b2, which doesn't make any logical sense, and is in all likelihood not what Horace Silver was thinking.

And if you analyzed the solfege syllables in TWO keys, F and Bb, then you get this horrendous mess.

Sol La Te Te Te, La Sol La Sol Fa Fa. Fa | Do Te Le, Le Te Sol

The melody very clearly tells you that there was no modulation.

So, while analyzing the first three bars in Bb is one way to look at it, my ear is telling something else.

D7b9 is not in the key of Bb and neither is C7.

A-7(b5) is not diatonic to the key of F, and neither is D7(b9). Eb is a wholly undiatonic tone to F major. By that reasoning, just by listening to the first measure alone, there is no way you could make the assumption that its in F. I don't see your point. Chords can be non-diatonic and still have a very, very strong function within a key.

Over the last three bars of "Confirmation" ( | AØ D7b9 | Gm7 C9 | F | - which are almost exactly the same as the beginning of "Peace"), Bird treats these changes as a straightforward Blues and riffs accordingly.

Both the AØ and D7b9 (and the melody of "Peace") contain the b7 of the "Blues F tonic chord".

...but Peace doesn't go to F major...it goes to Bmaj7 and ends up on Bb. You can't just take random chords from other tunes and contexts and say "here! you see!" because its a completely different context. If I gave you the chords |E-7 A7 | E-7 A7 | you might think "D major!" but you wouldn't analyze the third and fourth bar of Satin Doll as a modulation to D major. If I took the first two chords of Shadow of Your Smile, F#-7 and B7, you might insist that the tune is in E major, versus E minor/G major. Just because they're the same chords doesn't mean their the same function.

Was Mr Silver possibly thinking "Blues" when he wrote this? (We all know that Horace loves his Blues ... )

Maybe? But I doubt it. I really can't HEAR any blues influence in the tune. Sure, I could contort a bunch of theoretical jumbo into fitting a "blues agenda" (All the dominant 7 b5 chords!) but I just don't hear it.

Any difference in the implied tonics between "Peace" and "Confirmation" only varies due to the harmonic rhythm.

In "Confirmation", the resolution falls on the final bar of the line.

In "Peace", the resolution of that aforementioned progression (if we agree that there IS a resolution - which we don't) falls "prematurely" on bar three.

Again, I don't see why you're insisting to use another, completely unrelated tune with different chords to try and analyze Peace. They don't even start out the same - Confirmation already has established "F" VERY clearly before hitting that string of chords. It's like thinking an apple will taste the same as a tomato because they're both red.

So, if you would like to tell me that "It's in Bb because bar 4 says Bb, and everybody knows that bar 4 always defines the key", I would have to respond that "This is a 10-bar tune, not an 8-bar tune, or a 12-bar or a 16-bar tune, so that kind of messes with 'The Rules' a bit, don't it?."

Whoa, whoa, were is this coming from? I never even remotely hinted at any of that, so don't put words into my mouth. I'm not arguing from the "everybody knows" standpoint at all.

Bar 4 in this case defines the key because

1) to me, it sounds like it defines the key
2) it has the longest harmonic rhythm of all of the chords up until this point
3) there was a II-V cadence to it
4) the melody came to a rest on the lowest note of the phrase on the Bb chord
5) the solfege makes the most "tonal sense" if analyzed up until that point in that key
6) All of the chords up until that point have function in Bb, unlike F (Bmaj7 is what? bVmaj7? Modal interchange from locrian? Not likely). Eb is a possibility, however.
7) On the repeats, all of the chords tend to sound more like being in Bb than in the very beginning because the piece ends in Bb.

Etc.

[AndyL]

Very interesting, thought provoking analysis, HaVIC5. Thanks.

The D7b9 is an Ab9#11 in the original, no?

[Jeff Brent]

I've tried to see it the Berklee way, but it just doesn't work for me. If I thought it was 100% correct, I would say so in no uncertain terms.

Mr Silver was being deliberately ambiguous in the first part of this tune.

I hear the first two bars as not in Bb, yet Berkelee says it is.

So be it.

The first two bars start "out of the blue" and sets up an expectation, which is consequently shattered at bar three.

That expectation is certainly NOT Bb to my ears.

Since none of us here appear to be privy to Mr Silver's thought processes on this, this interesting discussion is therefore speculation.


HaVIC5,
BTW, I didn't mean to "put words into your mouth", I should've probably phrased it something like "If one were to put forth the argument ..."
I apologize.


And to the poster on "In Your Own Sweet Way" - An analysis of that tune would deserve a thread of its own. The difference there, though, is that bar 3 doesn't drop any bombs.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Jeff Brent

And to the poster on "In Your Own Sweet Way" - An analysis of that tune would deserve a thread of its own. The difference there, though, is that bar 3 doesn't drop any bombs.

Bar number 3 "Peace" = BMA7 C-7b5 F7/b9

Bar number 3 "In Your Own Sweet Way" = C-7 F7

So the bomb is BMA7? Am I right?

[Jeff Brent]

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Jeff Brent

That was an A-Bomb not a BMA7 bomb. :-)


Jeff,
what I wanted to say with all this is, that I go conform with HaVIC5 analysis.
If you compare "Peace" and "In your own sweet way" you will notice pretty clear, that the basic pattern is the same.

[engelbach]

Originally Posted by jazz oud

Not exactly the same, but "My Little Brown Book" does something similar at the end of the tune:

Bbmaj7 Gm7 | Cm9 F13 | Bbmaj C#m7 F#7 | Bmaj7 | Cø7 F7 | Bbmaj7

JO,

Nobody responded to your interesting observation.

In My Little Brown Book the BΔ is more tonicized than that in Peace, by way of the ii7-V7 that preceeds it, although without the BΔ the progression is almost ...

| Dm7 G7 | Dbm7 Gb7 | Cø F7 |

Actually, I don't hear the BΔ in Peace as being tonicized at all, as there is no preparation (I disagree with Jeff that BΔ is a sub for FΔ; the melody contradicts it) and we plow right through it without stopping. In both tunes, the melody notes in the digression are from the parallel minor.

In any case, in both tunes the harmonic change is too short to call a modulation and I'd analyze the chords as being in Bb (if I went in for that sort of thing).

Cheers,
Jer

[Mike A]

I have a question separate from the analysis of Peace.

Jeff's r.n. analysis of | Gm7 C7 | Bmaj7 ... | above was

II - V - Isub

which he described as "substitut[ing] the tritone of the F major chord":

The root of the unexpected Bmaj7(Cbmaj7) is a tritone away from the expected Fmaj7 tonic. That's why it's a substitute for the F.

... Fmaj7's tritone substitute "Bmaj7".

[T]he Cb/Bmaj7 is the tritone substitute for an expected F chord.

I don't recall ever seeing this concept before -- a "tritone substitute" for the tonic, or the r.n. symbol "Isub" used to represent it.

I understand the normal dom7 concept implied by the phrase "tritone substitute" -- two dominant 7th chords share the same internal 3-7/7-3 tritone interval (e.g., C7 and Gb7 share E and Bb as 3-7 or 7-3), therefore have the same resolution tendencies, and so can serve as functional substitutes, notated as "subV7" ...

e.g., C7>Fmaj7 (V7>I) =~ Gb7>Fmaj7 (subV7>I),

and Gb7(F#7)>Bmaj7 (V7>I) =~ C7>Bmaj7 (subV7>I).

But I've never heard of the two target tonics -- e.g., Fmaj7 and Bmaj7 in this case -- being referred to as "tritone substitutes" of one another, or seen the use of "Isub" to reflect that.

I don't see why the mere fact that the roots of these two chords are a tritone apart would make them "Isub" "substitutes." Even in the dom7 context, although it's true that the roots of tritone substitutes happen to be a tritone apart, the tritone that makes them "tritone substitutes" is the internal 3-7/7-3 tritone interval that they share. They sound functionally alike because their two most important notes are identical.

The two target maj7 tonics share no notes in common, and don't sound alike.

Anytime I've seen something like C7>Bmaj7 r.n. analyzed, it would typically be notated as subV7>I (or, if the maj7 is functioning not as I but as, say, IV, then subV7/IV>IV), never as V7>Isub.

So, I'm trying to get a handle on this concept of a "tritone substitute" for the tonic, as a substitution of such special stature that it would be designated "Isub". Thoughts?

[AndyL]

Originally Posted by Mike A

I don't see why the mere fact that the roots of these two chords are a tritone apart would make them "Isub" "substitutes." Even in the dom7 context, although it's true that the roots of tritone substitutes happen to be a tritone apart, the tritone that makes them "tritone substitutes" is the internal 3-7/7-3 tritone interval that they share. They sound functionally alike because their two most important notes are identical.

The two target maj7 tonics share no notes in common, and don't sound alike.

I agree with this 100%. I noticed that when reading Jeff's analysis too ...

[engelbach]

Originally Posted by Mike A

... I'm trying to get a handle on this concept of a "tritone substitute" for the tonic, as a substitution of such special stature that it would be designated "Isub". Thoughts?

Jeff will have to explain it himself, but my best guess is that because C7 is the tritone sub for F#7, the dominant of B, we can resolve from C7 to B instead of to F. Ergo, we might extrapolate that B is a tritone sub for F.

I don't disagree with this concept in principle, but I don't consider the BΔ in Peace to be a resolution, but a passing chord.

[AndyL]

Originally Posted by engelbach

Jeff will have to explain it himself, but my best guess is that because C7 is the tritone sub for F#7, the dominant of B, we can resolve from C7 to B instead of to F. Ergo, we might extrapolate that B is a tritone sub for F.

But doesn't this contradict the argument that the first 3 bars suggest F major? If C7 is a tritone substitute for F#7, surely that would mean we're in B major, not F?

[Mike A]

Originally Posted by engelbach

Jeff will have to explain it himself, but my best guess is that because C7 is the tritone sub for F#7, the dominant of B, we can resolve from C7 to B instead of to F. Ergo, we might extrapolate that B is a tritone sub for F. ...

I have a hard time with that extrapolation, except at a superficial level.

C7 is the tritone sub for F#7 because C7, although it is a different chord, preserves the essential functionality of F#7. The "F#7th-ness" of F#7 is still present, and can be clearly heard, in C7 -- even completely out of context. But the "Fmaj7th-ness" of Fmaj7 is nowhere to be heard in Bmaj7. The fact that Fmaj7 and Bmaj7 can be arrived at through similar means of transportation doesn't make them sonic substitutes for one another.

I can go downtown, or to State College, on the No. 15 bus. Downtown and State College aren't, as a result, substitutes for one another, except in the superficial sense that both are examples of destinations of the No. 15 bus. On the other hand, I can also go downtown, or to State College, in the College Shuttle instead. The bus experience and the shuttle experience will be different, but in the functionally important sense that they'll take me to the same destinations, they are clearly substitutes.

[jazz oud]

Originally Posted by engelbach

JO,

Nobody responded to your interesting observation.

In My Little Brown Book the BΔ is more tonicized than that in Peace, by way of the ii7-V7 that preceeds it, although without the BΔ the progression is almost ...

| Dm7 G7 | Dbm7 Gb7 | Cø F7 |

Actually, I don't hear the BΔ in Peace as being tonicized at all, as there is no preparation (I disagree with Jeff that BΔ is a sub for FΔ; the melody contradicts it) and we plow right through it without stopping. In both tunes, the melody notes in the digression are from the parallel minor.

In any case, in both tunes the harmonic change is too short to call a modulation and I'd analyze the chords as being in Bb (if I went in for that sort of thing).

Cheers,
Jer

Of course, I was just responding to the question of tunes that have a resolution a half step above the tonic. To me the Bmaj7 in "Peace" doesn't feel like a resolution either. Melodically, it is the start of the consequent phrase (the first 2 bars are the antecedent).

The use MLBB is not really similar to "Peace", although the comparison to "In Your Own Sweet Way" is a good one, I think. "Peace" is sort of like a condensed version, though I hadn't thought of it that way before.

Great tune, however you analyze it. FWIW, the Sher New Real Book seems to agree with the analysis that it's in Bb. There are three clear cadences: Bb, Db, and Bb. The first and last cadence are both in Bb, and Db is a closely related key to Bb.

Want to start an argument about keys, how about Giant Steps? I consider the primary key to Eb . . .