Troubles with Tonal Terminology and Notions of Form in Popular Music

Research Seminar
5.30-7.30pm, 17 October 2012‏
City University London

All Welcome

Professor Philip Tagg (University of Huddersfield)
Troubles with Tonal Terminology and Notions of Form in Popular Music

Abstract:
Central terms in music theory based on the euroclassical repertoire are highly problematic when dealing with the structures and functions of popular music. “Tonal”, “atonal”, “tonality”, “modal”, “modality”, “dominant”, “subdominant”, not to mention the “perfect” and “interrupted” cadence, are just a few of the terms that make nonsense of much of the music that became globally popular during the twentieth century. “Form” causes another critical set of problems since its sense is conventionally restricted to episodic aspects of diachronic arrangement and is rarely, if ever, applied to the synchronic arrangement of sound inside the limits of the extended present.

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