Tuning the Narrative
Advisor: Jay Jordana
Internship Location: SFCM
Onsite Mentor: Aaron Pike
Rush E drives its listeners to furiously bob their heads. Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer pulls its audience in with its irresistible urge to sing along. In music, the lyrical narrative and the chord progression work in close harmony; thus, my research will investigate the correlation between these two musical elements. I will rely on Internet research to gain deeper theory knowledge, seek guidance from my advisor to help me analyze chord progressions, and draw on my own observations to examine how the lyrics and chord progressions complement one another. The final product of my project will consist of two parts: 1) a distribution table of my findings, where I will highlight the most used chord progression associated with different lyrical themes (e.g. nostalgia, love, grief, and motivation), and 2) a potential song composition that incorporates the most prevalent chord progression linked to nostalgia-themed narratives.
Project Blog
Post 1: Chapter 1: The Journey Begins!
Once upon a time, there was a…
Okay, okay, you’re probably over the whole “once upon a time” thing. But hey, in my defense, my research project is about storytelling, so it is kind of fitting, right?
Alright, enough with this. Let’s actually start.
Hi everyone, welcome! I'm Janelle and I’m super excited to have you join me on this research adventure (trust me, it’s going to be a thrilling ride!). Today’s chapter (or blog) will be a rather brief one: I’ll be sharing the ups and downs I've already encountered with my research question, the goals I have for my project, and the final product I hope to create!
The Research Question:
To be honest, I’ve already had quite a bit of trouble with this one. My initial research question (the one on my proposal) was “how do the uses of chord progressions compare between American pop and Korean pop—currently two of the most trending music genres?” By then, I already had an extremely clear picture of my research process, my methodology, and the specific timeline. But just when I thought I had everything figured out…my brain came up with another idea. Before I knew it, I found myself tackling the intersection between science and music, particularly the effects of different chord progressions on cancer patients’ brains and the emotions they each evoke.
However, when developing my methodology, I ran into, unsurprisingly, another problem: with no prior classes taken in neuroscience, 12 weeks (probably even less than that) was simply not enough time for me to investigate this question in any depth. And again…I had to change it. That led me to my current research question: How does the lyrical narrative—the type of story conveyed through the lyrics—depend on the chord progression in songs?
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I’ve been using the word “chord progression” quite a lot, but what does that even mean? Very simply put, a chord is a collection of notes, and a chord progression is a series of chords that form the foundation of a song. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s for a later chapter!
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So, what will my actual research question be? Well, I still don’t know! I’ll be, again, attempting to finalize this throughout the next two or three blogs, so stay tuned for updates (or unexpected twists)!
Project Goals & Product:
Though some things are still up in the air, there is one skill I’m determined to master (or learn) through my research project: the identification of chord progressions within songs. As for my current research question, my goal is to identify the different emotions associated with various tonalities in chord progressions by investigating the lyrical narrative.
But wait, there’s more!
Once I complete my analysis, I’d love to create a medley; it’ll definitely be interesting to combine songs with different lyrical narratives but similar chord progressions. I even hope to perform this in the theater, but don’t get your hopes up just yet…(this is not confirmed.)
Phew, that wasn’t exactly a “brief” blog after all, but I do hope that was an enjoyable glimpse into my (tentative) research project! See you next time :)
Post 2: Chapter 2: Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?
Come on, let’s go and play…
with music!
Yep, welcome back! After a week (and two days) of rest, I hope you guys are feeling ready to go and play with a LOT of musical terms (which you may or may not already be familiar with)! For the past few days, I've been reading, writing, and working through my two theory books, so I'm going to share some of the concepts I reviewed. Without further ado, let’s start!
Key Signatures, Majors, and Minors
If you’ve ever glanced at a piece of music, you might’ve spotted a few seemingly random sharps (#) and flats (b). The different numbers of flats/sharps are part of the key signature.
The Circle of Fifths (shown above) displays all 12 major keys with their relative minor keys. It’s interesting to note that the interval of a perfect fifth separates each key on the circle from its adjacent key, which requires just the addition or subtraction of 1 sharp or flat.
However, you may notice that one key signature can represent either a major key (in red) or its relative minor (in green). Identifying the correct key of the music is a crucial step in understanding, later, the chord progression.
Soooo…to determine the key:
Look at the given key signature: identify the possible major and the possible relative minor (e.g. four flats could mean Ab Major OR f minor)
Listen to it: if it feels sad, it’s likely minor; if it feels happy, it’s likely major (BUT this is NOT definitive)
Analyze the notes and melodies themselves: does it outline a major/minor’s tonic (1st degree) or dominant (5th degree) triad? does it follow the scale of the key? does it end on the key’s tonic note?
Chords and Inversions
A triad is a type of chord that consists of three notes separated by thirds. The bottom note of a triad is the root, the middle note is the third, and the very top note is the fifth. Triads are named by their root.
Major triads consist of a major third and perfect fifth above the root (4 half-steps from the root, then 3 half-steps from the third). For instance, an E Major triad be E, G#, B. The Dominant 7th chord is basically a major triad plus an additional note that is 3 half-steps above the fifth.
Minor triads, on the other hand, consist of a minor third and a perfect fifth above the root (3 half-steps from the root, then 4 half-steps from the third). Using the same root of E, an E minor triad would be E, G, B.
Diminished triads consist of a minor third and a diminished fifth above the root (3 half-steps from the root, then another 3 half-steps from the third). Again the same root of E, an E diminished triad would be E, G, Bb.
Augmented triads consist of a major third and an augmented fifth above the root (4 half-steps from the root, then another 4 half-steps from the third). Yep, you guessed it! The same root of E (I mean…I just love E that much…). An E augmented triad would be E, G#, B#.
Root/quality chord symbols help label triads:
for Major triads, simply use the capital letter of the root (e.g. E for E Major triad)
for minor triads, use the lowercase letter and “m” (e.g. em for e minor triad)
for diminished triads, use the lowercase letter and “°” or “dim” (e.g. e° or edim for e diminished triad)
for Augmented triads, use the capital letter and “+” or “Aug” (e.g. E+ or EAug for E Augmented triad).
If this all seems a little too complicated, do you wanna build a snowman...?? Yes!!!
Here’s a simpler analogy: think of the triad as a snowman—two snowballs stacked on top of each other!! One snowball represents the distance between the root and the third, and the other represents the distance between the third and the fifth.
Aaaaanddd…there you go!
A very simplified (and condensed) version of what I wrote above! A smaller snowball means an interval of 3 half-steps, while a bigger snowball means an interval of 4 half-steps. Hmmm…such a masterpiece (used up all my artistic skills here btw…)
But wait! There’s more! We haven’t touched on inversions yet. Uh oh…
Root position: root, third, fifth
First inversion: third, fifth, root
Second inversion: fifth, root, third
Well, that was a crazy lot to digest, so I’ll leave it here. Next week, I’ll wrap up the last tiny bit of our foundational knowledge and cover some literature that I’ve been reading! See you again in the next one!
Sources:
Celebrate Theory Book 6. RCM Publishing. Canada. Print.
Celebrate Theory Book 7. RCM Publishing. Canada. Print.
Post 3: Chapter 3: Sheep and an Emotional Rollercoaster
Hello, hello! Remember those snowmen (Snowmans? Snowmen? Well, Grammarly tells me it’s the latter) we built last week, I hope those didn’t melt already because you’re gonna need them today! Don’t worry, we’ll also talk about sheep today…
As promised, let’s first finish up our conversation about musical vocabulary last time!
Building triads on major and minor scales, which is the foundation of our chord progressions!
NOTE: for the C minor harmonic, there should be a b natural for the III chord, thus making it augmented!
The figure above shows the triads built on the C Major scale and the c minor harmonic scale. For the Major key, we see that I, IV, and V are Major triads; ii, iii, and vi are minor triads; and the seventh (vii°) is a diminished triad. For the minor key, V and VI are Major triads; i and iv are minor triads; ii° and vii° are diminished triads; and III+ is an Augmented triad. Of course, for both the Major and the minor, V (the fifth chord) can also be V7, the dominant seventh chord.
Next up…we got…
Breaking News! I’ve found a new term! Drum roll, please…
Word Painting! Okay, okay, the term itself doesn’t sound very artistic or fancy, but it is very relevant to my project!!!
Word painting is a device that manipulates musical elements to portray the lyrics’ meaning through sound. Essentially, it was just “painting” the meaning of the text—not with a paintbrush, but with music! How fun!
For instance, in the Baroque oratorio Messiah, one of the lines goes, “And we like sheep have gone astray.” On the word “astray,” the choir sings a wide array of pitches, rapidly sliding up and down. If you get the image, it’s like the sheep running around all over the place, or “gone astray”!
Anyway, with that brief, overarching introduction, I’m now going to share the bulk of my literature review that I’ve done for this week, which covers the wide variety of research that has already been done on the effects of musical elements on emotion.
Starting off with Sidharth Roy, he studied how the different chord progressions and timbre/tonality (produced by different instruments) influence the participants’ perceived emotions—the emotions that they associate with the music. Through a survey consisting of 9 different audios (3 different chord progressions played by 3 different instruments), 40 participants chose one emotion from an emotion wheel for each audio. Roy found that chord progressions in the major key were associated with positive emotions, while chord progressions with chords from a different key were most commonly perceived with negative emotions.
Next, in a study by Sun and Cuthbert, they labeled all lyrics with the NRC Emotion Lexicon, which automatically assesses the text based on 8 emotions and 2 sentiments (positive and negative)—collectively called the affect—and then collected the musical features of the notes corresponding to those lyrics. They, in fact, did discover correlations between the emotions connotated by the lyrics and the musical elements of the relative melody. For instance, surprising words are, on average, an 8/10th semitone higher than anger words; negative words use significantly shorter note values; and positive/joyful words are more often on strong beats. In a similar study, researchers specifically investigated the link between chords and lyrics—whether the perceived emotion in the chords is reflective of the words in the corresponding lyrics.
(Hang tight, we’re almost there!)
Moving onto Smit, she examined the perceived emotions of chord progressions by manipulating the ending cadence type (authentic, plagal, half, or deceptive), the major/minor mode, the removal/inclusion of a tetrad (a dissonant four-note chord), the average pitch (mean of all musical pitches), and the final chord. Participants were asked to rate each chord progression on arousal/energy level and on valence/emotional level. Some of her significant results found that half/deceptive cadences and higher average pitch are more arousing than authentic cadences and lower average pitch, while plagal and minor cadences have lower valence than authentic and major ones.
Using a similar experimental model as Smit, Zwaag, Westerink, and Broek investigated the effect of tempo, mode, and percussiveness on emotions. Participants rated the level of arousal, valence, and tension they experienced, while skin and heart responses were recorded. An increase in tempo was associated with an increase in arousal, an increase in tension, and an increase in heart rate stability; a major mode was connected to an increase in arousal; and percussiveness seems to be proportionately linked to the level/frequency of skin responses.
In a study done at the Eastman School of Music, Temperley and Tan examined the impact of different diatonic modes on emotions. The “happiest” mode, as they found, was the Ionian mode, while the Phrygian was the least favored. It also seems that the level of “happiness” decreases with increasing distance to the Ionian mode. Other studies examined the perception of nonadjacent keys, which concluded that a parallelism exists between language and music of global reach.
Well, what’s different about my research project? Past research has been mainly done on all sorts of musical elements, but I’m investigating songs’ chord progressions in specifics.
Now that we’re finally done with all the theoretical stuff, we’re finally onto some physical experimentation! I can already sense the troubles coming ahead, but onwards!
Sources:
Celebrate Theory Book 6. RCM Publishing. Canada. Print.
Celebrate Theory Book 7. RCM Publishing. Canada. Print.
Harlow, Randall, et al. “5.5 Roman Numerals and Diatonic Harmony: Tutorial.” Pressbooks.pub, Iowa State University Digital Press, 4 Aug. 2023, iastate.pressbooks.pub/comprehensivemusicianship/chapter/5-5-roman-numeral-notation-tutorial/. Accessed 8 Mar. 2025.
Beach, Pamela, and Benjamin Bolden. “Word Painting: Using a Musical Technique to Enhance Vocabulary.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 72, no. 6, 2 Nov. 2018, pp. 750–754, https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1780.
Roy, Sidharth. “Analyzing the Effect of Chord Progression and Instrument on Music in Perception of Emotion in Different Age Groups.” International Journal of Indian Psychology, vol. 11, no. 4, Redshine Publication, Oct. 2023, ijip.in/articles/the-effect-of-chord-progression-and-instrument-on-music/.
Beach, Pamela, and Benjamin Bolden. “Word Painting: Using a Musical Technique to Enhance Vocabulary.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 72, no. 6, 2 Nov. 2018, pp. 750–754, https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1780.
Sun, Sophia H., and Michael Scott Cuthbert. “Emotion Painting: Lyric, Affect, and Musical Relationships in a Large Lead-Sheet Corpus.” Empirical Musicology Review, vol. 12, no. 3-4, 25 June 2018, p. 327, https://doi.org/10.18061/emr.v12i3-4.5889.
Smit, Eline A., et al. “Perceived Emotions of Harmonic Cadences.” Music & Science, vol. 3, 1 Jan. 2020, p. 205920432093863, researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:56749/datastream/PDF/view, https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204320938635.
Woolhouse, Matthew, et al. “Perception of Nonadjacent Tonic-Key Relationships.” Psychology of Music, vol. 44, no. 4, July 2015, pp. 802–15, https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735615593409. Accessed 24 May 2022.
Van der Zwaag, Marjolein D., et al. “Emotional and Psychophysiological Responses to Tempo, Mode, and Percussiveness.” Musicae Scientiae, vol. 15, no. 2, July 2011, pp. 250–269, https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864911403364.
Temperley, David, and Daphne Tan. “Emotional Connotations of Diatonic Modes.” Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 30, no. 3, 1 Feb. 2013, pp. 237–257, https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2012.30.3.237.
Kolchinsky, Artemy et al. “The Minor fall, the Major lift: inferring emotional valence of musical chords through lyrics.” Royal Society Open Science vol. 4,11 170952. 15 Nov. 2017, doi:10.1098/rsos.170952
Post 4: Chapter 4: Out of Order, Out of Tune
I’m getting lost! In the chord wilderness…
Greetings, my fellow companions! Get ready for one of the first (and definitely NOT the last) troubles I’ve encountered. This week, I actually started analyzing the songs.
And…I went through a grand total of TWO songs!!!! I know, it’s a lot!
I. The Learning
Click. Click. “How to identify chord progressions from a song,” I typed on the YouTube search bar. Enter.
I clicked on a video by Karen Ramirez from 2008, in which she discussed the circle of fifths (I’ve actually covered this in my past blogs), so it wasn’t much help. Pass.
Next, I clicked on a YouTube Shorts video. The guy was talking about the circle of fifths again. Pass. Another one just shared the most common pop chord progressions with some extra ear training exercises. Sooooo…pass again.
I went through this process for, let’s say, a long while. Most of the videos were interesting, but… they didn’t really teach me “how to identify chord progressions from a song,” as I’ve searched. Finally, I came across “#40: How To Determine Chord Progressions In Songs” by Piano Tutorials with Chris Ebute.
I’ve summarized his suggestions into 3 main steps: 1) Determine the key; 2) Know the melody; and 3) Play a chord that contains the melody!
Easy enough right…? That’s what I thought too, and so, I confidently began my very first analysis!
II. The Analysis
Since this week is basically a trial run (practice) for the actual data collection in the upcoming weeks, I just chose random songs that I knew.
First up, Taylor Swift’s Long Live.
When I revisited the song, I recognized the first few notes to be G, A, C, and B. With the G being the tonic of G Major and all these notes belonging to a G Major scale, I guessed and soon confirmed that the key is G Major. Then, I wrote solfege syllables* (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) for the song, resulting in the following masterpiece:
* For those who are not familiar with solfege, do (labeled with 1) would be G in the key of G Major!
Tada!
Next, I utilized the solfege to determine the chords. For instance, for the first few lyrics, I see primarily dos (1) and mis (3), so I guessed the I chord (G chord); I, then, see a la (6), which is the root of a vi (em chord). Now, this was the beginning of my mistakes, which I’ll talk about later… Anyway, I repeated this process for the entire verse, thus deciding on an I-vi-IV-V chord progression. Onwards to the chorus, I did the same thing—trying out chords that included the melody—and ended up with a rather boring I-IV-I-V chord progression. The process felt even simpler and smoother than I’d imagined. And I was pretty confident.
SCRATCH THAT!!!
When I consulted my advisor, she informed me that the chord progression for the verse is actually I-IV-vi-IV-I, while the chord progression for the chorus is instead I-IV-vi-IV/V. She also analyzed the bridge, which turned out to be vi-VI-vi-IV-I.
My ideas were all off! Well, except for the fact that I also started with the I chord. How exciting. The V chord, which I thought was a regular guest of Long Live, only appears 4 times—once at the end of each chorus (which repeats 3 times) and once at the tag.
Where did I go wrong? Well, my error lied in my method: if I chose chords that contained the melody, then I would have endless options (so how do I decide which to choose?). I’ve considered this problem before, but I thought all would be well if I just tried the chords and picked the best-sounding one. But actually, no.
My advisor suggested I try figuring out the baseline first since it provides the root of the chord. When I asked her how she does that, her response was, “It’ll come with practice.” Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to be doing for the next few weeks!
Having gained inspiration from this, I decided to try again. This time with Justin Bieber’s Ghost and this time finding the baseline first!!! About the process…it’s hard to describe. It was quite literally just listening very very very carefully to the background music (which, in this song, gives some helpful hints on the progression of the baseline) and…trial and error!
I found Bm-D-A for the verse and Bm-D-G-A for the chorus. The web indicated Bm-G-D-A for the verse and Bm-G-D-A for the chorus. Hmmm…missed the G chord for the verse and swapped the G and D chords for the chorus, but overall, not bad!
Well, that’s it for this week! I’m hoping next week will go a bit more smoothly, but who knows? See you in the next one.
Sources:
Piano Tutorials with Chris Ebute. “#40: How to Determine Chord Progressions in Songs.” YouTube, 30 Oct. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXzbJxMCSTw.
“Ghost – Justin Bieber Piano Chords & Lyrics – Bitesize Piano.” Bitesizepiano.co.uk, 14 Oct. 2021, www.bitesizepiano.co.uk/ghost-justin-bieber-piano-chords-lyrics/.
Post 5: Chapter 5: Major Mistakes, Minor Improvements
Well, hello! And welcome back to week 2 of me trying and failing to figure out chord progressions. Now, from the title, you might’ve noticed a word play on “major,” “minor,” and their overlap in English and music. Well, coincidentally (or not), the following song also plays with “major” and “minor,” but musically. Let’s dive right in.
Story of My Life by One Direction
Right from the start (by the start, I mean when the lyrics first come in), I heard Bb, Ab, g, and later, an Eb from the melody. Now, take note of this—this will be a fatal error within just a couple of sentences. Anyways, I thought, “Oh, that (somewhat) outlines an Eb Major chord! So, that must mean the piece is Eb Major!!!” No, no, no, a big big no…as I’ll soon discover.
Anyway, I was clueless then. On my first few listens, I came up with vi-IV-I-V (in the key of Eb Major) for the verse. Now, is that the correct one? I was doubtful. After all, in my previous week, I found that the best-fitting chord progression was always a re-ordered version of what I first came up with.
I tried to re-order the chord progressions, switching them up a bit. And after trying the 6 differently ordered chord progressions (I’m sure that my first chord is, indeed, a c minor chord, so that would just be 3*2*1 = 6 different combinations), I found another 2 to sound fairly fitting to the verse: 1) IV-I-vi-V and 2) IV-vi-I-V. Adding my original guess, that would be 3 options to choose from.
Aaaanddd…after a very meticulous, long, attentive session of close listening (as well as repeated circling and erasing), I had decided on IV-I-vi-V for the verse.
Now, onto the chorus, I followed the same process. Except this time, I was confident about my guess and didn’t consider any alternate options. I-IV-vi-IV…as I drew a big, dark, definitive, deformed box around it.
Then…I consulted my advisor. Turns out, it’s actually c minor. In fact, the beginning guitar strumming outlines a c minor chord. First, I should’ve started from the very beginning of the song. And remember how I drew your attention to the Eb Major chord in the melody that I noticed? Well, what I did wrong is also that. I listened to the melody instead of focusing on the baseline, which builds the melody. The entire baseline and chord progression are centered upon the key of c minor.
Not a great start, but on we go. My guess was IV-I-vi-V in the key of Eb Major; that means in the key of c minor, it would be vi-III-I-vii—definitely an unconventional, weird one. As a rule of thumb, songs usually start on the tonic. That’s when I switched my answer to (surprisingly) my first guess: in the key of Eb Major, vi-IV-I-V; and thus, in the key of c minor, I-vi-III-viii. My advisor, however, disagreed, ending up with i-III-vi-III.
When I asked about the chord progression I proposed, my advisor tried it and said simply: “It could also work!” So, apparently there could be multiple “correct” or fitting chord progressions. That’s when I was introduced to the concept of Schedkajfiankfks…let me try that again…Schenkerian analysis (I think that’s how you spell it).
Anyways, for the chorus, I had guessed “I-IV-vi-IV” in the key of Eb Major, so “III-VI-i-VI” in the key of c minor, which my advisor confirmed. However, a tricky aspect is that it almost feels like the song changes into the key of Eb Major (the starting chord in the tonic in Eb Major and the mood sounds a bit happier). It’s possible that the composer is playing with the major and minor throughout this song.
Castle on the Hill by Ed Sheeran
The starting notes consisted of D, E, F#, and a lower C#. All notes belong to D Major.
In the verse, my options were: 1) I-IV-vi-V; 2) I-vi-IV-V; 3) vi-I-IV-V; 4) vi-IV-I-V. Essentially, I knew the chords were tonic, subdominant, dominant, and submediant, but not their order. Again, I was fairly certain of the chorus’s chord progression, settling on I-IV-vi-V.
However, later I was informed that, surprisingly, both the verse and the chorus utilized the exact same chord progression—I-IV-vi-V. (The pre-chorus did have different chord progressions, though.) Turns out, my prediction for the verse was incorrect (although the chords themselves were correct), while my prediction for the chorus was right on the spot!
In the following week, I will be taking a look at Schenkerian analysis and the macro/micro-ness of chord progressions. See you later!
Post 6: Chapter 6: Eine Neue Sprache Lernen
Hallo zusammen! Wie geht es euch? As promised last time, we will examine Schenkerian analysis! And judging by the title, I’m sure you have already guessed it, but we will be learning some German today!
What is it?
Developed by Heinrich Schenker, an Austrian musician and theorist, Schenkerian (wow, what an original name) analysis visually depicts the “layers” in a musical work. He proposed that musical works have three layers: the foreground, the middleground, and the background. In fact, if you are a big art person, you might already be familiar with these terms! Yep, he did adapt the vocabulary from the “foreground, middle ground, and background” in visual art.
Theories:
The background is the deepest and simplest layer that underlies all other layers, containing only a brief 2-line progression. The background then elaborates to varying amounts of middleground layers, which are essentially a semi-reduced score; these middleground layers increase complexity and details as you move towards the foreground, the outermost layer. The foreground presents itself on the very surface, containing all the intricate ornaments, complex details, and the teeny tiny aspects of the music (aka what we see on a music score).
Think of this like an onion: you see the outermost layer (the foreground), then as you peel, you will reveal more and more layers (the middleground and the background). And to boil it down to simpler words, Schenkerian analysis wants to reduce all the “fluff” as we get deeper into the musical layers.
Schenker’s theory revolves around the notion that all musical works are ultimately derived from a basic, fundamental structure in the background called the Ursatz. Although Schenker believed that the Ursatz is similar for all repertoire, Schenkerian analysis aims to demonstrate how the same Ursatz can be developed into the different, unique works we see in the foreground, giving it meaning. His motto—“semper idem, sed non eodem modo” (Latin students, it’s our time to shine!), meaning “always the same, but not in the same manner”—reflects the ultimate goal of Schenkerian analysis.
As Fig. 1 indicates, the structure of the Ursatz consists of 2 parts: 1) the Urlinie (the fundamental, main melodic line) must descend from one of the three possible Kopftones (head tones, or primary/initial tones)—3, 5, and 8—to 1; and 2) the Bassbrechung (the bassline) of the structure I-V-I should accompany the Urlinie.
Fig. 1: The simplest version of the Ursatz
For instance, the initial motif of Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers,” with the lyrics “We were good, we were gold,” has the three-note descending Ursatz that Schenker proposes.
We still have a lot to talk about, but let’s leave it here for now! Bis später (see you soon)!
Sources:
Amarillo Vejiga. “SchenkerGUIDE: A Brief Handbook and Website for Schenkerian Analysis.” Academia.edu, 19 Feb. 2015, www.academia.edu/10929785/SchenkerGUIDE_A_Brief_Handbook_and_Website_for_Schenkerian_Analysis.
“Tom Pankhurst’s Guide to Schenkerian Analysis - What Is Schenkerian Analysis?.” Schenkerguide.com, 2025, schenkerguide.com/whatisschenkeriananalysis.php.
“Schenkerian Analysis (Explained for Beginner Musicians).” Producer Hive, 24 June 2023, producerhive.com/music-theory/schenkerian-analysis/.
“Schenkerian Analysis.” Wikipedia, 10 Jan. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis.
Post 7: Chapter 7: Uh-oh!
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Hi everyone! Nice to be back. As you can see from my title, we have some...ummmm...interesting news...that I will share with you at the end of this blog post. But first, we’re diving even deeper into Schenkerian analysis, exploring some areas that we didn’t quite get to last time! I hope you guys still remember the bits of German we learned…you're going to need it ;).
As a recap from our last chapter, Schenkerian analysis demonstrates (visually) how the basic Ursatz (the fundamental line) in the background (the simplest layer) expands to the complex, surface-level foreground through Auskomponierung (literally “composing out” or elaboration/prolongation).
Variation of Ursatz
Now, there are variations of the simplest Ursatz we looked at last time.
Developing from the background to the foreground, Ursatz can be prolonged in many ways, including but not limited to a tensional arch of initial ascent before the descending progression, motion from and to an inner voice, interruptions, register transfer, Mischung (mixture of minor and major).
Because practically all pieces start and end with the tonic, Schenker proposes that the bassbrechung (literally translating to the “breaking” of the bass) has the common harmonic pattern of I-V-I. However, there are several ways that the bass can be “broken” and elaborated, notated by I-(X)-V-I (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Examples of I-V-I variations
Let’s look at an example of the Ursatz in practice.
For Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 17, No. 1 (see Fig. 2), we can see the descending Urlinie from 5 to 1 and a bassbrechung that prolongs the I-V-I pattern. However, it is important to note that the notes (haha) of the Urlinie are not distributed evenly (Schenker’s ideas are not concerned with rhythm or timing).
Fig. 2
Elaboration
There are three main types of elaboration: 1) arpeggiation, a series of skips between notes of a single chord in the same direction; 2) Nebennote (neighbor note, see Fig. 3), a note above or below the original and is usually dissonant with the underlying harmony; and 3) Zug (linear progression, see Fig. 4), a stepwise motion between notes.
Fig. 3: Nebennote (labelled as “N”) from Bach’s Prelude No. 2 in The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
Fig. 4: Zug (labelled as “prg,” or progression) from Mozart’s Sonata in G Major, KV 283, Presto
Of course, besides these types of elaboration, there are plenty of others, including Ausfaltung (unfolding), which skips back and forth between different voices, Ubergreifen (superposition/overlapping), which reaches over to transfer registers, and voice exchange.
Practical Application
Now that we have outlined the basic theories of Schenkerian Analysis, let’s take a look at the second movement from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Major Op. 14, No.1. To see the continuous unfolding of the Ursatz and the background.
Fig. 5 shows an interrupted Urlinie descent from 3 to 1. E unfolds to G, which introduces the Kopfton (3, in this case). The prolongation of 3 continues until measure 7, and then transfers to the upper register in measure 9.
Whereas a traditional form analysis would show the various sections of the music in its entirety, a schenkerian analysis would interpret music in a single sweeping motion towards the ending of 1 with “obstacles, reverses, detours, expansions, nterpolations, and in short, retardations of all kinds” in between. A “retardation” would be, for instance, in measure 9 where the register transfers.
Fig. 5: Measures 1-16
Interestingly, measures 33-51 (see Fig. 6) follow a similar trend. Besides starting in the upper register then transferring down to the lower register, the same basic Uriline is also an interrupted descent from 3 to 1.
Fig. 6: Measures 33-51
Below in Fig. 7, we see that the whole movement is unified into a singular pattern of two small-scale interruption structures with symmetrically balancing register transfers. That’s the gist of Schenkerian analysis.
Fig. 7
Seeing the piece from a Schenkerian POV is quite magical, but it also sheds light upon my own project. So now, apparently, there is a macro (or background) way of looking at my chord progressions and a micro (or foreground) way of looking at my chord progressions?!?!?
If you recall from two blogs ago, my advisor and I disagreed upon the chord progressions of The Story of My Life. And after reading about Schenkerian analysis, it turns out…that I was analyzing the song from the foreground—picking up upon the tiny details and the passing chords—while my advisor was analyzing the song from the background—just simply taking a big picture. Oh wow, things just get more complicated and more complicated…
However, I also realized through these readings…a major problem with my method: if I keep analyzing the foreground, I’ll pick up on unique details in every song, so each song would end with a slightly altered chord progression, so I can’t group my songs based on the chord progressions because I’ll get a different chord progression for each song!!!
Well, I guess time to re-analyze my songs, but from a macro-level. But first, I still have a little more reading to do next time! Phew, lots of work to do.
Sources:
Amarillo Vejiga. “SchenkerGUIDE: A Brief Handbook and Website for Schenkerian Analysis.” Academia.edu, 19 Feb. 2015, www.academia.edu/10929785/SchenkerGUIDE_A_Brief_Handbook_and_Website_for_Schenkerian_Analysis.
“Tom Pankhurst’s Guide to Schenkerian Analysis - What Is Schenkerian Analysis?.” Schenkerguide.com, 2025, schenkerguide.com/whatisschenkeriananalysis.php.
“Schenkerian Analysis (Explained for Beginner Musicians).” Producer Hive, 24 June 2023, producerhive.com/music-theory/schenkerian-analysis/.
“Schenkerian Analysis.” Wikipedia, 10 Jan. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis.
Post 8: Chapter 8: A Trip Back in Time
Hello, fellow travelers! Today, we embark on a journey through time to examine how ancient civilizations understood the connections between music and human emotion! As I sifted through a bunch of literature, I found three ideas that somewhat relate to my project. Along the way, though, I also stumbled across many unrelated yet interesting topics, like musica universalis/music of the spheres—a philosophical concept that merges celestial bodies, mathematics, and (inaudible) music/vibrations!
Ready? Now, let’s step into the time machine and see what the ancients have to say.
The Doctrine of Affections (Affektenlehre)
A theory widely used in the Baroque Era (1600-1750), the doctrine of affections proposed that music is capable of conveying and arousing different emotions in the listener. It revolved around the idea that manipulating different musical devices could enable the composer to create a piece that evoked certain emotions.
In fact, the association between music and emotion actually dates back to the ancient Greeks, where the balance between the four temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic) dictated one’s affections. Baroque composers, thus, examined various musical elements and their affective properties.
In Der vollkommene Capellmeister (“The Perfect Chapelmaster”), Johann Mattheson, German composer and theorist, concludes that a major third interval is lively, a minor third mournful, a fifth bold, and a seventh pleading. He also proposes that joyful music is marked by wider intervals, while sad music is marked by narrower intervals. For tempo, Mattheson states, “Adagio expresses sadness; lamento, a lament; lento, relief; andante, hope; affettuoso, love; allegro, consolation; presto, desire…” For key signatures, Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer and theorist, argued that C/D/A majors are joyful, F/Bb majors are disturbed and raging, G/E majors are tender and happy, D/A/E majors are grandiose and magnificent, d/g/b/e minors are sweet and gentle, c/f minors are lamenting, and f/bb minors are melancholy.
Given these connections, many Baroque composers strategically used these three elements to convey their intended effects and feelings.
Doctrine of Ethos & Modes
I’m sure you guys have heard of the whole ethos, pathos, logos thing. And essentially, as its title suggests, this ancient Greek doctrine explored the influence of sound (and music) on ethos (human personality, emotion, and morality). Aristotle argued that the different kinds of music that evoke specific emotions can affect one’s ethical behavior.
On a similar note, modes, also originating from ancient Greece around the 6th century BCE, are essentially scales—each associated with a distinct sound and different emotional quality. There are 7 main modes: Ionian, the normal scales; Dorian; Phrygian; Lydian; Mixolydian; Aeolian; and Locrian. In The Republic, Plato discusses his thoughts on modes: soldiers should listen to Dorian and Phrygian modes, which evoke powerful vibes, and not Lydian and Ionian modes, which evoke dreamlike, innocent vibes—qualities unwanted in warfare. This idea reinforces the doctrine of ethos, where music is thought to impact one’s behavior and personality.
Well, I hope you did enjoy this brief trip through time! Now that we are back in the present, see you in the next one :)
Sources:
Dequina, Jezreel. “Musica Universalis: The Music Theory behind the Milky Way.” Medium, 30 Mar. 2025, medium.com/@jezreeldequina/musica-universalis-the-music-theory-behind-the-milky-way-94074e59e71b.
“Doctrine of the Affections | Music.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/art/doctrine-of-the-affections.
Dissmore, Joshua. Baroque Music and the Doctrine of Affections: Putting the Affections into Effect. 12 Apr. 2017.
“Greek Doctrine of Ethos | Researchomatic.” Www.researchomatic.com, www.researchomatic.com/Greek-Doctrine-Of-Ethos-2931.html.
Ravasio, Matteo. “History of Western Philosophy of Music: Antiquity to 1800.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 13 July 2021, plato.stanford.edu/entries/hist-westphilmusic-to-1800/.
Classic FM. “Modes: What Are They and How Do I Use Them?” Classic FM, 24 Sept. 2018, www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/guide-to-musical-modes/.
“Greek Modes and Emotions.” Blogspot.com, 2017, stmhumanities.blogspot.com/2017/09/greek-modes-and-emotions.html.
Johnson, Adam. “Notes and Emotions: The Major Modes.” Shockwave-Sound Blog and Articles, 4 May 2021, www.shockwave-sound.com/blog/notes-and-emotions-the-major-modes/.
Post 9: Chapter 9: Some…Data….??
Hello everyone! After the last 3 weeks of reading, reading, and reading, we are finally back to analyze some songs.
But first, as you may or may not remember from blog 7, I have to reanalyze my songs from the background (macro-level) because otherwise, I would be picking up tiny details from the foreground.
How did I exactly do that? Well, I tried real hard to listen for the bassbrechung that Schenker deemed important, and here is my data: Long Live (I-IV-vi-V in C Major); Castle on the Hill (I-IV-vi-V in D Major). Honestly, nothing much has changed about my conclusions—and that’s probably because I was semi-altering between background and foreground analysis before.
Now, after finding and grasping this consistent method of analysis, I started to analyze for my actual data collection (this was actually supposed to happen a few weeks ago…but I got delayed by the 3 weeks of lit review that I did NOT expect…).
I will just list some of my data here: Die with a Smile (125 in f#m); That’s So True (546 in Db); Birds of a Feather (1625 in D); Die for You (6514 in c#m); photograph (1564 in E); Love Story (1564 in D); Someone Like You (1564 in A); Party in the USA (1365 in F#); and Last Friday Night (1365 in F#).
* I got lazy writing Roman numerals, so I switched to numbers (e.g. 1 = tonic, 2 = supertonic, etc.)
So…about my method, I started out thinking that I would just take a diverse assortment of songs from all American pop composers. But…(unfortunately, there’s always a “but”) after analyzing these 9 songs, I felt this was getting nowhere—if I wanted to use this method, I would have to analyze at least 70 songs or more.
I wanted a random sample of songs, so I thought of a couple of options: 1) keep the current method and suffer the consequences; 2) do a deep dive on one singer; 3) do a medium-deep dive on a few singers. Anddd….I chose the 3rd option after some debating.
Regarding what a “medium-deep dive” specifically entails, I will choose 3-4 singers, choose two songs (one with positive/happy lyrics, one with negative/sad lyrics) out of every album they produced, and analyze! The total number of songs I must analyze should be around 50.
Phew…that’s quite a lot. I’ve already started on it, but I will put all my data in the next blog! See you then!!
Post 10: Chapter 10: :) vs. :(
Well, hello hello! The day has come…I finally have all my data and analysis!!! Now, get ready for a looooottt of numbers and roman numerals!
First, I will list all the songs I analyzed and their respective chord progressions in Roman numerals. The key of the song is also written in parentheses. It’s important to note that I only analyzed the choruses of songs due to the time constraint.
Taylor Swift
Tied Together with a Smile: I-V-ii-IV (D)
Our Song: I-ii-IV-V (D)
Breathe: IV-I-V-vi (Db)
Hey Stephen: I-IV-vi-V (Db)
Last Kiss: I-vi-IV-V (Bb)
Long Live: I-IV-vi-V (G)
Ronan: I-V-vi-IV (C)
Starlight: I-ii-IV-V (E)
I Wish You Would: I-V-vi-IV (C)
New Romantics: I-V-ii-vi (F)
Getaway Car: I-V-ii-IV (G)
Call It What You Want: IV-I-V-vi (A)
Soon You’ll Get Better: I-V-IV-V (C)
ME!: I-vi-IV-V (C)
Hoax: i-iv-VII-III (fm)
Invisible String: I-ii-vi-IV (D)
Marjorie: i-VI-III-VII (dm)
Long Story Short: I-vi-V-IV (C)
Bigger Than the Whole Sky: I-V-ii-IV (F#)
Paris: I-vi-IV-V (G)
Loml: VI-i-VII (am)
So High School: I-IV-vi-V (G)
Ed Sheeran
Small Bump: vi-IV-I-V (Bb)
Grade 8: i-III-VI-iv (gm)
Afire Love: i-VI-III-VII (dm)
Tenerife Sea: I-ii-IV (Ab)
Perfect: vi-IV-I-V (Ab)
Supermarket Flowers: vi-IV-I-V (F#)
Shivers: vi-IV-I-V (D)
Visiting Hours: IV-vi-I-V (Ab)
Salt Water: I-IV-I-V (E)
Dusty: I-V-vi-IV (D)
Blue: I-IV-vi-V (D)
Magical: I-iii-IV-V (Eb)
Shawn Mendes **
Act Like You Love Me: IV-I-V-I (Ab)
Kid In Love: I-IV-vi-IV (G)
There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back: VI-i-III-VII (bm)
Three Empty Words: vi-iii-IV-I (G)
In My Blood: I-IV-vi-IV (F)
Nervous: I-VII-I-VII (C Mix.)
Look Up At The Stars: I-vi-IV(-ii)-V (D)
Monster: i-VII-iv-VI (dm)
Heart Of Gold: ii-IV-I (G)
Party In The USA: I-iii-vi-V (F#)*
** Note that Shawn Mendes’ last album—“Shawn”—did not have any strictly happy songs :(, so I replaced it with Miley Cyrus’s “Party In the USA.”
Now, boiling down this whole block of data…
Happy/Positive:
I-IV-vi-V (3)
I-vi-IV-V (3)
I-ii-IV-V (2)
vi-IV-I-V (2)
I-V-ii-vi
IV-I-V-vi
I-vi-V-IV
I-ii-vi-IV
i-III-VI-iv
I-ii-V
I-V-vi-IV
I-iii-IV-V
I-IV-vi-IV
VI-i-III-VII
I-VII-I-VII
I-iii-vi-V
Sad/Negative:
I-V-ii-IV (3)
I-V-vi-IV (2)
vi-IV-I-V (2)
i-VI-III-VII (2)
IV-I-V-vi
IV-vi-I-V
I-vi-IV-V
I-IV-vi-V
VI-i-VII
I-V-IV-V
i-iv-VII-III
I-IV-I-V
IV-I-V-I
vi-iii-IV-I
I-IV-vi-IV
i-VII-iv-VI
ii-IV-I
Analysis
On the surface level, we see that the 2 most used progressions for happy songs are I-IV-vi-V and I-vi-IV-V, while for sad songs, it’s I-V-ii-IV. However, on a deeper dive, I found 59.1% of happy songs using authentic cadences, V-I, as compared to the 31.8% in sad songs. However, sad songs are also twice as likely to use other cadences (which are defined as not IV-I or V-I), which have a more unsettling mood.
Furthermore, the vii chord appears in 9.1% of happy songs’ choruses, while in 22.7% of sad songs’ choruses. The vii creates tension, which might explain why it is used way more in sad songs. On a similar note, 81.8% of happy songs’ choruses begin with the tonic, while only 63.6% of sad songs’ choruses begin with the tonic. Expectedly, sad songs are 2.5 times more likely to use a minor key, supporting the established idea that minor keys convey melancholy. However, while one might expect that sad songs have a higher proportion of minor chords (because minor = sad), it’s surprising that I found fewer minor chords in sad songs (22 chords, as compared to 25 in happy songs).
Well, that concludes my analysis. (I’m still figuring out new ways to analyze my data, though!) Now, it’s time to work on my presentation! Let’s hope for another productive week!