GEELONG MUSIC GROUP
March 2015
“WHERE’S THE TUNE?”
In this session, we’ll look at the work of Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Barrington Pheloung and Brian Eno. All of them produce music that lacks traditional formal structure, but each one does so in their own particular way. I still enjoy each one’s music despite its lack of structure; hence my puzzled question, “Where’s the tune?”
1. Paul Simon
Paul Simon – unlike most singer/songwriters of his generation - has sought to make each of his albums sound distinct from the others, rather than just continue the sound and spirit of his classic work. Where, for example, Graceland introduced sounds and rhythms from southern Africa, Rhythm of the Saints was influenced by the musics of Lain-American –especially of Brazil.
Further, Simon has largely abandoned familiar and traditional song structures such as ‘verse-chorus-verse’ and ‘beginning-middle-end’. Instead, he builds songs from musical ‘units’ that often seem unrelated to each other. He’s hardly the first to do this, of course; think of “A day in the life” from the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album (1967) and the ‘medley’ that occupies most of Side 2 of Abbey Road (1969).
Simon’s use of novel sounds and structures started with his Graceland (1986) and Rhythm of the Saints (1990) albums; his Surpise (2006) album continues the pattern, with the new sounds coming from his collaboration with self-styled ‘sound artist’ Brian Eno – of whom we’ll hear more later.
Each of the two examples from Surprise has an irregular structure combining two or more phrases repeated two or more times.
“Outrageous” (1, 2; 1, 2; 2, 3, 3)
It’s outrageous; Who’s gonna love you?;
Its outrageous; Who’s gonna love you?;
Who’s gonna love you?; God will; God will.
“Once upon a time there was an ocean” (1 - 5; 1 – 5; 6; 1)
Once upon; staccato electronic rhythm; Dead end; Outta here; Lottery;
Once upon; staccato electronic rhythm; Found a room; Home again; Letter;
The light; Once upon.
So beautiful or so what? (2011) is driven much more by rhythm and the songs feature complex structures far away from ‘verse-chorus-verse’. The title track includes the line, “I’m gonna tell my kids a bedtime story – a play without a plot.”, perhaps pointing to the lack of formal structure in the song as a whole.
“So beautiful or so what?” (1, 1; 2; 1; 1, 1; 1, 1, 1; 2; 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)
Two two-line verses end in the title;
Lyrical version of the title;
One two-line verse ends in the title;
A three-line verse; lyrical version
Five-line version; then lyrical (but retain hard backing)
2. Joni Mitchell
In the mid-to-late seventies, Joni Mitchell moved away from the lyrical, romantic and highly structured songs that had made her a popular and successful singer-songwriter. She began to sing less about herself and her friends and lovers and more about invented characters; and in her new songs, structure was subordinate to melody and a generally clear narrative gave way to expressive or free-form poetry.
In her album The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) many of the songs retain a repeating structure of verse and chorus, each of which is a recognisable tune. However, a couple of songs hint at a structure-free future.
“Sweet bird”
This is anchored by a guitar riff that Mitchell had used before – not least in “A case of you” and “California” from her album Blue (1971). A more-or-less random tune is woven around that riff.
“The Hissing of Summer Lawns”
This is among the more ‘abstract’ songs on the album; structure and story are much less evident.
The following year Mitchell released her album Hejira (1976), which was driven by tone rather than tune and in which the expressive lyrics seem to drive the songs, with the music trying to keep up, as it were.
“A strange boy”
This song’s tune and lyrical expression by themselves are almost formless – it’s the sequence of chords that give it structure.
By the time of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977), that pattern of basic structure and formless, expressive singing is well established.
“Off Night Backstreet”
The recurrent return to the title gives the song overall some form, but each ‘verse’ is more-or-less formless.
While the basic structure gives the formless, expressive singing some coherence, the relationship between them is far from cause-and-effect. Consequently, it’s impossible to predict what effect a small change in the song’s basic structure would have on the singing. So there’s a constant tension between structure and singing, in which a small change in the former can create bigger changes in the latter. Like chaos theory, there is a persistent instability.
3. Barrington Pheloung
The great majority of Barrington Pheloung’s music for the “Morse” and “Lewis” television series also features persistent instability, but there it arises from a tension between complexity and form/structure. Any one piece can feature several motiffs simultaneously; but none of them has a clear direction or sequence and nor does the piece as a whole.
Two short pieces from Lewis: Music from series 1 and 2 give a flavour of his work.
“Family dynamics”
“Nobody is what they seem”
(This includes just a hint of the main Lewis theme, which invites us to see the piece as having a clear form - ‘variations on a theme’ – but I don’t think that it does.)
Andrew Ford has argued that:
“Structure is classical music’s rationale, but the rationale for film music is the film. Take (film) music out of its context, then, play it in the concert hall, and ... (we will) ... miss the structure that the film itself provides.” (Ford, A. [2010] The Sound of Pictures. Collingwood, Vic.: Black Inc. pp. 11-12)
We’ll now hear “Lewis and Morse” taken out of context – the television show – and recorded on a CD; see whether you “miss the structure that the (programme) itself provides.”
“Lewis and Morse”
4. Brian Eno
Brian Eno has said that much of his music is ‘vertical’, not horizontal or linear, by which he means that he creates sound paintings with tone colours, rather than narratives with beginnings, middles and ends. In that sense, he is concerned more with the relationships between sounds at any one moment than he is with their relationships over time. Rather than look at a salami as a whole, he concentrates his attention on just one slice.
Nonetheless, more often than not, he creates pieces that begin and end – for example, each of the two pieces here from his 2010 album Small Craft on a Milk Sea.
“Written, forgotten”
“Flint march”
So perhaps his music begins and ends, but not necessarily in the form of Introductions and Conclusions’. E.g., is there a clear “Introduction” and “Conclusion” to this piece from his 2010 album, Apollo: atmospheres and soundtracks.
“Under stars 2”
After the formal presentation, I’ll play “2/1” from Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. (1978).
The amazing opera extract from Morse that I liked so much is the operatic aria, "Senza Mamma" from 'Suor Angelica' by Puccini, sung by Janis Kelly.
(Season 5, Episode 1: “Second Time Around” 20 Feb. 1991. Here’s the original track:
“A successful piece of music, a musical ‘work’ – whether it is a three-minute, three-chord pop song or an hour-long symphony by Bruckner – will have a successful structure. To put it too simply, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. ... Structure is classical music’s rationale, but the rationale for film music is the film. Take this music out of its context, then, play it in the concert hall, and ... (we will) ... miss the structure that the film itself provides.” (pp. 11-12)
Ford, A. (2010) The Sound of Pictures. Collingwood, Vic.: Black Inc.
“It is difficult to predict very far ahead the motion of ant object that feels the effect of more than two forces, let alone complicated systems involving interactions between many objects. .... (and) ... the prediction depends on how accurately you can measure the initial conditions.” (pp. 8-9)
Hall, N. (1994) “Introduction” in Hall, N. (ed.) Exploring Chaos: a guide to the new science of disorder. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
“Small changes lead to bigger changes later. This behaviour is the signature of chaos. ... Chaos is persistent instability.”
Percival, I. (1994) “Chaos: a science for the real world.” in Hall, N. (ed.) (1994) Exploring Chaos: a guide to the new science of disorder. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Paul Simon (2000) You’re the One
The review on i-Tunes includes this:
“(You’re the One) is a bit of an acquired taste, especially since its compositions are never overtly accessible and melodic – they’re all tone poems, driven as much by tone and lyric as song itself.”
“Quiet” has an interesting drone; a (faint) tune may be discernible.
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