Chapter 11 Flashcards
Diminished, Songwriting Sleight of Hand
‘Major, minor , augmented and diminished - everything comes out of those four chord forms.’ - George Benson
- Diminished as a passing chord
A diminished chord functions as a passing chord when none of its four notes are the leading note of the following chord. - Diminished as a dominant substitute
A diminished chord functions as a dominant substitute when any of its four notes are the leading note of the following chord.
The Whole-Half diminished scale
The same principle underlies what is undoubtedly the most popular passing dim in pop and rock: the #iv dim that colors a return from the subdominant to the tonic.
To appreciate this slick move refer briefly to ‘P.S. I Love You’ and its bizarre G-C#7-D intro. The premise here is to embellish the Plagal return from IV to I with a chord that makes sense as a colorful link , while supporting the line: ‘write this (letter),
McCartney’s C#7 certainly succeeds in harmonizing (with its root) the melody while also delivering a smooth, semitone chromatic climb into the 5th of the D tonic. However, there’s no getting away from the intrinsic dissonance of a chord built on the leading note of the key - especially when reached by the jarring jump of a tritone (G-C#).
Voice-leading in the #iv dim blues substitution
Relating a diminished chord to a dominant 7b9
Even when incorporating the #iv dim into their originals, The Beatles had a particularly novel take - listen to ‘ It Won’t Be Long’ where the all- important passing tone is heard as dissonant inner harmony rather than rooted in McCartney’s bass. Here we have the A# (or Bb) note in the the guitar’s A# dim chord and the vocal harmony creating the very same link between the A and E chords and yet over a bass note that has remained on IV .
A cover band playing ‘ It Won’t Be Long’ could save themselves the intricacies of the backing arrangement by playing the Bb in the bass. In doing so they would be following an important rule that will resurface to help us through this chapter :
Meanwhile, at ‘ The End’ of The Beatles’ own recording career, we find them adopting a rather novel spin on the ‘ IV- #iv dim -I’ , which kicks off the final leg of the Abbey Road medley. Here by way of an introduction to Ringo’s drum solo and the famous three -way head cuttin’ guitar duel, we find a repeated figure that culminates in an interesting cadence. After the basic block chords that begin the track as it segues from ‘Carry That Weight’ , the harmony defers to ascending counterpoint guitar runs that walk up to a dissonant hanging sonority (first at 0.06) and , after a euphoric ‘oh yeah’ vocal entry ,again on the word ‘dreams’ at 0.17.
The following table shows this by setting out the close relationship between ‘vii dim 7’ and the dominant V7 chord within the harmonic minor scale minor scale we built back in Chapter 6.
next chord.
the ‘weird, jarring chord at the end of every line that mirrors the disturbed feeling of the song’ .
George succinctly confirms the eloquent interpretations proffered by writers like Laing a nd Riley, while reminding us that
technical connections between musical and lyrical themes are not just the stuff of self- indulgent academics . As we move to the bridge, we can immediately understand the chord on the second degree of the key ahead of the A major tonic. For here B dim is clearly masquerading as a virtual ‘yii dim 7’ on its way to I. In terms of our earlier table it is built on ‘ii’ in relation to the target chord
Most interesting in the overall context of the song is how the B dim reharmonizes the E7b9 that by this time has already emerged as so essential to the proceedings. The ‘guts’ of the B dim chord can be seen as very similar, and yet the pedal effect from the B in the
bass helps us focus on the flowing voice-leading in the inner harmony. Here the B dim chord supplies George’s same, all -important F note within the chromatic line that descends delicately from F# to E.
Most interesting in the overall context of the song is how the B dim reharmonizes the E7b9 that by this time has already emerged as so essential to the proceedings. The ‘guts’ of the B dim chord can be seen as very similar, and yet the pedal effect from the B in the
bass helps us focus on the flowing voice-leading in the inner harmony. Here the B dim chord supplies George’s same, all -important F note within the chromatic line that descends delicately from F# to E.
To tie up any loose ends the following table confirms the substitution in action, showing us again how the diminished chord
functions as a virtual altered dominant 7th chord without its root.
‘Blackbird’ - Paul’s diminished flight offancy
To appreciate the delicacy of the chromatic line at work here, play the same progression instead with the basic secondary dominants (i.e., C- A7 -D- B7 -Em). The sequence still works, but sounds comparatively clumsy, demonstrating the sublime effect of
Meanwhile, the relationship between a secondary dominant III7 and its diminished substitute on #v was never better illustrated than in 10CC’s classic ballad, ‘I’m Not In Love’, where iii seems headed for vi in standard fashion, before a #v dim helps it deftly on its way.
iv dim-to- V: the Imperfect cadence revisited
It is no coincidence that of all the diminished chords, #iv dim is the most popular in practice. For this chord both returns us from IV to I, in a passing capacity, while its functioning role is as a replacement for that famous II on its way to V. Its relationship with the Cycle Of Fifths is therefore apparent in this latter role, providing us with a quick connection to the dominant and therefore also appearing in many Imperfect cadences as an alternative to the predictable II7- V7. George Harrison used the #iv dim in precisely this way when setting up the hanging V in ‘Old Brown Shoe’.
The whole bridge can be seen as deeply rooted in the cliched rock ‘n’ roll bridges of the early sixties. There isn’t much action
beyond a direct move to IV and a re-transition to the next verse through a disguised Imperfect cadence - but what a disguise. It only takes that fleeting dark dissonance of the dim chord at 1.18 to add a touch of class. Using the same approach as before we can see how this F# dim stands in for the ‘obvious’ D7 that would have delivered the functioning F# note in the traditional Cycle Of Fifths
framework:
Look for the same idea among the off -the -cuff frivolity of ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number),. Here the vaudevillian setting and piano texture spotlights the ‘old timey’ roots of the move.
By this time the song has degenerated into a cycle that reworks the familiar Four -Chord turnaround bridge structure of ‘I Feel Fine’ (‘I’m so glad .. .’). Notice how the diminished chord helps to apply the brakes: just when the cycle seems to be out of control an effortless semitone slide to G# (at 2.54) means that we have our substitute for II7, which can take us to the ‘middle feeling’.
At this point we can summarize some of these ‘dim for dom ‘ substitutions (including the Bowie one) noting that they each nominally replace a primary or secondary dominant ; and also that two dim chords built on the same scale degree can resolve to a different target. The important point is that , in every case, the diminished chord functions as ‘vii dim 7’ of the target chord even if the leading note involved is not the root note.
The fact that the chord is first notated as D dim is purely a reflection of the D note in the bass which makes us feel that the
diminished chord is built on this root. In reiterating the most important rule of this chapter: each of the diminished chords here is an inversion of the same chord and therefore functions in the same way irrespective of which note appears in the bass. The little tag, ‘Ma Michelle’, helps to confirm this function, as here a single B dim chord stands out , immediately moving to C - a move that we can now reconcile as a hanging dominant conceptually related to the Imperfect cadence in the bridge of ‘Old Brown Shoe’.
While it appeared as a bolt from the blue in ‘Michelle’, this type of ascending diminished chord run was by no means alien to The Beatles prior to Rubber Soul. In yet another revealing example of the group’s sophistication in the early days, their rarely heard cover of ‘September In The Rain’ finds them showing off stylishly in the coda with another ear-catching diminished ascent.
Here it appears as a passing ‘dim’ gesture that elaborates on the ‘like Dreamers Do’ coda by taking I diminished in the key of G# and , rather than alternating it directly with I major, sliding the same shape through all its inversions.
For if we look at the bass run once again, McCartney’s pivot ploy jumps out at us. Taking the first beat of every bar in the
transition Cb-Eb-Gb-Bb
, the ear hears a slowly unfolding C diminished chord which can be seen as the perfect pivot chord by which
to effect the key-switch. For the Bb is of course enharmonically equivalent to A natural, which succeeds in deftly introducing a common tone to effect the key switch.
Back with The Beatles, McCartney had to pull out all the stops with ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’. For in the finest traditions of Beatles songwriting politics, the track has the unenviable task of directly following John Lennon’s own magical use of the diminished chord as a tool for modulation - and more.
Let’s clear the decks for the masterpiece that is ‘Because’.
It would have been all too easy, given theses images of ‘circularity’, for Lennon to have based the song on an extended minor key Cycle Of Fifths structure, perhaps in the style of ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’ ( to use an obvious parallel) or indeed the first strains of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’.
He had two real choices. Firstly, he could have created a Super -Phrygian cadence, as we saw in ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’
(i.e., following bII with a V chord before returning to I). A to G#7 would indeed have done the trick, with the F note creating a jazzy l3th . But (presumably to retain the close harmony of a semitone drop in the root, rather than a predictable fifth) Lennon plumps for a D dim, which fits the bill so much more satisfyingly
