Unit:
Department of Music StudiesLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Author:
Pyrgiotis Dimitrios
Dissertation committee:
Αναστάσιος Χαψούλας, Καθηγητής ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Μουσικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή, Επιβλέπων.
Λάμπρος Λιάβας, Καθηγητής ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Μουσικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή.
Χριστίνα Αναγνωστοπούλου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Μουσικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή.
Αναστασία Γεωργάκη, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Μουσικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή.
Μαρία Παπαπαύλου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Μουσικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή.
Αρετή Ανδρεοπούλου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Μουσικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή.
Παναγιώτης Πούλος, Λέκτορας ΕΚΠΑ, Τμήμα Τουρκικών Σπουδών και Σύγχρονων Ασιατικών Σπουδών, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή.
Original Title:
Η Αρμονική Σύνταξη των Jazz Standards & των Beatles: Μια Παραγωγική - Διαγραμματική Μουσική Ανάλυση
Translated title:
The Harmonic Syntax of Jazz Standards & The Beatles: A Generative - Diagrammatic Musical Analysis
Summary:
The Jazz Standards and the compositions of The Beatles - with their enormous popularity, their influential character, and their pedagogical applications - elucidate the most valuable canon of popular music. This paper aims to establish a comparative analysis of their harmonic syntax. The purpose is to formulate an integrated grammar and subsequently standardise its prolongation structures. 108 musical pieces of Jazz Standards and 45 recordings of The Beatles constitute the two song corpora that are diagrammatically analysed, based on the generative method of Lerdahl & Jackendoff. However, this theoretical tool is meaningfully modified to incorporate (2x)20 transformations necessary in the interpretation of the diagrammatic dependencies. The development of this analysis is completed in two distinct stages. The generic prolongation structures are firstly established. They pertain to the highest hierarchical level of formal organisation, not merely in a monotonal context but also in an environment of tonal ambiguity (or of tonal axes). This is followed by the exploration of the endocentric clusters, centripetal and centrifugal, as they shape the main branches of generic-formal structures. In this fashion, a tree diagram can be converted into a string of functions and vice versa. Ultimately, this process of analysis fuels the revelation of the differential syntax of the two song corpora. Their primary differences are associated with the lexicon of the chordal units, the distribution of the utilised transformations, the hierarchical intervallic movement of scale degrees, and the antisymmetry of endocentric clusters. Even though the two song genres are both expressions of a common blues musical language, they constitute an opposing and complementary pair of its usage.
Main subject category:
Fine arts - Entertainment
Keywords:
Jazz Standards, The Beatles, harmonic syntax, generative theory of tonal music, prolongation structures, transformations
Number of references:
250
