AABA, REFRAIN, CHORUS, BRIDGE, PRECHORUS —SONG FORMS AND THEIR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Those who have written about songwriter Irving Berlin (1888–1989) have frequently fixated on two facts, both related to his lack of proficiency on the piano: first, that he preferred to play on the black keys; and second, that he used a “transposing piano”—i.e., one fitted with a lever that shifted the position of the strings vis-à-vis the hammers, allowing any selected key to be heard while the notes of another key are being fingered. Over the years, journalistic writers of minimal musical knowledge have succeeded in greatly exaggerating both circumstances—especially through their claims about the compositional benefits that supposedly accrue from using a transposing piano. In this article, I set aside received hyperbole and meticulously examine the musical results of Berlin’s labors. My goal is to delimit the various types of expressive chromaticism that enrich so many of his melodies; to consider the ways in which they function, and how they impinge upon a listener’s interpretation. In the main text, 70 songs are cited, spanning a half century, from 1908 to 1957; many are examined in detail, and occasionally in more than one context. Annotated appendices provide information on many more. Because exaggerated references to the piano lever have been so prominent in the Berlin literature, I occasionally return to such a possibility in order to expose its logical inconsistencies vis-à-vis the particular type of chromaticism under discussion. In doing so, I explode the myth that a transposing lever motivated his musical choices, and propose instead the opposite: that it was a very musical ear that guided any lever-twisting that might have occurred. However, the principal aim of the article is to interpret the expressive and structural uses of a vital component of Berlin’s songs, as well as of the Tin Pan Alley repertory in general: chromaticism. I begin with a more thorough inspection of the “black-key” argument, and the types of pentatonicism that would result from such an approach. Species of chromaticism, of both smaller and larger scales, are then scrutinized. Included in the former category are immediate or directly applied types of chromaticism—i.e., local passing and neighboring tones, blue notes, applied dominants, neighboring and passing chords, and so forth. Regarding the latter category, I consider how chromatic passages can complement the larger-scale designs of songs, through definition and elucidation of four ways in which Berlin used chromaticism on this level: in changes between parallel modes, in exactly-transposed segments or phrases, in tonicized segments or phrases, and in sectional key changes.

This dissertation situates itself in the middle of an ongoing debate about the applicability of Schenkerian analytical techniques to the analysis of pop and rock music. In particular, it investigates ways in which the standard conceptions of voice leading, harmonic function, and counterpoint may be updated to better apply to this new repertoire. A central claim is that voice-leading structure is intimately related to formal structure such that the two domains are mutually informing. Part I of the dissertation focuses on harmonic and melodic theory. Chapter 2, “Harmonic Syntax,” advocates for a conception of harmonic function based on syntax and form rather than the identity of specific chords. In this conception, chords other than V, such as IV, II, ♭VII, or even some versions of I, can often be said to function syntactically as the dominant. Chapter 3, “The Melodic-Harmonic Divorce,” explores contrapuntal paradigms in which the domains of melody and harmony seem to be operating independently. This chapter outlines three types of melodic-harmonic divorce: “hierarchy divorce,” “rotation divorce,” and “syntax divorce.” Part II of the dissertation aims to devise voice-leading models for full song forms. Chapter 4 focuses on AABA form, Chapter 5 on verse–prechorus–chorus, and Chapter 6 on verse–chorus forms. These chapters demonstrate that these common forms are associated with general voice-leading structures that act in dialog with the specific voice-leading structures of songs that exhibit these forms. This part of the dissertation is largely analytical, and has the secondary goal of demonstrating a Schenkerian analytical methodology applied to rock music.