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Tonal and Transformational Approaches to Chick Corea's Compositions of the 1960s

2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 38; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/mts/mtv037

1533-8339

Steve Strunk,

Music Technology and Sound Studies

Jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea's compositions of the 1960s exhibit a range of innovative harmonic and tonal structures, from those works having a relatively close affinity with the bebop style to those featuring tonal ambiguity and passages of nonfunctional harmony. The harmonic content of four compositions is analyzed using methods suitable to each. “Windows” receives a real-time phenomenological approach with Roman numeral analysis, Schenkerian voice-leading graphs, and a “layered approach” originally developed for bebop harmony. The latter two methods are tried with “Litha,” but the layered approach particularly seems unsuitable, thereby revealing ways in which its harmonic orientation differs from that of the bebop style. A review of general principles of organization for passages of nonfunctional harmony, including linear intervallic patterns, equal divisions of tonal space, the transposition operation, Neo-Riemannian operations, and other contextual operations (the latter two as plotted on a Tonnetz) leads to a new view of “Litha” and passages from three other compositions, “Tones for Joan's Bones,” “Steps,” and “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs.”