This thing is way over-the-top schmaltz, but I still love it.
Author: Steve
Schubert’s Strange Path Home
Schubert’s Impromptu D.935, Op. posth. 142 – No. 2 is one of my favorite piano pieces. It has many delights, but what really caught my ear was the bombastic double forte section (m. 17-30 at 1:06). It takes us into the IV key and uses a clever trick to modulate back so that I barely noticed when we arrived back home.
Below are lead sheet-style chords under their functions, with simple inversion notation. I’ve transposed from Ab to G to get rid of the double-flats (I’m terrible playing/thinking in Ab).
Bury figured bass
Figured bass notation is already long dead, but musicians carry its corpse around to show off that they squandered valuable moments of their lives learning it. It also creates needless ambiguity. Is I7 a dominant seventh? Not in figured bass. Just try notating G7b9/B in figured bass. Yeah, let’s bury it already. And it can be so easy:
V9:2. You may have already guessed this is the dominant 9th chord in 2nd inversion. Easy.
ii7:3 is Am7/G in G.
I7 has a flat 7th on the tonic. Imaj7 is the diatonic variety.
You are freed to do Roman numeral analysis with some sanity.
About Steve
Steve is way into…
- His wife, and his dog Rufus
- Shallow, rocky creeks of the Appalachians; hollows; towns built on the side of mountains; abandoned roads, bridges, railways, and stairways.
- Building web sites, apps, and frameworks with TypeScript, Node, React, GraphQL, and some PHP
- Indiepop, dreampop, yacht rock, disco beats, 60’s pop, classic hip hop, Stereolab, Broadcast, ABBA, Deerhoof, Zombies, Innocence Mission…
- Playing piano, guitar, bass, and drums if anyone will let him
- Transcribing song chords
- Nudging songwriters to embrace a wider view of harmony
- Building little apps to share chords and keyboard snippets
- Moose’s album Live a Little Love a Lot (all time)
- Jorge Elbrecht’s album Here Lies (last decade)
Perry Como “No Other Love” chords
Intro)
SubV I
Gb7b5 F C(no3)/G F/A C7(no3)/G
Verses)
I VII
F C9(no3) Fmaj7 F6/C F C7(no3)/G F E7
1. No other love have I. Only my love for you.
2. Watching the night go by wishing that you could be
3. Into your arms I'll fly. Locked in your arms I'll stay
ii V/ii V/V SubV I
Gm/Bb D7/A G/B Gb7b5 F
1. Only the dream we knew. No other love.
2. watching the night with me into the night I cry
3. waiting to hear you say no other love have I.
Bridge)
Eb: I Vsus V V/ii
C: I Vsus V
F Eb/G Bb7sus/F Bb7/F C/E G7sus/D G7/D
Hurry home, come home to me. Set me free.
C: V/ii
D: V I IV
F: V/V V Vsus V
A/C# D G7 C C9sus C7
Free from doubt and free from longing.
End)
ii SubV I
Gm7 Gm9 Gb7b5#9 F
No other love. No other love.
Wonderful bits:
- The early D7/A – G/B (a secondary dominant with no 7th) sounds like a key change to G, and rather than the bass rising to C it falls to the tritone sub root Gb7b5.
- The bridge walks us through the keys Eb, C, D, and back to the home key F using mostly inversions.
- The voice leading in the choir’s final cadence:
G Bb D F A Gb Bb C E A F A C F A
Stereolab “Italian Shoes Continuum” chords
Protesters, MLK, and Partisan Urges
Young protesters urgently need to go watch “Selma” and in general pause and think, “what would MLK do?” The Selma marchers gracefully expressed their humanity and decency with their faces visible, and created a clear contrast from the opposition’s hate and savagery. The scene and imagery created were more powerful than any weapon, and turned 800 marchers into 25,000 at the end. It was masterful leadership.
Monuments to a Government’s Failure
The Civil War is a strange case where the oppressors and terrorists, upon losing, were basically let alone to continue countless awful misdeeds, and the biggest slave owners retained all the power of government. The “freedom” blacks gained was purely notional until many decades later.
Imagine an alternate history where, instead, former slaves had been given real, meaningful citizenship: The right to vote unobstructed, to hold office, to receive the full protection of the law, and the opportunity to really be known and understood by the white population as fellow Americans. In this more just outcome, do we really think the citizens of the South, almost half black, would’ve chosen to publicly celebrate—with monuments and names of counties, towns, and streets—the cause to continue enslaving their children and neighbors?
We can’t know the answer, but I think it’s “absolutely not.”
These monuments exist because of the dismal failure of the government to protect its citizens from abuse; by fellow citizens, police, the courts, and the law.
If a community or its elected representatives desire it, they should come down in an orderly fashion, with the goal of preserving them. Communities deserve the freedom to decide what they will celebrate for the next few centuries.
The Civil War is better documented than it’s ever been, and if American schools and parents fail to teach history, a statue isn’t going to do it. What we’ve definitely failed to teach are the stories of the generations of Americans that lived under terror and de facto slavery after the war’s end, and through Jim Crow.
The Google Memo
I had a great conversation with Kathleen about the “Google memo”. We talked about her experiences and the greater context of several previous generations of women from the trailblazers to those who later entered workplaces in mass to find they were boy’s clubs.
We already had decades of the golden age of “free debate” workplaces where the topic was often whether women–or minorities–were “cut out for this line of work.” See the first few Mad Men eps, or ask a woman who went to work before the mid 80s. The fully “free debate” workplaces were found wanting and we rightly took some topics off the table. Absolutely some censorship in workplaces is critical! Over the years I’ve heard plenty “ideas” at work that created hostile environments, or would have in a more diverse group. It’s a shame the memo writer didn’t run this by a few women, ideally coworkers, before dumping to Google’s whole workforce. It may have sharpened his arguments and led him to a better approach to reaching his goals.
Naturally our culture around work formed under the assumption of women at home rearing children. Over decades millions of decisions were made without the idea of working women and raising families with both parents working. This isn’t a value judgment, but it means that firms who value diversity still have really big levers they can pull that make the consideration of miniscule biological differences just not that important. Firms will of course forever have to balance their diversity desires with the law’s prohibition of discrimination; the memo’s author basically accused Google of discrimination against men, and that’s for the courts to figure out.
I’ll give him this, he’s right that political viewpoint diversity is probably very lacking at Google, as it is nearly everywhere in America due to our acidic hyper-partisanship and geographical self-sorting. He referenced the Heterodox Academy and I’m a fan. In general diversity is so hard because humans don’t want to have uncomfortable conversations or get pushback on their ideas, even if weeds out the weak ideas and yields better solutions.
To some extent each firm has to consider whether actively fighting against a nationwide polarization trend is worth the hassle, but the more politically homogenous businesses will probably be the first to majorly mess up in public and “out” themselves as saying nasty things about half their customers.
Louis Cole “You’ll Believe Me” chords
Modulations are noted with ().
I)
A E7/A | A :||
V1)
A | E7sus E7
I saw the world but didn't like it.
(E)
A B7/A | G#m7 C#m7
Without you there I couldn't fight for
(A) (D)
F#m7 | E7sus/B E7 | Amaj9 A6/9 | Amaj9 A7 A7sus
our survival. If you need me you'll believe me.
D | A7sus A7sus/G
Throw out your doubt that time is over.
(A)
D/F# Bm7 | C6/9 E7 /F# | (repeat intro)
Just cry your fears into my shoulder.
V2)
A | E7sus E7
Grow tired as as the days burn.
A B7/A | G#m7 C#m7
Sit down with me and watch the world turn.
F#m7 | E7sus/C E13 /F# | Amaj9 A6/9 | A (bass G)
I think you will learn if you need me you'll believe me.
B)
(F)
F /C /F /G | /A /C | C7sus /G /A | /Bb /G C7
(Db)
Db /Ab /Db /Eb | /F /Ab | Ab7sus /Eb /F | /Gb /Eb Ab7
(A) (Bb) (B) (C) (C#)
A /E /F F+/A | Bb /F /F# F#+/A# | B /F# /G G+/B | C /G /G# G#+/B#
(C#m) (B) (Bbm)
C#m Em | Bsus D#m | Bbm/F F+ F/C | Bbm(9) Bbm
(D)
D+/F Gm/F# Gm | Dsus/G D/F# | Bm Bm7/A | Em7/B A7sus A7
V3)
D | A7sus A7sus/G
Don't start to cry it's far from over.
D/F# Bm7 | C6/9 E7 /F# | (repeat intro)
Look at who I am I'm coming closer.
A | E7sus E7
Look on your face doesn't ...
A B7/A | G#m7 C#m7
The big disguise joy is painful.
F#m7 | E7sus/C E13 /F# | Amaj9 A6/9
I just hope if you need me you'll believe me.
Outro)
A Amaj7 | Am9 :||
Notes
This is a well done Pet Sounds tribute in harmony and arrangement. 3rd inversion dom7 chords; using them to modulate to nearby keys; bass solos centered around the 5th; lush V7sus chords.
There are several instances of what sounds like C6/9 or E7sus/C. My guess is these were originally E7sus/B as in the first verse, but the C bass (muted just before the vocal hits C#) made a nice trick for the ears, making the modulations back to A a little less cliche.
The bridge section at 1:30 has a clever modulation from C# minor to Bb minor: After C#m, the Em suggests the iv of B and indeed we follow with I – iii in B. However D#m is used to pivot again to Bb minor as Ebm is the iv. He uses a cadential 6/4 to really settle us in Bb minor. The following a capella part comes in sounding like Bbmaj with a flat 6 due to the low voice’s start on F (maybe an accident), but these two bars I think are really a fancy plagal cadence in D major: V+/iv – iv – Isus – I.
The E13s are voiced as E7 with the 13 only in the vocal. The Amaj9 to A6/9: I’m including the vocal in the maj7 – 6th harmonies.