If you study music theory in a typical school setting, you might get the idea that the V-I cadence is the fundamental cornerstone of all harmony, or at least, of all “Western” harmony. In a standard theory course, V-I is the first chord progression that you study, and for several weeks or months, it may be the only one you study. Here’s a representative quote from School of Composition:
In tonal music, the dominant chord is just as important as the tonic because it’s the chord that makes us want the tonic. Even if we’re not aware of it, hearing the dominant chord makes us expect its tonic.
It’s THE chord that makes us want the tonic. Even if we’re not aware of it! But that is only true within a certain stylistic context: the music of Western European aristocracy between 1700 and 1900, and the musics descending from it. The conventions of Western Europe’s aristocracy have been very influential, especially in formal academic settings. However, they don’t encompass all the tonal music in our culture. A defining feature of harmony in Black American music is the de-emphasis or elimination of the V-I cadence.
The world of groove harmony is a world where V7-I is rare or absent, and where the tonic is defined through metrical placement, emphasis and repetition. It’s not necessary for tonal music to have any chord changes at all. A lot of the music I like the best comes in the form of what Philip Tagg calls one-chord changes: “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin, “India” by John Coltrane, “I’m Bad Like Jesse James” by John Lee Hooker, “Spoonful” by Willie Dixon, “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by the Temptations, “Shhh/Peaceful” by Miles Davis.
Then there are songs that do have chord changes, but which don’t use V7. Funk and dance music are full of I-IV and i-IV grooves, as in “Groove is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite and “Chameleon” by Herbie Hancock respectively.
The standard twelve-bar blues uses I, IV and V, but blues musicians treat the V chord as optional. “My California” by Lightnin’ Hopkins and “Boogie Chillen” by John Lee Hooker both omit V. “Cousin Mary” by John Coltrane replaces V with #IV. When blues tunes do include V, they often insert IV7 before I. Music theorists like to explain this by saying that IV7 is just an embellishment of the underlying V7-I, but I hear the opposite: V7 is decorating IV7, like a suspension. Rock songs do the same thing. David Temperley and Trevor DeClerq’s analysis of rock harmony shows that, within their corpus, IV-I is the most common way to resolve to tonic.
Gerhard Kubik argues in Africa and the Blues that blues tonality originates in the natural harmonics of scale degrees 1 and 4, and that it was only later adapted to be played on Western instruments tuned in 12-tone equal temperament.
[T]he vocal lines superimposed on a guitar harmonic cycle, when it is in the three common Western chords, often circumvent those chords, most regularly avoiding the dominant, while the subdominant seems to be more acceptable. Even quite generally, the dominant chord is the least used in the standard 12-bar harmonic pattern, being found only in measure 9, sometimes in measure 10 (though usually replaced by the subdominant chord), and sometimes as a “turnaround” at the end of measure 12 to signal the coming of the next cycle. When the dominant chord does occur, it is usually “pulled” toward the subdominant (from measures 9 to 10 in the standard 12-bar form) or toward the tonic (after the “turnaround” in measure 12). In some other instances, musicians substitute for the dominant chord, as in “Two Jim Blues” by George Lewis and in many recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson, where he played a VI7 chord at the beginning of the third line of a blues structure, followed in the next measure by a IV (subdominant) chord (pp. 140-141).
Kubik goes on to say that blues musicians “tend to circumvent, avoid, or quit the dominant chord quickly, as if it lacked oxygen.” Some of my friends on Twitter expressed this same thought:
Because I was raised on pop, rock, hiphop, loop based music's, I really don't like using V Chords in my compositions. They sound "obvious" to me
— Hector Bondon (@HectorBonte) July 29, 2021
I will use a big old obvious five chord if I am deliberately tryna make something sound more "country" and/ or "western" lol
— Willie Dustice (@black_zappa) July 29, 2021
Even when Black music does use V7-I as its underlying harmony, the leading tone resolution (7^-1^) rarely appears in the melody. The melody might go 2^-1^ or 6^-1^ for a major pentatonic sound, or b3^-1^ or b7^-1^ for a bluesier sound. In “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5, there are lots of V-I resolutions, but the vocal melody contains zero leading tones. It’s all 2^-1^, and then at the end when they’re ad-libbing, a few instances of b7^ to 1^ as well.
It’s quite common to sing or play the tonic on V, even though it’s a “wrong” note. In Western classical music, you can only use 1^ on top of a V chord if you promptly resolve it to 7^. However, Black musicians will very often not resolve the suspension. For example, listen to Aretha Franklin singing “Amazing Grace”. She’s in A-flat. When she improvises, she often sings A-flat on top of the Eb chord, not as a temporary suspension for G, but as the main note.
In “Starfish and Coffee,” Prince does the same thing. He’s in A, and he often sings A on top of the E chord, never once resolving it to G-sharp.
The ubiquitous I7 chord in blues and related music further weakens the feeling of cadences. When you go V7 to I7, the tritone doesn’t “resolve”, it just slides down a half step. You feel I7 as tonic because of its metrical placement and emphasis, not because of the voice leading.
Blues harmonica is an especially clear example of Black American music’s relationship to the V-I cadence. The harmonica was originally invented to play V7-I cadences and nothing else. When you blow into a harmonica, you get the I chord, and when you draw through it, you get the V7 chord with an added ninth. That’s all you can play… or so Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann believed. However, Black Americans realized that you can also mentally reverse the role of the two chords, so the drawn notes play I7, and the blown notes play IV. You can bend notes to make the blues scale and blue notes too. However, it then becomes literally impossible to play V7-I. You can bend 1^ flat to make the leading tone, but it’s hard to do that accurately, and it ends up sounding like another blue note.
Okay, but Ethan. What about ii-V-I? Don’t jazz musicians use that progression constantly? Yes, they do. However, if you look at how jazz musicians actually play ii-V-I, they do everything they can to soften and obscure the feeling of 4^/7^ resolving to 3^/1^. For example, when you resolve from G7 to Cmaj7, the leading tone B doesn’t resolve at all, it just carries through. The B might also resolve down to A or up to D, with the root C in a different octave, or totally absent. It sounds more like jazz musicians are signifying on the idea of classical V7-I than faithfully reproducing it. In fact, a pretty good definition of “jazzy” playing would be “using voice leading and extensions to disrupt the feel of functional harmony.”
A Schenkerian would read the previous paragraph and say, okay, sure, jazz uses a lot of chord extensions, but at the deep, structural level, it’s still using the same V-I cadences as Beethoven. The problem is that because so much of the meaning of jazz harmony is at the “surface” level of specific voice leading and rhythmic placement, Schenkerian analysis is a poor method for understanding it. (Also, Schenker hated jazz and was super racist.) You can squint your eyes at Oscar Peterson’s chord voicings and see that they’re “really” V7-I cadences, but then you’re erasing the qualities that make them sound like Oscar Peterson as opposed to Beethoven.
But so, who cares? What does it matter if we start by teaching students using the conventions of Western Europe in the 1800s, and then later bring them up to speed on the past hundred years of Black music? The problem is that few music majors do ever learn about Black music. When they get to the 20th century in theory class, they learn about tone rows, not about the blues. As a result, there are all these musicians and academics out there who think they are hearing V-I even when they aren’t.
As an eager undergrad, I was taught that V-I was the most common, "right" way to end a phrase, and applied it to all music I listened to, mainly blues-derived. So basically I trained myself to hear IV-I and call it V-I … took YEARS to undo this!
— Jacqueline Warwick (@JacquelineWarwi) July 29, 2021
Music theory matters, because it isn’t just about understanding a piece of music that you are already hearing correctly. Theory sets the parameters of what you think is allowed, or even what’s possible. Your understanding of theory (or lack of understanding) can change the notes and chords you think you are hearing, especially if you are listening casually. My experience playing Black music showed me that if you have the chords G7 and C, you can just as easily make them sound like the key of G as you can make them sound like the key of C.
Meanwhile, by putting too much emphasis on historical Western European conventions, music theory teachers are alienating or confusing a significant portion of their students. It’s too common for non-classical musicians to speak negatively about learning music theory, or make it a point of pride not to have learned it.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better. Let’s stop teaching the preferences of nineteenth century Austrian aristocrats as if they have any kind of objective truth. Let’s teach European tonal harmony as a very widely used and influential system, but only one among many. For all those students who want to make or learn about music that’s closer to home, let’s make sure to equip them with the tools to do so. It would be good for enrollment, and even better for equity.
Update! Read some nuanced pushback from Devin Chaloux.
Spicy take indeed @ethanhein – I'm going to take issue with a few points here, and especially on the idea of V7-I cadences as "harmonic whiteness"
A thread. https://t.co/1XE2uH8lRp
— Devin is back to work! (@d_chaloux) August 30, 2021
For some less enlightening discourse, check out the Facebook Music Theory group’s comment thread.
