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Help me understand "Tainted Love"

#81
Captain Sunshin said:
I would disagree. Understanding how a song is constructed is the first step on the road to being able to steal the technique for your own songwriting.
In this case, classical theory actually does cover this. If a piece or section is in a minor key (Am in this case) and finishes on the tonic, the third of that chord can be raised chromatically, changing the chord from minor to major. This effect is called the "Picardy Third". If you look this up, and look for a few examples, you'll see it's very common in the classical canon.

More detailed explanation here:
Invalid Link Removed

This major chord is carried over into the chorus, and you could consider it as a borrowed chord from the parallel major, or just an extension of the resolution of the prior section. Either way, it sounds pretty great when the C# in the A resolves chromatically down to the C, as friendlybass said.
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It's a lot easier to NOT use classical theory to try and analyze this. Use commercial (or jazz) concepts and get away from diatonic reasoning. It takes like 15 more steps to explain a chord progression if you think of it in classical terms. I know what a picardy third is, but I don't use that term when playing commercial music. Also, "borrowed chord from the parallel major"???? I get that, but we aren't talking about Mozart here. It's Soft Cell, and it's commercial music. There are easier ways to explain songs like this with music theory. Using classical terminology isn't one of them.
 
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#83
Lownote38 said:
It's a lot easier to NOT use classical theory to try and analyze this. Use commercial (or jazz) concepts and get away from diatonic reasoning. It takes like 15 more steps to explain a chord progression if you think of it in classical terms. I know what a picardy third is, but I don't use that term when playing commercial music. Also, "borrowed chord from the parallel major"???? I get that, but we aren't talking about Mozart here. It's Soft Cell, and it's commercial music. There are easier ways to explain songs like this with music theory. Using classical terminology isn't one of them.
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Way to belittle the person who actually answered the question correctly. "It's the parallel major chord" isn't jazz theory or pop theory or classical theory. It's simply correct theory. Was your statement about "15 more steps" an attempt at hyperbole?
 
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#84
Mushroo said:
Way to belittle the person who actually answered the question correctly. "It's the parallel major chord" isn't jazz theory or pop theory or classical theory. It's simply correct theory. Was your statement about "15 more steps" an attempt at hyperbole?
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No. I approach different types of music with different terminology and different ways of analyzing is all. Correct is a relative term when it comes to theory. In pop music, I would say there is no "correct" way to analyze. Just easy and then overly complicated ways to analyze it.
 
#85
Lownote38 said:
No. I approach different types of music with different terminology and different ways of analyzing is all. Correct is a relative term when it comes to theory. In pop music, I would say there is no "correct" way to analyze. Just easy and then overly complicated ways to analyze it.
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We are all waiting patiently for your simpler explanation than "parallel major."
 
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#86
Mushroo said:
We are all waiting patiently for your simpler explanation than "parallel major."
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So far, you're the only one to ask. Raising the 3rd of a chord is raising the third of a chord. It's simply switching from minor to major. There doesn't have to be a reason other than it being pleasing to the ear. In this case, having that resolution of a half step is pleasing to the ear. Ears like resolution.
 
#87
Actually... I asked too...
mrbell321 said:
So.... what are those commercial (or jazz) concepts?
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Lownote38 said:
So far, you're the only one to ask. Raising the 3rd of a chord is raising the third of a chord. It's simply switching from minor to major. There doesn't have to be a reason other than it being pleasing to the ear. In this case, having that resolution of a half step is pleasing to the ear. Ears like resolution.
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Not to be argumentative, but how does moving away from the tonic chord provide resolution? To me, that seems to add (a very small) tension...
 
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#89
Lownote38 said:
So far, you're the only one to ask. Raising the 3rd of a chord is raising the third of a chord. It's simply switching from minor to major. There doesn't have to be a reason other than it being pleasing to the ear. In this case, having that resolution of a half step is pleasing to the ear. Ears like resolution.
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Is it bad to give it a name so we can talk about it with other musicians?
 
#90
Lownote38 said:
Resolving a chord tone a half step to anywhere relieves tension. The ear expects and wants that (unless you love atonal stuff and aren't Joe Public).
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I don't understand that at all... In the case of this song, like I've said, I don't feel anything particularly compelling about the Amaj substitution, so it's not a great example either way for me. However, in a more general sense, you build up a particular sound so that's what your ear starts to expect. The key gets pretty well established and, basically, the tonal chord of that key is where everything resolves. If you change anything about that chord, it's no longer resolved.
 
#92
It seems pretty simple in this context: the verses' lyrics have sad stuff in them. The chorus is where the emotional resolution happens, so switching to Amaj brightens the feel of the tune.

Verse: things suck
Chorus: Here's what I'm gonna do about it

If the Amaj were a musical resolution, there would be a key change.
 
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#94
okcrum said:
It seems pretty simple in this context: the verses' lyrics have sad stuff in them. The chorus is where the emotional resolution happens, so switching to Amaj brightens the feel of the tune.

Verse: things suck
Chorus: Here's what I'm gonna do about it

If the Amaj were a musical resolution, there would be a key change.
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that's as good an explanation as any
 
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#95
okcrum said:
It seems pretty simple in this context: the verses' lyrics have sad stuff in them. The chorus is where the emotional resolution happens, so switching to Amaj brightens the feel of the tune.

Verse: things suck
Chorus: Here's what I'm gonna do about it

If the Amaj were a musical resolution, there would be a key change.
Click to expand...

If I were to throw my opinion into this discussion, I wouldn't be able to word it better than the quote from okcrum above. This speaks to why major-minor shifts happen = emotion and resolution.

I will add that the minor --> major shift formula is very common in pop music, so common that I am surprised that this song is being picked apart as an anomaly, because it isn't. Throwing a major bridge into a predominantly minor song is also quite ubiquitous. Shifting fragments or the entirety of the harmony to major or to minor under a melody that doesn't change or vice-versa happens with regularity as well. Accidentals are everywhere in pop.

Personally, I don't think traditional theory is very useful for understanding pop songwriting, but knock yourself out!
 
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#97
An interesting PDF page about those "borrowed chords":
http://tobyrush.com/theorypages/pdf/0305borrowedchords.pdf
bch.PNG
 
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#100
Discussions including terms like "diatonic" and "theory" are not limited to "traditional" or "classical theory"(whatever those are... is it like saying "let's discuss chemistry, but only using terms known by alchemists 300 years ago"?).
We commonly use the term "theory" but what we're really talking about is the study and vocabulary of music. Any music. Whether it follows some very basic rules or must be described in a more complex way. Maybe we should call it the musical science? Because the really interesting this about it is that we can gain new knowledge from the process of investigating, observing, sharing and, not least, testing. You can study a random noise generator in this way. It may not be classical music, but that doesn't make it unstudyable.

So... responses like "You cannot use theory to analyze it" says one of two things about you and nothing about the music. Those are:
1) You do not wish to analyse it at all. That's fine. But I have no interest in golf. Should I go post on golf boards about how much interest I lack in golf?
or
2) You have some separate way of analyzing it. If this is the case, please share. It is still music theory. We can learn something together. But I have a feeling that to have an effective conversation, we'll have to first learn the common language.

I recognize that you don't have to formally study music to write or appreciate music, You don't have to have the vocabulary. However, if you've heard music, and -- n turn -- created music, you are -- relatively primitively but not necessarily less effectively -- practicing the musical science I described above. Despite your best anti-intellectual efforts, you have musical theory.

/rant
 
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