According to Wiki:
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches (tones, notes), or chords.[1] The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them.[2] Harmony is often said to refer to the “vertical” aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line, or the “horizontal” aspect.[3] Counterpoint, which refers to the interweaving of melodic lines, and polyphony, which refers to the relationship of separate independent voices, are thus sometimes distinguished from harmony.
Also melody is defined as a series of notes. What else do you think it would be? A chord progression doesn’t have a melody until the composer puts it there, and it’s true there may be a “harmony” present in a chord without progression, but outside of the textbook the way we speak of it harmony is more than one melody line interacting.
I’d like to hear the hip hop that has complex chords, harmonies or melodies.
To me I like it when it sounded like it was made by people interacting in a room.
If music just got worse and worse over time, or if it got better and better, I think you would still see similar statistical results from a university or journalist setting. You wouldn’t be able to tell what really happened qualitatively or how people felt about it.
I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with. You seem to agree that you can have harmony without melody, with the whole “a chord progression doesn’t have a melody until the composer puts it there.” If I write a chord progression, then rap or just talk over it, I would say that’s a song with harmony, but no melody. Wouldn’t you?
I guess thinking about it more, you can, if you want, call the voices within a chord progression a “melody.” It’s not what I usually think of as a “melody,” though. To me, a bare chord progression is just a bare chord progression, and if you rap over it, or do spoken word over it a la the Velvet Underground on some songs, that’s more a song I would consider without a melody, but strictly speaking, you can probably justify calling the chord progression underneath as having some sort of melody.
Any series of notes is a melody. About the only way you could have a piece of music without melody is if it consists entirely of untuned percussion, and most people consider drum solos even less musical than hip-hop.
Yes. Perhaps “vocal melody” or “tune” or maybe even “independent melody” would be more exact in reference to pop music. That said, I really don’t think of an isolated chord progression as a melody. If it would be notated all as "x"es on a lead sheet, I’d say the song doesn’t really have a melody, though the chords behind it might technically form some sort of melody.
There is very rarely harmony without melody, if only implied, at least in pop. The beach Boys "our Prayer’ is one example, but maybe not even that.
You were saying a melody is not notes in time, and I was disagreeing. it is just that.
If you write a chord progression you are working with harmony, technically, but when this thread veered into this territory, i thought it was about historic changes in harmony. And what you are talking about has gone on all along, and was done with much more imagination. In Help john Lennon sings the same note 10 times in a row in the start. It’s Paul that provides the “harmony” contrapuntal melodic movement. The chords moving against Lennons static voice is also a harmony. That’s what he composed. But he’s John Lennon. There is a pilot in the cockpit.
If a guy is just talking over a chord progression I wouldn’t say that was harmony. Writing the chord progression is a harmonic act, but I would call it an unfinished song.
If you want to say that Pop records don’t need melody or harmony I agree. Lots of them don’t have it now. And I don’t buy them, or even steal them. I think that is what this thread is talking about.
I would love to get suggestions on what hip hop records have chord progressions, harmonies, or melodies if you have them in mind. I’m not being a D word. I really do like to discuss things from a point of more knowledge.
Would you say that rappers tune their raps to the song? Or is it always their speaking voice? Someone should do a study on what keys their songs are in vs what key they rap in. That would be a gateway into whether there is harmony. You know drummers tune their drums? Most raps seem monotonic. That is certainly not what Lennon does in Help.
In short what exactly is the appeal of a rap, if it has no melody, or harmony? Are you saying that all raps have harmony because they have a chord bed and that is musically satisfying? Which raps have the good chords?
I’m not a big fan of rap, but you might as well say what’s the appeal of a drum beat, if it has no melody or harmony. People have listened to the spoken word since the dawn of man, with or without musical accompaniment, and whether the speaking is rhythmic or not. To dismiss it because it’s not melodic or harmonic is like dismissing a painting for being badly choreographed.
I am not a rap aficionado, though I do enjoy a good bit of it. For me, it’s the musicality of the words themselves and the rhythm of the raps. I tend to be bass and rhythmically centered in my music, so I enjoy the beats, the basslines, and the way a good rapper flows and raps against the meter, as well as the post-modern collage of musical sources that make up the backing track of many raps. That sort of musical recontextualization has always been interesting to me. To me, hip-hop expanded the pop music vocabulary: it now made acceptable music based on rhythms and words instead of the standard melody and harmony-based model. And more compositional options is great.
OK not sure what youre saying but I’ll bite: What is the appeal of drumbeat without music? (Not talking about drum solos in songs)
What does the spoken word have to do with the topic? You talking about Lord buckley, Lenny Bruce, Joe Frank, anna deveare smith?
I think you just said I am dismissing the spoken word for not being melodic or harmonic and then you ended with one car wreck of a non sequiter.
I am trying not to dismiss anything without asking about it first but if I am doing anything it is this: calling out music for failing either harmonically or melodically or both. That’s kind of why I’m here. Kinda like staying on topic.
I’ve never been much interested in any of that to be honest. contexts, beats, singers flow, all of it is potentiated and enhanced by the melodic and harmonic strength, originality and pungency, and sometimes even dissonance of the piece.
I don’t see dissonance without consonance, and I don’t see words without music. In fact for me the music always takes precedence. Sometimes the words don’t even make sense and I never realize it for years. The thing made sense as a whole, as a feeling.
So I’m not going to be able to get someone to post their favorite rap melodies, harmonies or chords?
You’re asking a guy who’s got all of Mickey Hart’s solo albums… Rhythm is not something without music, it’s a part of music.
Because that’s what rap is. There have been storytellers and poets since, quite literally, the dawn of man. I’m not sure why you think that’s not relevant when talking about the most popular current spoken word art form. Rap, by the way, is not a form of music, it’s a form of speaking. It’s most commonly paired with hip-hop music, but can be paired with any, or with none, such as in freestyle battles.
Calling out rap for not being harmonic or melodic is a non sequitor.
So if you don’t think rap belongs in music, do you also think that drummers don’t belong in bands? For that matter, what about the vast amount of music from around the world that’s primarily rhythmic?
Well if Rap isn’t music then it is a non squirter on this thread, just looking up at the title.
I have consumed a lot of spoken word but not rap. I expect a lot more out of it than rap delivers. Poetry, beauty, profundity, laughs, some self deprecation once in a while. rap is pop records without music. So I haven’t found any to like yet.
Isn’t harmony and melody a part of music too? I can’t see it as a song without melody or harmony, and I’ve always been in this for the song. And there are songs without an overt rhythm, or at least that are totally tacit: The Fiddle and the Drum by Joni Mitchell for example. Eight line poem by David Bowie. A whole lot of field recordings of folk music. Much rather hear that. Lots of songs without drummers. Lots of drummers without songs.
This thing started with someone saying that the harmonic advances in the hip hop era were revolutionary, and now you are admitting that it isn’t there. It’s spoken word, with a drummer, or a machine, and a producer. If you don’t like what they’re saying and don’t support it you hate drummers? I like drummers and want them to be employed.
Rap is no more a form of music than singing is. One can rap over a simple rhythm, or the most harmonically complex orchestral music available, just as one can sing or recite poetry over it.
It seems to me like you’re conflating rap and hip-hop, for some reason.
That’s true. They go together and it’s a two headed thing for me to address I suppose. The hip hop is the music that I don’t find compelling, at least yet. And The rap is the words that I am not inspired by, yet. To me spoken word is a tradition you need to live up to: Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Joe Frank, Howard Stern, hundreds more. They earned the right to my time without singing a song.
I’m letting it hang out here but I think that the discourse about the spoken poetic value of rap is not very open or advanced. If you can’t hold them up to excellence in their spoken words then aren’t you damning them with low expectations? It should not be uncriticizable.
I think you meant rap is no less music than singing. Rap is not singing though. Speaking is not singing. They don’t rap in tune. They don’t rap to pitch. Or do they? Enlighten me.
Music is comprised of some or all of rhythm, harmony, and melody. If you would accept as music something that only has melody - as you did earlier - it’s silly not to accept something that only has rhythm.
A vast amount of music, probably the majority that’s ever been made if not recorded, consists solely of rhythm.
And when I talk of spoken word, I don’t just mean recent, recorded orators, I mean the ancient traditions of wandering poets and storytellers, who throughout most of human history were the sole repository of culture. Rap is a direct descendent of that, and whether you like it or not, whether you think it’s interesting or not, to decry it on the grounds that it has no melody is foolish.
I’m not sure who said that, but the structure and the form of popular music after the introduction of rap and hip-hop was a drastic change, much in the same way rock music was when it was introduced in the 50s and developed in the 60s.