Ethan Hein discusses Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City"--the fun of bringing different theoretical approaches to the same amazing song--and has anyone written a monograph on the music of Innervisions (the 50th anniversary will soon be upon us!)

Over the years I've written blog posts picking up on songs Ethan Hein has written about. This year Ethan has written a blog post about a song I blogged about in the past, Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City", one of the greatest English-language songs ever written in the last century.  I'm not going to pretend I don't adore Wonder's music.  I spent most of my time writing about what Ethan Hein has called the "synth break".

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2016/12/in-wake-of-slates-wonder-week-tribute.html

He has a different analysis (and a transcription) of the synth break than I do that you should go read here.

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2021/living-for-the-city/

Now I admit it's a bit pedantic of me but when it comes to music theory and theory exchanges I think I have to qualify that I said that the "synth break" was a chain of chromatic mediant pivots floating above a descending octatonic bass line.  Ethan read that, it seems, as my suggesting the whole synth break is octatonic, which I didn't intend to convey.  The chords that don't fit into the octatonic scale really don't fit there!  I know, octatonic and diminished scales seem the same once you know what the scale is but Ethan writes about song forms with a grounding in jazz harmony, if memory serves, whereas my background is in classical guitar with choral performance.  

So that might be why what I interpret as a second inversion G major triad Ethan reads as a D sus 4 chord that resolves downward to D. Now in terms of linear movement the voice-leading for a second inversion G major triad dropping down to a close block-chord D major could seem to be the same as a D sustained 4th chord resolving downward.  A lot depends on whether or not we view the descending bass line as giving us any grounds for reckoning the bass note as the root of a chord.  In classical music we can never, ever, make that assumption whereas in jazz or pop songs we generally should.   

Why might that matter in this case?  Because Ethan reckons that D sus 4 chord as a kind of passing neighbor chord within what is a firmly D major harmony prevailing within the measure. Fair point.  I can't help but add that, for anyone who has read my analysis, this actually backs up my proposal that Wonder uses a series of chromatic mediant pivots.  What is D major if not the chromatic submediant (i.e. one of the mediants) of F sharp major!  :)  So we rely on different theoretical jargon to explain what we're hearing but we don't necessarily disagree on what we're hearing there.

I do wonder about D major a tiny bit because the triad is outlined when the F sharp is on the second half of beat 2 and the last sixteenth note of beat 3, which is to say that the swooping quartal movement overshadows a clear outlining of the triadic harmony because of the E's Wonder uses as, are they neighbor note?  They happen on the strong first halves of beats 2 and 3 in one measure and the downbeat of the subsequent measure when Wonder hits the C major chord.  So on the one hand I think Hein is right to argue for D major overall but, on the other hand, as a former choral singer I can tell you that all those alternating perfect fourths in the vocal melody really skew any sense of triadic harmony.  Consecutive fourths are the easiest thing in the world on guitar but for the human voice to sing A, D, A, E is not easy at all! Just because Stevie Wonder makes it sound so effortless doesn't mean it's easy to sing--try playing a random assortment of open string notes on your guitar and then sing those exact same interval shifts some time if you want to get a feel for what I mean.

But if I did some pseudo-Schenkerian "reduction" of the harmony Ethan Hein has described as D major then the melody can be "reduced" from A, D, A, F#, E, F# in 8th, 8th, 8th, dotted 8th and a sixteenth to just three quarter notes of A, D and F# by eliminating the neighbor notes on the "surface".  I think Hein's made a successful case for the prevailing harmony as D major.  Of course, as I semi-joked by now this still fits in my previously proposed explanation that Wonder uses a chain of chromatic mediant or submediant pivots with neighbor chords.  

A lot hinges on how we hear and interpret the second chord in the synth break.  I've seen transcriptions that present the second chord as a French sixth chord based on A major.  The notes would be A, C#, D# and F# or, to be more picky, A, C#, E flat and G double flat.  Ethan interprets the chord as B7 with an omitted B that is in first inversion by dint of the low D#.  When I've read transcriptions of the song I've seen, as noted above, the French sixth on A explanation but that would presume the bass line isn't the root of the chord.  On the other hand, when I've watched tutorials on the song I've seen and heard pianists present this second chord as D# half-diminished (i.e. D#, F#, A natural, C#).  Where they get and hear the C# I admit I'm not entirely sure but I'm a guitarist and not a pianist and I defer to pianists who play Stevie Wonder as I most likely have to.  

This "could" make a case that there is an octatonic element because such a chord would easily emerge from an octatonic collection building up from F sharp, whether we use enharmonic spelling or not.  But, getting back to my admittedly possibly picky point, I've argued that just the bass line reveals a descending octatonic scale.  As I hear it everything about the synth break is subordinate to the melodic line, not the harmony so I think the case for a French sixth on A is simply that when Wonder shifts from A sharp down to A natural the doubling of his voice with the synth line in the uppermost voice creates the effect of moving the perceived root from F# to A natural because we want to hear his voice as defining the harmony rather than the keys defining the harmony.  This is a song and that means that the music supports the voice, the vocal line that defines everything else, rather than subordinating the vocal line to the keys--I realize others may hear and interpret things differently so I'm laying out my own take for whatever that's worth.  

I get a theoretical case for B7 but since I don't hear a B7 anywhere I would argue that there's no B7 chord.  It could play the role that a B7 chord would play in a blues, a subdominant substitution of a most unusual kind (and at this point any not-tonic chord that isn't a dominant could have a subdominant role).  

I've mentioned in the past that the genius of the opening groove is that with such a steady and static harmonic rhythm Wonder thumps away on that low F# while shifting through his chords up top.  The minor third span of F# to A natural is saturated throughout the tonic chord for quite some time before the synth break happens. When the synth break bursts forth it bursts out of anything remotely like either 18th century common practice tonality or even blues tonality as we'd normally think of it.  I wonder what Richard Cohn of Audacious Euphony would have to say about this song.  

For that matter I've been thinking a lot about Ethan Hein's observation that there's been far more analysis of the lyrics than of the music itself.  That gets me wondering, has anyone done an academic monograph on all the music in Innervisions? Anyone?  And if no one has written a monograph on this amazing album why not!?  

Ethan, book proposal for you, if you can fit in another book project opportunity, maybe write about all the music in Innervisions?  If someone has written such a book comment away so I can see if I can buy that book.  The fiftieth anniversary of the album's release is not that far away!  Stevie is still with us, after all, and frankly a fiftieth anniversary academic monograph on all the music in the album sounds like a great idea! I'm biased!  I admit it!  I would so buy that book if someone would just write it!