Perry Mason Theme harmony – which modes / chord?

Harmony & Theory
#1

The original Perry Mason TV theme, “Park Avenue Beat” is a mid-century classic. We did an homage to it way back when:

However I’ve always had two questions about the harmony:

  1. The song is nominally in C minor, and the main progression just goes I-VI-II-V. However, the VI chord is actually the Dorian version, A min7b5. The key signature according to Wikipedia is still C minor though, i.e. three flats. What key signature would you use for C Dorian — three flats, as notated, plus accidentals as needed? Or just go with two flats?

  2. That last chord, always a bit of a mystery. The simplest way to write it is as a slash chord, Dmaj over Cmin. This is also how you play it on a piano, so it works nicely for that. You can read the notation and hear a piano midi file on the Wikipedia page for “polychord”, halfway down the page:

It’s hard to pick out what it is at first listen. It sounds majory, and very close to a Lydian dominant chord. And it would be if were Dmaj over C7. But the base chord is Cmin, not C7. So my questions are:

  1. What would you call this, if not a slash chord? Is there a name?
  2. This chord does not occur in any common minor mode. The best fit is the fourth mode of harmonic minor, the “Ukrainian Dorian scale”. Who knew. Or would you think of it some other way?

All in, pretty out-there stuff for TV.

#2

I’ve always understood modes’ key signature to be whatever the minor (aeloian) or major (ionian) is represented. Ex: If I’m in F lydian, that would have no sharps/flats. It’s the relative of C major so it should match that. For your example, I’d say wikipedia is “wrong” and I’d use 2 flats.

#3

This is the first time listening to the theme and only for 30 sec but the Am7(b5) would be an modal interchange chord borrowed from C dorian. The last chord sounds like some kind of Galt. Not sure the exact voicing but sound like some kind og 7(b13) chord.

#4

So to put this another way, the best key signature is the one that needs the fewest accidentals?

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#5

Borrowed from Dorian is what it sounds like to me.

The “polychord” Wiki page has the voicing. It’s a D major triad in the treble, C minor triad (using a spread 10th voicing) in the bass.

#6

Right, otherwise it’s sort of misleading. Hypocritically, I always thought it was super weird that in classical pieces that modulate a ton, it’s extremely rare to get new key signature. Just lots of accidentals. I’m horrible at reading though, maybe there’s some logic behind it where the performer goes into some “mental state” where they’re locked into the original key signature and it’s sort of “expensive” for them to have to process a new one mid tune. Just lots of accidentals for the new key.

#7

So while I like this approach because it makes things a little neater, I’m not sure it’s strictly “correct”, per se - it puts the reader in sort of a wrong mindset going in. Maybe going with Bb major sig with “C Dorian” notated on top would work if you wanted to do it like that.

#8

The issue with this, to me, is that there is no such thing as a “Bb key signature”. Because how do you know it’s not G minor? A key sig is just sharps and flats, that’s it. The actual tonality is determined from context in the music.

i.e. So you just chose the smallest key sig that gets it done while needing no accidentals in the music. That’s one rationale, anyway.

#9

I like the polychord way, as trying to name it more conventionally, even if you could, might not really capture the “sound” of it, or its function. As an alternate, simpler example, Al Di Meola plays a chord in Orient Blue which is (low to high) Bb F G C E… you could call that C7add11/Bb, but that just doesn’t sound right - the polychord C/Bb5 captures it better, since it’s so voicing dependent.

True, but I think the matter is that most music is generally ionian or aeolian, so those are the expected outcomes when glancing at the key. The ‘modal accidentals’ help keep the “this is basically X major” or “this is basically X minor” thing going. But I get your point.

#10

Possibly I spoke too soon. Do we know of any pieces from the common practice periods that are modal? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. But if we can find a couple, might be revealing to see the sheet music for that and at least see how trained composers deal with this. Technically I’m a trained composer but that doesn’t really mean anything in my case lol PLUS my training was decades ago

#11

Off the top of my head, for common practice theory they’d just talk about a chord like that as being either borrowed from Bb major or just use accidentals and say “lol it comes from the voice leading, it’s C minor.” The latter description resonates more with me. (Disclaimer: it’s been 15 years since I took all the music theory classes I could get at university)

#12

Dance of the Mountain King’s Daughter, from Peer Gynt.

D lydian, key everywhere I can find is notated as D major.

#13

Ah, well there you go. That’s one strong case of “key signature should be misleading, slightly”. Maybe it’s similar to how most songs written in minor almost always use some harmonic minor, but there’s no notion of that for the key signature. Like, we don’t have a key signature with a single g# and accept that as A harmonic minor. We just always write in the accidental.

So maybe for modal stuff, the answer is to find the closest major or minor key signature, then put in accidentals. That’s the opposite of what I thought, but hey. I’m wrong all the time, might as well add this to the high pile lol

#14

I live with a classical musician and they are sightreading beasts — these are the flats / sharps, so that’s where my fingers go, no thinking, instantaneous. But one thing I noticed is that they don’t always automatically know what the “key” is when looking at the key signature. I can’t blame them. In their line of work it can quickly get tricky / blurry, especially in the romantic era.

Here’s a pretty well known piece that she was playing for a concert where the “hook” melody has a minory-sound. If you’re not listening too closely, as I wasn’t when I first heard it, and you hear the G-F#-E figure in the melody, you could easily think it was E minor:

However the minor six in the harp gives it away — it’s A Dorian. It’s notated in “G”, one sharp, which is the simplest key signature you can use for that. But of course it’s far from G major.

Beautiful piece!

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#15

Here’s Dance of the Mountain King’s Daughter - D major, with accidentals to make it lydian.

DanceMKDaughter
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Ultimately, just do it what ever way you prefer.

#16

This is an interesting example because the B section is A lydian, in which the original tonic, D, doesn’t even exist as a note any more. Then it goes back to D lydian for the close. So, in some sense, if he’s thinking of A as the V chord, and trying to resolve it back to D, then he’s not really in A lydian at all, he’s just in “D” with a sharp four on the I chord, and a sharp 4 on the V chord, for extra flavor. Maybe that’s why it is notated in D major, i.e. because he’s treating it that way.

If it were me, I’d probably notate three sharps because it’s the easiest for most of the sightreading players for most of the piece. And three sharps “is” D lydian as much as it “is” A major. To me, anyway. For the A lydian section I’d use accidentals or just change key signature if I wanted ultimate clarity, or for a longer section that was entirely A lydian.

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#17

How bout a pop example? Eleanor Rigby, clearly in E Dorian (though it’s a cool little surprise since it avoids the c#'s entirely until a few measures in)

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Notated as if it’s in the key of E minor, accidentals written in indicating the c#'s and showing we’re in E Dorian. My “first answer” would have indicated this have a key signature of D major, the relative Ionian of E Dorian.

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#18

This comes back to my initial point, treating everything as either major or minor, with modal alterations seen more as “flavor enhancers” and notated as accidentals. It’s just two different ways of looking at something, and you could even get case-dependent on how you’d write the key sig, but that would even further complicate matters.

At least we’re past Chantilly Codex-style. :wink:

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#19

Sorry if I was unclear! What I mean is the Peer Gynt example only makes sense if the composer is deliberately trying to “mimic” Ionian. i.e. Trying to resolve A to D is a typically “Ionian” thing to do. It’s not very “lydian”. So if that was the intent, ok, I could at least hear that argument.

Otherwise, arbitrarily choosing the key signature based on the name of the tonic note, and only either a major or minor mode of the tonic note, I don’t think this is a good approach.

Here’s an actual real-world example. When we were doing the Volcano seminar, we had to notate Yngwie’s “Little Savage”. It’s in F# phrygian dominant. I asked myself, what is the tonic chord in phrygian dominant? It’s major, right? So F# major is the key, right? Then we’ll just add accidentals to get the “phrygian” and the “dominant”.

So that’s what I did. Here’s the mess that resulted:

Six sharps and four naturals in one measure! ChatGPT can probably read that. I can’t.

A much simpler, and I am now convinced, better route in most cases, is to just use the key signature that needs the fewest accidentals. In this case that would be two sharps — aka “D major” or “B minor”, just not in this case. Then we just need one accidental for A# — and that’s only if we even play that note in a given measure. So much easier.

Did I turn around and fix that on the site? Why no, I have not. If you’d like to read six sharps and four naturals, you can still download that file right now!

#20

You could just add some kind of text analysis in between the staff notation and tablature notation, that it is phrygian dominant sounding style phrase to give the player additional heads up to what they are playing. Soundslice has this feature, but the more stuff you start adding in the more you will never perfect it because you will find something to add. I have this problem all the time, and it sucks!