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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
All rights reserved

THE CHROMATIC SUBTONIC (2)
This is the second of two articles concerning the Chromatic Subtonic. 
The first article presented a lengthy discussion of the use of the
chord in a well-defined context. This post deals with three minor
technical issues.

bVII-V
Here's a another way of looking at the function of the Subtonic. The
diatonic major chord set has major chords separated by a second or
fourth (treating the fifth, sixth and seventh as inversions).

        C   d   e   F   G   a   b-  C           Diatonic Major

        2nd F-G
        4th C-F G-C
        

Introducing the Subtonic gives us three new major chord pairs:

        C   d   e   F   G   a   Bb  C           with Subtonic

        2nd F-G Bb-C
        3rd G-Bb
        4th F-Bb C-F G-C
        

The interesting addition is the pair of chords separated by a third.
These are Subtonic Bb and the Dominant G. Let's observe a couple of
minor points:

1.  G is the only major chord with a B natural.
2.  Bb is the only major chord with a B flat.

The progression Bb-G (or G-Bb) provides a direct clash between the B
natural and B flat. It's this clash that I refer to as the case of the
'Chromatic' Subtonic. It's exactly this sequence that Lennon exploits
in It's Only Love and Help!.

Let It Be
Here's a more subtle example of the Chromatic Subtonic. The short
organ passage that precedes the solo in Let It Be is as follows.
I've marked the Subtonic Bb and Dominant G with '*'s. 

        a    g  f  |e   d  c  |b*   a    |g          Organ
        f    e  d  |c   bb*a  |g    f    |e
        F    C  G7 |C   Bb F  |G    F    |C          Chords    

The passing chord F, between the Bb and G, does not alter the affect
of the accented progression from Bb to G. 

Apart from Billy Preston's great organ sound, it's the momentary
appearance of the Subtonic that gives this passage just that extra
little kick.

Tonic Seventh
The material in this section is speculative and rambling in nature.

The Subtonic is related to an unresolved Tonic Seventh. Thus, it's
interesting to see how these progressions look when transformed to
that idiom.

If we take Lennon's sequence:

        C       e       Bb      F

We can transform it to:

        C       C7+     C7      F

Of course, the Tonic Seventh, C7, resolves here, which blows my
argument right out of the water! But we'll pursue the line of thought
anyway to see where it leads.

One song that comes to mind with this model is Something, which fits
the sequence exactly (as does Julian Lennon's Saltwater):
                                

        C       C7+     C7      F           Something, verse

Lennon's Sun King can be viewed as an intriguing transformation of
the chord set:
        

        C       C7+     g7      A           Sun King, verse
        I       I7      v7      VI

I won't go into the luscious details here. 

The C7 (or Bb) is replaced by g7. This replacement occurs a number of
times in Lennon's songs. v7 is not much more than an inversion of
bVII, and not much more than a different root of C9.

The replacement of IV (F) with VI (A) is more interesting. But the
sequence is also common in Lennon's work. Strawberry Fields and
Julia both have something like C-??-g-A. Both were written in C.

Strawberry Fields shows the replacement at work very clearly: he
alternates the two chords:

        C...    g7...   A   F   A   F7+ C   Strawberry Fields, verse
        C   a   g   g9  A       F2  f   C.. Julia, verse
        C..     g7      A                   Sun King, verse

In fact, these sequences seem to imply a modulation in the direction
of the supertonic. But Lennon never actually uses the sequence:

        C       g7      A      d            Implied sequence

I would be incomplete if I didn't mention #9 Dream here, even though
I am not trying to fit it into the clear pattern of the songs listed
above. Lennon's #9 Dream begins as follows:

        C   e   F2  E   F   D   F   G..     Dream 9, verse

The alternation of IV (F) and III (E) supply the chromatic needs. If
you're wondering where the Mersey v7 went, the song has a separate
section based on g7-C7. 

So, what's the upshot of this speculation: we see again how Lennon
constructed his songs out of fragments and idioms that he combined and
recombined at the detail level. This is how he described himself, and
what makes him so fascinating to study from this viewpoint.

Copyright (c) Ian Hammond 1999. All Rights Reserved.
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