Muestra B, sin precipitados
5.3 Resultados Experimentales.
1.1 Literature Review
This dissertation is positioned in a range of scholarship involving popular music harmonic and melodic analysis, historical, cultural and stylistic consistencies.
Furthermore, colloquial texts such as Broken Music and Lyrics by Sting, and various bibliographies, interviews and credible online pedagogical material are recognised as establishing diverse literature on the music of Sting, The Police and pop and rock music. Specifically, Sting’s two books provide some information that only Sting could have known, providing a unique and first-hand perspective. He describes his childhood and adolescence, his influences from schooling to the music that he was exposed to. The two books, as expected, provide an opportunity to analyze his music from a clear point of view. Memoir information is presented up to Sting’s success with the Police.
Due to the flexibility and eclecticism of Sting’s music, diverse sources are used, all partially helping to create a complete perspective. Specific aspects of speculative harmonic theory and concepts are borrowed and adapted from theories originally
proposed by Hugo Riemann, Arnold Schonberg, and Heinrich Schenker. These theories, while not directly related or intended for the study of popular music have been adapted and linked to popular music and the study of Sting’s music. Since there is no single pattern of tonal behavior common to all rock music, various adapted or distinctive
harmonic theories have been referenced. Sources include: Walter Everett’s “Making Sense of Rock's Tonal Systems;” “Neo-Riemannian Theory and the Analysis of Pop- Rock Music” by Guy Capuzzo; “Triadic Modal and Pentatonic Patterns in Rock Music” by Nicole Biamonte; “The So-Called ‘Flat Seventh’ in Rock” by Allan Moore; and “Domestication of Blue Notes in the Beatles’ Songs” by Naphtali Wagner. Together these theories form a standard for the more recent analysis of popular music that continues to expand. Furthermore, authors such as Walter Everett use Schenkerian analysis in part to deconstruct the music of The Beatles and Paul Simon while Allan Moore disregards the practice stating: “a Schenkerian approach to rock requires us to identify rock's harmonic language as a flexible major/minor system, but rock practice is to make ubiquitous departure from such a system.”15
Several authors acknowledge the study of popular music and popular musicians through appropriations, collaborations, or as polyglots. Pop and rock music are
continually described as having a constant dialogue with the past.16 This has created
theoretical and cultural analyses from a range of folk, classical, jazz, blues, and Caribbean styles. Several authors attempt to frame a genre or a specific artist as embracing a multitude of styles. In Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular
Music, Mark Spicer uses a “Universe of Style” similar to Kofi Agawu’s “Universe of
Topic” from Playing with Signs. As stated by Mark Spicer in “Reggatta de Blanc’: Analyzing Style in the Music of the Police,” “stylistic eclecticism becomes a defining feature of their music.”17 Likewise, Philip V. Bohlman, The Study of Folk Music in the
15Allan Moore, "The So-Called 'Flattened Seventh' in Rock," Popular Music 14, No. 2 (1995):186.
16 Keith. Negus, Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction. (Hanover, NH: University Press of New
England, 1996.).138.
Modern World, draws the foundations and boundaries of a musical culture together and
acknowledges that the interaction of many standards or canons, rather than one centrality, is very complex. Many artists like Sting borrow from, and collaborate within, a unique cultural mix.18 Timothy D Taylor in Global Pop World Music, World Markets says:
“…the very malleability of music makes possible local appropriations and alterations, particularly of North American and U.K. popular musics, resulting in all kinds of syncretisms and hybridities…” Taylor analyzes Peter Gabriel’s use of borrowed music, specifically in his album Us. Paul Simon is also well known for his use of a diverse selection of borrowed music in The Rhythm of the Saints and Graceland. Gene Santoro discusses such influences and collaborations in Stir It Up: Musical Mixes from Roots to
Jazz.19 Scott DeVeaux, “Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography,” avoids
using a collection of musical elements to define the genre in favor of understanding jazz as new music sharing in what has come before in the jazz tradition.
Research results, derived from the study of Anglo and other folk traditions, by scholars such as Cecil Sharp (English Folk Song: Some Conclusions), Bertrand Bronson (“Folksong and the Modes”), Philip Bohlman, Samuel Bayard, (“Prolegomena to a Study of the Principal Melodic Families of British-American Folk Song”) and Curt Sachs have informed the modal analysis as it relates to the music of Sting. Specifically, the article by
Analytical Essays in Popular Music. Tracking Pop. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2010),
124.
18 Ted Gioia, How to Listen to Jazz (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2016), see Chapter IV - “Origins of
Jazz.” Gioia uses the term “cultural mix” to explain the ethnic diversity in New Orleans that led to the development of jazz. Stuart Nicholson, Jazz and Culture in a Global Age (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 2014), 94. In explaining “Hybridization Theory” says that the idea of a “cultural mix” exists” through the integration of local and global cultures resulting in a new and unique hybrid culture that transcends both.”
19 Gene Santoro, Stir It Up: Musical Mixes from Roots to Jazz also discusses Sting’s Nothing Like The Sun
Curt Sachs, “The Road to Major” resonates with my analyses of melodies falling into patterns of thirds. Many of these folk and popular music scholars such as: Cecil Sharp (English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians), Bertrand Harris Bronson (The
Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, Volume 4: With Their Texts, According to the Extant Records of Great Britain and America) and Peter Van der Merwe (Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music) have also sought to uncover or outline
the retentions or syncretisms of folk songs in the United States especially within the African American population. Gary Giddins, Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American
Pop is similar to Chapter 5 of this dissertation: “Pentatonic Scales and Blues Tonality.”
Giddins uses blue note harmony or a blues awareness to create a binding relationship between popular artists such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley with jazz musicians Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and Duke Ellington.
This dissertation has extensively referenced the jazz tradition. This is largely due to the academic and performance education of the author. Paul Berliner, Andre Hodier, Gunther Schuller, and Mark Levine all outline concepts integral to the jazz musician. Information is consistent from the study of standard repertoire, including melodic
consistencies, harmonies, forms (AABA and the 12 bar blues), to the notoriously difficult definition of the nature of swing and improvisation within a historical or cultural frame. Mark Gridley’s “Three Approaches to Defining Jazz” expresses a flexible definition that uses the term ‘jazziness,’ and creates a perception of jazz based on a flexible scale of how much of a particular stylistic element is inherent in a performance: how much
improvisation? how much swing? Although this dissertation does not claim that Sting is a jazz musician or that he plays jazz, the application Gridley’s ‘definition’ is helpful in
making connections between the jazz idiom and Sting’s music. Multiple authors and musician interviews referenced in this dissertation such as Richard Cook, (Richard
Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia), Ted Gioia (The History of Jazz)20, Scott DeVeaux, and David
Liebmam21 help formulate a flexible understanding of the fundamental elements of jazz
with cross-overs to popular music.
Chapter 4 of this dissertation is used to understand intensity and the rock tradition through the lens of cultural, sociological, philosophical (aesthetics), and psychological perspectives. Peter Wicke’s “Rock Music: A Musical-Aesthetic Study” and Paul Berliner’s Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation are used together as the framework of this chapter to appreciate Sting’s music from similar but deviating perspectives. This includes information regarding ‘drive’ (related to the discussion of swing and rhythm creating forward momentum), ‘involvement’ and ‘feeling’ that references the processes of generating anticipations and expectation in music,22 the
visceral effect of rock music,23 and the manner in which rock and popular music is
received and consequently interpreted as a fundamental experience where technological advance has created an opportunity for a contemplative culture.24 Additionally various
appropriations and stylistic dialogues become influential in not only the context of
20 In the chapter “Jazz in the New Millennium” Gioia speaks of a new aesthetic in jazz, exemplified by such
artists as Norah Jones and Diana Krall. He says: “the history of jazz teaches us that attempts to exclude whole groups of performers by the application of narrow definitions are usually a sign that something important is underway in the art form.” Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), 373.
21 Liebman defines swing with an open-ended statement. He says “I think we could generalize that a
feeling of swing has a drive or momentum in balance with a feeling of relaxation and effortlessness. There is a “lilt” or bounce to the music that is beyond words.” David Liebman, “What is Jazz Rhythm”, David
Liebman Official Website, http://davidliebman.com/home/ed_articles/jazz-rhythm/.
22 This includes empathetic listening in improvised music (Ted Gioia, “Jazz: The Aesthetics of
Imperfection.”) and the study of anticipation by Psychologist David Huron (Sweet Anticipation: Music and
the Psychology of Expectation.
23 Theodore Gracyk, Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock
defining genre but an understanding on how the music is received. That is, Sting’s music is received from the perspective of multiple genres and the unique perspective of each listener.
The question of authenticity, which is tied to the perception of intensity, is frequently heard in reference to Sting and his music. Two of the most common areas of criticism is in reference to his stylistic uses from jazz and his more recent recording of the music of John Dowland. Sting is authentic to his pursuits, he gives credit and homage and makes it personal to him displaying his own interpretation. This statement or definition of authenticity is heard from Gary Tomlinson in his essay “The Historian, the Performer, and Authentic Meaning in Music,” Allan Moore, “Authenticity as Authentication” and most directly by Audrey L Becker in “De Do Do Dowland: Sting’s Re-Voicing of Early English Ayres.” Sarah Rubidge also recognizes everyones unique perception of
authenticity that is summarised by Allan Moore: “Whether a performance is authentic, then, depends on who ‘we’ are.”25
Based on my research, books such as The Words and Music of Sting by Christopher Gable and Sting and The Police: Walking in Their Footsteps by Aaron J. West have not analyzed Sting’s music to a great extent. West only spends one chapter on Sting’s solo career. While both outline Sting and The Police as polyglots, very little is given in terms of harmonic or melodic analysis. Mark Spicer in “Reggatta de Blanc” and Gene Santoro, Stir It Up: Musical Mixes from Roots to Jazz, only analyze a small
selection of the large repertoire.
25 Sarah Rubidge, “Does Authenticy Matter? The case for and against authenticity in the performing arts”,
in Analysing Performance, ed. P. Cambell (Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), 219. And Allan Moore, “Authenticity as Authentication.” Popular Music 21, no. 2 (2002): 210.
Peter J. Burkholder “The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field,” gives merit to a study of this kind. Burkholder says “Knowledge of the ways existing music has been reworked in other times and by other composers can clarify the historical place of those we focus on, helping us recognize what is unusual or innovative in their approach to the uses of existing music and, just as important, what has long-established precedent.”26 Not only is perspective given in the music of Sting, but also the existing
music that influence him.
1.2 Chronology of Sting’s Musical Life
To understand the growth of Sting’s musicianship and his compositions, historical information will be outlined. This includes many of the influences that have altered and directed his music and the music of the musicians he has hired or collaborated with. (Most notably members of The Police: Stewart Copeland (drums) and Andy Summers (guitar), members of the Dream of the Blue Turtles: Omar Hakim (drums), Branford Marsalis (saxophone), Kenny Kirkland (piano) and Darryl Jones (bass), and musicians on subsequent records including: Dominic Miller (guitar), Jason Rebello (piano) and Chris Botti (trumpet). Sting states:
I'm also lucky in that I always manage to work with musicians better than myself. It's the truth. I have a very musical mind, but it tends to stop at my wrist
sometimes. My job as a writer is to engage their skill and their enthusiasm and to challenge them somehow. My skill is in arranging music or in giving people the parameters in which they can be creative. I'll reel them in if it's too much, but I like to tell them to play what they feel, because you can never anticipate what they can give you when you have that caliber of musician.27
26 Peter J. Burkholder, “The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field,” Notes 50, No. 3
(1994): 851.
This paper considers the beginning of Sting’s musical career but does not include a comprehensive examination of his life. Information directly pertaining to his major musical accomplishments is selected for its relevance to the scholarly development to this paper. The historical information in this paper is given in a condensed, direct and fact- based manner. Broken Music, Sting’s memoir, and articles from www.sting.com provide a unique and first-hand perspective.
Developments in Sting’s life have been recently reflected upon with the opening of the musical “The Last Ship” in Chicago, New York City, and Toronto. This musical is not an autobiographical account but reflection by way of a metaphor. In addressing the plot in the musical Sting reflects:
I wrote this music, I wrote these songs to accompany a play, a play about my home town, which is a shipyard town in the north of England. It’s about shipyard workers being laid off, and the idea of fathers and sons struggling and reconciling. And so the allegory is that a local priest decides to help them and asks them to build a ship for themselves and then sail off into the world.28
“How I started writing songs again,” a TED Talk given by Sting in March 2014 acknowledges an ironic story line and restores childhood memories. A town that Sting struggled with, desired to leave behind, and figuratively never return to, would in turn, become as he states: “the very community I would have to return to, to find my missing muse.”29
Sting’s music mirrors his childhood influences, the records brought home or played by his parents; his father enjoyed Benny Goodman and The Dorsey Brothers and
28“Sting - The Last Ship (EPK)” Cherrytree / Interscope / A&M Records, accessed September 23, 2013.
http://www.vevo.com/watch/sting/the-last-ship-(epk)/USUV71301145.
29 Sting. “How I Started Writing Songs Again.” Filmed May 30 2014. TED video, 23:15.
his mother brought home Rodgers and Hammerstein albums (Oklahoma, Carousel) and Bernstein’s West Side Story. Also heard were the rock and roll sounds of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. This material is referenced when Sting “recapitulates” or quotes excerpts from this influential material in various verbal introductions in his own songs (e.g., “Love is Stronger Than Justice,” singing the comical “Bless Your Beautiful Hide” from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, or another sentiment “If you scratch me, I will start singing” from Carousel.)30
In the mid-sixties, Sting, still known as Gordon Matthew Sumner, started performing with the Newcastle Big Band (under bandleader Andy Hudson) based on a recommendation from a mutual friend (Gerry Richardson). The ensemble performed jazz standards from the 1930s and 1940s and arrangements by artists such as Stan Kenton, Neal Hefti, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, John Dankworth, Charles Mingus and Woody Herman. A mix of rock and jazz standards were featured on the Newcastle Big Band vinyl recording (including The Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” Charles Mingus’ “Better Get It In Your Soul,” Joe Zawinul’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” [soul jazz] and Wayne Shorter’s “Adam’s Apple” [post-bop]). Alongside touring with the Newcastle Big Band, he played with the Riverside Men and The Phoenix Jazzmen (a very rare vinyl I'm The King of the
Swingers was recorded in 1972). While a member of this last group, Sumner, was given
the nickname ‘Sting’ as a result of wearing a black and yellow sweater that made him look like a bee.
1974 saw the Newcastle Big Band booked in a ‘support slot’ for Chick Corea’s band, Return to Forever at Newcastle University. (Corea’s band consisted of Lenny
White [drums], Chick Corea [Fender Rhodes], Bill Connors [guitar], and Stanley Clarke [bass]). “The seed that would grow into the idea for Last Exit had been sown about a year before on a disastrous gig with the Big Band. We’d been booked in a support slot at Newcastle Polytechnic for a band called Return to Forever.”31 The band Last Exit was
formed and was to be primarily and loosely based on a jazz-fusion feel, which he had witnessed as part of the performance of the ‘Return to Forever’ band. Sting says:
We just sat there, open-mouthed. Couldn’t believe what we were hearing. It completely transformed our musical life. Then we formed a band called Last Exit. It was an attempt to be what we heard from Chick Corea, but he completely devastated the landscape. It was like scorched earth. It was so musical, so powerful, so incredibly virtuosic. He totally transformed me, and I haven’t recovered yet.32
The members of Last Exit were: Gerry Richardson (keyboards), Sting (electric bass & vocals), Ronnie Pearson (drums & vocals), and John Hedley (guitar). Sting’s memoir, Broken Music, outlines that Last Exit’s initial attempts at jazz-rock consisted of such compositions by artists such as: Neil Young (“Don’t Let It Bring You Down”), Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye. Sting had begun to write his own compositions. Two of the earliest songs were: “The Bed’s too Big Without You” and “I Burn for You.” The band