The melodic-harmonic ‘divorce’ in rock

Abstract

Several authors have observed that rock music sometimes features a kind of independence or ‘divorce’ between melody and harmony. In this article, I examine this phenomenon more systematically than has been done in the past. A good indicator of melodic-harmonic divorce is cases where non-chord-tones in the melody do not resolve by step. I argue that this does occur frequently in rock – often with respect to the local harmony, and sometimes with respect to the underlying tonic harmony as well. This melodic-harmonic ‘divorce’ tends to occur in rather specific circumstances: usually in pentatonically based melodies, and in verses rather than choruses. Such situations could be said to reflect a ‘stratified’ pitch organisation. A particularly common situation is where the verse of a song features stratified organisation, followed by a chorus which shifts to a ‘unified’ organisation in which both melody and accompaniment are regulated by the harmonic structure.