Lesson plan
Polychord
's 1957 Perry Mason theme, "Park Avenue Beat", ends with a polychord quoted by Frank Zappa in "Jezebel Boy", Broadway the Hard Way (1988) and described by Walter Everett as "juicy". In music and music theory, a polychord consists of two or more chords, one on top of the other. In chord notation, polychords are written with the top chord above a line and the bottom chord below, for example, F over C (shown below) is notated as . : \new PianoStaff 1 } \new Staff { \clef bass 1 } >> The use of polychords may suggest bitonality or polytonality. Harmonic parallelism may suggest bichords. Examples may be found in Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka, p. 15 (for instance, the Petrushka chord) and Rite of Spring, "Dance of the Adolescents". In the polychords below, the first might suggest a thirteenth chord, the second may suggest a D minor ninth chord with upper extensions, but the octave separation of the third makes the suggestion of two independent triads a minor ninth apart even more likely, and the fourth is a split-third chord. : \new PianoStaff 1 } \new Staff { \clef bass 1 } >> Extended chords contain more than one triad, and so can be regarded as a type of polychord. For example, G 7 11 9 (G–B–D–F–A –C ) is formed from a G major triad (G–B–D) and a D major triad (D –F–A ), or . (C ≡ D ).…
Article summary
's 1957 Perry Mason theme, "Park Avenue Beat", ends with a polychord quoted by Frank Zappa in "Jezebel Boy", Broadway the Hard Way (1988) and described by Walter Everett as "juicy". In music and music theory, a polychord consists of two or more chords, one on top of the other. In chord notation, polychords are written with the top chord above a line and the bottom chord below, for example, F over C (shown below) is notated as . : \new PianoStaff 1 } \new Staff { \clef bass 1 } >> The use of polychords may suggest bitonality or polytonality. Harmonic parallelism may suggest bichords. Examples may be found in Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka, p. 15 (for instance, the Petrushka chord) and Rite of Spring, "Dance of the Adolescents". In the polychords below, the first might suggest a thirteenth chord, the second may suggest a D minor ninth chord with upper extensions, but the octave separation of the third makes the suggestion of two independent triads a minor ninth apart even more likely, and the fourth is a split-third chord. : \new PianoStaff 1 } \new Staff { \clef bass 1 } >> Extended chords contain more than one triad, and so can be regarded as a type of polychord. For example, G 7 11 9 (G–B–D–F–A –C ) is formed from a G major triad (G–B–D) and a D major triad (D –F–A ), or . (C ≡ D ).…
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.