Speakers
Patrick Armstrong
Patrick Armstrong (b. 1996) is pursuing an MMUS in Composition at the University of Ottawa, where he completed a BMUS in 2018, having studied piano with David Jalbert and composition with Kelly-Marie Murphy. He has received scholarships and awards from the SOCAN Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Orford Music Academy, and the Domaine Forget Academy. His music has been performed by prestigious Canadian musical ensembles, including the Thirteen Strings Orchestra and the Bozzini String Quartet. He has presented his research on progressive metal at the International Progect Network Conference in Sweden (2018) and at IASPM-Canada (2019).
Neo-Riemannian Operations and Harmonic Expressivity in Opeth’s “The Drapery Falls”
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Patrick Armstrong
This paper addresses the challenge of analyzing complex harmonic progressions in popular music, building upon a framework established by Guy Capuzzo in his 2004 article, "Neo-Riemannian Theory and the Analysis of Pop-Rock Music". I discuss the applications of Capuzzo's model, as well as revealing some limitations of the model as it currently exists. Using Opeth's 2001 progressive metal song "The Drapery Falls" as a starting point, I discuss the challenges of analyzing more complex harmonic languages in popular music while still adhering to Capuzzo's framework. I outline the limitations of Capuzzo's model before proposing ways of expanding the model to accommodate a wider range of harmonic languages, focusing particularly on the use of chord-scale theory to facilitate triadic reductions of complex progressions, as well as addressing the issue of interpreting diminished harmonies. I apply this expanded version of the model to a close reading of "The Drapery Falls", outlining the lyrical themes and formal structure of the song and providing a Neo-Riemannian harmonic analysis. The analysis reveals various expressive tools in the song’s harmonic structure, particularly emphasizing how changes in root movement convey thematic elements of the lyrics. "The Drapery Falls" is well-suited to Neo-Riemannian analysis, but it nevertheless reveals several challenges and limitations of the current applications of this model, pointing to a need for additional research.
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Keywords: Progressive black metal, esotericism, ideology, occultism, Traditionalism, elitism, utopia.