One note.

The whole impetus for this blog entry comes from just one single note.

The song “With Me Part II”, which is a track from the self-titled debut album by Destiny’s Child that features Master P, is an excellent R&B track. In many ways, it emblemizes the fusion of R&B with hip-hop that dominated much of pop music through the 1990’s with its use of metronomic drum machines, melismatic and rhythmic vocal melodies that fuse gospel with hip hop, tight vocal harmonies, and rapped call-and-responses. Every musical element melds together seamlessly to create an infectious and sassy track.

Except for one note.

Specifically, that trumpet note that hits right on the first downbeat and recurs throughout the entire track. What the hell is going on there?

To peek under the hood just a bit, “With Me Part II” is in D minor. But the trumpet plays the note Eb, which creates a highly dissonant half-step rub against the song’s modal center. So is this song atonal?

What is atonal?

To more fully understand whether or not this song is atonal, we first must establish what defines atonal music (and, by extension, tonal music), although this is a more complicated task than it may seem. Music exists on a spectrum, and as with all things that exist on a spectrum, it is essentially impossible to perfectly organize it in binary terms. There are, however, a few generally agreed upon traits of atonal music, including a lack of or blurring of a tonal center, a reliance on chromatic pitches rather than a clearly defined key or mode, and an eschewing of conventional harmonic patterns established from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, particularly the movement of dominant to tonic harmonic (IE, moving from chords with a key’s leading tone/scale degree 7 to chords built on the tonic pitch/scale degree 1).

What complicates this, however, is that not all atonal music possesses all of these traits. Let’s take, as an example, two pieces that are typically considered atonal from the early twentieth century: Claude Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire (While both compositions are lengthy, previewing the beginning portions of both would be sufficient for the purposes of comparing them as examples of atonal music.) Through their use of complex, non-traditional harmonies and reliance on chromatic pitch patterns, both pieces sound more dissonant than music from the Classical era, but I believe most listeners would probably agree that Pierrot is more dissonant than Prelude. This is largely due to Prelude’s more extensive use of repetition and recognizable pitch centers, both of which are largely absent in Pierrot. This comparison demonstrates how there are gradients of atonal music, and not all atonal music is equally dissonant.

There probably aren’t any examples of popular music that are as dissonant as early twentieth century classical music, but one common misconception about popular music is the assumption that it is all tonal. By definition, a surprising number of pop songs are not actually tonal. Popular music almost always establishes a clear pitch center, and it rarely uses chromatic pitch collections to an extent that blurs its use of mode, but I would estimate that at least a plurality of popular music songs do not adhere to the harmonic conventions of the tonal music practice that revolves around the movement of dominant to tonic. It’s not that popular music uses different chords than classical music, but songwriters of popular music tend to use chords in different combinations and proportions.

The foundation of tonal music is the V – I (dominant to tonic) progression, and while this progression is used in popular music, its significance and frequency is greatly deemphasized in this style. Even when a dominant (V) chord is used in popular music, it is often performed so that the third of the chord (scale degree 7 in the key, and the dissonant pitch that requires resolution in tonal music) is omitted in both chordal instruments and vocal melodies. It is also not uncommon for songwriters and performers in popular music to utilize scale degree 1 (the key’s tonic pitch) in place of scale degree 7, which effectively converts the functional dissonance of this chord in tonal music into an extension or elaboration of tonic and thus deemphasizes the harmonic motion that is vital to tonal music.

In lieu of dominant-tonic progressions, a plagal progression featuring chords built off scale degrees 4 and 1 (IV and I chords) tends to be use far more commonly in popular music. This is significant because both of these chords harmonize the song’s tonic pitch, and it is conducive to harmonizing melodies that use pentatonic scale patterns (every pitch except the fourth and seventh notes of a major scale, which removes all possible half-steps). Another chord that tends to be used more in popular music than in classical music is a chord built on scale degree 6 (vi chord), and progressions with I, IV, V, and vi chords are very common in most eras of popular music. Even though these are all chords that are used in conventionally tonal classical music, the fact that they are used in different proportions and in different orders means that popular music is often not fully tonal.

(By the way, if you are interested in learning more about the use of the IV chord and plagal progression in popular music, I did a 4-part series on the IV chord for my blog, and you can check that out here. Synergy at its finest!)

It is probably more accurate to label many popular music songs as modal rather than tonal because modal music clearly establishes a pitch center but does so with approaches to harmonic progressions that deviate from the conventions of tonal music, specifically in ways that deemphasize the dominant-to-tonic movement. However, that still doesn’t explain the use of the Eb in “With Me Part II” against D minor. So let’s unpack what’s happening in the Destiny’s Child song in a bit more detail.

Instrumental layers in “With Me Part II”

There are three primary recurring pitch-based riffs that repeat throughout much of this track: the aforementioned trumpet note (Ex. 1), a four-bar piano riff (Ex. 2), and a four-bar bass riff (Ex. 3).

Both the piano and bass riffs feature three distinct pitches, including two shared pitches (“D”, “A”). The use of “D” on the downbeat of the first bar of the phrase in both of these riffs clearly indicates that “D” is the pitch center of the song, and the use of “A”, which would be scale degree 5 in a D key and thus lend it dominant function relative to “D”, further supports this assertion. This is why the trumpet’s “Eb” is such a clashing event – not only is it a half-step away from the only other pitch sounding, the song clearly establishes that “D” is its pitch center within only a couple of bars. So not only is it a half-step dissonance, it’s a half-step dissonance with the song’s pitch center on a pitch that doesn’t belong in its mode.

However, this isn’t the only use of a half-step dissonance in the track’s main instrumental layers. The third pitch used by the piano and bass riffs is a “C”, but there are two different versions of this pitch. The piano uses “C#” while the bass uses “C” (natural). For reasons I will unpack in more detail when I discuss the vocal components of this track, the song implies D minor rather than D Major (since the third pitch of the mode isn’t used in any of these riffs, it is ambiguous based on this information). In a minor key, either version of scale degree 7 can be used, and if the mode is D minor, then either “C” or “C#” are options. Though this is not exclusively true, classical music in minor keys generally uses raised scale degree 7 (“C#”), while minor popular music often emphasize lowered scale degree 7 (“C”). In either style, however, it is rare to use both simultaneously. While the “C” in the bass riff and “C#” in the piano riff never sound simultaneously against each other, their use in proximity with one another creates an implied dissonance, and there is a half-step dissonance that occurs with the “C#” in the piano against “D” in the bass in the fourth measure of the riff.

To dig a bit deeper into the dissonance created between the piano and bass riffs, their use of three pitches strongly implies one of two different harmonies: a tonic (i) chord (for the pitches “D”, “C”, and “A”) and a dominant (V) chord (“C#” and “A”). Because there are no instrumental chords played at any point, these chords are only implied, although it is a fairly strong implication given their collective context. The bass riff implies a four-bar progression that starts on tonic, moves to the dominant chord for two measures, and then returns to tonic for the fourth measure (i | V | V | i). By contrast, the piano riff starts on tonic and then moves to dominant in the second measure, but it returns to tonic halfway through that measure. It then remains on tonic through measure 3 before returning to dominant in measure 4 (i | V – i | i | V). When these riffs are juxtaposed against each other, only the implied harmonies of their first 6 beats match. For the remaining 10 beats, implied tonic and dominant chords are at odds with one another. This implied harmonic conflict presents another element of dissonance in the track.

The only other pitched instrumental layer is a melody played in octaves between strings and piano that occurs in the song’s bridge (Ex. 4). This riff has by far the largest pitch vocabulary, as it contains all seven pitches of a D minor mode (using “C” rather than “C#”). Of these pitches, the two that it emphasizes the most are “A” and “E”, which means that this riff strongly implies a dominant (V) harmony for its full duration. Since it does not appear concurrently with either the bass or original piano riffs, it does not present any harmonic dissonance, with the exception being that there’s still that pesky trumpet note sounding against it.

Vocal layers in “With Me Part II”

The only vertical harmony found in the entire song occurs within Destiny Child’s three-part vocal harmony during the chorus (Ex. 5).

These harmonies outline either tonic or dominant harmonies, and they utilize “C#” rather than “C”. Because of their exclusive use of i and V chords, the vocal harmonies are clearly connected to the implied harmonies of the bass and piano riffs. However, the alignment of these chords presents even more conflict against the existing dissonance between the two riffs. The vocal harmonies articulate a tonic chord for two full measures followed by a dominant chord for two full measures, which means there are three different combinations of tonic and dominant chords between these three layers. The following table demonstrates the conflict of these three layers:

Bass:    | i        | V      | V      | i        |

Piano: | i        | V – i | i        | V      |

Vocals: | i       | i        | V      | V      |

Between these layers, only the first measure of each phrase lines up harmonically. Every other measure features two layers on either a tonic or dominant chord and one on the other. Furthermore, the fact that no two layers line up with each other for any extended portion of the phrase and they maintain independence from one another means that none of the individual layers sticks out as an outlier. As a result they are equally distinct from each other, and they kind of exist collectively in a murky dissonance.

Form in “With Me Part II”

An understanding of the song’s form is also helpful for contextualizing its use of dissonance. With the exception of an opening half-chorus, every section of the song is 16 bars and 22 seconds long. It uses Verse/Chorus form, although it starts with that half-chorus before the first verse and omits the expected chorus section following the song’s second verse, opting to go straight to a bridge instead. There is also an extended rap section following this bridge that features three phrases, and these are musically similar to the song’s verses.

The full form is outlined below, including the instrumental layers that are found in each section:

• Intro: 0:00-0:22 (16 bars)
  • Bass, Piano, Trumpet
• Chorus: 0:22-0:33 (8 bars)
  • Bass, Piano, Trumpet
• Verse 1: 0:33-0:55 (16 bars)
  • Bass, Trumpet
• Chorus: 0:55-1:17 (16 bars)
  • Bass, Piano, Trumpet
• Verse 2: 1:17-1:39 (16 bars)
  • Bass, Trumpet
• Bridge: 1:39-2:01 (16 bars)
  • Trumpet, Strings + Piano
• Rap Verse Part 1: 2:01-2:23 (16 bars)
  • Trumpet
• Rap Verse Part 2: 2:23-2:45 (16 bars)
  • Bass, Piano, Trumpet
• Rap Verse Part 3: 2:45-3:07 (16 bars)
  • Trumpet
• Chorus 3x: 3:07-3:29, 3:29-3:51, 3:51-4:14 (16 bars each)
  • Bass, Piano, Trumpet

In regard to the discussion of the song’s use of dissonance and tonality, there are two things that stand out when examining its structure. One is that the conflicting bass and piano parts primarily exist simultaneously during the song’s chorus sections, which, perhaps not coincidentally, are the parts of the song that feature the densest vocal harmonies. As was outlined in the previous sections, this is significant because these three layers are quite dissonant with each other because of their conflicting harmonizations. Even in the sections that juxtapose the bass and piano riffs without a three-part vocal harmony (the intro, the second part of the rap verse), they present an unusual degree of dissonance for a pop song unto themselves. Related to this is that the main piano riff only ever appears in tandem with the bass riff, although the bass riff continues by itself through the song’s two verses. This lends a quality of primacy to the bass riff that suggests that the piano riff is the agent of instigation in the track.

The other thing that stands out is the constant presence of the trumpet note, which happens on the downbeat of the first measure of each four-bar phrase in every section of the song. In the first and third sections of the rap verse, this note is actually the only pitched instrumental element that exists. The only time the song breaks from this pattern occurs at the end of the rap verse, where the trumpet has additional rhythmic attacks that provide a lift back into the song’s final string of choruses (3:05 in the song). Otherwise, we get exactly one very stubborn “Eb” every four measures in a song that is otherwise pretty clearly committed to D minor.

Similarities and Differences with Master P’s “Freak Hoes”

The tell-tale clue for solving the mystery of the wonky trumpet note lies in the song that “With Me Part II” samples – “Freak Hoes” by Master P. As previously mentioned, Master P is featured in Destiny’s Child’s version (he does the rap verse), but they also sampled several parts of his original track. Specifically, the three main instrumental parts that run throughout “With Me Part II” are directly derived from the three main instrumental parts in “Freak Hoes”. These include the same “Eb” trumpet note (Ex. 1) as well as a piano riff (Ex. 6) and a bass riff (Ex. 7).

The biggest difference between the two versions is the key/mode – “With Me Part II” is in D minor, while “Freak Hoes” is in Eb minor. This is mostly clearly demonstrated through their respective bass riffs, which are the exact same except for their keys (the bass in “Freak Hoes” is a half step higher than it is in “With Me Part II”). This unlocks the confusion surrounding the trumpet note in “With Me Part II” – even though Destiny’s Child shifted the key from Eb to D, they opted to keep the trumpet pitch the same.

But why did they change the key, and why didn’t they change the trumpet note? I believe the answer to these questions lies in the piano riff from “Freak Hoes”. The piano riffs between the two versions, while sharing some similarities, are markedly different from one another, and they share far less in common than either the bass or trumpet parts. Both piano riffs feature three different pitches, and both begin by establishing an open fifth between “D” and “A”. However, while Destiny’s Child embellishes this fifth with a half-step below “D” (“C#”), Master P opts to go a half-step above (“Eb”). The third and fourth measures of the two versions also differ in pitch and rhythm – in the Destiny’s Child version, they return to a fifth between “D” and “A” in the third measure (and thus repeat measure 1), but Master P goes up a minor second to “Eb” instead. In the fourth measure, Destiny’s Child holds out a “C#” for the entire measure, while Master P repeats the same syncopated rhythm with three different pitches (“A”-“D”-“Eb”).

What is most perplexing about the Master P piano riff is that is built around an open fifth of “D”-“A” while ultimately existing in Eb minor. The “D”-“A” pattern certainly implies a D modality, but the bass riff clearly establishes the key of Eb minor that renders the piano part as a dissonant outlier within the context of the song. Its dissonance is especially pronounced when comparing its pitches to those of the bass riff. The following table compares all of the different harmonic intervals that occur between the bass and piano riffs and marks whether the resultant interval is consonant (green) or dissonant (red).

Of the 14 different harmonic intervals found in the juxtaposition of these two parts, only 5 of them would be considered consonant. Even within these, a harmonic P4 is considered dissonant in certain contexts, so it is arguable that only 3 of them are consonant. A minimum of 9 dissonant intervals is an unusually large proportion, particularly in a rap song, but the variety of dissonant intervals is also notable. If Master P were using the same dissonant interval over and over, that would likely establish enough familiarity for the listener that the jarring effect of its dissonance would be dulled. However, with at least five distinct dissonant intervals, the riff’s dissonance is exacerbated due to its unpredictability. The piano/bass tandem in “With Me Part II” was dissonant because of the clashing implied harmonies between them, but in “Freak Hoes”, the dissonance comes directly from the chaotic interval pairings from the counterpoint of these two ideas.

Master P’s piano riff is fascinating because what is most consonant about it in a vacuum – the highly stable sound of the opening fifth between “D” and “A” – is simultaneously the most dissonant aspect about it when it is put in the broader context of the other instrumental parts. In Eb minor, a “D” at least makes sense as raised scale degree 7 (although this pitch is noted for its relative dissonance within the context of the key since it is a half-step away from tonic), but at a tritone away from tonic, “A” is the most dissonant possible pitch choice to make in the key of Eb minor. The choice to repeatedly highlight these two pitches goes a long way towards making “Freak Hoes” such a unique track.

To relate all of this back to the dilemma of why Destiny’s Child opted to change the key but keep the trumpet pitch the same, my belief is that they are trying to meld the track to fit where the Master P piano riff wants to go on its own while simultaneously paying homage to its inherent dissonance. The most stable aspect of the Master P piano riff is its opening fifth, so it seems as if Destiny’s Child decided to turn this into a consonance by using it is the modal foundation for their version. They kept the half-step deviation, but instead of going up a half-step to “Eb”, they opted to go down to “C#” for the more logically modal option, even though this also creates a degree of dissonance with their modulated bass riff. In keeping the trumpet pitch as “Eb”, they’re offering a subversive nod to the original song’s mode while also maintaining an element of its chaotic dissonance. Keep in mind that even though the trumpet’s “Eb” in “Freak Hoes” is not itself dissonant, there’s still a half-step clash on the downbeat of each statement of the riffs between the piano’s “D” and the “Eb” in the bass and trumpet. Destiny’s Child have expertly adapted a very unusual sample into a more pop-friendly context while staying true to the oddity of their original source.

Lyrical differences between “With Me Part II” and “Freak Hoes”

There’s one final variable to consider in understanding the choices Destiny’s Child made in adapting Master P’s original song, and that has to do with the lyrical context for both songs. Although its title implies as much, “Freak Hoes” is a frankly misogynist song that discusses women either in terms of their sexual promiscuity or their greed and willingness to do anything for money. For example, the main lyrical hook is:

Freak hoes, freak hoes
Bounce your ass and let your knees touch your elbows

During Master P’s verse, he uses the following lyrics:

So I went to the club and met Nina
Have you seen her? She look like Lena
Horne with the big butt, got it going on
But got more kids than Children of the Corn
That’s why I couldn’t fuck with her
Even though I knew she was a gold digging
Bitch, out the Projects living for the county check

Granted, this is a gangta rap track that came out in 1997, so the aggression and condescension in the lyrics is neither surprising nor out of character for its genre and era. That aside, the lyrics definitely come from a perspective of male domination that asserts both desire for and judgement against women.

“With Me Part II” is mostly told from a female perspective, but it still houses some of the same judgements against women seen in “Freak Hoes”. The main theme of the lyrics is that the members of Destiny’s Child (or likely one single member, as they consistently use a first-person narrative) are having an affair with a man who is currently in a relationship with another woman. They are doing so on the sly, but as is demonstrated in the chorus, they are calling out the other woman and letting her know:

Do you ever wonder when he
Don’t come home who he goes to see?
And why in the middle of the night he leaves you alone?
‘Cause everything he like is with me

During the verses, they make it clear that the affair is the result of the other woman mistreating her man and that he is seeking out a better woman because of her actions (or, perhaps, inaction). The second verse is a good encapsulation of this:

I wanna call you so bad
And tell you he’s sick of you, girl
What you put him through
Do you expect to mistreat him
And he still be with you
No no no no no (no no)
That’s why he’s here with me (holler if you hear me)
I don’t care what you say (no no)
You can’t play with destiny (holler if you hear me)

As fas as I know
He’s in good hands
So you can stop callin’ all around
Sayin’ have you seen my man? (Have you seen my man?)
Ain’t no need to fuss and fight
Tryin’ to make it right (no)
Certain things ain’t meant to be
And that’s why, that’s why he’s right here with me

While not as aggressively anti-woman or misogynist as “Freak Hoes”, the trope of blaming a woman for her partner’s infidelities is decidedly denigrating towards women. They also use the double standard of wanting to call the other woman to tell her about all the ways she hurt her man while also instructing her to stop calling around. The fact that women undertake the role of sexual pursuers in “With Me Part II” is a refreshing change of pace, but both of these songs share a scapegoating and subjugation of an outside woman.

Master P, to his credit, makes a, and he adopts a more sensual approach in his guest spot on Destiny’s Child’s version than he did in his original version. The following is a stanza from his rap verse:

See, holler here if ya even hear me
All it takes, a beep to get near me, uh
And mama always told me
I could tell a real girl by the way that she hold me

Lyrically, these two songs are both depicting issues with relationships with unnamed women, and there is a clear connection between them. They do, however, come from different perspectives, which includes the two different roles Master P plays. The decision to maintain some of the elements of dissonance from “Freak Hoes” demonstrates how “With Me Part II” is aware of the connections it shares with its original source, but I would suggest that it is also a tacit acknowledgement of their shared tainted portrayal of women.

Conclusion

So is “With Me Part II” atonal? It clearly embraces dissonance to an unusual extent for an R&B/pop song, but based on the evidence presented here, I would argue that it is not, in fact, atonal. The song clearly establishes a modal context of D minor despite the fact that not all of the implied harmonies it uses between its coexisting musical gestures always agree with each other. If it were atonal, it would be much harder to tell that the song has a modal center of D.

The brilliance in the song, however, comes in how it simultaneously embraces D minor while also constantly rebelling against it. Through its use of conflicting harmonies, clever modifications of the riffs from the song it samples, and – of course – that pesky trumpet note, Destiny’s Child’s “With Me Part II” pulls off the delicate balance of being an accessible pop song that utilizes dissonance in a way that makes it musically unique and enhances the meaning behind the song.