Scale Systems and Large-Scale Form in the Music of Yes

[1.1] This article demonstrates that an attention to scalar processes can benefit our understanding of tonality and form in the music of the progressive rock band Yes. The focus is on the series of extended pieces (i.e., those ranging from 8-22 minutes) produced by Yes in the first half of the 1970s.(1) I am concerned with two seemingly opposed musical traditions that are relevant to these works, one being the "scalar tradition" of twentieth-century music (Tymoczko 2004, 2011), and the other being tonal and formal traditions associated with common-practice classical music. Regarding the first of these traditions, Macan (1992, 101) has attributed the extensive diatonic modality in the music of Yes (and other progressive rock groups) to such diverse sources as folk music, twentieth-century classical composers (e.g., Stravinsky), and immediate predecessors in psychedelic and folk-rock groups of the late 1960s.(2) On the other hand, Yes is often credited with refining the free-form experimentation of late 1960s psychedelic rock by employing procedures borrowed from common-practice art music. Yes's keyboardist Rick Wakeman describes the band as "working very much on a classical principle" (McNamara 1991).(3) In fact, previous authors, including Macan (1997, 99), have gone as far as to compare the formal designs of the large-scale pieces of Yes to classical sonata form. However, there appears to be a fundamental difference in how the modal system utilized by Yes could support formal structures conventionally articulated through functional-tonal relations. The details of the band's solution to this problem is my primary concern in this article.(4)[1.2] Tymoczko (2011, 187) views the scalar tradition as an outgrowth of traditional practices, with twentieth-century composers being "the first to systematically combine three fundamental musical operations: change of tonal center, change of scale, and chromatic transposition." To understand the approach taken by Yes in these works, the analyses below will focus on the three modal domains identified by Bates (2009, 2012): center, mode type, and pitch-class collection. Though these domains are highly interconnected in practice, my basic theoretical apparatus requires a degree of separation between them. In labeling a given mode, the domains of center and mode type will be represented with a compound label, with the first uppercase letter representing the pitch center and the second subscripted letter representing the mode.(5) For example, EP is "E Phrygian," AD is "A Dorian," and so on. Pitch-class collections will be referenced by the diatonic key signatures they represent. For example, GI, AD, and CL are all members of 1, or a one-sharp key signature.[1.3] The concept of key signature will prove important throughout the following discussion, as one of my primary objectives will be to understand the logic behind the succession of pc collections in a given song. This scalar emphasis is compatible in certain ways with the approach taken by Temperley (2011), who analyzes rock songs in reference to shifting scalar collections. Some recent theoretical work by Tymoczko and Hook will prove particularly useful for my purpose. Tymoczko (2004, 233) describes modulations through the concept of voice leading between scalar collections. The degree of voice-leading efficiency in a given scalar modulation is determined by the number of pitches held in common between the scales, with the remaining notes conceptualized as half-step voice-leadings to nearby pitches in the other scale. Naturally, the smoothest scalar progressions are those that require the fewest half-step motions, such as CI to GI (Fmoving to F) or CA to C harmonic minor (Bmoving to B).[1.4] Tymoczko's system integrates a variety of scale types common in twentieth-century music, including diatonic, acoustic, harmonic, whole-tone, and octatonic. Examining Yes's music, however, requires primarily descriptive tools designed to account for diatonic structures. …