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Musical Form in the Music of the Rolling Stones

Spotify playlist for this Musical Close-Up

return to mainstream R&B sound:

• general feeling of the blues (shouting vocal style & blues scale)
• rarely adhered to tradition 12-bar form

  19th Nervous Breakdown

  sounds like traditional blues progression but listen:

  • 12-bar blues (actually, 24-bar) with added measures at end!!

   

  Stones tended to stay with diatonic chord progressions - notice the infrequent appearance of chromatic markings (pp. 180-81)

  • when chromatic chords do occur, they are ALWAYS blues scale-induced!!

Get Off of My Cloud

text p. 129

 

Satisfaction

(#1, 1965); complete recording; based on a 1- bar chorus; opens with an iconic guitar riff

      phrase A:      | I  | I  | IV | IV  |
      phrase A-rep:  | I  | I  | IV | IV  |
      phrase B:      | I  | V  | I  | IV  |
      phrase C riff: | I  |bVII| I  |bVII |
		

see figure in textbook for complete form

Sympathy for the Devil (complete song) - listening guide

harmonically, the entire song is based on only two simple patterns:

1st musical idea (Pattern A)

2nd musical idea (Pattern B)

• see text for patterns & full form

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