Accompaniment

Entry for EPMOW by Philip Tagg

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Accompaniment can only occur within a musical structure consisting of separate strands exhibiting different degrees of perceived importance. If a musical texture consists of several different strands of perceived equal importance, as in a round like Frère Jacques or as in some forms of West African polyrhythm, there is neither accompaniment nor any particularly ‘prominent strand’. Similarly, if the music consists of one strand only, as with Gregorian plainchant or a simple lullaby, there is no accompaniment. However, as soon as those performing monody tap their feet in time with the music, or the audience clap their hands in time with the tune, there is accompaniment.

Accompaniment can be provided by any number or type of instruments and/or voices, ranging from the simple foot stamp in Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz to the dramatic orchestral backing behind the Three Tenors’ rendering of Puccini’s Nessun’ dorma. The notion of accompaniment’s supporting role is echoed in the word backing used to qualify the voice(s) and/or instrument(s) heard as musical background to the lead vocal(s) or instrument(s) in the foreground. Although, for example, rap backing tracks constitute accompaniment to the spoken word, accompaniment is most often used to support a melody.

The dualism between melody and accompaniment is one of the most common basic devices of musical structuration. Its increasing popularity during and after the Renaissance in Europe is concurrent with the rise of central perspective in painting and of a visual dualism between figure and ground. Both dualisms — visual figure/ground and musical melody/accompaniment — also concur historically with the gradual development of notions of the individual and of his/her relationship to his/her natural and social surroundings. Accompaniment (including its aspects of texture, reverberation, etc.) can in other words be visualised in general terms as the acoustic background or environment against which melody stands out in relief as an individual foreground figure (Maróthy 1974; Tagg 1994). Such stylistically diverse types of music as Elizabethan dances, opera arias, parlour ballads, jazz standards, Eurovision Song Contest entries and rock numbers all use the melody/accompaniment dualism as a basic structuring device. However, the accompaniment’s degree of subordination to melody can vary considerably, for example: [1] from a solo singer-songwriter’s guitar strum to the relative contrapuntality of multi-layered patterns of drumkit, bass and guitar riffs in many rock recordings; [2] from the homophonically set alto, tenor and bass parts in the four-part harmony of traditional hymns to the cross rhythms of many types of Latin American dance music (e.g. cumbia, mambo, murga, salsa); [3] from the continuous drone note(s) accompanying the chanter melody on bagpipes to the hocket techniques of funk music.

The relative importance of melody and accompaniment can also be highlighted by assigning varying degrees of prominence to one or the other at the mixing desk. For example, lead vocals on late twentieth-century recordings of pop songs from Italy, France and Spain tend to be mixed slightly louder, more ‘up front’, than those on recordings from the English speaking world. In addition to these general foregrounding practices, the melodic line is usually panned in the middle of the stereo array, while accompanying parts are more likely to be mixed within the acoustic semicircle behind and on either side of the melodic focal point (Lacasse 2000). Such acoustic positioning reflects the most common stage locations of lead vocalists and of the accompanying band members in concert. The general pattern of acoustic positioning just described is often subject to changes in focus during the course of the same piece. For example, a rock guitar can emerge from its accompanying role of providing support in the form of chords or riffs into a full-blown solo. As it does so, the main focus of listener attention turns from the vocal line to what now clearly becomes the lead guitar. This change of focus works because the guitar is played more melodically than before and because its volume is usually turned up (on the guitar itself and/or on the guitar amp and/or at the mixing desk) for the duration of the solo. Moreover, the guitarist in concert will often go to the front of the stage at the start of the solo, be more visibly active during the solo, and retire to his/her previous position as accompanist after its completion. Similar changes of focus in the melody/accompaniment dualism occur in jazz, not only during the improvised solos which characterise gigs played by smaller combos and which usually span several choruses within the same number, but also in big band performances when instrumentalists stand up to draw both visual and musical attention to much shorter passages considered to be of particular interest or importance, sitting down afterwards to resume their accompanying role. When televised, these types of solo passage are usually marked by editing devices, for example by switching point of view from a general shot or close-up of the lead vocalist to a camera trained on the relevant soloist, or by zooming in on the individual or instrument in question.

There are occasions when (parts of) the instrumental accompaniment to a popular song can be more memorable, sometimes more easily reproduced and perhaps even more important than its lead vocal line. This is certainly true of the verse part of such popular recordings (cited under melody) as Satisfaction (Rolling Stones 1965) and of the chorus in both Layla (Derek and the Dominoes 1970) and Samba de una nota só (Jobim 1960). In Satisfaction and Layla the accompanying guitar riffs are infinitely more singable than the lead vocals while in One Note Samba it is the accompanying guitar’s chord progression which provides the greater sense of profile and direction. Indeed, some of accompaniment’s most common functions are to provide melody with: [1] an ongoing kinetic and periodic framework (metre, patterns of accentuation, rhythmic figurations, episodic markers, etc.); [2] tonal reference point(s); [3] a sense of harmonic direction and expectation; [4] suitable background textures and timbres.

Given these basic parameters, it is clear that accompaniment, despite notions of its supporting role, can be just as important as melody, sometimes more important, in the communication of the music’s overall message. For example, imagine the first phrase of the title tune for the TV detective series Kojak (ex.1), with its heroic unison horn calls and fanfare figures (Tagg 2000) accompanied, not by the actual driving rhythms and woodwind stabs used when it was broadcast, but by a single hurdy-gurdy drone, or by a kazoo band, or by techno loops, or by a wordless cathedral choir, or by massed mandolins. Such replacement of one type of accompaniment by another is similar to superimposing an identical visual foreground figure on different backgrounds, perhaps your favourite artist first amidst industrial decay and then in a village school playground on a sunny spring day. The figures or melodies may be objectively identical but such radical differences of background or accompaniment will alter not only the overall picture but also your perception of the foreground figure’s or melody’s character. To illustrate this important function of accompaniment, example 2 would probably put Kojak in the pastoral setting of a romantic soap opera, example 3 might place him amongst his African-American brothers, and example 4 would probably see him under a Martini parasol in Copacabana.

Goldenberg: Kojak Theme, first main melodic phrase Kojak as romantic pop ballad in French or Italian vein Kojak as funk Kojak as bossa nova

Bibliography

Lacasse, Serge (2000). Vocal Staging. PhD dissertation, Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool.
Maróthy, János (1974). Music and the Bourgeois, Music and the Proletarian. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
Tagg, Philip (1994). ‘From refrain to rave: the decline of figure and the rise of ground’. Popular Music, 13/2: 209-222.
— (2000). Kojak: 50 Seconds of TV Music (2nd edition). New York: Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press (1st published Göteborg, 1979).

Musical References

D erek and the Dominoes: Layla. Polydor 2058 130 (1970).
Goldenberg, William: Kojak (main theme, orchestral arr. no. 1). Manuscript, Universal City Studios, Prod. no. 39000. Melville (NY): Duchess Music Corporation, 1973.
Jobim, António Carlos: ‘Samba de una nota só’. Gilberto & Jobim. Capitol 2160 (1960).
Joplin, Janis. ‘Mercedes Benz’. Pearl. Columbia 30322, 1971.
Rolling Stones, The. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. Decca F 12220 (1965).
The Three Tenors (Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti). ‘Nessun’ dorma’ (from Puccini’s Turandot, 1923). In Concert. London 430 433, 1995.