Do It Again Again
Do It Again Again
Do It Again Again
May 2014
Recommended Citation
Ramage, Maxwell (2014) "Do It Again: Sequences in Gershwin and Kern’s Popular Songs," Gamut: Online
Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 4.
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DO IT AGAIN: SEQUENCES IN GERSHWIN AND KERN’S POPULAR SONGS
MAXWELL RAMAGE
A
mericans George Gershwin (1898–1937) and Jerome Kern (1885–1945) both
Tin Pan Alley.1 Their popular-song output, however, was far from hackwork; indeed, their
chromatically inflected, extended tertian harmonies enriched the expressive palette available to
song composers at large.2 Gershwin and Kern seem to have influenced one another: Gershwin
idolized the elder composer3 and stated that his early songs “paid [Kern] the tribute of frank
imitation.”4 Conversely, Howard Pollack hears in Kern’s song “Whip-Poor-Will,” for example,
suggestions of Gershwin’s “From Now On.”5 In view of the special regard in which Gershwin
held Kern, I will compare and contrast their popular songs. For three reasons, I will focus on the
composers’ uses of sequence: first, I have always associated Kern most closely with “All the
Things You Are,” a number built almost entirely out of sequences. More pertinently, as Richard
Middleton suggests, sequence (as a specific type of small-scale repetition) helps structure Tin
1
Howard Pollack, George Gershwin: His Life and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 62;
Edward Jablonski, George Gershwin (New York: Putnam, 1962), 31ff.
2
Charles Hamm, Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979), 366–68. Allan Moore
hears the harmonic dialect of interwar Broadway as an infusion of Brahmsian operetta style with jazzy added notes
(Moore, Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song [Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2012],
129).
3
David Jansen, “George Gershwin,” in Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song (New
York: Routledge, 2003), 148.
4
Pollack, George Gershwin, 84.
5
Ibid., 235.
GAMUT 7/1 (2014) 89
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RAMAGE: DO IT AGAIN
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Pan Alley songs; through repetition, it establishes a syntax of sonic events.6 Third, the concrete
differences between Kern and Gershwin in terms of sequence help validate critics’ more abstract
characterizations of the two composers’ output. My discussion will begin by showing Gershwin
used fewer melodic sequences than Kern and by speculating on musical influence. Next, I will
consider ten case studies—songs that illuminate the ways in which Gershwin and Kern used
sequence. Finally, I will use my findings to explain other critics’ assessments of Gershwin songs.
Gershwin and 45 by Kern. I concentrated on refrains because verses are, by and large, mood-
setting devices designed to pique the interest of a live audience,7 whereas a refrain is designed to
include the song’s most memorable lines or hooks. Moreover, theorist Allen Forte states that
Kern seems to have struggled at writing verses,8 which suggests that analysis of those verses
examine, I drew on two “greatest hits” anthologies,9 but I omitted numbers from Porgy and Bess
because Gershwin intended that work to be more an opera in the tradition of Verdi than a
collection of pop ballads.10 The selections span the whole careers of both composers: the
Gershwin anthology runs from “Swanee” (1919) to The Goldwyn Follies of 1937, while the Kern
collection starts with “How’d You Like to Spoon With Me?” (1905) and ends with “All Through
the Day” (1945). I counted the melodic and harmonic sequences in each song and defined
6
Richard Middleton, “‘Play It Again Sam’: Some Notes on the Productivity of Repetition in Popular Music,”
Popular Music 3 (1983): 236 and 247ff.
7
Allen Forte, The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 37.
8
Ibid., 74.
9
George Gershwin, George Gershwin: The Platinum Collection (Harlow: Faber Music Ltd, 2006) and Hugh Fordin,
Jerome Kern Collection (Santa Monica: T.B. Harms Co., 1988).
10
George Gershwin, “Rhapsody in Catfish Row,” in The George Gershwin Reader, ed. Robert Wyatt and John
Andrew Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 219.
1. A sequence takes a melodic idea (also called a unit or module) and repeats it verbatim
2. If a melodic idea contains two or more notes and lasts at least one bar, then it may be
sequenced.
3. If a melodic idea is shorter than one bar but contains at least three notes, and if the
melodic idea contains more than one rhythmic value and/or the phrase comprising the
idea and its repetition(s) contains a change in melodic direction, then the phrase in
I designed Rules 2 and 3 to eliminate from consideration trivial melodic runs and turns. A
“harmonic sequence,” on the other hand, is simply a transposed repetition (either tonal or real) of
a harmonic unit of two or more chords. Surprisingly, few harmonic sequences appear in
Gershwin and Kern’s songs, despite Tin Pan Alley’s penchant for the standard phrase model.11
In the 45 Gershwin “hits,” I found 50 melodic sequences (1.1 per song) (Table 1). I found
69 melodic sequences in the Kern refrains (1.5 per song) (Table 2). The frequency of sequences
changes over the course of the two composers’ careers. Broadly, Gershwin’s early songs use
close to the same number of sequences as did Kern’s early songs. This similarity may bespeak
Gershwin’s “frank imitation” of Kern. As Gershwin’s career progressed, though, he used fewer
melodic sequences, whereas Kern’s deployment of sequences reached an apex in the middle of
his career (Figure 1). One might speculate that these changes were the composers’ conscious
11
Forte, American Popular Ballad, 7.
attempts to distinguish themselves from one another, but they more probably represent organic
evolutions in style.12
2.5
1.5
Gershwin
Avg.)
1
Kern
0.5
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45
Chronological Place in Composer's Output
FIGURE 1. A five-song moving average was taken in order to reduce the influence of outliers and
mitigate the chronology problem caused by including multiple songs from the same show.
Neither composer drastically modified his use of sequences when writing for film as
opposed to Broadway.13 The Gershwin anthology’s nine film songs have nine melodic sequences
12
It is tempting to attribute Kern’s affinity for sequence to his musical studies in Germany and “love affair with
London” (Michael Freedland, Jerome Kern [London: Robson, 1978], 12–13) but according to Freedland, by the time
of the Princess Theatre shows, “nearly all of the old German and English influences had left him” (Ibid., 50). A
thorough comparison of the English operetta style with Kern’s has yet to be made. See Andrew Lamb, Jerome Kern
in Edwardian London (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn
College of the City University of New York, 1985) on the influence of London comedies on Kern’s predilection for
creating intimate musical theater. In contrast, Gerald Bordman discusses the Princess Theatre and Kern’s
development of “totally American operetta” (Bordman, Jerome Kern: His Life and Music [Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1980], 470).
13
To be sure, Hollywood changed other aspects of Kern’s style. According to Wilfrid Sheed, Kern’s newfound
jazziness purged him of old-fashioned operetta influences: “Fred [Astaire] had to dance all over Jerome Kern's hotel
room, including presumably the top of the omnipresent thirties piano, to awaken the cautious Kern at long last from
his Viennese slumbers and get him to swing” (Sheed, “The Songwriters in Hollywood,” American Heritage 44, no.
6 [October 1993]: 82). In contrast, Gershwin, who was at home in jazz, strove to be recognized as a “serious”
modern composer (see Carol Oja, “Gershwin and American Modernists of the 1920s,” The Musical Quarterly 78,
altogether; the rate of one sequence per song does not significantly differ from the global rate of
1.1. Similarly, the 18 Hollywood songs in the Kern collection have 29 sequences. At 1.6 per
Before moving to musical examples, two statistical caveats: first, the data cannot prove or
disprove that the rate of sequences in a musical correlates with the musical’s popularity. Funny
Face and Show Boat are the most represented shows in the Gershwin and Kern compilations
respectively, which might lead one to think that their songs are among the most popular in the
anthologies. However, they could be the most popular shows not because their songs are on
average more popular than most other songs in the books, but because both shows contain many
songs that are just popular enough to be considered hits. Therefore, we cannot pin down the
relative popularities of individual songs in the anthologies, which means we cannot determine
the effect sequences have on a song’s popularity. In sum, this uncertainty on the level of the
individual song implies uncertainty as to whether sequences help or hinder a show’s ticket sales.
To reduce these ambiguities, we could either compare the anthologized “greatest hits” to the
many songs that did not make the cut or rank the greatest hits by some objective proxy like
recording sales. Both of these pursuits lie outside this paper’s scope.15
no. 4 [Winter 1994]: 646–668 and Pollack, George Gershwin), but it is unclear to what degree continental
modernism affected his show-tune composition.
14
If the composers’ theater songs tended to have either very many or few sequences but rarely the average amount,
then we could claim the film songs treated sequence differently than the theater songs. However, this is not the case.
15
Richard Hass et al. define a hit song based on the number of times it has been recorded and conclude with
amusing certainty that the Gershwins produced 68 hits between 1918 and 1937 (Hass, Robert Weisberg, and Jimmy
Choi, “Quantitative Case-Studies in Musical Composition: The Development of Creativity in Popular-Songwriting
Teams,” Psychology of Music 38, no. 4 [October 2010]: 463–479). Paul Charosh argues that for nineteenth-century
popular song, the existence of a song’s lyrics in print without music attached is a better indication of the song’s
popularity than the existence of a printed score (Charosh, “Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song,” American
Music 15, no. 4 [Winter 1997]: 480).
Second, a Welch’s t-test16 of the mean number of sequences per song reveals that the
difference between 1.1 for the Gershwin songs and 1.5 for the Kern is not statistically significant
(t = 0.30). In other words, the variation in sequence frequency between two random songs by the
same composer is likely to be greater than the overall variation between Gershwin’s corpus and
Kern’s. Still, in this case, a low t value only implies that a random Kern song may not usually
have more sequences than a random Gershwin song. The statistic does not disprove my
hypothesis that Kern used more sequences than Gershwin. Besides, one reason the t statistic is
low is that both composers’ predilections for sequences changed over time, creating variety
within each composer’s output. Another possible reason is the small sample size—with only 88
degrees of freedom, my study allows atypical songs to influence the result. Finally, even
assuming the frequency of sequences is comparable for both composers, we will see that the
Let us first consider Kern’s use of sequence. In the duet “A Fine Romance,” he deploys
dynamic melodic sequences over comparatively static harmonies (Example 1a). For instance, the
refrain’s fourth bar (m. 8) shifts the A-G-A motive from the second bar up a major second.
Similarly, the melody on “this is!” (m. 12) is one scale degree higher than that on “romance” in
m. 10. (Because of irregularities in mm. 7 and 11, these repetitions are only approximately
sequential.) Melodic repetition finds support in rhythmic repetition: the refrain’s first eight-bar
period comprises four iterations of a two-bar rhythmic unit. Despite this isorhythm, the lyric’s
emotional impact intensifies throughout the period: not only does Kern sequence the melody
upward; he also increases the frequency of leaps as the period progresses.17 The antecedent
16
Degrees of freedom = 88. Total Gershwin variance = 20.45. Total Kern variance = 57.25. Test result: p > 0.05.
17
The preponderance of leaps in Kern’s melodies may reflect an operatic sensibility; William Zinsser hears the leaps
in “Make Believe” as producing a “European lilt” (Zinsser, Easy to Remember: The Great American Songwriters
and Their Songs [Jaffrey, N.H.: David R. Godine, 2000], 19).
melody, including the anacrusis, contains a third, a sixth, a seventh, and an octave. The
consequent answers with a fifth, a seventh, a sixth, a third, and a sixth. Kern also maintains
interest by varying the size of the leaps away from the whole notes: the first such leap is a sixth,
followed by an octave, a seventh, and a sixth. Because it begins and ends with the same interval,
that interval sequence helps signal mm. 5–12 as a closed melodic unit, even as the G dominant
That dominant harmony seems less momentous, however, when we consider that it has
already occurred in mm. 7–8. Indeed, while the first period’s melody leaps and develops, the
supporting harmony oscillates between tonic and dominant at a rate of one harmony every two
bars. By contrast, the harmonies in the second period (mm. 13–20) are less regular. For example,
the period starts with nearly two bars of the tonic triad, but on the fourth beat of m. 14 Kern
harmonizes a chromatic bass with an inverted “German” augmented-sixth chord. This chord
The second phrase of the period begins, like the first, with two bars of tonic. In m. 19, Kern
to vi but to ii, thus skipping over one step in the circle. We cannot write off the E7 as a passing
chord, since its bass note E is approached by skip from the C-major chord in m. 18. Rather, Kern
seems to have telescoped two functions (III7 and pre-pre-dominant) into one chord. And the
absence of a resolving A minor chord may have larger formal significance: because mm. 5–12
emphasize dominant-tonic motion so strongly, perhaps Kern thought resolving this applied
dominant to its tonic would belabor the point. In any case, after the ii chord on the downbeat of
m. 20, Kern quickly shifts to V to prepare for the start of the next section. This quickening of
harmonic rhythm at the end of the phrase recalls the end of mm. 13–16. On a larger scale, if we
consider mm. 5–20 a long sentence, then each half of the continuation (mm. 13–20) is a
microcosm of the entire sentence, at least in terms of harmonic interest. In other words, just as
the sentence as a whole moves from stable two-bar harmonic units to shorter, less stable ones, so
do the constituent phrases of its second half. These shifts in harmonic rhythm pull against the
So, the second period has more varied harmonies than the first. The two passages
likewise contrast melodically, for whereas mm. 5–12 are diatonic and full of leaps, mm. 13–20
are chromatic and smooth. Also, the first period ascends while the second descends (expressing a
glumness well-matched by “yesterday’s mashed potatoes”). But the two periods nonetheless
share a salient feature: they combine melodic sequence with non-sequential harmony. As in the
first period, the second period’s two phrases both move from tonic to dominant but have
sequential melodies.
The next fifteen bars form another large sentence that contains an eight-bar period and a
seven-bar period. Musically, this sentence is identical to the first until m. 30, where Kern uses a
bass A instead of an E♭ and replaces the augmented sixth chord with an A7♭9 (Ex. 1b). This
switch from an augmented sixth to an applied V of ii strengthens the arrival on D minor in m. 31.
And since the applied V is in root position (unlike the augmented sixth in m. 14), m. 30 seems to
herald a more settled, more final cadence than did the augmented sixth. Indeed, the harmony
moves (by way of another unresolved major-minor seventh) from D minor in m. 31 to F major
(IV) on the downbeat of m. 32, then to a cadential 6–4 by way of another inverted augmented
sixth (mm. 32–34), and finally lands on a perfect authentic cadence in C on m. 35. This ending
differs from that of the first sentence not only in harmony but also in melody: mm. 32 and 34
constitute a melodic sequence of the motive in mm. 14 and 30—a sequence that “fragments” the
first half of the continuation phrase. Once again, this melodic sequence is not supported by
harmonic sequence.
Like “A Fine Romance,” “The Way You Look Tonight” was written for the 1936 dance
comedy Swing Time18 and showcases Kern’s expressive sequences (Ex. 2). The melody of mm.
7–8 is sequenced upward in mm. 9–10 and again in mm. 11–12. But the sequential motion does
not extend to harmony: the chords that underlie the melodic sequence are IV, ii7 / V7 / I / VI7 / II7
/ V7 (with slashes representing barlines). The sequence leads to a high E deceptively harmonized
with V7 of IV (m. 13), thus allowing Kern to restate (approximately) the sequenced motive once
more in mm. 15–16. This final restatement, as a cadential figure, redeems the failure of the high
E to resolve to tonic. It also shows how the basic unit of the melodic sequence expressed in the
first eight bars finds further expression in a perfect authentic cadence. After the cadence comes a
piano codetta that is itself a melodic sequence; the B♭–C whole step in m. 17 is shifted down
three times over the next three measures. Allen Forte observes that this sequence of dyads
reverses the upward trajectory of mm. 5–12.19 In the final chorus, the cadential sequence returns
in modified form, this time hummed by the singer. As Forte notes, “these final two-note motivic
gestures…imply resolutions, successively, to primary tone B♭1, to apex pitch E♭2, and nadir
pitch +2 E♭1”20—three important pitches in delineating a song’s overall shape and somewhat
akin to a church mode’s reciting tone and final. In this way, Kern helps articulate the song’s form
18
Fordin, Jerome Kern Collection, 157.
19
Forte, American Popular Ballad, 70.
20
Ibid., 73.
21
To Allen Forte, the song’s gripping melodic contour makes up for a certain blandness in rhythm (Forte, Listening
to Classic American Popular Songs [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], 113.) Contrast this with Edward
Jablonski’s avowal that “dancers liked what George [Gershwin] could do with rhythm” from a young age (Jablonski,
George Gershwin, 32).
EXAMPLE 2. “The Way You Look Tonight,” melody and bass line.
Kern’s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (Ex. 3) begins with another short melodic sequence:
he transposes the five-note figure in m. 5 up a fourth in m. 6. The rhythmic pattern of a half note
followed by four eighth notes persists in the next phrase, which descends from the long E♭ on
“true” (m. 7). This consequent phrase is not exactly sequential, but the melodic contours in mm.
8, 9, and 10 are similar. Despite the first period’s homogeneity of rhythm and contour, Kern
creates interest by varying the size of leaps. For instance, the leap on “I knew” (m. 1 to m. 2) is a
sixth, but the one on “was true” (m. 6 to m. 7) is a seventh. And in the next phrase, “something
here” includes a descending seventh and “cannot be” includes a descending octave. The period
ends with an ascending fifth on “denied.” So, like the refrain of “A Fine Romance,” the first
section of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” contains a succession of leaps that first grow and then
diminish. This intervallic symmetry, though imperfect, lends cohesion to the refrain’s first eight
bars.
Two numbers from Show Boat (1927) likewise start with melodic sequences in the voice,
but these sequences descend. For example, in “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” the first two bars of
the refrain are sequenced down a third in the third and fourth bars (Ex. 4). The sequence is not
perfect, as the second iteration ends with a descending fifth where the first statement dropped by
a fourth. Yet this imperfection allows Kern to elide two sequences, for the lyrics “can’t help” in
the next measure are also set to a descending fifth. That is, the second half of the first sequence
becomes the first half of the second sequence. The second sequence has one-bar units as opposed
to the first sequence’s two-bar units; this difference increases the musical momentum as the
phrase progresses. This technique resembles the standard practice of fragmenting a basic idea
into smaller chunks over the course of a musical sentence.22 In the same way, Kern uses
sequences to push his phrase to the cadence, even as the harmonic rhythm remains constant from
mm. 27–31.23
22
Indeed, Michael Callahan analyzes this phrase as a musical sentence whose second basic idea (on the words “love
one man ‘til I die”) has the phrase-structural function of a continuation in order to compensate for the fact that the
lyric is only three lines long instead of the usual four (Callahan, “Sentential Lyric-Types in the Great American
Songbook,” Music Theory Online 19, no. 3 [September 2013]: 31).
23
While the elision of two sequences may not disprove Bordman’s claim that the song is “structurally
unexceptional” (Bordman, Jerome Kern, 290), it does give the melody momentum.
EXAMPLE 4. “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” melody and bass-functional analysis. Lyrics by
In “Ol’ Man River,” the other Show Boat song, sequences appear in the verse but not at
the start of the refrain. The unusually long verse is in ABA form, and its B section (mm. 13–20,
Ex. 5a) comprises a descending melodic sequence with two four-bar modules. The melody fits
the lyrics, which lament the black laborers’ oppression: the use of sequence, whether ascending
or descending, suggests the acts of walking and working, and the sequence’s descent evokes the
workers’ dejection. Despite the melody’s clear directionality, its supporting harmonies are static:
over a G pedal point, Kern oscillates between G minor and C minor harmonies (similar to the
opening of “A Fine Romance,” discussed above). This stasis allows the bridge’s final two
chords—an F minor seventh and a B♭ dominant seventh—to surprise the ear. These chords not
only serve as predominant and dominant in the home key of E♭, they also set the lyric
appropriately. Specifically, the melodic A♭ in m. 20 that enables the Fm7 and B♭7 is just as
shocking as the word it sets—“dead”—because it displaces the bass G and soprano A♭ that have
EXAMPLE 5A. “Ol’ Man River,” melody. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
Another curious aspect of “Ol’ Man River” besides the verse’s length is that the verse’s
bridge is nearly identical to that of the refrain. The return of the tragic melodic sequence in m. 46
again fits the lyric, which shift its gaze from the rolling river to the plight of the river laborers.
As in the verse, the refrain’s bridge lies on a nearly constant G pedal until the retransition to the
A section. But in this case, the melody ends on an F instead of an A♭. Conversely, the bass
moves from A♭ to B♭ rather than from F to B♭. Thus, the melody and accompaniment perform a
long-term voice exchange between the verse’s bridge and the refrain’s bridge (Ex. 5b). This
subtle shift—which does not change harmonic function—makes explicit the displacement of the
low G by the A♭. Despite composer Alec Wilder’s claim that “Ol’ Man River” “is not a complex
song, melodically or harmonically,”24 the tune showcases Kern’s ability to create interest out of
24
Alec Wilder, American Popular Song (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 56.
“All the Things You Are” (1939) likewise reveals Kern’s ability to maintain the listener’s
interest during extended sequential passages (Ex. 6a). The refrain begins with a circle-of-fifths
(descending-second) sequence with two-bar modules. Unlike other sequences we have seen, this
one is harmonic as well as melodic. The first repetition of the module is exact, at least in the
vocal line, but the third module features a leap of a tritone (m. 26) instead of a perfect fourth.
This poignant interval—which does not resolve correctly according to the common practice—not
only highlights the word “winter;” it also adds intrigue in the midst of an otherwise repetitive
(but very beautiful) period. Indeed, as Wilder observes with characteristic imprecision, “That B♮
in the sixth measure is a marvelous twist, but not easy.”25 Zooming out from the first period, we
see that a larger-scale sequence governs the first two A sections as a unit: the period from mm.
29 to 36 is an approximate copy of the first period transposed down a fourth. The refrain’s first
half thus resembles a fractal: the sequence with two-bar units nests inside a sequence with eight-
bar units. The two sequences, however, are not scaled copies of one another; instead, the small-
scale sequence is ruled by descending fifths while the larger one traces two ascending fifths (in
35 (Ex. 6b). Kern uses this inversion to create variety within his sequence-laden stanza. Another
way he creates variety (or rather the same way differently stated) is by breaking the circle-of-
note. After cadencing on a bright C major seventh in. m. 28, Kern lowers the chordal third and
seventh in m. 29 to thrust the music flat-ward and prepare the eventual cadence on G major.
Again, this unexpected chromatic shift not only paints the text—“breathless hush of evening”
being well suited to a dusky minor seventh chord—but also provides musical interest. In short,
the first chorus exhibits Kern’s skillful integration of variety and repetition.
25
Ibid., 78.
a.
EXAMPLE 6A. “All the Things You Are,” reduced accompaniment. Lyrics by Oscar
Hammerstein II.
EXAMPLE 6B. Short- and long-term interval cycles in “All the Things You Are.”
The bridge likewise includes a sequence, but it is only melodic this time. Kern repeats the
melody from mm. 37–39 down a minor third in mm. 41–43. The repetition is inexact; Forte
and the reprise, Kern again executes a dramatic chromatic reinterpretation: the G♯ in m. 43 first
becomes the root of an A♭ augmented triad in m. 44 and finally becomes the third of the F minor
triad in m. 45. The transition from m. 43 to m. 44 inverts the earlier transition from C major to C
minor (mm. 28–29). That is, whereas the earlier shift preserved the bass and lowered the melody
line a half step, this shift preserves the melody note and raises an accompanimental voice a half
step. (This long-term “voice exchange” recalls the F–A♭ trade-off in “Ol’ Man River.”) The
reprise of the A section finally breaks the sequential mold—in mm. 49–50, the voice leaps up a
minor seventh rather than a fourth. The next downbeat leaps down a seventh to E♭, which yields
a compound melody in contrary motion with itself (Ex. 6c): the lower “voice” moves from A♭
(m. 45) to G (m. 47) to F (m. 49) to E♭ (m. 51) to D♭ (m. 53), while the upper voice moves from
D♭ (m. 46) to E♭ (m. 50) to the apex F on the word “are” (m. 54). Thus, “All the Things You
Are” treats sequence as a status quo that must be transcended; when Kern liberates the reprise
In contrast, Gershwin’s use of sequence is often one dramatic step behind Kern’s.27 That
is, Gershwin holds literal repetition to be the status quo and transcends it via sequential
repetition. For example, the refrain of “’S Wonderful” does not indulge in melodic sequence
until the B section. Melodically, the first two periods are extremely repetitive—the motive in
26
Forte, American Popular Ballad, 77.
27
Here, “behind” is not pejorative.
mm. 29–30 appears six times28 and the melody in the first period never strays from an E♭ major
triad. In counterpoint to this melodic monotony, however, the piano part has an ascending
sequence (Ex. 7a). Specifically, from m. 29 to m. 33, the “tenor” voice in the accompaniment
moves from a B♭–C dyad to C–C♯ and finally to C–D. At the same time, the left hand traces a
rising line from E to E♭ to F. This harmonic sequence is inexact because the other voices do not
change the same way, but it is still a harmonic sequence because it involves two
accompanimental voices. Thus, Gershwin creates a delicious tension between static melody and
surging harmony in the first six bars of the refrain. Gershwin repeats the process in the next
period, whose melody ends on C—the highest melodic note so far and the first not to belong to
In the bridge, Gershwin hints at, but does not unambiguously state, a descending melodic
sequence: the motive on “glamorous” (mm. 47–48), the rhythm of which matches that of the
titular motive, is repeated a step lower on “amorous” (mm. 51–52) But the two bars (mm. 49–50)
between those two iterations obscure the sequence because they merely repeat the D♮’s found in
mm. 45–46 instead of sequencing them down a step. In the final A section, however, a true
melodic sequence takes hold; the “’s wonderful!” motive in mm. 53–54 rises a perfect fourth in
mm. 55–56 (Ex. 7b). At the same time, the harmonic sequence suggested in the first two A
28
These reiterations exemplify the “musematic repetition” that Richard Middleton finds in many Tin Pan Alley
songs (Middleton, “‘Play It Again Sam’”: 248).
sections is absent in the last. This replacement of a harmonic sequence with a melodic one
suggests a musico-dramatic teleology: the bridge “influences” the reprise, not only via the high
E♭ that occurs in mm. 44 and 55, but also by opening the A section to the possibility of melodic
sequence. In this way, the reprise breaks free from the first period’s constrained melody.
Whether Gershwin was conscious of this dynamic is unknown,29 but the melodic change
nonetheless effectively depicts the speaker’s increasing rapture and lends a unifying, goal-
The Gershwins’ “Embraceable You” (Ex. 8) from Girl Crazy (1930) juxtaposes melodic
sequence with the shifting harmonic motion also found in “’S Wonderful.” First, consider the
song’s melodic sequences. The second four-bar phrase (mm. 27–30) of the refrain shifts the
melody of the first phrase up a fourth, perhaps conveying the rhetorical intensity suggested by
harmonic one, despite the seeming difference in function between the C♯ diminished seventh (m.
24) and the F dominant seventh (m. 28). In fact, one could add a bass A♭ to the former chord to
turn it into a dominant ♭9 with no change in function. One could also perform a tritone
29
Gershwin’s intention is in any case irrelevant to the present discussion. His speed of song composition was
legendary (e.g. John Jones, Reinventing Dixie: Tin Pan Alley’s Songs and the Creation of the Mythic South [Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015], 159) and would not have left him much time for conscious music-
theoretical reflection.
30
Forte, Listening, 76.
substitution on the F7 to turn it into a B7♭9. With these changes in place, the relation between the
two chords in mm. 23 and 24 (G and A7) is identical to the relation between the downbeat chords
in mm. 27 and 28 (A and B7). By avoiding this harmonic repetition, however, Gershwin allows
the F7 to act as a chromatic passing chord to the dominant D7 in the second half of the bar.31
Besides featuring a melodic sequence, the refrain of “Embraceable You” also combines
melodic stasis with shifting harmony. The first period’s basic idea—the ascending trichord in m.
23—is repeated exactly in m. 24, but the harmony changes from G major to a C♯ diminished
seventh. A similar shift happens in mm. 27–28. As in “’S Wonderful,” harmonic motion beneath
melodic sameness creates a tension that is later released in melodic sequence. The scale on which
this happens in “Embraceable You” is smaller, to be sure, but the two songs nevertheless exhibit
Gershwin’s use of sequence not only reveals neat musical structures; it also showcases
his brother’s skill at fitting words to music. In the ballad “Maybe” (Ex. 9), Gershwin again
reserves melodic sequence for after the refrain’s opening. The refrain includes two double
31
Forte, American Popular Ballad, 164. Incidentally, this procedure reverses that of the verse, in which mm. 5–6
copy the melody of mm. 3–4 down a fourth.
parallel periods, the first going from m. 21 to m. 36 and the second from m. 37 to the song’s end.
This parallelism, both between the two double periods and between the antecedent and
consequent in each, complements the ambivalence of the lyrics: whether love will be found
remains in the balance. In fact, the parallelism also extends to a third musical level—the first
phrase, “Soon or late, maybe,” ascends, while the second phrase, “If you wait, maybe,” returns to
the low C and thereby negates the first phrase’s optimism. Although the two phrases have the
same rhythm, they do not constitute a melodic sequence because they have opposite contours. A
sequence does appear, however, in the consequent to the first double period. The melody in mm.
33–34 is approximately repeated in mm. 35–36. Like the sequence in the bridge of “’S
Wonderful,” this one is inexact, but it still provides a sense of musical direction absent from the
refrain’s first eight bars. Accordingly, mm. 33–36 are the first four bars in which the word
“maybe” does not appear. Here, Ira uses his brother’s melodic change to effect a change in tone
After the close of the double parallel period, one would expect a bridge section. In the
bridge, the music might abandon the stasis of the first two A sections and prepare the listener for
a transformation in the final chorus, perhaps a change like that in the last A section of “’S
Wonderful.” But in “Maybe,” George abjures a bridge and simply reprises the exposition in the
manner of a Rossini overture. (And like Rossini, he adjusts the final section in order to cadence
on tonic.) In other words, the oscillating yet static contrary motion returns, with “maybe”
replaced by “yoo-hoo.” The last four bars of the vocal line are almost a descending sequence, yet
their effect is not to propel but to balance both the near-sequence in mm. 33–36 and the
ascending line in mm. 45–47. Throughout the refrain, Ira expresses this sense of balance in at
least three ways. First, he ends successive lines with the same word (“maybe” or “yoo-hoo”).
Second, he creates a verbal parallel between mm. 49 and 50. Finally, he sets the ascending line in
mm. 45–47 to the ecstatic “Paradise will open its gate” and sets the answering phrase to the more
subdued “Maybe soon, Maybe late.” The song ends ambivalently, or perhaps on a slightly
dejected note that recalls the verse’s opening lament of “today is a blue day.” Thus, in “Maybe,”
Ira exploits George’s use of sequential and static melody for lyrical effect.
The refrain of “I Got Rhythm” from Girl Crazy opens with a four-bar melodic arch
similar to the first eight bars of the refrain of “Maybe” (Ex. 10a). The pitches on “I got music”
(mm. 31–32) are the exact reverse of those on the title phrase (mm. 29–30). They form set class
(0257), a pentatonic subset from which Gershwin’s teacher Joseph Schillinger would later derive
several symmetrical scales.32 In m. 33, a second arch begins, but the last two bars of the period
break the pattern (“Who could ask for anything more?”). Beneath this melodically conservative
period, the harmonies move three times through the standard phrase model: tonic—
32
Steven Gilbert, “Gershwin’s Art of Counterpoint,” The Musical Quarterly 70, no. 4 (Autumn 1984): 433–434.
the second half of the third beats of mm. 29, 31, 33, and 35 (the last of which is a modally-mixed
E♭ minor triad that harmonizes E♭, the highest melodic pitch yet). Finally, the refrain’s second
period repeats verbatim the first. In short, the syncopated rhythm is by far the most creative
aspect of the refrain’s first half.33 No surprise, then, that Ira Gershwin chose the lyric he did.
In the bridge (Ex. 10b), George exhibits his now-familiar technique of using sequence to
release tension accumulated in the chorus. The bridge opens with an abrupt tonicization of G
major beneath the song’s new apex, E♭ (mm. 45–47). This harmonic and registral shift is by
itself enough to disrupt the previous section’s monotony, but Gershwin adds further interest by
33
Ethel Merman affectionately called this song’s melody a “big tooty thing” (Ean Wood, George Gershwin: His
Life and Music [London: Sanctuary Publishing, 1996], 162).
sequencing the melody in mm. 45–48 down a whole step in mm. 49–52. The sequence is almost
harmonic as well as melodic, but the G♭ in the bass in m. 51 defers the F chord to m. 52. If mm.
49–52 imitated the progression in mm. 45–48 exactly, the F chord would first appear in m. 51. In
fact, the sequence’s melody is shifted “to the right” just like its harmony: whereas m. 48 contains
a descending fifth on “mind him,” m. 52 rests on a whole-note C. For the sequence’s second
module, the descending fifth is delayed such that it coincides with the start of the reprise on F
(m. 53). In this way, Gershwin uses sequence to elide the bridge with the third A section—an
elision that contrasts with and redeems the sharp boundary between the second A section and the
bridge.
In short, whereas Kern tends to open his refrains with sequences, Gershwin tends to save
sequences for bridge sections.34 Also, Gershwin sometimes uses sequence to link the bridge to
the reprise of the A section, either directly (as in “I Got Rhythm”) or indirectly (as in “’S
Wonderful”). The variety with which Gershwin and Kern deploy sequence belies Isaac
Goldberg’s 1930 critique of Tin Pan Alley music as a “product of robots, by robots and for
robots.”35 Rather, their melodic and harmonic constructions reinforce lyrics and give songs
The foregoing comparison of Gershwin and Kern in the realm of musical sequence helps
explain some critics’ receptions of the two artists. While Kern’s tunes have been characterized as
European in their soaring quality,36 Gershwin’s are seen as more abrasive. For example, the
qualitative differences between Gershwin and Kern enumerated in Alec Wilder’s American
Popular Song paint Gershwin in a relatively poor light. In his introduction, Wilder says
Gershwin’s tunes were “the hard sell, as opposed to the softer, gentler persuasiveness of, say,
Kern.”37 He goes on to express preference for Gershwin’s more introverted, Kern-like melodies
and ends the chapter by apologizing for his mixed reception of Gershwin: “however excitingly
native [Gershwin’s] writing may have been, I feel that there was a scrim—a vaguely transparent
theater curtain—between him and what he sought musically.”38 In the context of Wilder’s
34
See Callahan, “Sentential Lyric-Types,” 31, who counts sentential phrases in Gershwin and Kern songs and finds
that Gershwin uses sentences more often than Kern. The short-short-long pattern of the musical sentence, in which
the continuation often acts as a “release” of the presentation’s material, may be analogous to Gershwin’s use of
sequence to release tension created by exact repetition.
35
Quoted in Keir Keightly, “Taking Popular Music (and Tin Pan Alley and Jazz) Seriously” in Journal of Popular
Music Studies vol. 22, no. 1 (January 2010): 94.
36
Zinsser, Easy to Remember, 17. In a model syllabus for teaching Tin Pan Alley songs to singers, Paul Christman
puts Kern (with his “lyric melodies”) one unit after Gershwin (with his “infectious rhythms”), perhaps because
Kern’s songs are more difficult for the singer (Christman, “Tin Pan Alley Repertoire: A Practical Guide for Study,”
Journal of Singing 63, no. 2 [November 2006]: 201–203).
37
Wilder, American Popular Song, 122. Cf. Ulf Lindberg, “Popular Modernism? The ‘Urban’ Style of Interwar Tin
Pan Alley,” Popular Music 22, no. 3 (January 2003): 283–298, who reads Tin Pan Alley lyrics as expressing a
“cool,” urban attitude toward romance.
38
Wilder, American Popular Song, 161.
analyses of individual songs, this cryptic remark suggests he finds Gershwin’s work too
deliberately complex, especially in its harmonies. And as far as melody goes, Wilder lambasts
both “Maybe” and “’S Wonderful” for dullness and comments more than once on Gershwin’s
penchant for repeated notes.39 My analysis shows that the criticisms Wilder levels may be
understood in terms of Gershwin and Kern’s differing treatments of sequence: while Kern more
readily indulges in melodic sequence over static harmony, Gershwin prefers to repeat melodic
motives exactly.40 But as we have seen, Gershwin often uses sequence effectively, if not as
frequently as Kern. For example, although Wilder compliments Gershwin’s harmonic sequence
at the end of “Things Are Looking Up,”41 he fails to appreciate Gershwin’s dramatic use of
melodic sequence in bridges to release tension caused by earlier melodic repetition.42 Instead,
Wilder gravitates toward the instant gratification derived from Kern’s “pure, uncontrived
melodic line.”43 Musicologist Bruce Bawer echoes this sentiment, claiming that while “Gershwin
was a genius,” some of his songs have a “hard edge and whiff of artifice” absent from Kern’s.44
While the criticism is surely directed in part at Gershwin’s driving, syncopated rhythms, it could
just as easily refer to his penchants for literal repetition of motives and intricate harmonic
motion. Kern, on the other hand, is happy simply to alternate tonic with dominant beneath a
39
Ibid., 139, 140, and 149. See also Zinsser, Easy to Remember, 26.
40
Wilder’s characterizations of style in Gershwin and Kern are almost certainly complex responses to both top-
voice melodies and the surging, “harmonic” inner-voice lines of which Gershwin was fond. Allan Moore posits that
in popular music the “harmonic filler layer” greatly contributes to the listener’s perception of musical style (Moore,
Song Means, 21).
41
Wilder, American Popular Song, 160.
42
See Nicholas Tawa on the bridge of “’S Wonderful,” in which the C in m. 40 and the D on “made” release the
tension built up by the A section’s confinement to the pitch classes B , G, and E (Tawa, Supremely American:
Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America [Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow
Press, 2005], 51). As discussed above, the bridge in this song is not exactly sequential but nonetheless powerfully
wrenches the melody out of a zone of stasis.
43
Wilder, American Popular Song, 29. See also Edward Pessen, “The Great Songwriters of Tin Pan Alley’s Golden
Age: A Social, Occupational, and Aesthetic Inquiry,” American Music 3, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 90.
44
Bruce Bawer, “Solid Gold,” The Hudson Review 58, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 438–439. In a more positive light,
Nicholas Tawa, writing on influences of jazz in Gershwin’s songs, praises “strong and firm offerings” like
“Fascinating Rhythm” (Tawa, Supremely American, 12). In contrast, see his characterization of Kern’s ballads as
“sedate” (Ibid., 93).
soaring melody, as in “A Fine Romance.”45 Again, though, this comparison does not negate
Gershwin’s melodic skill; in fact, his ability to save sequences until climaxes lends his songs
dramatic force.
I have shown that Kern used more melodic sequences than Gershwin. Close reading of
individual songs has revealed that Gershwin’s uses of sequence to heighten drama differ from
Kern’s. Finally, I have placed my conclusions in the context of one stream of Gershwin
reception. Further research should encompass all songs by the two composers, not just their most
famous. This line of inquiry would show whether the number of sequences in a song correlates
with the song’s popularity. One should also examine how Gershwin and Kern’s sequences
differ—if at all—from those in songs by other Tin Pan Alley composers like Cole Porter,
Richard Rodgers, and Irving Berlin. Such investigation would bring us closer to delineating the
GERSHWIN – date – abbreviated show title Only M seq M+H seq Total M seq
Swanee 1919 CR 1 0 1
Do It Again 1922 FD 1 0 1
45
Charles Hamm argues for Kern’s melodic mastery and ability to “create tunes that progress, move, rise to peaks,
and descend from those so naturally and effectively that his technique, mastered over so many years of
apprenticeship, passes unnoticed” (Hamm, Yesterdays, 345). Simplicity of the underlying harmonic progression may
enhance the sense of a melody’s “natural and effective” contour.
Maybe 1926 OK 1 0 1
S Wonderful 1927 FF 1 0 1
Rosalie 1928 R 1 1 2
SWD 0 0 0
TOTAL: 50
TABLE 1. First column: Gershwin songs. Second column: number of melodic, non-harmonic
sequences. Third column: number of melodic, harmonic sequences. Fourth column: total melodic
sequences.
KERN – date – abbreviated show title Only M seq M+H seq Total M seq
Cleopatterer 1917 SS 2 0 2
Whip-Poor-Will 1920 Sa 1 0 1
Sunny 1925 Su 2 0 2
Who? 1925 Su 0 0 0
Bill 1927 SB 1 0 1
Yesterdays 1933 R 0 1 1
TOTAL: 69
TABLE 2. First column: Kern songs. Second column: number of melodic, non-harmonic
sequences. Third column: number of melodic, harmonic sequences. Fourth column: total melodic
sequences.
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ABSTRACT
Melodic sequences can create musical unity, enhance extra-musical drama, and make a piece
memorable. In constructing their popular songs for Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin and
Kern both employed melodic sequences, but did so in mutually differing ways. This article opens
with a broad-brushed comparison between the composers’ most popular songs and finds that
Kern had a greater predilection for sequences than did Gershwin. Next, I closely analyze several
songs by each composer in order to specify differences between the two songsmiths’ approaches
to sequence. It is determined that Gershwin often reserves melodic sequence for musical
climaxes, whereas Kern tends to open his songs with sequences. Finally, the article’s findings are
used to critique a strand of Gershwin reception that views his songs as dry or academic.
Maxwell Ramage, “Do It Again: Sequences in Gershwin and Kern’s Popular Songs,” Gamut 7/1
(2014): 89–123.
Maxwell Ramage is a composer, violinist, and theorist from Durham, North Carolina. His new
musical Swann's Love will be staged by New Voices Opera in Indiana in Spring 2016.