![\"Cover](\"cover_art.jpg\"\n)
\n “Monday Morning Quarterbacks” is the penultimate track from Off\nMinor’s (one of two major bands formed in the wake\nof Saetia’s demise, the other being Hot\nCross) debut full-length. It is effectively the ultimate\ntrack, as the following track is a brief solo guitar rendition of Monk’s\n“Off Minor”, entirely different from the full-band\nskramz of the rest of the album.
\n\n\n | artist | \n\n Off Minor\n | \n|
|---|---|---|
| title | \nMonday Morning Quarterbacks | \n|
| album | \nThe Heat Death of the Universe | \n|
| year | \n\n 2002\n | \n|
| duration | \n\n 2:56\n | \n|
| genres | \n\n skramz, \n jazz punk, \n math rock, \n post-hardcore\n | \n|
| label(s) | \n\n Clean Plate Records, EarthWaterSky Connection\n | \n|
| instrumentation | \nunclean vocals | \nJamie Behar, Steven Roche | \n
| electric guitar | \nJamie Behar | \n|
| electric bass guitar | \nKevin Roche | \n|
| drumkit | \nSteven Roche | \n|
This tune is not quite monothematic, strictly speaking, but is nevertheless\nin a broadly theme-and-variations form. The first two bars set the theme; here\nis a rough transcription of those two bars, with repeat signs showing how it is\nrepeated:
\n![\"Rough](\"sheet-0.svg\")
\n \n Lilypond source |\n MIDI rendering\n
\nThe first thing that stands out here is the choice of meter: I’ve written\n\n11\n
\n4\n because this represents the pulse that is felt and\nthe unit of repetition, although arguably \n11\n
\n4\n is more of\na hypermeter here that should “actually” be \n3+3+3+2\n
\n4\n. Regardless, there is a clear 3-against-2 feel\ndue to the dotted quarter notes overlapping the quarter note pulse for the\nfirst 9 pulses of each measure, i.e. a \n3+3+3+3+3+3+4\n
\n8\n\nfeel. The pace is fairly swift, at circa 185 pulses per minute, so a bar of \n11\n
\n4\n is not terribly long.
Also of note is the orchestration here. The ensemble itself is typical of rock\nmusic in general: the classic power\ntrio. But the way that the power\ntrio is used here is unusual (although characteristic of Off Minor as a band).\nThe bass is here at the forefront of the arrangement alongside the guitar, and\nthe two weave together their own melodies while the drums play a groove that\nboth reinforces the rhythms of the bass and guitar (with the more-or-less \n6\n
\n8\n feel in the snare and kick drum) and also plays against\nit (with the straight quarter notes in the hi-hats). This particular theme as\nit is played here is vaguely a call-and-response, with the bass going into its\nvery high register (hence the use of 8va in the\ntranscription) to respond to the chord-melody of the guitar.
From here we will take a look at a traditional decomposition of this theme into\n“harmony” and “melody”.
\nWhat follows is a reduction of the theme as transcribed above:
\n![\"Reduction](\"sheet-1.svg\")
\n \n Lilypond source |\n MIDI rendering\n
\nThe first harmonic region here is pretty obviously some kind of A minor chord;\nhere it is labelled as \nAm7 because\nthe G natural is played prominently in the bass guitar part.
\nThe second harmonic region is a little bit trickier, as the only obvious part\nis that B♭ is in the bass. Arguably, this simple and traditional kind\nof chord-based analysis fails us here, but we can still get some insight from\nit. One could try to analyze this harmonic region as a \nGm13/B♭, or even as some\nkind of B♭ power chord with an added ♯4 and a 6? But here we\nhave chosen \nE⚬/B♭, for two reasons. One is that playing a\nstraight-ahead \nE⚬ over the\nreduction melody seems to sound the most similar to the original. The other\n— perhaps more important — reason is that it makes this into\nessentially a \nI – V – I\n progression. The \nAm7 functions as a rootless \nF▵7/A chord (or rather,\nrootless \nF▵9/A), the tonic\nchord of F major. The \nE⚬ is the\n\nvii⚬\n of F major, functioning in the same way\nas a (again, rootless) \nC7, the \nV7\n of F major.
\nAmong many other things, this use of what are (virtually) rootless chords could\nbe a contributing factor to why Off Minor often gets the “jazz\npunk” label attached to them, considering that jazz places such an\nemphasis on the 3rd and 7th factors (as well as\nextensions) of chords that it draws away from the root’s importance.
\n", "permalink": "https://eartifacts.gitlab.io/museum/off-minor-monday-morning-quarterbacks/", "slug": "off-minor-monday-morning-quarterbacks", "ancestors": [ "_index.md", "museum/_index.md" ], "title": "Off Minor – “Monday Morning Quarterbacks”", "description": null, "date": null, "year": null, "month": null, "day": null, "taxonomies": { "artists": [ "Off Minor" ], "labels": [ "Clean Plate Records", "EarthWaterSky Connection" ], "genres": [ "skramz", "jazz punk", "math rock", "post-hardcore", "post-punk" ], "tags": [ "vocals", "unclean vocals", "guitar", "electric guitar", "bass guitar", "electric bass guitar", "drumkit", "odd time signatures", "power trio" ], "years": [ "2002" ] }, "extra": {}, "path": "museum/off-minor-monday-morning-quarterbacks/", "components": [ "museum", "off-minor-monday-morning-quarterbacks" ], "summary": "“Monday Morning Quarterbacks” is the penultimate track from Off\nMinor’s (one of two major bands formed in the wake\nof Saetia’s demise, the other being Hot\nCross) debut full-length. It is effectively the ultimate\ntrack, as the following track is a brief solo guitar rendition of Monk’s\n“Off Minor”, entirely different from the full-band\nskramz of the rest of the album.
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