VII. Popular Music
Fragile, Absent, and Emergent Tonics
Megan Lavengood
Key Takeaways
- Most songs have a clear tonic.
- Tonal ambiguity arises when there is not enough information to confidently assign a tonic chord.
- Tonal ambiguity occurs in pop songs in one of three ways:
- Fragile tonic: the tonic chord is used in the song but is weakened through inversion or another similar technique.
- Emergent tonic: the tonic chord is withheld until a triumphant moment, such as the chorus.
- Absent tonic: the tonic chord is implied through melodic and harmonic conventions, yet never explicitly stated.
Although many pop songs are harmonically simple, using only a handful of chords in root position, this simplicity can sometimes lead to tonal ambiguity. One way that tonal ambiguity is created is through de-emphasizing the tonic chord. According to pop theorist Mark Spicer (2017), whose work is the basis of this chapter, much tonal ambiguity in pop music occurs through one of three techniques: fragile, absent, and emergent tonics.
Fragile tonic
The fragile tonic technique is one in which the tonic chord is used in the song, but is weakened through inversion or another similar technique. Fragile tonics can be found in music by artists who seem to have composed at the piano, as in Sufjan Stevens’s “Oh God Where Are You Now” (2003). The tonic chord, G♭, is most often in first inversion; it only appears in root position as an incomplete passing chord in the midst of a contrapuntal series of parallel tenths in the C phrase (Example 1). Otherwise, first-inversion E♭ minor chords are found where tonic chords may otherwise be expected.
Example 1. “Oh God Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)” by Sufjan Stevens uses a fragile tonic.
Fragile tonics usually connect to a theme in the lyrics of loneliness, vulnerability, and sensitivity. The Sufjan Stevens song in Example 1 follows this principle: the narrator in the lyrics seems to be desperate for comfort from God, and thus in a vulnerable state. Another example of a song that uses a fragile tonic to emphasize vulnerability is Elton John, “Somebody Saved My Life Tonight” (1975) (see Spicer 2017).
Emergent Tonics
Songs with emergent tonics withhold the tonic chord until a triumphant moment, such as the chorus. The song will begin by using other chords, especially the relative major/minor, some of which may sound like tonic at first; but later in the song, the true tonic is revealed to be another chord that either did not sound like tonic initially or was not present at all.
Emergent tonics often accompany lyrical themes of triumph and overcoming, and this is just what happens in “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen. Listen to the song while following the form chart below (Example 2), which explains how the tonic emerges. The emergent tonic here emphasizes the theme of Elsa overcoming her self-doubt and owning her identity.
[table “7” not found /]
Example 2. Form chart of “Let It Go.”
You could also understand this song as using a different key for each section—F aeolian for the verses, E♭ mixolydian for the prechoruses, and A♭ major for the choruses. This is certainly what seems to be going on when first listening to the intro and prechorus.
While that is a perfectly acceptable analysis, notice how analyzing this song as belonging entirely to A♭ major allows for a nice narrative parallel between the chord progression and the lyrics: In the first verse, Elsa (the singer) begins the song describing a bleak, cold night, accompanied in the harmony by chords that emphasize the vi chord instead of tonic. In the prechorus, as Elsa wrestles with a choice between pleasing society (“be the good girl”) or letting it go, she is accompanied by repeating IV and V chords increasingly demanding a resolution. Right when Elsa makes up her mind—she decides to “let it go”—A♭ major, the tonic, finally brings resolution to the oscillation between IV and V in the prechorus, underscoring Elsa’s inner transformation.
Another example of an emergent tonic is “Little Red Corvette” by Prince (1982), which seems to be in B♭ minor until D♭ emerges as the true tonic chord in the chorus (see Spicer 2017).
Absent Tonics
The most extreme manipulation of our sense of tonic occurs when a song has an absent tonic. An absent tonic never actually materializes as a heard harmony in the song, but instead is established only melodically and by using familiar harmonic progressions that do not involve the tonic.
“Last Friday Night” by Katy Perry (2012) is an example of a song with an absent tonic. The progression is very conventional—IV–ii–vi–V—but I never sounds. The melody, as can be seen in Example 3, strongly outlines F♯ major in the chorus, with repeated descending 
(mi–re–do) lines. This melody, combined with the familiarity of the chord progression, allows F♯ to sound like tonic even when it never occurs in the accompaniment.
Example 3. The chorus of “Last Friday Night” by Katy Perry.
As with fragile and emergent tonics, absent tonics can also be interpreted as representations of lyrical themes. In the case of “Last Friday Night,” the absent tonic may depict the disconnect between constant partying and a need to function in the real world.
- Spicer, Mark. 2017. “Fragile, Emergent, and Absent Tonics in Pop and Rock Songs.” Music Theory Online 23 (2). http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.17.23.2/mto.17.23.2.spicer.html
- Coming soon!
The tonic chord is present, but weakened. Usually, the weakening comes from using the tonic chord in inversion, or otherwise from placing the tonic chord in a metrically unstable mid-phrase position (versus a more typical usage where the tonic is a stable point of arrival or departure).
A tonic that is initially absent for the first sections of a song, but arrives later on (often in the chorus). Often tied to lyrical themes of attained triumph, self-confidence, or clarity.
Occurs when the tonic is never actually sounded as a harmony during the song, but is still implied through the melody or through the use of conventional harmonic progressions.
A property of certain chord progressions, where the progression does not inherently imply a single chord as the tonic chord.
A core section of a popular song that is lyric-invariant and contains the primary lyrical material of the song. Chorus function is also typified by heightened musical intensity relative to the verse. Chorus sections are distinct from refrains, which are contained within a section.
When two keys/scales share the same pitches.
A diatonic mode that follows the pattern W–H–W–W–H–W–W. This is like the natural minor scale. This scale can also be found by playing the white notes of the piano starting on A.
A diatonic mode that follows the pattern W–W–H–W–W–H–W. This is like the major scale, but with a lowered 7̂. This scale can also be found by playing the white notes of the piano starting on G.
