Fixing a hole in the scale: suppressed notes in the Beatles' songs

Abstract

A suppressed note is one that is consistently left out of the collection of pitch classes (different musical notes) in a musical piece and later appears with considerable emphasis. The Beatles frequently use the technique of suppressed notes, due to their tendency to compose pentatonic melodies, which leave ‘holes’ in the diatonic scale. These holes are usually filled in later in the song, when the pentatonicism is broken. The suppressed note then attracts special attention, both because it is a new note that the melody had previously avoided and because it appears at a peak moment, which is shaped by other parameters as well (e.g. as a melodic peak in a metrically accented position) and is connected to a textual turning point. The paper peeks at the Beatles' repertoire through the keyhole of the suppressed note.

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