[edited]
How could a song performed by a pop-artist share commonalities with a holy Jewish prayer melody?
A couple weeks ago I was accompanying Yom Kippur services at Temple and for one of the preludes I played "Kol Nidre" which is a standard tune used at this service. It utilizes the chord progression: i --> V4/3. Note that the 5th of the chord is in the bass. This is invoked in me, and would in most listeners, a sense of tension as the bass tone does not immediately resolve and is rather unstable. We anticipate an immediate resolution due to the tension caused by such a seventh chord but we do not get it right away.
A little while after the service, I was watching a GLEE episode featuring Britney Spears. I wasn't thinking at all about the service I had played at earlier until Rachel started singing "Baby, One More Time." After GLEE's faithful rendition of this hit track, something sparked in my head, I wasn't sure what, but it was something important, so I went online to listen to the song again. I then realized I felt unsettled as I did during Kol Nidre. But wait, these two pieces are totally different! Why would I make this connection? After analyzing the first couple bars of "Baby One More Time" I realized the chorus uses a seventh in a similar way: the i to V6/5. This time the leading tone is in the bass of the chord instead. However, just like in Kol Nidre, the seventh chord is used in a way that it dangles unstably instead of comfortably resolving right away to minor tonic as any listener would anticipate,whether he/she was conscious of this or not.
Later I plan to look more closely at chord progressions and how other chord progressions affect emotion. It is so interesting that two totally different songs can evoke a similar emotional response just based on the way they treat chords!
(credit to my conductor and teacher for helping me with this post!)
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