a (vi) over d (ii) comes as a surprise to me. I notice a lot of jam players will substitute II or II7 for ii but I thought this work was based on tabs. I didn't think the relative minor was all that common in pop music.
I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
111–120 of 191 posts
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#112Nice post, I'm looking forward for the next one. Meanwhile I'll give my 2 cents. The main problem in analyzing tonal music is that we mainly listen to relations between chords. For instance, in the following progression in C major, A major functions as a dominant of D (D is the dominant of G and G is the dominant of C): C A D G C. OTOH, in the following progression the same A is the subdominant of E: E A B E. This me…
Doesn't he allow for this by normalising all songs to the key of C before doing the analysis?
The grandparent is talking about modulation within a song. Unless they normalized each section of each song to C without saying so, modulation is still an issue. For instance (though I greatly doubt it's on their list) Jethro Tull's "The Whistler" has one key for the verse, a different one for the chorus, and yet another for the whistle solo...
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#113This is a good start, I'd be more interested if these chord patterns were compared against a database of UNpopular songs to see if the what sort of differences in chord distribution correlated with popular songs (although where you'd find that, I do not know). It's difficult to understand what this really quantifies - all the "2nd chord" distribution suggests to me at this point is that there's a large difference between actually playing music vs a random sequence of chords. It's good that you're recapitulating that at least, but not really a striking observation.
Regardless, I will be keeping tabs on this. Hah, totally didn't intend that pun.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#114I'm amused by the fact that this person doesn't seem to know that chords per se - and the analysis of them - is practically useless because they can and actually do vary from version to version of the same song. The thing that matters is how the chords are related (modes and progressions).
I don't know -- I still thought it was interesting. The author could have spent all kinds of time trying to figure out if certain chords were functioning as substitute dominants and all of that, but then the article would have been so musically technical so as not to appeal to anyone who doesn't have a fairly high-level music theory background.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#115What I'd like to see is a plot of the number of chords used in a song versus time. Possibly even broken down by genre, or correlated to other qualities (sex of singer) et cetera. If you start at the 1950s, you'll see very simple rock songs; your classic three-chord rock songs. As you hit the 1960s you'll see more complexity; The Beatles, for instance, had more harmonic complexity than what had come before, which cont…
that song (dunno who it's by) with the lyrics "We found love in a hopeless place" It's by Rihanna, and I can't even understand how it got released. It's like something that got rejected from how-to-make-techno.tumblr.com for being too basic.
That's surprising, given that the only other Rihanna song I know ("Umbrella") is... well, it's a bit annoying, but it's got significantly more going on musically.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#116relevant and funny:
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#117Reason: It's easier to play these chords on a 6 string guitar, which has been the dominant instrument of choice for pop song composers. The first C chord on a guitar is easy to hit with no finger twisting required. It's also easy to switch between the first C, Am, and G chord, you can even do it quickly and repeatedly while drunk as you can imagine many pop songs are written. The first F chord requires a little more…
I'm going to have to disagree with you pretty strongly. F is just about the most difficult basic chord to play. In fact, besides B flat, it's the only one on the graph that requires four fingers (or a barre). Similarly, A minor is much easier to play than C, yet it is far less common. The popularity of C and Em as keys is undoubtedly a result of what's easy to play on a standard guitar with no capo, but I see no corr…
Playing an F requires neither 4 fingers or a barre; a chord only requires 3 notes. Playing an F with 4 fingers is playing the root note twice, you can drop the high F (the hard one) and you're still playing a full F chord. The full barre has the root note in the chord 3 times, only one is necessary.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
A simpler explanation is simply the changing market and distribution. It was really only in the last two hundred years that composers could support themselves by selling their music rather than relying on patronage, with Beethoven being the first to do so. Cheap recordings and broadcasting have changed the game entirely. You might not be able to name a single popular singer of the 19th century, but that's not because…
Are you comparing John Williams to Bach and Beethoven? Williams is a very skilled film composer who's great at borrowing ideas from better composers and reshaping them for film. But his music is very unoriginal on its own.
His point was that there is still complex music being composed in the "classical" tradition, outside of pop, regardless of its actual merits or popularity.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#119What I'd like to see is a plot of the number of chords used in a song versus time. Possibly even broken down by genre, or correlated to other qualities (sex of singer) et cetera. If you start at the 1950s, you'll see very simple rock songs; your classic three-chord rock songs. As you hit the 1960s you'll see more complexity; The Beatles, for instance, had more harmonic complexity than what had come before, which cont…
that song (dunno who it's by) with the lyrics "We found love in a hopeless place" It's by Rihanna, and I can't even understand how it got released. It's like something that got rejected from how-to-make-techno.tumblr.com for being too basic.
Its incredibly repetitive pop drivel. I wonder if teens have a higher tolerance for repetition than adults. They seem the only demographic with any affinity for this type of stuff.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#120I'm not crazy about this analysis, but the basic tool (http://www.hooktheory.com/) is pretty awesome. Props for including MIDI and sheet music exports.
Edit: signup gave me an error 500, though.