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I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

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Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#131

Post by cnanders »

fferen wrote: post #126

When I was young and learning music theory in piano lessons, one day I realized that literally half the songs on the radio used the chord progression "I V vi IV". This was a huge revelation to me! To my dismay, I couldn't find any evidence on the internet that anyone else had noticed this, until very recently I saw the "Four Chord Song" by Axis of Awesome ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I ). I was hoping t…

Hi fferen, I V iv V is indeed a super popular progression. You can see an example of it here: http://www.hooktheory.com/analysis/view/james-blunt/youre-be.... One cool thing about the way we store music (using relative notation) is that we can compare any two songs to see how similar they are harmonically. For example, there are several "similar songs" shown below the I V vi IV example in the link that all use the same progression in different keys.

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#132

Post by madhadron »

planetguy wrote: post #25

What 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…

Harmonic sophistication is a...fraught term. There were jazz musicians who developed a style based on 1 chord, but it needn't be harmonically simple. Ever tried riffing off a humming appliance? It's really fun. I used to do it while waiting for my laundry, since the washers all hummed at the same pitch. When it's you and a fixed tone, your harmonic palette starts opening up in wild ways. Microtones creep in, and new decoration schemes.

You also have to be careful because Bach and Purcell didn't think in terms of our modern harmonic structure. They worked in voicing and figured base, which produces similar, but not identical, results. Go back a little farther, and it's all voicing. Palestrina in in some ways closer to Schoenberg than Haydn.

As for the breakdown of harmony in art music, not so much. Serialism got all the academic and theoretical attention, and many mediocre composers with a theoretical bent worked in it, and a few great composers like Stravinsky and Shostakovitch, but it's hardly all the art music that was being composed. Many composers got through their whole careers without any particular use of it, such as Walter Piston. What that has to do with rock and roll is a mystery to me, since it's an offshoot of jazz, which is alive and well and still serving as a wellspring for new music.

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#134

Post by zopa »

Darmani wrote: post #75
planetguy wrote: post #25

What 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…

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…

Agree with your thesis, but John Williams is the wrong guy for your point. He's a popular composer too, in his own way.

You could point to the Neo-Classicists -- although Prokofiev's dead, of course. Or there's Penderecki; perhaps a hard sell, but deserving.

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#135

Post by zopa »

fferen wrote: post #126

When I was young and learning music theory in piano lessons, one day I realized that literally half the songs on the radio used the chord progression "I V vi IV". This was a huge revelation to me! To my dismay, I couldn't find any evidence on the internet that anyone else had noticed this, until very recently I saw the "Four Chord Song" by Axis of Awesome ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I ). I was hoping t…

It's called a deceptive cadence -- that's the I V vi part. The IV is warmup for the V - I cadence that ends it all. "Deceptive" because vi is one note away from I, but in minor, not major.

It's a well-known pattern; sorry the internet let you down.

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#136

Post by freehunter »

UrLicht wrote: post #68
freehunter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would make the argument that there is little in the way of pop music that strays from traditionally accepted chord progressions. Dissonance isn't something that appeals to a broad audience, and you'll be hard pressed to find someone who can point out an interesting choice in progression for a song on the radio.

Sorry in advance for the pedantry. ;) Dissonance is when notes "clash" with each other and in traditional voice leading dissonance always resolves to consonance. Atonality, on the other hand, is a more recent development in Western music and is defined as the lack of a tonal center. Atonality can be an extremely interesting way to write music. Some of the first atonal music (note how it's not markedly "dissonant") ca…

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was listing a few things that wouldn't show up on this list and wouldn't be in pop music. Dissonance and interesting chord progressions were the two I called out specifically.

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#138

Post by gnaritas »

mistercow wrote: post #122
gnaritas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Technically, yes, but a) that generally sounds weak, and b) it increases the difficulty of playing the chord because it means you have to either mute or pass over the first string.

Muting the first string is natural, trying not to mute it and fret it correctly is what makes it hard to play. It's vastly easier to just play the triad on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings with the first 3 fingers; forget the bar. And if it sounds weak, turn up the volume or strum harder. :)

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#139

Post by byproxy »

sliverstorm wrote: post #63
planetguy wrote: post #25

What 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…

I think there is one thing you are overlooking: IMO, the reason the 1980s had simple music wasn't anything complicated; it was the electric guitar. Power chords are super easy to use, and with an electric guitar they still sound good.

I'd consider power-chords as bolstered single notes rather than actual chords. I'm not sure why people are repeating that 80s music was simple. It was a time when synthesizers were becoming more attainable and there was a lot of experimenting on that front. I feel we're going through a similar technical period with computers handling various functions on stage, now.

Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.

#140

Post by wheels »

planetguy wrote: post #25

What 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…

Your analysis is overly dismissive of genres that you presumably don't like. Simplistic pop songs aren't a new phenomenon; they were just as present in the 60s as they are now. We just don't listen to them anymore as they haven't stood the test of time. This was abundantly evident last weekend when I went through a stack of about 100 45s from the 60s and early 70s that I inherited. (My father was a radio DJ during the time.) I'd never heard of 90% of the bands, despite already owning hundreds of albums from the period. The same will be true of the music that's popular now in a few decades.

Also, using harmonic progression alone as a measure of musical complexity or richness is misguided. Steve Reich's Violin Phase contains only 5 notes, but was a seminal piece of minimalist music in the 1960s:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Violin+Phase/3nPoC4?src=5

Musical richness can come from a lot of places. Hip-hop, as a genre, tends to focus on rhythmic texture and narative content. I'd say, on average, pop hip-hop these days is richer than pop rock. There's also some really great stuff that's come out of the hip-hop world, depending on how far away from pop you're willing to still call something hip-hop, e.g. DJ Spooky:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Peace+In+Zaire/2UyeL0?src=5

Just as an example, I love the texture of a lot of stuff from The Roots:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Don+t+Feel+Right/2LzmSC?src=5

(Note: Several members of The Roots are competent jazz musicians.)

Even Miles Davis's most known albums, Kind of Blue and E.S.P. represented a step towards more simplisitic harmony – "modal jazz" – far simpler than the hard-bop which was at the time prevalent and which Miles had previously played.

The assertation that harmonic complexity precluded the death of art music also seems off-base. Art music was always high-falutin' stuff that mostly rich people, or those wanting to emulate them, listened to. The rise of the relative importance of pop music had more to do with the invention of the phonograph than the increase in harmonic complexity. In fact, many of the first post-romantic composers, Satie, Debussy and Ives, tended towards more simplistic harmonies (arranged in ways that violated the rules of classical and romantic functionalism). It wasn't until the modern period, well after the rise of recorded pop music, that harmonies got particularly wild.

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