I analyzed chord progressions in 680k songs

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I find the analysis interesting in terms of a hobby project, but I'd be careful extrapolating too much out of this. 680k is quite the sample size, but my issue lies within the myopic selection of one instrument and the issues that arise from the platform of Ultimate Guitar.

1. I am curious, how many of the 680k songs are unique? It is rather uncommon for massively successful songs to only have one version of tabs out in the wild, so I am curious how many songs individual songs were counted multiple times.

2. This analysis only looks at guitar tabs or instrumentations there were transcribed for guitar. Chords can be made with more than just one instrument, thus that missing 7th note could actually be played by another instrument not included in the tabs.

3. As music progressed from the pre-jazz era to modern times, it became more common for people to play an instrument, like piano or guitar, while singing at the same time. Obviously there are exceptions to everything, but often times guitar pieces are simplified if the guitarist is also singing for practical reasons.

4. Music has also become more accessible as time progressed. It would be hard for an average person to learn the organ or hurdy-gurdy without access to one. It's much easier to acquire and learn piano when it can be a 4 inch thick plastic keyboard on a stand.

5. People tend to have a warped concept of the history of music. Pachelbel's Canon in D is by no means a complex song and has stood the test of time. Music through out time has also served different purposes. Hell, go back to Ancient Greece, Gregorian chants, and Medieval music. Those various time periods were not generally fully of complexity either. I would argue such times were generally less complex than modern music.

Does this take into account capo position? A G is easy to play so authors might use G to play a Bb for example with a capo to avoid barre chords. Likewise authors will choose simpler chord substitutes to make it easier to play.

It's the same with lead sheets / the real book style music books. Performing musicians need to reproduce music quickly so only the triad will be written down even if the musician ends up playing some other extensions.

The data is heavily biased towards simplicity. You can make conclusions about the data - but not music as a whole.

> People tend to have a warped concept of the history of music. Pachelbel's Canon in D is by no means a complex song and has stood the test of time. Music through out time has also served different purposes. Hell, go back to Ancient Greece, Gregorian chants, and Medieval music. Those various time periods were not generally fully of complexity either. I would argue such times were generally less complex than modern music.

True facts. The fifties and sixties were replete with simple, disposable pop music. "Yummy Yummy Yummy" topped the charts in the late 60s and has, what, three chords in it? What about "Sugar, Sugar" or the Monkees? Staff songwriters and session cats cranked this stuff out by the ton back in the day but people still love to take potshots at modern pop music for being inferior to the oldies in this regard.

> An “interval” is a combination of two notes.

Minor nitpick: it's a "dyad" that is a combination of two notes.

An "interval" is the difference between two (or more) pitches. And just as you'd measure the space between your eyebrows using a ruler, you'd measure the interval between middle C and concert A using your ears.

The bonus, however, is that our listening apparatus is already quantized to octaves-- if you hear a pitch against a second pitch that's double/quadruple/etc. the frequency of the first, your ear marks this interval as special. It's likely most of you've already used this fact to your advantage; perhaps unwittingly, when someone begins singing "Happy Birthday" outside your normal singing range. (Though most renditions of "Happy Birthday" lend credence to Morpheus' lesson from The Matrix that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking it.) :)