Sounds like something that could be used to generate endless but still decent elevator music with some Markov chains.
I've actually considered using this approach to build dynamic video game music.
Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
21–30 of 113 posts
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#22Very nice presentation, although I'd prefer the graph settle to a steady state a few iterations earlier.
Ob Lou Reed quote: "One chord is fine, two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz." ( http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lou-reed-velvet-under... )
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#23Sounds like something that could be used to generate endless but still decent elevator music with some Markov chains.
It's funny, whenever I look up algorithmic music, it never seems to be the usual pop cadences. The Phd who make this their field seem to prefer atonal or dissonant generated music.
The field of generative music is very under-researched, but there are some great things out there, including tonal and "harmonious" ones.
Try David Cope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgG1HipAayU
And xoxos' "BreathCube" and "New Blend": http://www.xoxos.net/software/software.html
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#24"So for example, the transition 4->1->5->6 is one of the most popular ones"
The graph does not show this or I'm misunderstanding something. The most popular looks like 1,4,1,5
Also, what does the double, triple numbers mean? 664, 66 in the fist column. I know some music theory, but the article's explanation is rather confusing.
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#25Very nice presentation, although I'd prefer the graph settle to a steady state a few iterations earlier. Ob Lou Reed quote: "One chord is fine, two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz." ( http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lou-reed-velvet-under... )
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Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#26Don't know the technical aspects of music enough to understand what is going on here. Would like examples from real songs to illustrate.
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ask and you shall receive. Hooktheory's Trends tool lets you see and hear all the chord progressions of the individual songs used here. As mentioned in the article, this analysis actually used our free API for accessing our chord progression database (I'm one of the creators of the site). http://www.hooktheory.com/trends
Do you have to be signed in to see this feature? I can't find it. Neat site!
When you select a progression, click on one of the songs.
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#28To see how popular the 1-5-6-4 progression is you need only watch Axis of Awesome ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
That book looks really interesting - thanks for the recommendation. What still twists my melon about harmony is the Pythagorean Comma. Harmony equating to integer ratios seems so right... But the fact that a perfect 5th on a piano isn't really a perfect 5th troubles me at some existential level.
The comma is not a big deal : it's a problem caused by tone equalizing (aka temperament). Think of instruments as ladders : they have all the same steps, but start at different heights. When combining several types of instruments, the resulting steps are not aligned. Equal temperament solve that problem by normalizing the steps' absolute height. It's a trade-off between the instrument's perfect harmony, and the orche…
I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not sure you understand the comma. It has nothing to do with combining types of instruments. It's a problem that exists even with a single instrument.
The problem is that, even on a single instrument (say a piano), if you start on some note (say C0), going up seven octaves should land you on exactly the same note as going up twelve perfect fifths (C7). The problem is that the precise tuning of that C7 is different depending on if you followed the perfect octaves or perfect fifths.
If you followed perfect octaves, which have a ratio of 2/1 (or just 2), C7 should have a tuning of precisely (2^7)·C0 = 128·C0. If you followed perfect fifths, which have a ratio of 3/2, C7 should have a tuning of precisely ((3/2)^12)·C0 = ~129.74·C0. The difference between these two is the Pythagorean comma.
Equal temperament solves this problem by keeping the octaves perfect (2:1), but compromising on everything else. It defines a half-step as the 12th power of 2, so a fifth ends up being a little narrower than a perfect 3:2 perfect fifth.
Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs
#30Don't know the technical aspects of music enough to understand what is going on here. Would like examples from real songs to illustrate.
Most songs are based on chord progressions (a sequence of several chords) that is repeated through the whole song. More precisely, there maybe different chord progressions within a given song. For instance, one per section (intro, verse, bridge, chorus, outro and so on...).
In theory, there are tons of possible chord progressions but not all of them sound good. In practice some are extremely common (like I - IV - V in rock or ii - V - I in jazz) and can be shared across very different genres. Google "common chord progressions" for many examples.
Now for the numbering system. Chord progressions can be described as a sequence of numbers that define the chords in a relative way (in CS terms, think of a relative path in a file system VS an absolute path). In music, what is important to the listener ear is the relation between the notes, not so much the absolute pitch of those notes.
Example : A - D - E and E - A - B are the same progressions (I - IV - V) in the key of A for the first one, and in the key of E for the second one.
Things get more complicated because you can have different quality of chords (minor, major, dominant...) but you get the idea.