Chord progressions of 25,000 songs • Hacker News Board

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#61

Post by phaemon » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #48

kowdermeister wrote: post #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.

the first number is the chord number (which should have been notated as a roman numeral, and should have differentiated between major and minor with capital and lowercase). The rest of the arabic numberals indicate the inversion using figured bass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figured_bass

He mentions this under "Caveats":

'There are several limitations to this assessment since the Hooktheory API wasn’t really intended for this type of analysis. For example, it doesn’t mention whether “6” is “vi” (minor) or “VI” (major), which is kind of a big deal.'

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#62

Post by yellowapple » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

chaosphere2112 wrote: post #17

cjslep wrote: post #4

> Even though there is a great variety of chords and chord progressions, progressions involving 1,4,5, and 6 are favoured, probably because they ‘sound good’ to our brain. I drive my girlfriend nuts because of this. I don't typically listen to the pop/country songs that are popular with our local radio but when she has it on in the car, every once in a while a song will come on and I'll think "I know this" and start…

I'm fond of this video that illustrates this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

That is incredibly beautiful. :')

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#63

Post by ssharp » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #4

> Even though there is a great variety of chords and chord progressions, progressions involving 1,4,5, and 6 are favoured, probably because they ‘sound good’ to our brain. I drive my girlfriend nuts because of this. I don't typically listen to the pop/country songs that are popular with our local radio but when she has it on in the car, every once in a while a song will come on and I'll think "I know this" and start…

Do you really listen to the chords that closely? For a lot of music, the chords are either largely hinted at (bass notes, the lead guitar or rhythm guitar lick, and how the melody move) and if there is an instrument banging out the exact chord progression, it's usually buried under the stuff or at least the vocal.

If I'm writing a song, I'm spending almost all of my time doing things tangential to the chord progressions, but rarely any time on the chord progressions themselves. So usually I'll start with a guitar lick or vocal melody, put a chord progression behind it, and then figure out the rest of the arrangement.

If there's a song that's memorable to me, it's almost always because of the main melody or guitar, not the underlying chords.

I'm only talking about pop-based music here, so rock, pop, country, etc.

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#64

Post by azakai » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 6:52 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #28

To see how popular the 1-5-6-4 progression is you need only watch Axis of Awesome ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

I was surprised though to see that in the data the 1-5-6-4 progression is not the most common. Maybe I'm reading it wrong?

Looks like 1-4-* is more popular.

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#65

Post by azakai » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

kowdermeister wrote: post #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.

> 1,4,1,5

That is indeed very popular, off the top of my head, "Free Falling" by Tom Petty.

However, I am puzzled because 1,5,6,4 seems much more popular in my experience, and it doesn't seem that high in that data.

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#66

Post by itsjareds » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #21

m_eiman wrote: post #6

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.

That is an awesome idea. I can imagine it would be cool in your standard one-on-one fighting games where the music could get more intense when then battle becomes more intense.

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#67

Post by Tloewald » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

Seems like you could take rap genius and this resource and combine them into a Bayesian pop song generator. (Melodic and rhythmic progressions are the next step).

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#68

Post by analog31 » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #58

analog31 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view all it means is that an approximation of perfection is good enough. And the notion of temperament only really applies to keyboard instruments. Strings are tuned to perfect intervals, and even 'good' intonation of fingered notes is a matter of interpretation. Wind instruments are a hodgepodge of compromises.

> Wind instruments are a hodgepodge of compromises. It depends on the wind instrument and the setting. For woodwinds, yes, this is typically true; it's very difficult to adjust the tuning of a particular note on-the-fly. For brass, however, this becomes less and less true; more sophisticated brass instruments will have easily-accessible "tuning slides" (in addition to the main one) meant to adjust the tuning of a par…

All good points. I played flute at one time, and there were notes that had to be shoved around a bit, unless hidden in a fast passage, such as C sharp. And I'm told that french horn players use the hand in the bell as a tuning slide.

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#69

Post by zwieback » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 7:38 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #58

analog31 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view all it means is that an approximation of perfection is good enough. And the notion of temperament only really applies to keyboard instruments. Strings are tuned to perfect intervals, and even 'good' intonation of fingered notes is a matter of interpretation. Wind instruments are a hodgepodge of compromises.

> Wind instruments are a hodgepodge of compromises. It depends on the wind instrument and the setting. For woodwinds, yes, this is typically true; it's very difficult to adjust the tuning of a particular note on-the-fly. For brass, however, this becomes less and less true; more sophisticated brass instruments will have easily-accessible "tuning slides" (in addition to the main one) meant to adjust the tuning of a par…

It was all too easy for me to adjust the tuning of any particular note on my oboe, unfortunately usually in the wrong direction. The violin players in front of me, who had much better pitch recognition than me, would shoot me dirty looks and I'd get my pencil out to mark up the sheet music with arrows pointing up or down.

Re: Chord progressions of 25,000 songs

#70

Post by zwieback » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #4

> Even though there is a great variety of chords and chord progressions, progressions involving 1,4,5, and 6 are favoured, probably because they ‘sound good’ to our brain. I drive my girlfriend nuts because of this. I don't typically listen to the pop/country songs that are popular with our local radio but when she has it on in the car, every once in a while a song will come on and I'll think "I know this" and start…

1-4-5 songs are great for jams for that reason. You can play along to a lot of songs even if you don't know them.