I wonder what the RIAA thinks of someone amassing a database of the chord patterns of 1300 popular songs.
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.
#102What 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.
It's got a strong hook- something I have come to believe is nine-tenths of a pop single's success.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#103What 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…
To expand a bit on the 1980s, certainly the average song might have gotten simpler, but there were still some challenging music being written. Most metal and hard rock might have had simpler harmonic structures, but the complexity was going up as solos became more and more challenging (something that continues into the modern day).
I might argue that the regression towards simpler music starting in the 1980s might be due to MTV and increased media coverage of music stars. Starting with MTV and music videos, to be really successful, your looks started to matter. This gave rise to acts who may not have been as musically talented, but were more marketable because they looked better on TV. That's not to say that music acts were never on TV before 1980, which is obviously not true, but MTV did change the game quite a bit and maybe started this trend of towards simpler music with prettier stars.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#104What 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…
If you're interested in learning music theory (as I am currently) and how the the Beatles' music evolved, this series of articles by Alan W. Pollack is fantastic:
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_...
They were originally Usenet postings(!) starting in 1989 or thereabouts, but have been revised a bit. Warning: you could lose hours reading through them all.
One thing that comes up many times there that I'd be interested in seeing added to a quantitative analysis like this one is how many times something can "seem" like it might be in one key but ends up really being in another, but I don't know how you would count that.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#105I wonder what the RIAA thinks of someone amassing a database of the chord patterns of 1300 popular songs.
It's the Music Publisher's Association (MPA) that cares about tabs and copyright infringement. The relevant wiki link for some case studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature#Legal_issues
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#106What 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.
Calvin Harris (producer of the song) is hands down the worst DJ I have ever seen in action. No feeling for the audience and horrible noise.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#107What 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…
If you're interested in learning music theory (as I am currently) and how the the Beatles' music evolved, this series of articles by Alan W. Pollack is fantastic: http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_... They were originally Usenet postings(!) starting in 1989 or thereabouts, but have been revised a bit. Warning: you could lose hours reading through them all. One thing that comes up many times…
Wow, I just read through a couple of those and they look fantastic. I'll bookmark that and read it sometime later.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#108I wonder what the RIAA thinks of someone amassing a database of the chord patterns of 1300 popular songs.
As long as the songs are not distributed and the database owner owns the songs, then what's the issue? Generic analysis of chord progressions are not copyrightable, altho tabs for specific songs in print probably are, but I don't think these are specific song tabs. (but if chord progressions were software, they'd probably be patentable... sigh).
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#109What 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…
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.
Re: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
#110What 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…
Hi planetguy, that is an excellent suggestion, and something we've actually already started working on. One of the things about the database our community is building is that it can be used for so many interesting studies. BTW, the Rihanna song you mentioned came on the other day and I heard someone sing "we found Dove in a soapless place". Couldn't help but laugh.
Is this your analysis? I'm far from a novice in Music Theory (only knowledgeable it exists), but thing I'd love to see next would be generating a song through a Markov Chain, or even by applying a genetic algorithm and having viewers vote on their favorite renditions.
I've always wanted to take the lyrics of popular songs and run them through a Markov Chain, just to see what could get produced. Ultimate goal would be to generate a song, the lyrics and then have users upload videos of themselves singing it out.