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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.

#151

Post by neonscribe »

glassx wrote: post #95

The chord choices in Garageband are the chords found within the scale of C, plus Bb (even the Bdim - but, to be pedant, it should actually be a B7b5). Having Bb you can modulate (or "change the key") to F without having to switch scales etc. Also, the fact that he found D, E and A among the results is probably because of modulations. It's VERY common for pop songs to modulate a whole step during some chorus near the…

To be more of a pedant, the Bdim should be a Bm7b5, not a B7b5. Also, The Temptations, not Otis Redding, sang My Girl.

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

#152

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

RobAtticus wrote: post #103
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…

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…

I'm pretty sure the punk movement inspired the more simple song structures of the 80's more than anything else did; New Wave was a direct offshoot of punk.

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

#153

Post by dgcoffman »

snorkel wrote: post #28

Reason: It's easier to play these chords on a 6 string guitar, which has been the dominant instrument of choice for pop song composers. The first C chord on a guitar is easy to hit with no finger twisting required. It's also easy to switch between the first C, Am, and G chord, you can even do it quickly and repeatedly while drunk as you can imagine many pop songs are written. The first F chord requires a little more…

Only if you're playing open chords. The shape for every chord of the same type is the same in any key when played as a barre chord.

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

#154

Post by glassx »

neonscribe wrote: post #151
glassx wrote: post #95

The chord choices in Garageband are the chords found within the scale of C, plus Bb (even the Bdim - but, to be pedant, it should actually be a B7b5). Having Bb you can modulate (or "change the key") to F without having to switch scales etc. Also, the fact that he found D, E and A among the results is probably because of modulations. It's VERY common for pop songs to modulate a whole step during some chorus near the…

To be more of a pedant, the Bdim should be a Bm7b5, not a B7b5. Also, The Temptations, not Otis Redding, sang My Girl.

Ooops, yes, you're right on both!

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

#155

Post by cnanders »

colanderman wrote: post #26
Brashman wrote: post #7

How does this compare to what Music Theory says about chords and chord progressions? Any Music Theory experts/aficionados around? I've unfortunately forgotten most of what I learned in my one class on it.

He doesn't go nearly enough into depth to say anything surprising. That "C/Am" is by far the most common is not surprising at all; C major is the first key any music student learns. I wish he separated out the major keys from minor keys. It's easy to tell the difference; almost no-one writes pop music in the natural minor (which shares a key signature with the relative major), as it has no dominant fifth. Rather, mel…

Regarding "chords following em": Since all of the songs were transposed to the key of C, em == iii, am == vi, and F == IV. Really what the post says is IV and vi follow iii most often in popular songs.

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

#156

Post by kafkaesque »

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 you need to clarify some things.

Do you mean 'rock songs' as in Jimmy Preston's Rock the Joint? Or do you mean 'rock songs' as in rhythm and blues/'black music'/music made by black people? If you mean--well, there is no other way of putting this--music that white musicians were playing that was influenced by R&B/gospel/etc., there aren't only simple songs, as can be heard in Preston's music and many other songs that had added arrangements. Even Little Richard.

This makes me think you are referring to only R&B and gospel (which white musicians named 'rock 'n' roll'). If this is the case, this type of music wasn't exactly popular in the way we think of popular music nowadays, not until white musicians 'appropriated' it.

As you can see, there is some incompatibility with what you're saying. 'Popular songs' did not only consist of rock 'n' roll songs, even though rock 'n' roll was considered popular music in the 50s. I mean, Jo Stafford made so-called traditional pop music, and they weren't exactly simple. If you read about late 70s British 'rock', you'd remember that 'rock 'n' roll' was a dirty word associated with the lower classes, drugs, and misfits, which was not necessarily part of popular music. Unless you mean popular music as opposed to 'classical music' (not the 'classical' from the period within 'classical music', mind you).

I don't want to get into a whole Beatles debate, but Beatles took from many styles and genres. So it isn't exactly fair to compare them to typical rock 'n' roll music, which they themselves started playing and were being trained to play initially.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

autarch wrote: post #109
Darmani wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by davec »

sliverstorm wrote: post #102
anigbrowl wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

don't forget a lot of money and promotion. I think that's at least half

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

#159

Post by mistercow »

gnaritas wrote: post #138
mistercow wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :)

Yeah, turning up the volume or strumming harder isn't exactly going to fill out that frequency spectrum.

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

#160

Post by Darmani »

planetguy wrote: post #123
autarch wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes and no. It was easy for Bach and Beethoven to be innovative, less had been done back then. The story of classical music from 1800 to 1952, though, is a story of composers forever looking for new ways to innovate. First they did away with all the old rules of structure, and we didn't miss them too much. There's some great music from this period. Then, they started doing away with all the rules of harmony. The prel…

Oh, it's definitely true that many composers reacted and "innovated" away from harmony, and that rock was developed around the same time. But there was a great proliferation in styles in the beginning of the 20th century. During that same period, you have guys like Rachmaninoff, Holst, and Orff -- different points in the musical space, and still popular today. And then you have Ralph Vaughan Williams, who went back to the time before harmony by creating new modal music.

Popular music and art music have coexisted for a long time. There are a lot of trends happening at once in music, and you've hardly made a case that Schoenberg and Cage are strongly connected to the rise of rock. I don't see why your reasoning can't be used to argue that the overwhelming complexity of the Romantics destroyed art music and handed control over to Jazz.

(And, no, John Williams is just an acknowledgement that anyone I call a descendant of Beethoven is going to sound a bit like Beethoven. I can think of several names innovating in the big orchestral space, all of which sound quite a bit different, and most of which you've never heard of.)

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