[HN Gopher] I analyzed chord progressions in 680k songs
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       I analyzed chord progressions in 680k songs
        
       Author : jnord
       Score  : 277 points
       Date   : 2025-04-17 22:44 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cantgetmuchhigher.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cantgetmuchhigher.com)
        
       | narrator wrote:
       | Then there's the most complex pop song of all time:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRxTW8GxT8
        
         | LandStander wrote:
         | The song is "Never Gonna Let You Go" by Sergio Mendes
        
           | userbinator wrote:
           | The first few words of your comment, along with the sibling
           | comment mentioning a "Rick", made me hesitant to click that
           | link.
        
         | nwatson wrote:
         | Thanks for the Rick Beato video. Yes, complex.
        
       | hirvi74 wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | alexjplant wrote:
         | > 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.
        
           | a4isms wrote:
           | The key observation for me is Sturgeon's Revelation: "90% of
           | everything is crud."
           | 
           | My most impressionable years for music were the 70s and 80s.
           | I remember fantastic music from that time... But the fact is,
           | most of what we hear today from that era has been curated for
           | us. We hear the 10% of the 70s and 80s hits that weren't
           | crud. Or maybe even the 1% that was great. If we actually
           | listen to the top twenty-five singles from any month in those
           | two decades, 90% of them would be crud.
           | 
           | I think most people comparing the present to the past are
           | comparing everything today to the 10% of yesterday that
           | wasn't crud.
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | We do an awful lot nowadays, though. Hmm, actually, I guess
             | it is a straightforward equation I just don't have my
             | pencil or envelope handy.
             | 
             | Imagine that we are interacting with all the accumulated
             | good stuff, plus the modern good stuff, as well as the old
             | good stuff (the old crud is forgotten). If our productivity
             | is growing exponentially, is the proportion of crud
             | increasing over time?
        
           | pfisherman wrote:
           | Complexity is not just variation in chord progression, key,
           | or melody.
           | 
           | Dark Side of the Moon is basically the same chord progression
           | repeated over and over; but with different rhythm, tempo,
           | arrangement for each song. The variation within the scope of
           | the repetition and call backs to various melodic and rhythmic
           | motifs at various points throughout is part of what makes the
           | album such an epic and thematically cohesive listening
           | experience.
        
         | dehrmann wrote:
         | > Pachelbel's Canon in D is by no means a complex song and has
         | stood the test of time
         | 
         | It was actually mostly forgotten until the 1960's.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel%27s_Canon#Rediscover...
         | 
         | Can anyone find a version without Paillard's changes? Knowing
         | the history, I suspect they have more to do with the song's
         | popularity than the original composition.
        
           | hirvi74 wrote:
           | > It was actually mostly forgotten until the 1960's.
           | 
           | Correct, much like Bach until Mendelssohn. My point was that,
           | well both, are still around. Plenty more music was lost to
           | the sands of time.
           | 
           | Which one is it? Beethoven's 5th? I think it's his 5th that
           | has been played at least once a month since it was first
           | performed. Now, that is a wild record.
        
           | toolslive wrote:
           | Oasis anyone?
        
         | iambateman wrote:
         | I think Ultimate Guitar has a lot to do with this.
         | 
         | Sure, G is probably the most popular chord, but there are a
         | _lot_ of chord sheets that are wrong or incomplete. If someone
         | were to play many of these songs as charted on UG it would
         | sound unrecognizable.
         | 
         | Kind of invalidates the analysis IMHO
        
           | unnamed76ri wrote:
           | And how many charts call for a capo to be used so the
           | performer is using key of G chord shapes but actually playing
           | a different key entirely?
        
         | otabdeveloper4 wrote:
         | > Music has also become more accessible as time progressed.
         | 
         | Hell no. Before recorded music literally everyone was a
         | musician in one way or another. Music was an activity you did
         | while bored. (Today music is not an activity, it's a product to
         | consume.)
         | 
         | They had simple woodwinds and percussive instruments. People
         | weren't playing the church organ while waiting for the cows to
         | come home.
        
           | Slow_Hand wrote:
           | Literally everyone? Have you got a source for that claim?
           | 
           | I don't disagree that music performance was a pastime for
           | many people before recorded music, but let's be real here.
        
             | otabdeveloper4 wrote:
             | There was no recorded or productionized music back then.
             | And yet people liked music as much as we do now. So the
             | only way to enjoy music was to do it yourself.
             | 
             | Singing and playing an instrument was just a basic life
             | skill that everyone had back then. (Say, like driving a car
             | or using a computer is today. Not everyone is a
             | professional driver or computer programmer, but not being
             | able to use a computer at all today would mean you failed
             | at life.)
        
               | metalman wrote:
               | little kids,(feeling safe and secure) will try and grab
               | your guitar out of your hands,they KNOW they can do this,
               | and just go for it, guitars bigger than they are, or
               | watch a little, out somewhere, smitten by a street
               | mucician, dont want to leave..,..yanked
               | away....scolded... in Halifax, NS, there was a ukelele
               | program, and ALL children partisipated and second page
               | into a search, it comes up
               | https://www.ukuleleintheclassroom.org/
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | > There was no recorded or productionized music back
               | then. And yet people liked music as much as we do now. So
               | the only way to enjoy music was to do it yourself.
               | 
               | Or listen to live music in your community
        
               | circlefavshape wrote:
               | > before recorded music literally everyone was a musician
               | in one way or another ... playing an instrument was just
               | a basic life skill that everyone had back then
               | 
               | You're just making this up. Playing an instrument is a
               | complex skill that requires a lot of work and an
               | expensive piece of equipment. Music has been a profession
               | since at least Mesopotamian times
        
               | pxndx wrote:
               | You've never played with a pen, finger or spoon hitting
               | different plates and vases on your table and amusing
               | yourself with the drumming? Twanged a ruler on the edge
               | of your desk? Congratulations, that makes you a musician.
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | Yes. Maybe not a good musician, but a musician
               | nonetheless.
               | 
               | In the same way, making a joke to amuse oneself makes you
               | a comedian.
               | 
               | Making a simple BASIC program to amuse yourself makes you
               | a programmer.
               | 
               | And so on...
        
               | grep_name wrote:
               | > Playing an instrument is a complex skill that requires
               | a lot of work and an expensive piece of equipment
               | 
               | Or it's something you just, you know, do? I listen to and
               | play a lot of tunes from the Appalachians and you really
               | do get the sense that just about everyone played
               | something back in the day. They developed complex and
               | extremely localized traditions that did not require
               | formal music education to pass down. Some of them were
               | musical geniuses, many were middling, just like with most
               | things people do.
               | 
               | Even poor families would often have an heirloom fiddle
               | around to learn to play on (sometimes even brought with
               | them from Europe), and ownership of family possessions
               | was much more communal. Many parlors or bars would have a
               | banjo or parlor guitar around for whoever wanted to make
               | some music while hanging around. Those without access or
               | with limited woodworking skill also often made their own
               | fretless banjos (which look different from what you might
               | normally recognize as a banjo) out of wood and hide, or
               | other simpler instruments like dulcimers. Not that there
               | weren't also semi-skilled luthiers making non-concert-
               | grade fiddles at more affordable prices. All this culture
               | is well documented in the Foxfire manuals on Appalachian
               | folk traditions, complete with schematics on how to make
               | those things from different regions. Pretty far from
               | 'made up'. Hell, a lot of American music traces its roots
               | back to music made by actual slaves. It's hard to think
               | of a group of people with less means and access to the
               | things you've mentioned, and yet, music.
               | 
               | Music theory may have a nearly limitless ceiling for both
               | complexity of understanding and expense of instruments,
               | but your statement here completely ignores the entirety
               | of global folk tradition. And it does seem like an
               | accurate observation to me that participation in casual
               | musicianship in everyday contexts has declined
               | significantly in correlation with a lot of the trends in
               | modern living.
        
       | alexjplant wrote:
       | Interesting analysis. Some observations:
       | 
       | - Ultimate Guitar isn't exactly known for the sterling quality of
       | its transcriptions. Teenage me submitted at least a few tabs that
       | were clearly incorrect that still got 4 and 5 star ratings.
       | Amateur guitarists are also infamously bad at figuring out
       | voicings and extensions so something like a 9 might end up as a
       | maj7 or just a triad. Adult me checks Songsterr first then uses
       | his ear to figure out what's _really_ going on when I run across
       | incorrect parts in the tablature.
       | 
       | - Some genres of music like downtuned metal are largely
       | monophonic and instead rely on quick melodic movement or drone-y
       | background guitars to imply harmony. This data set doesn't seem
       | to account for this.
       | 
       | - There's no way that power chords only account for single-digit
       | percentages of chords in rock, metal, and punk. There are albums
       | that have been certified Platinum that are 90% power chords
       | (technically power intervals, I suppose).
        
       | throwaway0665 wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | notfed wrote:
       | This seems to be an analysis of chords used, not chord
       | progressions?
        
         | zoogeny wrote:
         | I too was a bit disappointed, hoping we'd get some statistics
         | on chord progressions. But to be fair to the OP, he analyzed
         | chord progressions to generate statistics on chords.
         | 
         | It does inspire hope that someone will take the same dataset
         | and provide statistics on the most common progressions.
        
       | jancsika wrote:
       | > 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.) :)
        
         | gchamonlive wrote:
         | That's new for me. What's an interval between three pitches
         | called?
        
           | seba_dos1 wrote:
           | Two intervals?
        
             | gchamonlive wrote:
             | A third, fourth, fifth, sixth... Triton... Those are
             | intervals. I ask again, what's an interval between three
             | pitches? Is it a triad? If it's so, than it's not a minor
             | nitpick, OP is just being plain pedantic for the sake of
             | it.
        
               | seba_dos1 wrote:
               | "Interval between three pitches" is not a well-defined
               | concept, just like "distance between three points" isn't.
               | You need additional qualifiers to describe what you mean
               | by that. Maybe you want the shortest path between them,
               | or maybe you want a triangle. In any case, using a term
               | like that makes it seem like you're confused with the
               | terminology.
        
               | mkl wrote:
               | They are questioning jancsika's assertion at the top of
               | the thread that an interval can somehow contain more than
               | two pitches:
               | 
               | > An "interval" is the difference between two (or more)
               | pitches.
        
               | wannadingo wrote:
               | Two pitches played together is a dyad, three together is
               | a triad. There may be words for four or more pitches
               | together but I just call them chords. The term interval
               | only makes sense to describe distance between two
               | elements, whether pitches or two marks on a ruler.
        
               | keymasta wrote:
               | Monad Diad Triad Tetrad Pentad Sextad Septad Octad Nontad
               | Dectad Monodectad Didectad/Bidectad (?)
               | 
               | Or,
               | 
               | 1 Note/Unison
               | 
               | 2 Interval/Diad
               | 
               | >3 Chord
               | 
               | And, I agree an interval is essentially a distance.
               | Distance between three points makes no sense as they
               | might very well lay outside of one straight line. Even
               | they are on the same line.. are we measuring the distance
               | between each distance?
               | 
               | It's ambiguous what that might even mean, but the
               | original poster might think of a collection of intervals
               | which is 0 or more notes with intervals relative to a
               | given root.
               | 
               | For example if you think in integers (pitch set
               | notation):                 m6   { 0 3 7 9 } Minor 6
               | 5    { 0 7 }     Power Chord       ma13 { 0 2 4 5 7 9 11
               | } Ionian       N.C  { } No Chord/Rest       deg7   { 0 3
               | 6 9 11 } Diminished Seventh/Dim Seven            .. etc
               | 
               | They might have different numbers of notes but I see them
               | as the same type of identities. I just call them all
               | changes.
               | 
               | Also note that 13 means two different things, either the
               | septad above or a pentad of the form 1 3 5 7 13 aka 7(6)
               | "dominant add six"
               | 
               | So in set notation it's:                 ma13 { 0 4 7 9
               | 11 }       13   { 0 4 7 9 10 }            Etc..
        
           | dehrmann wrote:
           | That's like asking what's the distance between A, B, and C.
        
           | droidist2 wrote:
           | Could call them "stacked intervals" like "stacking thirds" to
           | make a triad
        
           | crdrost wrote:
           | So when you've got an interval you usually mean two sounds
           | that are separated in time. So like the iconic Jaws Melody
           | dun-dan-dun-dan-dun-dan, those notes are separated by an
           | interval that could be called one semitone, 100 cents, or a
           | minor second, depending on who is talking.
           | 
           | Or in "Oh when the Saints Go Marching In," the 'Oh-when'
           | interval is two tones (four semitones), 400C/, or a major
           | third, the 'when-the' interval is another minor second, and
           | the 'the-Saints' interval is one tone or a major second.
           | Adding those up we find out that "oh-Saints," if you just
           | omit the other words, is 700C/ or a "perfect fifth", so
           | "saints-Go" is a descending perfect fifth, -700C/.
           | 
           | Now you can play all four notes at the same time and you
           | would still refer to these distances between the notes as
           | intervals, but nobody is likely to describe this sound as a
           | bunch of intervals. It is a "I(add 4) chord" in that context
           | and the +100C/ interval between the major third and the
           | perfect fourth is what gives it its spiciness.
           | 
           | So then you have to clarify whether you mean that we are
           | playing one note first and then two notes together second, or
           | are we playing all three notes at the same time, or are we
           | playing all three notes separately.
           | 
           | If it's one and then two, or two then one, the higher note of
           | the dyad will sound like the melody usually, and you'll
           | reckon the interval between those two. People who have really
           | well trained musical ears, instead hear the shift on the
           | lowest note, but it requires training.
           | 
           | If you mean that all three are separated by time, then it's a
           | melody. In this case these first four notes of "Oh When the
           | Saints Go Marching In" would perhaps be described maybe as an
           | arpeggiated major chord with a passing tone, same as I said
           | earlier as "I(add 4)." I'm not actually 100% sure if that's
           | the right use of the term passing tone or whether passing
           | tones have to lie outside your scale or something.
           | 
           | If the three notes are played at the same time, that's a
           | chord, specifically it's a triad chord. You might talk about
           | the stacked intervals in that chord, a major chord stacks a
           | minor third on a major third, a minor chord stacks a major
           | third on a minor third, stacking major on major is augmented,
           | stacking minor on minor is diminished, and there are
           | suspended chords where you don't play either third, so sus2
           | stacks a fourth atop a second and sus4 stacks a second atop a
           | fourth. So a lot of those have their own names, and some of
           | those names get weird (like to stack a fourth on a fourth you
           | might say "Csus4/G," which treats the lowest note G as if it
           | were the highest note but someone decided to drop it down an
           | octave).
        
             | thaumasiotes wrote:
             | > So like the iconic Jaws Melody dun-dan-dun-dan-dun-dan,
             | those notes are separated by an interval that could be
             | called one semitone, 100 cents, or a minor second,
             | depending on who is talking.
             | 
             | For what it's worth, I would call that a "half step".
        
         | dehrmann wrote:
         | > dyad
         | 
         | Correct, though you'll much more commonly hear about triads, as
         | in major and minor triads, and you'll hear "power chord" more
         | often than "dyad," even though it's one specific dyad.
         | 
         | > 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.
         | 
         | Some of that is that the higher octaves reinforce existing
         | overtones, so the higher note is already there in a sense.
        
         | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
         | It's not unusual to see dyads described as intervals.
         | Technically they're different. But where "triad" is used all
         | the time, "dyad" just isn't used much.
         | 
         | Intervals are basically the number of semitones between two
         | pitches. Life would be easy if you could just say "seven
         | semitones", but in the context of scales and keys the intervals
         | have names - second, third, etc - with modifiers that are
         | somewhat context dependent.
         | 
         | Example: an augmented fourth and a diminished fifth are both
         | six semitones wide, but you'd use one name or the other
         | depending on the key/scale and other details.
         | 
         | Intervals that span more than an octave are usually called
         | [number of octaves] + [usual name].
        
         | thaumasiotes wrote:
         | > 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.
         | 
         | How are you imagining that works? If you had three eyebrows,
         | how much space would there be between them? Intervals are, by
         | definition, the space between two points.
        
         | jerf wrote:
         | "(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.)"
         | 
         | I have to resist the temptation to deliberately sing my
         | renditions of Happy Birthday on the diminished fourth/augmented
         | fifth of whoever the loudest person is, as a passive protest of
         | the fact that even if I do, _it hardly affects the result_.
         | 
         | It has somehow become a very impressionistic song, when sung by
         | The People. There's definitely the sense of the relevant
         | intervals as the song progresses but the sheer randomness of
         | the intervals of each singer relative to each other has, I
         | think, attained some sort of actual cultural status that is
         | actually special to that song. Get a few people to sing "Row
         | Row Row Your Boat" and they are generally much more on tune for
         | some reason, barring those who can't carry a tune at all under
         | any circumstances. It's like some sort of cultural signaling
         | about how they don't take birthdays too seriously or something
         | like that.
        
       | yahoozoo wrote:
       | Power chords are only 5% in Metal? OK.
        
       | divbzero wrote:
       | Isn't OP analyzing frequencies of individual chords, not chord
       | progressions?
       | 
       | Analyzing individual chords involves counting the frequency of
       | each chord (such as G, C, or D).
       | 
       | Analyzing chord progressions would involve counting the frequency
       | of chord pairs (such as D--A or C--G), chord triplets (such as D
       | --A--Bm or C--G--Am), or longer sequences of chords. For an
       | alternative look at the data, you could also normalize chord
       | progressions across key signatures for your analysis (D--A or C--
       | G would both normalize as I--V, D--A--Bm or C--G--Am would both
       | normalize as I--V--vi).
        
         | naijaboiler wrote:
         | i know. I was so disappointed reading that article. I had gone
         | in expecting an analysis of progressions. e.g. VI-IV-I-V
         | instead I got a page of chords analysis.
         | 
         | chord progression != chords.
        
         | mkl wrote:
         | Yes, I was disappointed.
         | 
         | The original paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22046 _did_ look
         | at chord progressions. They also trained a machine learning
         | model to predict the next chord. Some of the chord progression
         | data is in graph form at
         | https://github.com/spyroskantarelis/chordonomicon.
         | 
         | The raw chord data is at https://huggingface.co/datasets/ailsnt
         | ua/Chordonomicon/tree/.... It consists of one row per song
         | containing a list of chord names in song order (no timing
         | information) and Spotify ids for track and artist. It seems
         | like Spotify has a different id for every released version, so
         | it's really hard to search for particular songs in the data.
         | 
         | To normalise across key signatures you need to know what key
         | the song is in (at each point), and the data doesn't contain
         | that. For many genres it could be guessed reasonably accurately
         | from the chords.
        
         | thaumasiotes wrote:
         | > Isn't OP analyzing frequencies of individual chords, not
         | chord progressions?
         | 
         | Not according to the other comments, which say that the data
         | set strips chords that follow identical chords, as if "too" was
         | one of the most common words in written English.
        
       | naijaboiler wrote:
       | says chord progressions, and then just talked about chords
       | without any progressions. disappointing article.
        
       | cjohnson318 wrote:
       | Listing the "most frequent chord" is a weird analysis, I'm more
       | interested in the "most frequent key", or a transition matrix
       | from one key to another, e.g., if I'm in F, what's the chance I
       | go a fifth up to C, or a fourth down to Bb. Just telling me G is
       | a popular chord doesn't do much.
        
         | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
         | The "haunting" riff in the Hounds song features a tritone, and
         | it's a modal-ish progression - perhaps with hints of folk music
         | lurking in the background.
         | 
         | You're not going to understand it by counting chords.
         | 
         | A lot of pop has these quirks. Even things that sound like
         | I-IV-V or I-V-vi-IV bubble gum.
         | 
         | Slapping labels on the most obvious chords in a naive way
         | misses them completely.
        
         | domenici2000 wrote:
         | Exactly, this is useless. It's like saying the letter E is the
         | most used letter in the world and Wheel of Fortune is your
         | dataset.
        
           | johnfn wrote:
           | It's significantly _worse_ than that. It 's like saying the
           | letter E is the most common letter in a corpus of text where
           | most of the text has been ceasar-shifted.
        
         | edoceo wrote:
         | G is the best one though, maybe D.
        
       | memset wrote:
       | The way this analysis, and the original dataset were created,
       | makes no sense. This is, in part, not the author's fault, since
       | the original data [1, 2] is flawed.
       | 
       | First, the original data was constructed like this: "...The next
       | step was to format the raw HTML files into the full chord
       | progression of each song, _collapsing repeating identical chords
       | into a single chord_ ('A G G A' became 'A G A')... "
       | 
       | Already this makes no sense - the fact that a chord is repeated
       | isn't some sort of typo (though maybe it is on UltimateGuitar).
       | For example, a blues might have a progression C7 F7 C7 C7 - the
       | fact that C7 is repeated is part of the blues form. See song 225
       | from the dataset, which is a blues:
       | 
       | A7 D7 A7 D7 A7 E7 D7 A7
       | 
       | Should really be:
       | 
       | A7 D7 A7 A7 D7 D7 A7 A7 E7 D7 A7 A7
       | 
       | With these omissions, it's a lot harder to understand the
       | underlying harmony of these songs.
       | 
       | The second problem is that we don't really analyze songs so much
       | by the chords themselves, but the relationships between chords. A
       | next step would be to convert each song from chords to roman
       | numerals so we can understand common patterns of how songs are
       | constructed. Maybe a weekend project.
       | 
       | [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.22046 [2]
       | https://huggingface.co/datasets/ailsntua/Chordonomicon/blob/...
        
         | volemo wrote:
         | Could you explain the Roman numerals part?
        
           | zenogantner wrote:
           | Typically, chord progressions are described independently of
           | the key they are in.
           | 
           | For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2750s_progression
        
           | Twirrim wrote:
           | By convention in music, we use Roman numerals to signify what
           | chord we should play relative to the root (key). "I" refers
           | to the root/tonic/key and we count up from there. [1]
           | 
           | So, for example, a common three chord progression in a major
           | scale would be I - IV - V. If we take the key of C, those
           | would be C, F, G, as F and G are the fourth and fifth chords
           | respectively.
           | 
           | In the key of G, it'd be G, C and D. In that key, a good
           | example song is "Sweet Home Alabama", where almost the entire
           | song is just V - IV - I over and over again.
           | 
           | One of the most popular chord progressions, used in an
           | astounding number of pop songs is known as the "Four Chord
           | Trick", I - V - VI - IV, famously demonstrated by the Aussie
           | comedy band Axis of Awesome[2]
           | 
           | I think I'd agree with the person you're replying to, both in
           | that the original source is flawed due to not including the
           | "dupes", despite them being important, and also because key
           | is largely irrelevant, chord progression is much more
           | important.
           | 
           | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numeral_analysis
           | [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ.
        
             | cpelletier wrote:
             | Minor chords are written in lowercase so the Axis of
             | Awesome progression should be I-V-vi-IV
        
             | james_marks wrote:
             | This is about the simplest description of chord
             | progressions you're going to find.
             | 
             | There is something peculiar that people who understand
             | music theory tend to have a difficult time explaining it
             | without stacking concepts and new terms.
             | 
             | While I'm sure those concepts are necessary for
             | completeness, to a beginner in becomes a brick wall, and
             | this is blessedly direct compared to, to e.g., the linked
             | wikipedia entry.
        
           | zzo38computer wrote:
           | The number "I" means the chord from the first note of the
           | scale (e.g. C E G in C major, or F A C in F major), and
           | uppercase means major and lowercase means minor. Other
           | numbers will then be e.g. "V" will be G B D in C major. You
           | may then add digits as well in which case they indicate
           | intervals above the bass, e.g. "V6" is a first inversion
           | chord (e.g. B D G in C major) and "V7" adds the seventh (e.g.
           | G B D F in C major).
        
             | slater- wrote:
             | You're talking about figured bass, which is its own type of
             | notation.
             | 
             | "V6" to a jazz player would not indicate first inversion,
             | it would be a major triad (built from the 5th of the tonic
             | scale) with the addition of its own 6th scale degree. "V7"
             | would include the dominant 7th (as opposed to the major
             | 7th), "V13" would have the dominant 7th and also the 6th.
             | Inversions aren't specified, the voicings are left up to
             | the player.
        
         | zenogantner wrote:
         | The problem with collapsed repeated chords comes not only from
         | the data processing -- most Ultimate Guitar songs are written
         | down entirely ignoring how often a chord is repeated -- the
         | classic "lyrics plus chords" format is incomplete and requires
         | the player to somewhat know the structure of the song anyway.
         | The write-up usually just gives hints where, relative to the
         | lyrics, the chord changes.
        
           | moefh wrote:
           | Exactly. In my experience, it's not just Ultimate Guitar, all
           | of these sites with chord progressions assume you already
           | know how the music sounds. They're not enough for someone to
           | lean a song having never heard it, so they're almost
           | certainly not enough to automate analysis of the chord
           | progressions.
        
         | b800h wrote:
         | I agree with you to some extent, but I'm also alive to the
         | problem of how you achieve what you're talking about when
         | chords can change at any point in a bar.
        
       | vthommeret wrote:
       | If you're interested in more relative chord progression analysis,
       | check out Hooktheory (I'm not affiliated but I think love their
       | two books / apps):
       | 
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/index
       | 
       | It's "just" 32K songs, but you can see the top chord
       | progressions:
       | 
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/common-chord-progressio...
       | 
       | And see which songs follow any chord progression you choose
       | (either absolute or relative chords):
       | 
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/trends
        
         | ronyeh wrote:
         | I'm a huge fan of Hooktheory, and have bought all their books
         | and products. Thumbs up!
        
         | murki wrote:
         | here's a person who analyzed this data and presented it in a
         | far more interesting way https://www.amitkohli.com/wp-
         | content/uploads/2015/02/interac...
        
       | cole-k wrote:
       | It's an admittedly smaller dataset, but Hook Theory has an
       | analysis that allows you to search by chords (including relative)
       | and look at trends:
       | 
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab
       | 
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/trends
       | 
       | It's a weird coincidence to see this post since I only
       | occasionally remember about Hook Theory and binge it, but I
       | remembered earlier this week.
       | 
       | Many of you have probably heard the Axis of Awesome four chords
       | song (if not, look it up, it's great), but it's fun doing the
       | same thing with other songs.
       | 
       | Like, did you know that you can sing the chorus of Numb by Linkin
       | Park over the chorus of...
       | 
       | * I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace
       | 
       | * Immortals by Fallout Boy
       | 
       | * Cheap Thrills by Sia (swung Numb lol)
       | 
       | (+ the bridge of The Rock Show by Blink 182)
       | 
       | Numb has a pretty common chord progression so I could pick songs
       | with the exact same chords, but there are also some oddly
       | specific finds like this video game (?) song that inexplicably
       | has the same relative chord progression as Hotel California
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/view/zun/reincarnation#...
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | I am often surprised how a seemingly simple chord progression has
       | only one result, even when I search by relative chords and ignore
       | extensions and inversions, e.g.
       | https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/chord-search/results?ke...
       | 
       | However when you put that query into the normal search box, it
       | does match a lot more songs, showing that there is a i III _ VII
       | trend, just that i III vi VII is strange (which I guess makes
       | sense). Perhaps my lack of music theory makes it harder to
       | normalize my queries, but it's also possible that (1) there isn't
       | enough data or (2) there is inconsistency in how people annotate
       | the pieces (some songs will have II II II II, for example,
       | following the rhythm, whereas some songs will have just a single
       | II).
        
         | parpfish wrote:
         | Hook theory: It doesn't matter what I say, so long as I sing
         | with inflection
        
       | mastazi wrote:
       | I'm surprised that according to the article, in jazz, some chords
       | like D and A, which are mostly found in sharp keys, are more
       | common than chords like Bb and Eb, which are usually found in
       | flat keys.
       | 
       | I remember once creating a dataset based on 50 random tunes from
       | the Real Book and sharp keys were less than 20% of the total
       | (based on the key signature at the start of the score) so that
       | graph in the article doesn't seem right.
       | 
       | Maybe the discrepancy is because modern jazz fusion tunes are
       | under represented in the Real Book and those are usually more
       | guitar-oriented, so perhaps more likely that the musician would
       | pick a sharp key like D or A. As opposed to straight-ahead jazz
       | were people try to accommodate for sax/trumpet/trombone etc.
       | 
       | Or maybe it's because chords like D or A can be dominants in
       | minor keys that are flat keys, e.g. D in the key of Gmin or A in
       | the key of Dmin. - EDIT I just realised that dominants are listed
       | separately so this is not the case.
       | 
       | One more thing: according to the article, major triads make up
       | more than 50% of chords in jazz... what? That's certainly wrong,
       | most major chords in jazz are usually maj7th or 6th even when
       | they don't have upper extensions. I think that what they actually
       | meant is "major chords that are not dominants". But they used the
       | label "major triad" instead.
        
         | AIPedant wrote:
         | The dataset is not "jazz," it's Ultimate Guitar's tablature of
         | jazz songs, so the data is very low quality.
        
       | zzo38computer wrote:
       | I do not see the mention of what chord progressions are used.
       | They did mention what chords (according to only the notes, not
       | according to the key) are common, though.
       | 
       | I would expect that a full analysis should write the roman
       | numbers (so you will have to know what key it is as well), and
       | might also consider such things as non-chord tones, modulation to
       | other keys, etc. (However, this is not as simple as just putting
       | them into the computer and writing a SQL query or whatever.)
       | 
       | What I had seen on television and what I had read, is that I-V-
       | vi-IV chord progression is common in modern music. (There is also
       | i-VI-III-VII, which is the relative minor key than I-V-vi-IV,
       | which is obvious once you realize it.)
        
       | p0w3n3d wrote:
       | Just changing key from G too F # does not make the song unique if
       | it still follows the same chord schema. It'd be better to
       | identify chords relatively, i.e. IV->I->V->vi
        
       | huimang wrote:
       | Using absolute chord analysis instead of relative chords (i.e.
       | roman numeral analysis) doesn't make sense. As others have noted,
       | the original dataset is flawed because the _structure_ of a song
       | is critical, you cannot omit repeating chords. Programmers
       | /analysts should take more care to understand music theory or the
       | underlying field at hand, before compiling datasets or doing
       | analysis.
       | 
       | "Most common chord" is mildly interesting, but not really that
       | useful. The most common key, and the most commonly used chords
       | relative to that key (i.e. with roman numeral analysis) would be
       | much more useful and interesting. This would help paint a clearer
       | distinction between e.g. country and jazz, not that "jazz uses Bb
       | major more". Also, anyone with general instrument knowledge would
       | surmise that since Bb and Eb instruments are much more prevalent.
       | 
       | "If you're sitting down to write a song, throw a 7th chord in.
       | The ghost of a jazz great will smile on you."
       | 
       | 7ths don't belong to jazz only, and the average songwriter isn't
       | making data-driven decisions on how to settle on the chord
       | structure for their song.
        
         | CuriouslyC wrote:
         | I think most musicians know that I-IV-V-I is the zero thought
         | default for in key chord progression, it's so overused you
         | don't need fancy analysis to figure it out.
         | 
         | For me, I'm more interested in the intervals and voicing pairs,
         | because those tell you something deeper about the music that
         | you don't get from the chord progression.
        
           | toolslive wrote:
           | I-IV-V-I, II-V-I and maybe I-VII-VI-V and you can consider
           | yourself "advanced" ;)
        
             | fuzzfactor wrote:
             | There's bandleaders who have geared their entire
             | performance so if you can pick this kind of thing up by
             | ear, follow their timing, and put effort into making _them_
             | sound better, you 're more valuable than some alternatives
             | having truly advanced formal musical training.
             | 
             | Especially with equal or better chops, lots of players like
             | this can go into a studio and make recordable music, in one
             | take, without actually rehearsing together in advance.
             | 
             | And play in any key, since it's just Roman numerals.
        
             | epiccoleman wrote:
             | I have an almost irrational love for I-IV-VII-V. It's got a
             | sort of happy, laid-back nostalgic vibe - sort of the best
             | way I know to smuggle an extra major chord into a key. It
             | can be approached in some fun different ways - can be
             | thought of a "mixolydian" progression off the tonic, but
             | it's also two I-IVs stuck together - almost a little mini-
             | modulation if you wanna think of that way.
             | 
             | Sunrain[1] by Lotus is probably my favorite example (listen
             | for the chords that come in under the main riff). But it's
             | a staple in tons of rock music, and once you get it into
             | your ears you'll hear it all over.
             | 
             | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAc-B5eDKmI
        
               | zarathustreal wrote:
               | Jeeze this song is hard to listen to.. it _almost_ feels
               | like intentional syncopation on the guitar part but I
               | can't imagine they would have left it in intentionally
               | after hearing how grating it is against the drum groove
        
               | epiccoleman wrote:
               | Man. Different strokes, I guess. One of my favorite
               | songs. That's ok though, really just meant to get the
               | chord progression across.
        
         | peanut-walrus wrote:
         | Wouldn't using relative chords simply show that 99% of songs
         | use the I chord? :)
        
           | navane wrote:
           | It's like analyzing music by looking at the amplitude of the
           | sound wave instead of the frequency. Music is all about the
           | changes.
        
             | clonedhuman wrote:
             | Yeah. It's all about what changes, what doesn't, and when
             | and where those changes occur. Stability and novelty.
        
         | pfisherman wrote:
         | Agreed on chord numbers and progression being the analysis that
         | should have been done. For example, blues is mostly defined by
         | a 1-4-5 progression and the ol 2-5-1 is pretty ubiquitous
         | across time and genre.
         | 
         | Also, I think disappearance of 7th chords - major, minor, or
         | dominant - is vastly overstated. Keep in mind that these are
         | from guitar tabs so likely ignoring chord inversion / voicing /
         | substitution taking placw to simplify notation. For example a B
         | minor triad can be substituted for a Gmaj7.
         | 
         | Bm triad = B,D,F#
         | 
         | Gmaj7 = G,B,D,F#
         | 
         | Or if you want to be fancy a Bb/Gm can work as either Bbmaj7 or
         | C7 depending on where you put it in a progression.
        
           | pclmulqdq wrote:
           | As you have suggested, it has also become common to use
           | patterns like Bm/G to create a Gm7 that is less spicy than if
           | the bass G were mixed into the treble octaves. 9 and 11
           | chords are also done this way.
           | 
           | C7/D is a C9 chord, and C/D is a bit more "open" of a sound
           | but still a 9 chord.
           | 
           | G7sus4/B is a G11 chord, dropping the 9th.
        
           | seertaak wrote:
           | Anyway a 2-5-1 is the rotation of a diatonic substitution of
           | a 1-4-5 (2 for 4). Only one note difference between those two
           | chord changes.
        
         | apercu wrote:
         | To further this, my trio is down a half step because we're
         | older now and it's easier to sing at a lower register. This is
         | pretty common for a lot of over 40 artists as well.
         | 
         | Also, as you know, blues has dominant 7ths all over.
        
         | seertaak wrote:
         | Agree completely. I assume OP means major or minor 7th chord -
         | they can't possibly mean dominant 7th, because...does there
         | even exist a single blues song which doesn't have that chord?
         | 
         | And let's say you take maj7 chords - "you and me song", "you
         | are so beautiful", "sing sang sung", "1975" - just off the top
         | of my head. Pretty much any pop song which is melancholic
         | sounding.
         | 
         | For min7, choose virtually any Santana song.
         | 
         | Even if you said maj9 or min9 it still wouldn't be remotely
         | true. Otoh 13th chords....I think you'd have to reach to find a
         | non-jazz occurrence of that chord. And it happens in jazz all
         | the time.
        
           | kortex wrote:
           | I am pretty sure the analysis is: however the chord is
           | notated in Ultimate Guitar, that's how it's analyzed. So if
           | the chord sheet says C Am F G, that's exactly how it's being
           | analyzed, even if that G is almost certainly acting as a
           | dominant 7th, especially once you factor in what all the
           | other voices are doing.
        
         | sysrestartusr wrote:
         | > and the average songwriter isn't making data-driven decisions
         | on how to settle on the chord structure for their song
         | 
         | aren't decisions like that implicit to the source of
         | learning/inspiration? it's not data-driven on the surface of
         | the writers awareness, and maybe not data-driven in the
         | statistical sense, but "intuitively", "that which sounds good
         | successively", is based on what one heard so far within the
         | context of the song ... so it's one hundred percent data-
         | driven, just not data that one has consciously quantified.
         | 
         | IMO: average songwriters and musicians and producers are the
         | top exactly because they hit exactly that big fat belly of the
         | bell curve/ G distribution ... I'd say you have it backwards...
         | there's much more experimentation and less data-stuff going on
         | left and right of the average
        
         | uoaei wrote:
         | The parallels between your critique of music analysis, and
         | linguists' critique of LLMs, bear remarkable similarities.
         | "Language/thought is more than sequences of tokens" will still
         | be true no matter how much data we throw at the problem to
         | smooth the rough edges.
        
           | airstrike wrote:
           | Except music theory has a math component to it so it's
           | arguably somewhat quantifiable and falsifiable in a way that
           | linguistics never will be.
        
             | uoaei wrote:
             | This is an incredibly ignorant assertion, even for someone
             | who has so obviously studied neither linguistics nor music
             | theory.
        
           | Levitz wrote:
           | The parallelism doesn't really work, I'm going to try to
           | stretch it to make a point though.
           | 
           | Imagine that we were at a stage in which LLMs didn't really
           | make sentences, only output like "Potato rainbow screen sunny
           | throat", then we studied which words are used. There's really
           | not much value to the words at all, we could maybe see which
           | words are bundled together, we could try to ascertain what
           | kind of words are used more, but in wanting to study the
           | coherence of it all, it just holds very, very little value.
           | 
           | Chords by themselves hold very little meaning. The sensations
           | evoked come from chords in a context and the progression
           | provides very valuable context. Talking about a chord in a
           | song is like talking about a word in a book, it's never
           | really about that piece of the puzzle appearing, it's about
           | how that piece is used in the puzzle.
        
             | uoaei wrote:
             | It does work, particularly the emphasis on causal sequences
             | being wholly inefficient to represent multidimensional and
             | abstract concepts such as those that exist in both language
             | and music.
             | 
             | The fact that you never refer to "syntax" even in this
             | attempt at high level reasoning gives me pause and I cannot
             | help but to conclude that you are making arguments in bad
             | faith.
        
         | golergka wrote:
         | > average songwriter isn't making data-driven decisions on how
         | to settle on the chord structure for their song
         | 
         | Depends on what do you call data-driven. A songwriter most
         | likely knows that a lot of fifth chords to gives power-metal
         | vibes, and diminished and out-of-key songs do give these ghosts
         | of jazz.
        
       | 1337shadow wrote:
       | Aren't Ultimate Guitar chord progressions user contributed? They
       | often simplify the actual chords in their tabs.
        
       | psychoslave wrote:
       | Oh just when this morning I was wondering how I might find which
       | sequence of chords would cover all songs ever published.
       | 
       | That led me to remember of the famous combinatory proof that was
       | published in Redhit to answer which sequence of some television
       | series one should watch to achieve a minimal chain of something.
       | 
       | But I was also concerned that finding chord progression for all
       | songs would be the hardest part, compared to any chord
       | progression which can be just generated by anyone.
        
       | vitaly-pavlenko wrote:
       | my favorite paper on analyzing chord progressions so far is this
       | seemingly niche comparative study of five metal genres:
       | https://pure.hud.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/58172029/Boddin...
       | 
       | it shows which chords exactly set black metal, power metal,
       | metalcore, death metal and progressive metal apart
       | 
       | (i also try to do my own narrative on chords, but so far there's
       | nothing to write home about: https://rawl.rocks/)
        
       | digbybk wrote:
       | I'm having a hard time believing power chords only account for
       | 5.8% of chords in metal.
        
         | wbl wrote:
         | Metal is extremely hard to analyze because intermodulation
         | products do so much.
        
         | dboreham wrote:
         | The probability that the tab on Ultimate Guitar for any given
         | metal song is accurate, tends to zero.
        
       | svag wrote:
       | There is a nice standup sketch from an Australian comedy group,
       | the Axis of Evil, that most of the pop songs are using only four
       | chords, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
        
       | kube-system wrote:
       | I was disappointed to see they use Ultimate Guitar data for this.
       | Back when I played regularly under the study of a professional, I
       | quickly found that the _majority_ of tabs on the site are just
       | plain wrong.
       | 
       | Likely some of the "simplicity" observed in the chords here
       | aren't actually due to the music being simple, but that the user
       | who contributed the tab made their best simplified guess as to
       | what it was.
       | 
       | Unfortunately the analysis is probably flawed because of the poor
       | quality of data.
        
       | ben7799 wrote:
       | As others have said this is interesting but use of Ultimate
       | Guitar is flawed as the tabs/scores are so bad on that site, very
       | often not even being close to the real chords.
       | 
       | On top of being simplified tons and tons of songs get rewritten
       | with a Capo so people can just play G-C-D shapes, if your
       | analysis doesn't look for "Capo" and then transpose all the
       | chords then you end up overrepresenting the key of G and it's
       | chords. Then very often 7th chords, Sus chords, etc.. all get
       | transcribed down to major chords & minor chords due to the
       | beginner focus. Interestingly he doesn't include 6th chords as
       | their own thing.
       | 
       | To be fair there are tons of songs that do actually use those
       | chords, so they may still end up coming out as the most popular.
       | 
       | I have a grandfathered in lifetime membership to UG that I only
       | had to pay once for. It was cheap so worth it, but I really find
       | the site kind of icky as they are mostly monetizing crowd sourced
       | low quality work and it's very often wrong. And they nerfed their
       | iPad app recently which is really annoying.
        
         | kjkjadksj wrote:
         | The power tabs and guitar pro tabs are a big step up over the
         | text based stuff on ug. You can play it in midi and see they
         | are usually perfect.
        
           | ben7799 wrote:
           | Obviously I've had access to those for a long time. I would
           | still say they are nowhere near as good as published
           | material. And sometimes I've seen the community text ones
           | actually be more correct.
           | 
           | Really a question of how much you pay for it. Sounds like
           | some plans are $25/month, that's enough to just buy tons of
           | published material instead. I paid $5 for a lifetime
           | membership.. very worth it.
        
           | pc86 wrote:
           | It sounds perfect which is part of it, but if you've ever
           | looked at the Pro tabs, especially the vocal transcriptions,
           | the fretboard positions are all over the place, seem to be
           | wrong about half the time, and in the worst cases I've seen
           | nearly physically impossible to play.
           | 
           | Also for unknown reasons (licensing?) it's impossible to have
           | the vocal track play when you're using a backing track.
        
         | strunz wrote:
         | The fact that the data showed only 6% of Metal songs having
         | power chords should've told him to throw the data out the
         | window. UG has terrible tabs/charts.
        
         | YZF wrote:
         | It's really not _that_ bad. It 's a mix. There are also many
         | versions for most songs and often comments with corrections.
         | 
         | Learning songs by ear is probably a useful skill that people
         | don't develop because of all the other sources of
         | information... but probably helps more people play which is
         | good.
        
         | dyauspitr wrote:
         | They have quite a few versions usually but the most accurate
         | version is usually the one with far and away the most positive
         | reviews/upvotes.
        
       | calibas wrote:
       | From my experience playing guitar, the average punk or metal song
       | is almost entirely power chords, while this data says power
       | chords are only 5% of chords in both genres...
       | 
       | I thought maybe there's types of metal and punk that I don't know
       | about, but Wikipedia, LLMs and guitar tab sites all agree with
       | me. Punk and metal is overwhelmingly power chords, so I don't see
       | how the data comparing chord types can be correct.
        
         | xfalcox wrote:
         | I guess one aspect missing here is weighting more popular songs
         | on that analysis.
         | 
         | I assume that the analysis is simply counting every song
         | chords, so a unknown band you've never heard about has the same
         | impact as The Ramones.
         | 
         | I'd like to see the same graph weighted by band popularity
         | using either YouTube or Spotify data.
        
         | Levitz wrote:
         | That was also really surprising to me, but I think it can be
         | explained by the fact that they bundle up repeated chords.
         | 
         | You could play a G power chord for 3 minutes straight and it
         | would count as one.
        
       | aczerepinski wrote:
       | As a jazz musician I'd estimate that there are at least an order
       | of magnitude more seventh chords than triads in jazz songs. I
       | question a dataset that says there are more triads. Makes me
       | wonder what else is wrong with the data.
       | 
       | For instance, G being the most common key in jazz doesn't ring
       | true. I'd wager that it's Bb, Eb, F in some order.
       | 
       | Maybe all of the songs in this set were simplified for guitar
       | players?
        
       | alganet wrote:
       | HN proceeds to give a crowd pseudo-lecture on notation, because
       | notation is important. I think HN misses the point.
       | 
       | If you do these analysis using very basic notation knowledge
       | (letters on top of lyrics are chords!), can you discover by
       | yourself what you missed?
       | 
       | Many self-taught amateur musicians go through something similar.
       | You play the simple chord chart, then you notice by yourself that
       | it is not enough. You start to understand the instrument,
       | training the ear, and learning beyond the simple charts.
       | 
       | Can you do that with data? Possibly. Maybe, as others mentioned,
       | another dataset would be needed. However, to suggest that such
       | dataset needs to be "a better one in notation" seems misguided.
        
         | duped wrote:
         | I don't see anyone harping on notation, but using notation to
         | point out why the analysis is lacking.
        
           | alganet wrote:
           | The author self-reported lack of music knowledge.
           | 
           | Using notation to point out the mistakes makes no sense.
           | Unless the message in those critics is "learn notation".
        
             | dboreham wrote:
             | You don't need to learn any notation to understand the
             | concept that human perception of music is driven by
             | relative frequency relationships, not absolute frequency.
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | Yeah, that seems about right.
               | 
               | Many musicians can just play a song that feels good.
               | Never knowing anything about notation or frequency stuff.
               | 
               | Maybe a data guy can extract something useful from an
               | incomplete dataset too. What was the author trying to do?
               | Showing some prowess with data while learning about
               | music. I think the result was good.
        
             | duped wrote:
             | The notation is the tool to describe abstract concepts.
             | It's impossible to talk about _why_ analysis is flawed if
             | you don 't even have the language to describe the data
             | being analyzed.
             | 
             | edited to remove some snark.
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | So it is _exactly_ what I called it to be then: HN giving
               | a pseudo-lecture on notation. Because notation is
               | important.
               | 
               | However, it's a loose exploration of data, no hypothesis.
               | The "flaw" only exists if you treat it like it is meant
               | for professional musicians.
        
       | duped wrote:
       | I think large scale automated harmonic analysis is a worthy
       | endeavor for the purposes of musicological research that could
       | even be applied to pedagogy (deceptively hard problem: identify
       | what piece(s) of music to teach to achieve specific goals for
       | students).
       | 
       | But you really need good (and preferably ethical) sources of data
       | to do that, and UltimateGuitar ain't it. You also probably want
       | to engage with some music theorists to normalize the data to give
       | you better analysis and ask better questions than "what is the
       | most common chord."
       | 
       | From this analysis I don't think "is music getting simpler" can
       | be answered, and I think the trends are interesting questions to
       | investigate for musicologists but this data set and analysis are
       | too flawed to answer them.
        
       | RickJWagner wrote:
       | That's a really interesting read.
       | 
       | I'm shocked at the similarities between country and punk. Did not
       | imagine that!
        
       | dboreham wrote:
       | Oh, the data came from Ultimate Guitar? So as every guitarist
       | knows: it's wrong.
        
       | RajT88 wrote:
       | What a flawed study - Metal music only uses 5.8% power chords?
       | 
       | There is no genre more power chord heavy. (pun intended)
        
       | murki wrote:
       | what I was hoping this article would do (i.e. express this
       | information as roman numeral progression) has been done here
       | https://www.amitkohli.com/chord-progressions-of-5-000-songs/
        
       | osxman wrote:
       | Ultimate Guitar is not very accurate. That is because for example
       | blues notes are 'bended' on a guitar by pushing up the strings a
       | lot. Many notes are wrongly notated on Ultimate Guitar. It is
       | better to use official sheet music books.
        
       | anigbrowl wrote:
       | One thing that jumped out at me was the data point suggesting
       | there are very few power chords in electronic music. But in fact,
       | they're ubiquitous because it's easy to make a power chord in a
       | single note, by tuning oscillators a 5th apart. _Any_ synth with
       | 2 or more oscillators comes with a bunch of 5th patches (or patch
       | sheets if it 's all analog). It's one of the first synthesis
       | techniques people learn to make thick-soundings patches.
       | 
       | Also the whole idea of doing the analysis based on absolute
       | rather than relative notes makes little sense to me as a
       | musician, though perhaps that's because I didn't start with
       | guitar or a tuned instrument like a trumpet.
        
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