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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

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.

deleted 1y ago
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CuriouslyC 1y ago
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 1y ago
  I-IV-V-I, II-V-I and maybe I-VII-VI-V and you can consider yourself "advanced" ;)
  - fuzzfactor 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAc-B5eDKmI
    - zarathustreal 1y ago
      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 1y ago
        Man. Different strokes, I guess. One of my favorite songs. That's ok though, really just meant to get the chord progression across.
        zarathustreal 1y ago
        Oh I love the melody and harmony, it’s the guitar rhythm that kills me. It’s to the point that it feels random and as a fellow musician I cringe to even say that about someone’s playing because I know how intentional music is, especially the kind meant to sound like it’s not
        epiccoleman 1y ago
        You mean the chord work that comes in behind the main melody? I can definitely hear what you mean, it does feel almost random at points.
peanut-walrus 1y ago
Wouldn't using relative chords simply show that 99% of songs use the I chord? :)
- navane 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    Yeah. It's all about what changes, what doesn't, and when and where those changes occur. Stability and novelty.
pfisherman 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  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.
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago
  >blues is mostly defined by a 1-4-5 progression and the ol 2-5-1 is pretty ubiquitous across time and genre. I IV V, and ii V I, to be clear.
apercu 1y ago
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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
> 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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - airstrike 1y ago
      This is an incredibly ignorant reply, even for someone who has so obviously studied neither debate nor logical reasoning. I encourage you to read this site's guidelines and strive to do better moving forward, as your comment kinda seems to break 5-6 rules all at once. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - uoaei 1y ago
        If you had more to say on the topic at hand, you would have said it by now. I'm not interested in trying to educate someone so comfortable in promulgating assertions informed by nothing but amateur-level vibes. We could list the logical fallacies you're displaying in the spirit of "debate and reasoning" but I have no faith this would go anywhere productive. Report me instead of complaining about guidelines if retaliation for being exposed for your ignorance is so important to you.
        airstrike 1y ago
        But it would be terribly wasteful to further entertain someone on the subject of music and artificial intelligence, when it is so evident they must first overcome their oblivious impertinence and emotional incompetence in order for such debate to be even moderately enjoyable to anyone else less arrogant and unhappy. You assume my choice to not continue the conversation is because I have nothing to say, when in fact I do so because I have nothing to say to you specifically.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
golergka 1y ago
> 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.
randomNumber7 1y ago
Why is there currently so much low quality low IQ content on hn that gets up voted?
Jabbles 1y ago
Unfortunately this work is now cited by Wikipedia, so expect the confusion to spread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)#Usage_and_trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)#Usage_and_trends

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

CuriouslyC 1y ago

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 1y ago
I-IV-V-I, II-V-I and maybe I-VII-VI-V and you can consider yourself "advanced" ;)
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAc-B5eDKmI
  - zarathustreal 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      Man. Different strokes, I guess. One of my favorite songs. That's ok though, really just meant to get the chord progression across.
      - zarathustreal 1y ago
        Oh I love the melody and harmony, it’s the guitar rhythm that kills me. It’s to the point that it feels random and as a fellow musician I cringe to even say that about someone’s playing because I know how intentional music is, especially the kind meant to sound like it’s not
        epiccoleman 1y ago
        You mean the chord work that comes in behind the main melody? I can definitely hear what you mean, it does feel almost random at points.

peanut-walrus 1y ago

Wouldn't using relative chords simply show that 99% of songs use the I chord? :)

navane 1y ago
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 1y ago
  Yeah. It's all about what changes, what doesn't, and when and where those changes occur. Stability and novelty.

pfisherman 1y ago

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 1y ago
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 1y ago
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.
Ylpertnodi 1y ago
>blues is mostly defined by a 1-4-5 progression and the ol 2-5-1 is pretty ubiquitous across time and genre. I IV V, and ii V I, to be clear.

apercu 1y ago

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 1y ago

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 1y ago
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 1y ago

> 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 1y ago

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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - airstrike 1y ago
    This is an incredibly ignorant reply, even for someone who has so obviously studied neither debate nor logical reasoning. I encourage you to read this site's guidelines and strive to do better moving forward, as your comment kinda seems to break 5-6 rules all at once. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - uoaei 1y ago
      If you had more to say on the topic at hand, you would have said it by now. I'm not interested in trying to educate someone so comfortable in promulgating assertions informed by nothing but amateur-level vibes. We could list the logical fallacies you're displaying in the spirit of "debate and reasoning" but I have no faith this would go anywhere productive. Report me instead of complaining about guidelines if retaliation for being exposed for your ignorance is so important to you.
      - airstrike 1y ago
        But it would be terribly wasteful to further entertain someone on the subject of music and artificial intelligence, when it is so evident they must first overcome their oblivious impertinence and emotional incompetence in order for such debate to be even moderately enjoyable to anyone else less arrogant and unhappy. You assume my choice to not continue the conversation is because I have nothing to say, when in fact I do so because I have nothing to say to you specifically.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

golergka 1y ago

> 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.

randomNumber7 1y ago

Why is there currently so much low quality low IQ content on hn that gets up voted?

Jabbles 1y ago

Unfortunately this work is now cited by Wikipedia, so expect the confusion to spread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)#Usage_and_trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)#Usage_and_trends