As a longtime, somewhat reluctant, user of ultimate guitar I will say that often the chord annotations are not high quality. For instance, some annotators will have chord diagrams that show a voicing that actually rings out as e.g. Dsus4 but label it as D and use D throughout. Even more prevalent is songs where there are actually suspensions or extensions but which are written as plain major/minor throughout. I'm assuming Chordonomicon doesn't correct for this.
I don't think this changes your analysis (except maybe for rap? jazzy/laid back rap beats usually sound suspended/major 7th-y to me). I think it's interesting that this data is (likely) messy in a very domain-specific way.
I was going to post individually about how this study is both fascinating and yet its results are largely unsurprising. (E.g. jazz features 7th chords more than rock; as jazz's popularity has declined, so has the 7th chord. Or: If G is the most popular chord, it stands to musical reason that C, D, A, and F would follow, pretty much in that order.)
But Nathan here raises an important point. Much of what is on Ultimate Guitar is patently inaccurate, and a hefty amount of it over-simplified by well-meaning amateurs posting their baby steps at training their musical ears... It is not the reliable sample set one should be drawing from. Also, multiple songs on Ultimate Guitar have multiple interpretations and I can tell you from experience that the ones with highest star ratings are often NOT the most accurate. Short of reading the authors' paper (which states 666,000 songs not 680,000) it's difficult to sense how they may have compensated for these factors; would they have included all six chord-sequences reported on a single hit record, or did they only go for the most popular of the six, without studying for accuracy?
I really appreciate what you did hear Chris and not trying to knock it, but when you make the point just above, about these errors of over-simplification being presumed as equally distributed across genres and time I might come back with a different theory/suggestion... Those who transcribe(d) complex jazz or fusion-rock or similarly complicated genres may well be more musical, better trained, older too, and therefore accurate in their transcriptions than those who post over-simplified transcriptions of contemporary pop.rock.r&b etc songs, where those suspended 4ths, minor 7ths and often enough, the simple difference between a major and a minor, all goes unreported. Additionally, to the notion that music has become less complex over time, not necessarily going to argue that; however, again given the sample study is being drawn from an amateur database to begin with, is it possible that older songs have more source material to be reported accurately, whereas newer songs are dependent on new transcriptions with less opportunity to revise?
Since it's common knowledge among guitarists that Ultimate Guitar is not reliable for annotations, where should we go to get quality annotations, any tips or tricks?
I would say that Songsterr has better quality annotations on average. Back in the day there was a site called power tab archive that was doing a Wikipedia style approach: ultimate guitar but with peer review. It was awesome but shut down by RIAA
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
If you're not great with pitch like me, you can use sonic visualizer and annotate the spectogram is my best bet if you want a more definitive answer. But depending on the mix, it isn't always as easy.
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
A note on the jazz graph is that 9ths, 11ths and 13ths are very low. This may be because they are rarely notated and more often their use is left to the player. Basically any modern jazz chord is usually played with a couple of extensions.
That’s certainly true in jazz, but not necessarily in other popular music. Correctly transcribed Bowie songs, for example, would certainly have to notate the exact extensions.
Very interesting. I wonder if the tool accounts for capo-ing (especially if it's pulling from ultimate guitar), and what that would mean for the findings if so
Good point. I have no idea. Though luckily that wouldn’t affect the different groups of chords (ie a 7th chord is a 7th chord no matter where you capo)
I find this stuff fascinating. I wonder how much the decline of the 7th chord is a function of guitar supplanting piano (which of course also a function of rock taking over from jazz).
Interesting stuff; thanks for writing it. But I’m curious why your analysis wasn’t about the roles or functions of chords (e.g. I, V, Vm, etc) to be independent of key, rather than as “absolute” chords. A G can play a very different role depending on the tonic!
Mostly just because the dataset didn’t note the key. Because of that there was no reliable way to assess relative positions. Had that been part of the data, I probably would have done that
Yes ben's comment is what I was interested in as well. As a musician and songwriter, the relationships between the chords (progressions) are more important than the actual letter names or use frequency.
There's likely an algorithm that could be applied to the dataset to determine the key with some accuracy. I always look for the 2 major chords in a song that are consecutive to each other (they don't need to be played consecutively), those are usually the IV and V chord which leaves the other major chord as the tonic, e.g. C and D are the IV and V leaving G as the key. Of course this isn't a rule but does apply to the majority of popular songs. I'm sure some software engineers out there have more specific algorithms.
As a long-time jazz player, I have to question the accuracy of the data. I've played many more seventh chords than pure triads in my lifetime, and chord charts don't necessarily reflect musical practice: For instance, when a jazz player sees a tonic C chord on a chart, that's basically shorthand for C maj7, and a G chord in a song in C would almost automatically become G7. An analysis of the Real Book charts would be far more illuminating. Best of all, of course, would be harmonic analysis of actual performances.
One offramp to take from this piece is to track harmonic structure of popular music with the advent of affordable electronic keyboards. Especially in light of the popularity of rap. When you consider the way sampling was/is used, and the exposure to those older records, you're guaranteed to have certain sounds and harmonic patterns imprinted. With the ease of use of keyboards, I think there would be trends showing. And just due to the way the instrument is laid out, the most novice musician will find voicings different from guitar.
I would recommend watching Rick Beato's YouTube. One of the things he does is find the chords that get buried in today's popular music, due to it's emphasis on rhythm. Some tunes actually have interesting chords-if you are willing to scrape the paint and lacquer off them.
From a songwriting perspective, there are chord progressions that are just easier to come up with compelling melodies over than others, usually they consist of I vi IV V chords in some sequence. Once you start throwing in stuff in between those, you have to take that into account with your melody which can make it less intuitive. And if you're writing for a pop audience, the easier it is to sing, the better.
Interesting article. Point though, some very repetitive songs will score high in imaginativeness. Think of Funk - 1 chord for the whole song would score 100%.
Am thinking of songs like James Brown’s “cold sweat”, “Shake everything you’ve got” by Maceo Parker (2 chords, 5 changes), or “straight cold player” by Lenny Kravitz, which has 2 chords and 3 changes, so 66%, that’s if you count the first chord (from no chord to a chord) as a change.
On the other side it means a song must be very imaginative to manage with so few chord changes. But they sure are repetitive.
And I wonder if such songs even show up in that database because one would probably describe them in tabs.
What percentage of songs consist of three majors and a minor? (G,C,D,Em) I have a theory that the reason so many songs follow this pattern is because it’s representative of life. There’s a buildup, a peak, a setback, and recovery that is a common cycle in life
I’m a big fan of the 7th chord, especially minor 7ths. I use them frequently in my songs. In one of my latest songs I was trying to be simpler and used Bb, Dm, Cm, Eb, F, and Gm for most of the song. But when it came to the bridge, I couldn’t resist and used Ebmaj7, Abmaj7, Dm7, Gm, Cm7, and F7sus4. Ah well. So much for simplicity.
Love this! I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking. Dm me if interested in a recommendation swap — we’re growing fast!
As a longtime, somewhat reluctant, user of ultimate guitar I will say that often the chord annotations are not high quality. For instance, some annotators will have chord diagrams that show a voicing that actually rings out as e.g. Dsus4 but label it as D and use D throughout. Even more prevalent is songs where there are actually suspensions or extensions but which are written as plain major/minor throughout. I'm assuming Chordonomicon doesn't correct for this.
I don't think this changes your analysis (except maybe for rap? jazzy/laid back rap beats usually sound suspended/major 7th-y to me). I think it's interesting that this data is (likely) messy in a very domain-specific way.
That’s a good point but I’d be surprised if those errors were not equally distributed across genres and time
I was going to post individually about how this study is both fascinating and yet its results are largely unsurprising. (E.g. jazz features 7th chords more than rock; as jazz's popularity has declined, so has the 7th chord. Or: If G is the most popular chord, it stands to musical reason that C, D, A, and F would follow, pretty much in that order.)
But Nathan here raises an important point. Much of what is on Ultimate Guitar is patently inaccurate, and a hefty amount of it over-simplified by well-meaning amateurs posting their baby steps at training their musical ears... It is not the reliable sample set one should be drawing from. Also, multiple songs on Ultimate Guitar have multiple interpretations and I can tell you from experience that the ones with highest star ratings are often NOT the most accurate. Short of reading the authors' paper (which states 666,000 songs not 680,000) it's difficult to sense how they may have compensated for these factors; would they have included all six chord-sequences reported on a single hit record, or did they only go for the most popular of the six, without studying for accuracy?
I really appreciate what you did hear Chris and not trying to knock it, but when you make the point just above, about these errors of over-simplification being presumed as equally distributed across genres and time I might come back with a different theory/suggestion... Those who transcribe(d) complex jazz or fusion-rock or similarly complicated genres may well be more musical, better trained, older too, and therefore accurate in their transcriptions than those who post over-simplified transcriptions of contemporary pop.rock.r&b etc songs, where those suspended 4ths, minor 7ths and often enough, the simple difference between a major and a minor, all goes unreported. Additionally, to the notion that music has become less complex over time, not necessarily going to argue that; however, again given the sample study is being drawn from an amateur database to begin with, is it possible that older songs have more source material to be reported accurately, whereas newer songs are dependent on new transcriptions with less opportunity to revise?
Thanks any which way!~
Tony
Since it's common knowledge among guitarists that Ultimate Guitar is not reliable for annotations, where should we go to get quality annotations, any tips or tricks?
I would say that Songsterr has better quality annotations on average. Back in the day there was a site called power tab archive that was doing a Wikipedia style approach: ultimate guitar but with peer review. It was awesome but shut down by RIAA
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
If you're not great with pitch like me, you can use sonic visualizer and annotate the spectogram is my best bet if you want a more definitive answer. But depending on the mix, it isn't always as easy.
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
Very interesting.
A note on the jazz graph is that 9ths, 11ths and 13ths are very low. This may be because they are rarely notated and more often their use is left to the player. Basically any modern jazz chord is usually played with a couple of extensions.
That’s certainly true in jazz, but not necessarily in other popular music. Correctly transcribed Bowie songs, for example, would certainly have to notate the exact extensions.
Very interesting. I wonder if the tool accounts for capo-ing (especially if it's pulling from ultimate guitar), and what that would mean for the findings if so
Good point. I have no idea. Though luckily that wouldn’t affect the different groups of chords (ie a 7th chord is a 7th chord no matter where you capo)
I find this stuff fascinating. I wonder how much the decline of the 7th chord is a function of guitar supplanting piano (which of course also a function of rock taking over from jazz).
This is great! I loved it, very thoughtful, original, and totally compelling for any guitar nerd 🫡👍👏
Thank you!
Interesting stuff; thanks for writing it. But I’m curious why your analysis wasn’t about the roles or functions of chords (e.g. I, V, Vm, etc) to be independent of key, rather than as “absolute” chords. A G can play a very different role depending on the tonic!
Mostly just because the dataset didn’t note the key. Because of that there was no reliable way to assess relative positions. Had that been part of the data, I probably would have done that
Yes ben's comment is what I was interested in as well. As a musician and songwriter, the relationships between the chords (progressions) are more important than the actual letter names or use frequency.
There's likely an algorithm that could be applied to the dataset to determine the key with some accuracy. I always look for the 2 major chords in a song that are consecutive to each other (they don't need to be played consecutively), those are usually the IV and V chord which leaves the other major chord as the tonic, e.g. C and D are the IV and V leaving G as the key. Of course this isn't a rule but does apply to the majority of popular songs. I'm sure some software engineers out there have more specific algorithms.
Or cross reference with another dataset like https://tunebat.com/
Ben — Yes, as in a G chord played in the key of B. Example:
G major, A major, B major.
This produces a strong chord pattern especially when used at the end of a chorus.
Pop songs that begin in the vi chord (A minor) but for most of the song the key is in C.
I find the Comments as informative as the article here.
I wrote a song that uses exactly that series of chords, G A B in the chorus, for that reason!
https://mothershout.substack.com/p/rise
As a long-time jazz player, I have to question the accuracy of the data. I've played many more seventh chords than pure triads in my lifetime, and chord charts don't necessarily reflect musical practice: For instance, when a jazz player sees a tonic C chord on a chart, that's basically shorthand for C maj7, and a G chord in a song in C would almost automatically become G7. An analysis of the Real Book charts would be far more illuminating. Best of all, of course, would be harmonic analysis of actual performances.
One offramp to take from this piece is to track harmonic structure of popular music with the advent of affordable electronic keyboards. Especially in light of the popularity of rap. When you consider the way sampling was/is used, and the exposure to those older records, you're guaranteed to have certain sounds and harmonic patterns imprinted. With the ease of use of keyboards, I think there would be trends showing. And just due to the way the instrument is laid out, the most novice musician will find voicings different from guitar.
I would recommend watching Rick Beato's YouTube. One of the things he does is find the chords that get buried in today's popular music, due to it's emphasis on rhythm. Some tunes actually have interesting chords-if you are willing to scrape the paint and lacquer off them.
From a songwriting perspective, there are chord progressions that are just easier to come up with compelling melodies over than others, usually they consist of I vi IV V chords in some sequence. Once you start throwing in stuff in between those, you have to take that into account with your melody which can make it less intuitive. And if you're writing for a pop audience, the easier it is to sing, the better.
Interesting article. Point though, some very repetitive songs will score high in imaginativeness. Think of Funk - 1 chord for the whole song would score 100%.
Am thinking of songs like James Brown’s “cold sweat”, “Shake everything you’ve got” by Maceo Parker (2 chords, 5 changes), or “straight cold player” by Lenny Kravitz, which has 2 chords and 3 changes, so 66%, that’s if you count the first chord (from no chord to a chord) as a change.
On the other side it means a song must be very imaginative to manage with so few chord changes. But they sure are repetitive.
And I wonder if such songs even show up in that database because one would probably describe them in tabs.
Does Funk count against Jazz?
Adding “Who Do You Love?” by Bo Diddley to the list of one-chord songs.
What percentage of songs consist of three majors and a minor? (G,C,D,Em) I have a theory that the reason so many songs follow this pattern is because it’s representative of life. There’s a buildup, a peak, a setback, and recovery that is a common cycle in life
I’m a big fan of the 7th chord, especially minor 7ths. I use them frequently in my songs. In one of my latest songs I was trying to be simpler and used Bb, Dm, Cm, Eb, F, and Gm for most of the song. But when it came to the bridge, I couldn’t resist and used Ebmaj7, Abmaj7, Dm7, Gm, Cm7, and F7sus4. Ah well. So much for simplicity.
Hi, is it possible to get a list of the 200 most common chords across all songs?
Love this! I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking. Dm me if interested in a recommendation swap — we’re growing fast!
check us out:
https://thesecretingredient.substack.com
It would be nice to see the chord progression/patterns that are most commonly used in music . Like 251 or 145 etc. Can you do that?
it would be great to see chords progression - sequence to see what patterns are most popular. can you do that?