I-IV-vi-V. The pop music formula for hit songs
Hello guys, how's it going?
Today I would like to talk a little bit about pop music.
We all love a good pop song. It feels just right. May it be the melody or the groove or even the video these days.
But you would be surprised to know that most of these songs have the same chords.
Okay, some nerd talk first.
So what is I-IV-vi- V?
It means that the song uses the first, the fourth, the sixth and the fifth chord of a certain scale in that particular sequence .
For example, if a song is in the scale of F major then the chords would be F major, Bbmajor, D minor and C major.
Now let's see the number of songs that use these chords :
- U2 - With or without you
- Toto - Africa
- James blunt - You're beautiful
- Avril lavigne - Complicated
- One republic - Apologize
- Adele - Someone like you
- Eminem - Love the way you lie
- Coldplay - Paradise
- Linkin park - Numb
- Coldplay - The scientist
And countless other songs use the same chords.
So what differentiates them from one another?
Well, firstly they may not be in the same scale and the chords may not follow the same sequence.
Second, the production of the song. Which means the sonics of the elements used in the song like the drums, the guitars etc are completely different and done according to the feel of each song.
Now the question is, if it's a good thing that most of these songs have the same chords?
I personally like it and don't mind that the songs have the same chords. But some of my musician friends I know for sure don't like it.
Also it makes these songs sound saturated when everybody uses the same thing. Just like on any other platform. For example if everybody on steemit posted about crypto currencies it would be boring since you would have the same information everywhere.
Also the record labels do not let artists use any other chords with the fear that the song won't sell as much.
So these are some drawbacks. But at the end of the day a good song needs to have a good melody which differs widely from song to song unless obviously somebody decides to copy someone else.
Songwriters like Max Martin, Dr Luke, Alexander grant etc who write most of the songs for pop stars have a great ear for melody and that's why these songs work at the end of the day.
Because people relate to the melody that's being used in the song and not to the chords or anything like that. Most of them wouldn't even know what a chord is.
So let me know what you guys think about this.
Did you know that these songs had the same chords? Does it make music saturated and boring? I'd love to know your thoughts.
Cheers!
See you guys . Steem on!!
Not enough people know about this and I think it's important for people, that listen to a lot of music, to know this. The Pop music industry has become so used to the audience being ok with the same stuff over and over that they no longer care.
I generally also don't really mind it because there are still good songs being made (albeit less and less). At least they tend to throw in a ii before V or a good ol' I-V6/4-I6 for us music folk :D
Absolutely!
Once in a while a good song does show up.
@originalworks
Thanks for the little info on chords.. I'm no music expert...
but I've heard from musician friends comment about music being repeated too many times. After all, there are only so many sequences or combinations of the notes.
the AIVA project, which is an artificial intelligence music composition system certainly brings interesting ideas to the table.
@sumanthshetty , do you compose songs? would be interesting to hear some of your work.
Thank you!
I'm glad you liked it.
Yes, I do compose songs.I'm more into movie scores.
Will be sharing my work on steemit and dtube soon :)
I came across this tool called BIAB (Band in a Box) which pretty much help create the base line for music 8) Cheat tool for someone like me (non-musical, non-trained)...
Yeah, there are such software's.
Anything that works for you is great. It doesn't matter if it's software or actual music lessons.
But I can't stress enough on the fact that formal musical training is going to help you a lot.
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