Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song (with song titles)

> a lot of pop is made by knowingly and deliberately copying elements from various source songs One of the defining characteristics of "pop" music is the reuse of major structural elements like the primary harmonic progression (e.g. the infamous "4 chords"[1]). Listeners that do not have a lot of music theory knowledge and experience can still follow along with the "plot" of the song because it reuses simple structures they already know. Appreciation of more complex harmonic structure and other unique features requires a lot more experience with complex types of music theory. As with all art/writing, knowing your intended audience is important. If the audience includes people without music experience/training, limiting the "vocabulary" top what they know is absolutely necessary. For a very good explanation of this that includes examples, see this[2] video essay. [1] [this video] [2] [link]

I didn't learn music through Youtube. So unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any videos that I would consider comprehensive or canonical. At best, I can share videos that highlight a particular pattern, or share examples of popular songs that I recognize as having a commonality. Which might give you a better feel for what music theory is. Another thing to keep in mind is that musical patterns accrete into genres. And there's a wide variety of genres. So it's difficult for any single video to cover everything in detail. I think it's more common for videos to cover the patterns of a particular genre. E.g. if you're interested in Blues, consider searching for videos about Blues. ----- [link] I remember the above Vox video highlights a unique chord which sounds "melty" and is often used in holiday music. The chord is known as a "minor_7th, diminished_5th" aka "m7d5". [this video] This video is about the infamous "4-chord pop progression". It's ubiquitous on the radio. Elitists and connoisseurs tend to look down on it for appealing to casuals. The progression is "I V vi IV" (capital denotes major chords, lowercase denotes minor chords). [link] When I think of the "12-Bar Blues (Chord Progression)", I think of Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Pride and Joy". But there's tons of educational videos on this. It's very popular in not only Blues, but Rock & Roll. It's "I I I I; IV IV I I; V IV I I". But things get interesting here because musicians often substitue "jazzy" chords like Dominant_7th's (ak

Gift link: [link] My favorite part from it: > “We have spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day, all over the world,” Mr. Sheeran continued. “These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone.” From a different article about the trial: [link] > Before Sheeran’s Thursday testimony, his defense played a video of Australian comedy band Axis of Awesome performing a medley of dozens of songs with the same four chords. The video: [this video]

Novelty itself is easy, the hard part is the kind of novelty that is familiar enough to be engaging while also unusual enough to attract all the people bored by the mainstream. Worse, as people attempt to automate novelty, they will be (and have been) repeatedly thwarted by the fact that the implicit patterns of the automation system themselves become patterns to be learned and recognised… which is why all modern popular music sounds so similar that this video got made 14 years ago: [this video] (This is already a thing with GenAI images made by people who just prompt-and-go, though artists using it as a tool can easily do much better). But go too soon, be too novel, and you're in something like uncanny valley: When Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre was first performed, it was poorly received by violating then-current expectations, now it's considered a masterpiece.

There's a great video essay series known as "Everything is a Remix" by Kirby Ferguson [1] if you have an hour to spare. Ferguson uses the trends of music sampling as a base for how artists draw inspiration from others. The controversy of sampling has been used across genres, include around minute 9 Ferguson points out that Led Zepplin were considered ripoffs for their appropriation of Jake Holmes. Axis of Awesome also has a "chord progression song" [2] that makes fun of how similar many pop songs are. The video draws a nice parallel to how so much in our world serves as "inspiration" for our own works, but acknowledges the controversy around using a single source as "too much inspiration". Especially as we move into whatever copyright arguments are getting made toward AI right now, I think it serves as a nice outline on why this is such a complicated matter. [1] [link] [2] [this video]