Week 7: Rolling in the Synth
Maya P -
Welcome back y’all! It’s time for some fun data analysis.
I’ll include a photo of some of the data that I collected. Oh, how I love spreadsheets! I’ll be using this data and its commonalities heading into song production. I encountered some interesting terms and exceptions along the way, so let’s review!
Almost every song followed a standard verse-chorus format, known commonly as ABABCB structure. Tempos ranged but typically fell between 90-120 beats per minute (BPM). Lyric themes were typically about heartbreak, loss, regret, love, past relationships, desire, attraction, relationships, and more similar topics. For instruments used, there was so much SYNTH. Apparently the top pop hits really enjoy the use of synth, bass, drums, piano, guitar, and keyboards. There was an inclusion of strings, other percussion instruments, and brass instruments as well, albeit less frequently. The most common pop production styles were electropop, dancepop, and teenpop, with R&B and hip-hop influences. I included features/collabs just to collect extra data to see if there were any trends worth noting, but most top pop hits had no feature/collab. Ludacris and Nicki Minaj both appeared twice in the feature/collab section.
So, what were some major differences? First off, the keys were completely ranged. I was expecting to see a more common key that pop songs are in, but it was more spread out. The most common did end up being the keys of C and G. The least common was B! Some songs had some interesting terms that I was unfamiliar with. Some new vocabulary I learned:
Backbeat – A steady pronounced rhythm stressing the second and fourth beats of a four-beat measure. (“Single Ladies” by Beyonce doesn’t have one! It has an unconventional beat.)
Polymodality- Simultaneous or alternating use of two or more musical modes, creating a richer and more complex harmonic texture (Musical modes are variations of a musical scale, such as major and minor scales, or Dorian and Lydian modes, for example)
Toasting- A style of talking or chanting over a rhythm or beat, originating in Jamaican music, particularly reggae (seen in “Baby Boy” by Beyonce)
Moombahton- A genre of electronic music emerging in 2009, incorporating Dutch house and reggaeton
Detuned Saw Wave Lead – A main melody sound created by using multiple sawtooth waves (saw waves) that are slightly detuned (pitch shifted ), creating a rich, moving, and “thick” sound
Drone Bassline – A sustained or repeated note that underpins a composition for a harmonic foundation or atmospheric effect
Organic Bassline – A bassline that sounds natural and unedited, and evokes a sense of real-world, non-synthetic textures such as acoustic instruments
Wobbling Beats – Fluctuating or unsteady sound that occurs when two waves with slightly different frequencies overlap, creating a rhythmic variation in loudness in the context of beat frequency.
The last 3-4 weeks of this project will be spent implementing all I have learned into my final product. It’s time for music production and songwriting under hit song success parameters! This will be a fun way to test my abilities and challenge myself with something new. I hope my data collection was interesting and I’ll see y’all in the next few weeks with a final song!
Song of the Week: Rolling in the Deep – Adele
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