A corpus analysis of rock harmony

• Published in: Popular music Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 47 - 70
• Main Authors: de Clercq, Trevor, Temperley, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.01.2011
• Subjects: Contrapuntal motion; Corpus analysis; Major chords; Minor chords; Music history; Musical chords; Musical intervals; Musicology; Rock music; Roman numerals; Statistical analysis; Tonal centrism; Tonal harmony; Tonal theory; New York; United States > US

In this study, we report a corpus analysis of rock harmony. As a corpus, we used Rolling Stone magazine's list of the ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’; we took the 20 top-ranked songs from each decade (the 1950s through the 1990s), creating a set of 100 songs. Both authors analysed all 100 song...