How Chord Loops *Really* Work

I've been thinking way too much about this.
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As I'm sure you all know by now, I'm kind of a fan of chord loops. They've been a primary focus of my own music theory work for years now, and I've done, like, way too many videos trying to wrap my head around them, so you can imagine my excitement when some professor friends of mine dropped a brand-new music cognition study that aimed to answer some of the questions I'd been asking this whole time. But the results were... well, let's just say I've been reconsidering some things, and I'd like to explain why.
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Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold!

[@12tone]

Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/12tone Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) I'm not sure I'd say most jazz songs are _best_ understood through linear harmony: The story of the development of chord loops inevitably leads back to repeating jazz forms, after all. My point is more that jazz progressions fit that model well enough, so jazz analysts were able to retrofit those linear approaches and wind up with useful insights, even as the harmonic structures started to look a little more rotational. 2) I should note that, when I say that picking the right loop is a balancing act between stylistic appropriateness and explicit familiarity, I'm not saying the authors necessarily did that exactly correct: I think their choice was reasonable, but it has consequences, as discussed later in the video. I was just mentioning it to explain why the process isn't as simple as "Pick the most common loop." 3) Objectively speaking, 150 participants isn't actually amazing for a study, but music cognition research doesn't tend to get a lot of funding so the studies they do are chronically undersampled as a practical necessity. That's the context I'm evaluating this under: It's not that that's the ideal number of participants, it's just that, for this particular field, it's kinda the best we tend to get, and while it still needs to be taken with a grain of salt, it's enough to be worth paying attention to the results. 4) When I talk about the ratings for different chords in the loop, I'm normalizing them all to the original key of C major. They tested it in different keys as well, but for the data analysis portion they transposed all the results back to that key for consistency, so I followed suit. 5) I'm not actually entirely sure that an emphasis on the last chord would be a good representation of a linear hearing of the loop, it's just the most apparent indicator I could think of that wasn't also covered by the previous results. Because the study was designed to test the tonal and metric hypotheses specifically, I needed something that wouldn't show up in those two, and that seemed most plausible. 6) To the extent that the data _does_ show a bias toward the final chord, that could also probably be explained by the fact that it was the most recent thing you heard, not necessarily because of its metric position. Again, without testing what happens when you stop the loop in the middle, continuity effects look a lot like metric effects. For what it's worth, the results of the second study don't seem to show a clear last-chord bias, although the structure of that experiment makes it hard to tease out secondary preferences so I don't want to read too deep into that. 7) We can also understand the question of bimodal stability without reference to a key center by looking directly at the motion of the chords: When the two roots are complementary, the motion between them is weak (or, at least, it would be if they were consecutive) and when they're contradictory, the motion is strong. This makes a fair amount of sense, in that strong motion implies directionality and directionality subverts stability. That's honestly probably a better way of conceptualizing it because it doesn't require straying outside the model, I just went with the key-based explanation because it was simpler to explain quickly. 8) I should also clarify that, when I say the loop is the best-case scenario for major-scale bias… that's kinda the point. They were testing if that bias could appear in chord loops, so giving it the best possible chance of appearing is good study design.

[@BogLives]

I can't believe the lonely island reference

[@RagdoIl]

Alice in chains please

[@Ayaati]

Have you considered that you are particularly well placed to develop a much larger data set? You have access to a larger pool of people, and with more diversity in background. Partner with some statisticians or other academic theorists and design your own study!

[@altasilvapuer]

Re: 5, I'm actually a little surprised that you pegged the last chord as the destination of a linear loop. Consider the Circle of Fifths as a 7-chord loop: C-F-B-E-A-D-G. G is not the destination, C is. By definition, the "destination" of a loop should always be the resumption of that loop-i.e., the first note. Another great example from Western Music is the infamous cello part from Pachelbel's Canon: D-A-B-F#-G-D-G-A. A is not the destination, because for a loop to work as a loop, we need to "end" on a cliffhanger that drags us forward to the first note again. Your clarification here somewhat explains why you DIDN'T take that approach, but I feel like this explains why that representation doesn't track as well as you'd like.

[@jenm4635]

Will you be adddressing the new Beyoncé albums controversy? Bc I really want you to!

[@yuvalne]

7:11 "the metric hypothesis. this predicts that listeners will prefer to hear the loop in Kilometers" caught me off-guard

[@francescocavallero8519]

Really got me 😂😂😂😂 well done!

[@alexgrunde6682]

I think an interesting follow up would be to take the loop but instead of finishing with a random chord from the loop, finish with a chord outside of the loop’s key. See what chords that aren’t “correct” in a classical theory sense end up with a positive outcome in a scientific setting.

[@florptytoo]

Me too.

[@tiddlypom2097]

As a data analyst with some science & stats training, I really appreciate you being clear about the scientific and statistical approach & issues, like having a clear, pre-stated hypothesis.

[@domstafford1894]

That was generally really well done, though he played a bit fast and loose with the null hypothesis -that's not something one should test for on its own, it exists so one can test whether the data fits it better than the other hypotheses to make a statement about whether one can discard them

[@steveloge8119]

I didnt expect to hear about a peer reviewed study about chord loops when I woke up this morning, but here we are

[@Magst3r1]

Well, it isn't peer reviewed yet though

[@Blinkerd00d]

​@@Magst3r1it hasn't been PUBLISHED in a peer review journal.

[@Steynie]

this comment just feels AI generated

[@ZipplyZane]

I wonder if there would be instrumentation bias. Chord loops are usually performed in a different style. I notice that hesring these chord in the actual songs sounded a lot better than just piano chords. The piano might bias towards a more classical interpretation.

[@rubydupyII]

Exactly, I often look down on the use of the axis progression because in my view its too popular, but then when green day uses it in songs like "when i come around" and "holiday" the loops are played on guitar and primarily in power chords, which gives it a whole different vibe (partly because power chords are almost never played in inversion which gives any progression a ragged "high low high low" structure, and because removing the 3rd removes a lot of the classic qualities of such progressions), and all of a sudden i love the use of that progression!

[@lev7509]

Very good point! The biggest issue with including this in a scientific study would be simply the number of variations. Here, according to 12tone, this study presented one chord progression, in four different rotations of it, and then presented a probe chord out of the four. That's 4x4=16 variations, times however-many different keys they transposed it to. But I do hope someone will include this in a study!

[@lev7509]

@@rubydupyII Yep! Indeed.

[@davidmendoza1300]

I taught chord loops to my sophomore class this semester at the Frost School of Music and I have to say that I hear these loops in a linear fashion with a bunch of half cadences if ending on V and plagal half if ending on IV and deceptive if ending on iii or vi. I also hear a modal half cadence if the phrase ends on flat VII. But I like your theory!

[@tomkelley4119]

A friend had me do a distortion study a week or so ago, so I asked him to send you his paper when he’s done with it.

[@kittycatpilot]

I'd love to see a version of the experiment where you fade the chord loop in and let it cycle a couple times before fading back out. Then ask which chord they think is the I. Maybe take four chords and go through every way you can order them, and see if that changes anything.

[@michaelfox1432]

I don't hear four chord loops as either rotational or linear but rather as two distinct pairs. You can hear it more easily by taking any four chord loop and adding rest bars between bars two and three and bars four and one. They all work like this in my ears, an intake of breath before the three and before the one. This explains why I have more trouble hearing repeating three or five chords progressions as loops. It doesn't explain why I have trouble hearing repeating six chord progressions as loops since I hear them as three sets of pairs as well.

[@suomeaboo]

for why you have trouble with 6-chord loops, could it be because western music time divisions are very binary (4/4, 8th and 16th notes, 2 and 4 bar loops, 8 and 16 bar sections, etc.)

[@suomeaboo]

additionally, i'm guessing you don't have as much trouble with 8-chord loops (like pachelbel's canon) since they're binary too, though longer and more drawn out than 4-bar loops

[@seth094978]

I agree, I often hear alternating pairs of chords. But I didn't for their test loop of C-F-Am-G. If anything I maybe heard G-C, F-Am

[@nolaffinmatter]

I’m curious what’s meant by not hearing three and five chord progressions as loops? Because I think it’s definitely possible for a song with a three or five chord progression to be successful. There are plenty of songs with a half-half-whole three chord progression, and some with a quarter-quarter-quarter-quarter-whole five chord progression. Are we making a distinction between “this sounds good” and “this sounds like a loop”? Or is it that you personally dislike those progressions even if the songs are broadly popular? I do agree that I usually hear four chord loops as two separate progression-pairs, although that might have as much to do with rhythmic phrasing as with the progressions themselves.

[@TheTealHydra]

​@@nolaffinmatter I'm guessing the OP meant evenly-divided progressions, like four chord loops usually are. Half-half-whole in this sense is more of a four chord loop where two of the chords are the same chord.

[@MNbenMN]

I can't not keep hearing Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy, just transposed down a step. I guess the point about relating the chords to a specific piece is hard to get away from.

[@maurobraunstein9497]

Really, I think the correct answer here is that it's a blend of linear and rotational, in a sense. I think your theory of signposts and destinations is a useful theory, but I also think that when people (well, when I) listen to music with chord loops, they're actually getting linear harmonic information that they have to reinterpret it as a loop. The chords here are C - F - Am - G. We can give them Roman numerals if we take the assumption that these Roman numerals are meaningful in the first place, right? In C, they're I - IV - vi - V. I is home, IV is an exciting place away from home, vi is an alternative home, and V is a return towards home, which arrives at the I in the next iteration of the loop to give us I - IV - vi - V - I. That is a perfectly intelligible tonal phrase, analyzable using your conventional phrase structure analysis: I - IV - vi is the Tonic region, V is the Dominant region, and the concluding I is the return of the Tonic region: T - D - T. Why would you *not* hear that just because the phrase is getting repeated a bunch of times? I see no reason why this wouldn't be the default interpretation, assuming the loop starts on the C (which you would get from phrasing cues in the real music). What happens if you start on F (and analyze the progression in F)? You now have F - Am - G - C - F, which is I - iii - V/V - V - I. That's... pretty legit, actually, isn't it? You can still use the standard phrase analysis, with I - iii being T, V/V being PD (or S depending on how you label phrase functions), V being D, and I being the return of T. Only problem is, the V/V is a little *too* strong and pulls towards C. ii would be better. A decent melody can properly tonicize the F, though. So what if you start on Am (and analyze in Am)? Am - G - C - F - Am becomes i - bVII - bIII - bVI - i. That works too, but now you have i - bVII - bIII as your T, bVI as a PD, and i as a T, making a plagal cadence. This is outside the classical phrase model, but it's normal enough for popular music. Finally, doing the same with G gives G - C - F - Am - G, which becomes I - IV - bVII - ii - I. This one... eh. ii - I is one of the weakest cadences you can have (ii7 - I, maybe it could work, but not ii - I). If we analyze in C instead, we have V - I - IV - vi, no need to loop, and it makes sense, tonally. I think, based on my own experience, that your ordinary, everyday tonality (not a reference to Tagg, but anyway) usually wins when it comes to chord loops in popular music, and you don't need fancier forms of analysis to discuss the tonal center. It's just... whatever's established by the melody anyway. The chords hardly matter. But, you know, when they do, it's usually just plain tonality. The times when that stops being the case are when the tonality is left ambiguous or the music isn't actually very tonal. The thing is, the tonality being left ambiguous works in chord loops specifically because you can do this kind of thing where you tonicize different parts of the progression. This chord loop that we're looking at is a decent example, where there are three pretty good options for the tonal center, and the music could very well not pick just one. The language of signposts and destinations is a great way to talk about the... energetics? Is that the right word? ...of the music, how it moves from harmonic place to harmonic place and such. But I think that tonality is a separate concept, and people are going to try to infer tonal functions from the chords using tonal listening, taking "tonal" in the extended sense (like accepting plagal cadences and modes and such as essentially tonal). They're not going to take tonality from the taxonomy of chord motions, which are tonal-context-dependent anyway. I'm not sure there's a way to design a study to check *that*, though. I think you should keep using your chord loop theory, because it's a useful theory. It's not *wrong*. It just maybe doesn't explain what some people may think it explains.

[@JoshuaB-zr2gv]

Great video. To analyse chord loops I always first take a look at the baldest loop. Using just two chords like "Waiting for the Man" or "Heroin" (Velvets) for example. I think the first chors is always a little more the home but the major scale doesn't have to be what we are looking for (bluesmusic for example). And especially in a chord loop the feeling of being home isn't necessarily relevant. ("Stay with me" by Rod Stewart)

[@pentalarclikesit822]

I would be very interested to see a study that compares this 1) based on the type of music the music students are studying/writing, and 2) comparing the results of *students* in formal study vs experienced self-trained musicians. This is what I am thinking of, and to be honest it's part of something that is my music theory obsession the way four-chord loops are yours. When I hear "major key bias" I think something different: "Classical" and jazz are both major key based, and if music theory doesn't seem interested in using "classical" as the default of correct and intelligent music, they use jazz as "correct and intelligent" and base all the music theory off of the major and in serving the major. THe thing is, a lot of people in more modern styles are based more in minor than in major. I have written a few pseudo-"classical" things but what I have primarily written (metal, grunge, punk, goth, industrial, witch house, etc, experimental) and a lot of the other thigns which are the main output of music today (hip-hop, dance, electronic, much of pop) uses or defaults to the minor key. And here is the thing: Writing/listening way more in minor than major your way of perceiving music is different. In both my composing and my listening, I have found many different ways to resolve (i.e. release tension and reset emotion) I neither need, nor miss the major 5 chord. I don't need or miss a leading tone. I've been resolving whenever I damn well please for quite some time now . .. just in a way that makes both "classical" and jazz fans/theorists to dismiss my music as childish unintelligent noise. Let's face it, jazz has become the new "classical."

[@alexandertownsend5079]

What is witch house?

[@GizzyDillespee]

I been to the Salem Witch Museum, and to the House of the 7 Gables... It's confusing. Beach house? What's that? Oh, that's a house on the shore! Smart ass. Sun House is a real person, but Dr House is a fictional person. Food House is a ... person? group? Funhouse and Brick House are songs. Ronald McDonald House is a charity. The House of Parliament is a good old boys' club. There's an epidemic of people misusing words, but I never realized the disease had spread to such basic words as "house". And we wonder why large language models hallucinate🤣.

[@GizzyDillespee]

And don't get me started on trance!

[@pentalarclikesit822]

@@alexandertownsend5079 I would describe it as a mix of dark ambient/wave and gothic-industrial, with hip-hop or trap percussion, and chopped and screwed influences. Heavy basslines, high "screechy" or "buzzy" saw synths, altered vocals, that sort of thing. General occultic/retro-90's/horror vibe.

[@pictionpicmine4376]

This needs to be higher. I agree with much of what's being said here. That aside, I also thought it would be interesting to see the experiment done with a bVI bVII i loop; it's a loop that I think has very strong direction/momentum, and it would be interesting to see how it would turn out

[@altasilvapuer]

When you played the four music examples of the 4 different starting points, I couldn't help but be reminded of modal transpositions-most prominently with "More Than A Feeling" and "Stitches", but frankly with the other two, as well. C and A felt like Ionian & Aeolian equivalents of the rotation, obviously. But that weird overbright, "majorly major" feeling that Lydian has always had for me shows up in the selected clip of "Made Alive", and the more laid-back major feeling of Mixolydian shows up in "Sooner or Later". It probably helps that the instrumentation amplified those feelings. If we're talking about the seven modes, there's a certain argument that they're really all the same key/mode. The only thing that makes them different is how you draw attention to the specific note you've chosen as the "center", but if you don't do a good job nailing that center, then someone may just as easily hear it as a different mode and not be entirely wrong. (I'm especially looking at you, Locrian!) You raised some of these points when talking early on about variables the study was trying to control for, and in the context of this sort of "early-days" research, that's probably best for sanity. But I would love to see some of the later studies that attempt to juggle several of these variables, to see what shakes out.

[@JaeDeco]

I think you are right to say that interval relationships surrounding a chord are the biggest influence on our perception of it, because a chord doesn't feel like much of anything outside of it's contextual relationships. However I do think what that chord feels like depends on more of a web of context than just the one chord before and one chord after it. It's likely that the effect one chord has on another decreases as they get farther apart, both in distance through time and in how many chords separate them. The idea that major is default or that there is some greater pull towards the root seems like it could easily emerge from cultural and music theory education biases in participants, which is not helpful in answering this question from a psychoacoustic perspective. Removing these variables from participants is probably impossible too. What the brain does to identify a key center in a chord loop likely comes from a complex web of contextual note relationships and an individuals lifelong developed intuitions. The glaring problem with this study is that not much is really being isolated; and in an attempt to isolate certain variables, other variables are added in to the mix. How could they possibly tell what is causing a participant's answer when there are many possible causes for that answer being tested at the same time. There are also very few variations of the tests, which makes eliminating variables even harder. It's also very likely that multiple of these many variables are contributing to peoples answers, making isolation even more difficult. Interesting jumping off point, but to get anywhere close to an answer, new studies need to be conducted with a much larger and more diverse sample size and a stronger focus on what what is actually happening in the brain.

[@tayloryoung8336]

I’m so glad you used “raises the question” instead of misusing “begs the question,” which has become so prevalent elsewhere. (I know this is a usage shift in progress and I should just accept it, but it still bruises my ear every time I hear it.) Also, great discussion of chord loops. I love your channel.

[@conorreedR2C]

Did not expect to here a Citizens song on this channel! Very cool, one of my favorite indie Christian bands

[@mintonmiller]

So just before watching this, I was viewing a video explaining the 3-body problem of gravity. The three body problem looks at the fact that with only two bodies in space, a model can be built to show how they will react with each other if parameters were slightly changed, but but when adding a third body in space, it is mathematically impossible to account for all the variables when changes to parameters were slightly altered. It is not just chord progression, it is timbre, cadence, one instrument or several, which instrument(s), arpeggio or unison notes, and I am sure there is more I have not thought of yet. Not only are you not asking the same question as the author, I am not entirely sure the original question is valid. This exercise is the 3-body problem on steroids.

[@BADCEEDSstudio]

It's wonderful to see you reflecting on prior ideas and willing to analyze them from different angles. It's also fun to see how many new doodles you've added to your repertoire over the years ☺️

[@penguinmonk7661]

Thank you for making this, and as someone in research (IT) I REALLY appreciate your ettiquette of double checking with the researchers, pre prints are in a weird space where they can be plagarized and findings can even be thrown away or re-examined at the last moment, they can also be rejected for further reserach like a collegue of mine had on Liquid type systems recently. This all is to say, I relaly appreciate your ettiquette in dealing with people and what essentially boils down to months of their work.

[@G-Doggy]

I think it would be interesting to see what effect using inversions of the same chords would have on a similar study.

[@mikefutcher]

I would really like to hear you disect some EDM! Here's 3 suggestions... Firestarter - prodigy Around the world - daft punk Bodyrock - ram trilogy

[@redberry6395]

I think perhaps part of the reason the F chord might sound less stable is because in the key of C major (or A minor, for that matter, but you get what i mean) the F chord is the root of the relative lydian mode, which is known to be an inherently unstable mode to work within, and the fact that there's such a prominent G major chord, the II chord in lydian, in the progression, I think this may contribute to how unstable the F chord is. I think it might be that when you hear a major chord and then another major chord a whole step above it, even if they may be separated somewhat, you're ears are instinctively pulled towards hearing them as IV and V in the relative major, or maybe even bVI and bVII in the relative minor, but hearing it as I and II would force us into lydian, which again, is an incredibly unstable mode. I know strict tonal analysis isn't everything of course, and this probably isn't the whole reason why the F chord sounds less stable. Still, though, I thought it might be worth bringing up, let me know if this sounds plausible or not, I could be totally wrong for all i know.

[@markop.1994]

Funny i think the exact opposite way. I hear lydian as the most stable mode and my theory for why IV chords sound unstable is twofold. One part is that the Perfect 4th doesnt appear in the harmonic series so the ear hears it like a temporary "new tonic" lending itself to the perception that harmonic movement in fourths is strong. The second part is that during a IV chord the tonic is the fifth of the chord makings the sonorities of the I chord sound like they are floating and no longer stable. I see this as due to the 3 and 5 of the scale now being the upper extension 7 and 9 of the IV chord.

[@roeesi-personal]

I also had an independent thought about this loop (starting from the 3rd chord) in relation to your model this Sunday. I associate it more with Rise (by Jonas Blue) than with Stitches, mostly because the A in the beginning of the verse lines together with the instrumental line on the F chord make it easy to notice that something is not usual, but I think it may also ultimately be a better example because it's used during the whole song, whereas in Stitches another loop is used in the pre-chorus. Also, it's the usual axis progression in reverse which is neat, and also explains why it goes V-I-IV and not IV-I-V. Anyway I, like you, got to the conclusion that this is some kind of counterexample to your model but it doesn't make it less useful to analyze other progressions, as there are many effects that may affect how we perceive the key center in a loop.

[@Superwafi]

Can you make "understanding still loving you"? Its a facinating song and i would really love to get whats going on there

[@UrbanGarden-rf5op]

And above all, as always, keep on loopin' Great stuff, as always. And of course I watched it on Nebula. ✌✌

[@Pedone_Rosso]

My perception of the treated chord loop, as a complete musically illiterate listener. (I use "taste" and "meaning" for how I feel about sounds, in the following attempt of describing my experience of the chord loop. When they mean more or less the same thing, but also when what I mean with "meaning" is a more distinct and defined version of what I mean with "taste") I hear the 4 chords as 2 couples of chords, when the single chords' position in the rhythmic structure is determinant. The most relevant "thing" that gives "meaning" to the loop, to me, comes from the difference in "taste" between the two rhythmically defined couples of chords, and the order the two couples are presented in. In other words. The first two chords together have a specific "taste" if listened together outside of the loop. The third and forth chord together also behave the same way. Finally, the loop as a whole has its own specific "meaning" because of the specific juxtaposition of those two chords' couples, in that specific order. (This holds true for every starting point of the 4 chords' sequence, when the position of the chords in the loop structure changes the taste/meaning of the whole loop, for me) The single chord added at the end reinforces (+) or dampens down (-) the "meaning" of the loop, depending if it is the second chord of the first couple presented in the loop (+), the second chord of the second couple presented in the loop (+/-), or the first chord of any of the two couples presented in the loop (-). Thanks for your videos!

[@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681]

people making up their own language instead of using the powerful terms we have allways is strange bc it implies they think their disability of formulating is superior to those powerful tools but the fact it allways ends with incoherent ramble . meaning and taste are like opposites objectiv, substance, vs subjectiv, seeming. all you did is diminish the usefullness of these two words with ppl like you around. would you say what you mean, and think about that sentence bc it is so simple as genius, you would not need to explain what you tried to mean. if you do not say what you mean bc you only try, you are saying something different than what you mean and so it is useless to begin with. googleing those terms would have taken 2 minutes and not cost your integrity as being bing ripped

[@Pedone_Rosso]

@@snookaisahtheotengahrepres5681 "People making out their own..."? What in the...? I thought the premise about how mine was an attempt at describing my experience of sounds as the musically illiterate person I am, should have satiated anybody with your weird inclinations. I was clearly wrong. But, yeah: have fun!

[@tyler361t2]

12:18 they couldve done a fade out here in the study where the next chord isnt as easy to tell

[@frizzlefriar4417]

I wonder how it would change the results if the study used power chords. The majors and minors themselves give me a sense of motion and resolution.

[@hsmoscout]

didn't expect a CCM song in your little example section lol

[@victorscarpes]

Whenever C was the first or the last chord, it felt like C major for me. The 2 other orders also have the same behavior, feeling like A minor whenever Am was the first or last chord.

[@zhenia2511]

I don't know why but I'm kind of obsessed with the fact that 12tone is friends with a bunch of musicology professors.

[@theheathbar123]

I'd like to see you look into loops that have upper extensions (i.e. major and minor 7 chords). I've noticed an emergence of that in pop/hiphop over the last 10 years. I've mostly heard it in passing like on the radio and in KZbin ads, so it's hard for me to give you specific names, the only song I can think of right now is "Kiss Me More" by Doja Cat, but the sound is all over the place. It excites me because I like fancy chords and it opens up new possibilities for loops. This also means there will be new ways to conceive of them, so it introduces new layers to your models.

[@xedcrsn]

To answer your question “Am I wrong” I give you the words of George Box: “All models are wrong, but some are useful”

[@M_M_ODonnell]

My guess would have been that a few different influences (including the specific hypotheses mentioned) all have some impact on how people hear the chord loop, and that the relative strength of these might be dependent on context, individual listening habits, etc. It sounds like there are factors among these that are more or less influential on more or fewer people, and that's useful, especially considering that there's no single overwhelming interpretation (so there's room to play with the chord loops, recontextualize some of the chord transitions, etc. without completely losing the harmonic feel).

[@DustBinny]

Heck yeah! Cory talkin’ about Chord Loops again! Let’s gooooo 🔥

[@billyalarie929]

I heard “something like the creep loop” and then the sample and I was like “hey that’s Radioh- ..oh.” Y’all I thought a “creep loop” was something of a classification WHICH INCLUDES THE SONG “CREEP” BY ENGLISH BAND RADIOHEAD

[@florptytoo]

This is about the extent of my knowledge, as well. I have no idea what I'm doing here. I am in the wrong room, lol.

[@iantaakalla8180]

I mean, Creep has a very distinct four chords, so a “Creep loop” could be studied, but would have to be distinct from a “creep loop”

[@paulariihimaki5548]

You need to listen to ”Toton Africa” by Olavi Uusivirta (he’s a Finnish singer-songwriter). It has a really cool 8 chord loop that really questions the key signature!

[@XckBrm]

I was not expect the Metric Hypothesis joke and almost choked on my drink. Well played.

[@Calcprof]

Years ago I visited Portmerian Wales, where the Prisoner was shot. Bizarre place. Worth seeing. One of the issues with C F Am G is that you can hear it tonally (after all these were music students) as G->C cadence, then F as unstable from tonic, or G -> C -> F as (especially for jazz players) a 2 5 1, with 2 played as major. Common in jazz (and in the climax of spirituals and gospel music). So C and F are the 2 biggies to hear it as tonal harmony. (Or if you like the way classical analysis would say it, the F tonic would be analyzed as I, iii, V of V, V, I ... F Am G C F)

[@pjbpiano]

Who the heck hears the G - C - F as a 2 - 5 - 1 in a C - F - Am - G? Unless they are forcing it into their ears, there is no other way someone trained in hearing 251s will hear it in the way you are describing.

[@andreasheld2362]

That one went.... deep, man. And I like it! 🙂

[@mesquitatm104]

I love your weird obsessions. I hope you never change this part of you

[@davidjairala69]

I'm curious if they just cut off the loop like that. I think a fade out would bias the answer less, maybe?

[@alexielraynes6265]

I loved your thank you at the end

[@tylerhackner9731]

I love these!

[@AuralStockholmSyndrome]

Your videos have helped inform a lot of my approach to songwriting so this is fascinating to me Getting more new ideas to try out in my writing and playing, thanks for the videos man you're a wonderful resource

[@lightbending]

i may not know much about chord progression & music theory, but i do know that drawing cartoon elephants about music theory is a real job and that Ganesha Greatly Approves

[@djvoid1]

Patricia Taxxon's vid on chord looks broke my brain. Hoping for a better result here

[@davidfreel1451]

I am enjoying these videos , thank you. There is however the risk, as with all music educational materials, that without particular melodies the information blinds rather than empowers.

[@yitzharos]

09:00 I can literally hear the cadence of speech, Did someone(Island) steal your (Connector) sweet roll? (Sign post) Poor baby. (Destination) I will develop more syntax from here.

[@AzulioSwoop]

YIPPEE NEW 12TONE VID

[@emilyrln]

Absolutely fascinating video! I would love to see more studies done in this vein! Alas, I'm a graphic designer with no such training 😂

[@TadjhBrooks]

Dracula flow elephant drawing is an immediate new fav

[@l0zerth]

I have a feeling that the answers that your friends are seeking are only going to come through wave analysis, likely meaning Fourier, possibly beyond Euclidean planes. Remember, music is ultimately the mathematic of sound waves, and while we discovered the mathematical relationships of individual notes to make chords thousands of years ago, I'm not aware of much study since we now have the technical means and understanding to do so of what the resulting, combined waveforms of the chords look like, and how that relates to each other.

[@OurgasmComrade]

Melody trumps harmony, so it is the tonic and 3rd interval of the melody that determines how the chord loop is heard in context.

[@silphv]

I think that any of melody, harmony and rhythm can be stronger or weaker for determining this, and any can potentially be strong enough to dominate.

[@lightbending]

"the metric hypothesis: this predicts that listeners will prefer to hear the loop in kilometres" 😂

[@cactuspearjam6052]

17:05 - I noticed right away that the study's chords are the same as a functional turn-around in C with the Am interrupting the IV to V. That doesn't mean it isn't a loop but it's so close to being a functional progression that those rules apply just as well. In conclusion l, imho, testing the axis loop would've been more helpful despite the potential confounds because I believe functional harmony confounded this loop just as much or more. Without the Am, it's not even a loop.

[@astridlenore]

Is it bad I can't stop hearing "she drives me crazy, oooh-oooh!"?

[@jonathanmong4927]

I almost believed the kilometers joke because I've sung a choral piece measured in feet and inches

[@MyMusic3149]

I'm concerned that while the discussion is ostensibly about "loops" it doesn't really address the "loop-ness" of the 4 chords. In the subject loop the G would be V-I back to C rather than the end. Or am I missing something?

[@josephenns]

thank you for the introduction to backxwash.

[@iamdigory]

Your peers wrote it, you reviewed it, it was peer reviewed

[@doctorscoot]

This is interesting! Wouldn’t it be better if they picked four chords and _randomly_ ordered them for each test?

[@DrLumpy]

I appreciate the adagio vox in this video. Thank you..🙂

[@motomike71]

Four chord loops are really just static tonal centers. C F Ami G defines the complete scalar tone area of C major. The metric placement of the chords define the mode. Putting F as the first chord would imply F Lydian, Ami implies A Aeolian, G implies G Mixolydian. Where this is important is in melodic development and resolution, but metric placement and the beats that a melody resolves on is very very important. That's why the first chord in a loop is so definitive of the root. Outside of that, though they are static islands of tonal center that feel like they're moving but really aren't going anywhere.

[@TheOneandOnlyQuack]

Please analyze Hozier's "Too Sweet"

[@cukeumberr]

ever since i saw your first vid on chord loops the pop song “fwb” by brakence has been stuck in my craw. the melody is very clearly in B major, with B as the root. but the chord progression goes Emaj7 D#m7 G#m7 C#m7. so the loop would be IV7 iii7 vi7 ii7 which just doesn’t make sense to my took-music-theory-sophomore-year-of-high-school brain. was my favorite song when i was 18 and i’m still befuddled about how it works so well at 22. i’m sure the analysis is a lot lower level than the stuff you’re talking about in this video but if you have any ideas at all about why it works i would really love to hear them

[@althealligator1467]

2:54 I'm not sure I agree with that. If a chord progression is less common, then it's more likely to be more characteristic of a specific piece of music than a chord progression that is more generic. I mean I-IV-vi-V is the More Than a Feeling or Mr. Brightside chord progression while I-V-vi-IV is just the four chords of Pop or the Axis progression, right? For an example of a loop so specific that if you know it, you couldn't mistake it for any other song: B Fm7 Emaj7 C#m7 F#11 Go over to a piano and play it if you don't already know. If you still don't know, you probably don't know the song that well.

[@AlexanderNagel]

Should be F#11, shouldn’t it? ;) at least according to Mr. Wonder :)

[@althealligator1467]

@@AlexanderNagel Oh right thanks that's a typo let me edit that lol but yeah you've got it, point proven methinks. Edit: I mean while we're at it you should also call the second chord E#m7 rather than Fm7 but yeah

[@JonBrase]

Interesting video idea: John Williams famously borrowed from Holst's Mars Bringer of War for a certain sequence in Star Wars. I think I've identified another bit he borrowed: The Royal Navy's march is called "Heart of Oak". Listen to it. Slow it down and mess with the rhythm to make it a bit punchier. Put it into a minor key. Does it start to sound familiar? My contention is that Imperial March is just Heart of Oak bad-guyified. I know you've already done a video on Imperial March, but it's really, really interesting that it seems to borrow heavily from the Royal Navy's official march while having a much different tone to it.

[@davidmendoza1300]

Listen to Korzeniowski, Abel, Letters - from the movie W.E. and tell me what the cadences are at measure 4 and measure 8.

[@adambonini3129]

More than a feeling

[@MatthewEverettGates]

Very interesting. Thanks!!

[@AlbertAnguela]

to me the study would have had more interest if there was not a tonality bias. picking C Am F Dm where each chord can have different functions based in which chord you hear as the tonal center, seems more apropriate.

[@JM-co6rf]

"Actual F" by Treehouse Empire is a great chord loop.

[@oravlaful]

i wonder if a "lowest pitch" bias could exist, but my bet is that if it does it's heavily influenced by metric and tonal bias

[@RebelionFiscal]

Dude when was the first time you heard a neapolitan sixth in pop music?

[@sinborn41214]

Why did I literally JUST notice you're left handed? Been watching your videos for years...

[@Znernicus]

Maybe I personally have a minor scale bias because the A minor is the most stable sounding for me :D

[@lifeteen2]

My personal theory for loop songs is that everyone is still slamming a square peg in a round hole trying to use harmonic progression theory where it doesn't belong. I think the Axis Progression makes it really clear: the progression ISN'T the most important part of the song. It's like a rhythmic analysis of four on the floor. It's just a canvas on which you compose the interesting stuff.

[@davidespinosa1910]

C / F / Am / G is the reverse of C / G / Am / F BTW, there are 24 permutations of 4 chords.

[@Dayglodaydreams]

How do the writings of Barthes and Lyotard (and more perplexingly Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Guatarri, Lacan, Butler, and Irigiray) have to do with postmodern composition, if anything? Now, I know some of these philosophers are technically post-structuralists and decontrustionist...and might relate less directly...but still...do these composers read these philosophers?

[@Mr.Braggadocio]

With such a small effect size the power of the study seems dubious even if it is statistically significant. That being said I would have assumed the metric position hypothesis was correct

[@gstaff1234]

Glad to see you back in my feed. Probably my fault but like your explanations

[@pikachuchujelly7628]

I wonder how many pages of staff paper this guy has gone through with his drawings.

[@DoctrDoc]

I still don't get how people can hear and identify if a chord is major or minor in real time without it written down in front of them. Musical training is basically miraculous to me. (unless the trick is, to memorize literally every major chord and put the word major next to it while memorizing). My hypothesis, beyond the scope of this study; on an exclusively non-musically trained test group, is the metric hypothesis.

[@badgasaurus4211]

2:41 Freelove Freeway

[@RobbVance]

Can you do Take Me Back To Eden by Sleep Token please????

[@LeelandCopeland]

As a former research psychologist, I find this stuff fun. However, don't be too hard on your theory yet. To oversimplify, one would likely expect the music majors to be utilizing a much more cognitive pathway to decision making compared to a non-active-listening general public's expected more intuitive pathway. Such would likely interact with the past-experience priming of the individual's most-exposed musical history as well. Often time in such complex systems of perception, it is common for different theories to better capture subsets of the underlying implied-model (like implied harmony, but for an attempted more-complete model of what we think reality might be).

[@styrofoamboogie2042]

good video

[@contrabone10]

Why didn’t they ask which chord sounded like tonic? That’s the question at hand

[@richarddoan9172]

"I don't really like the idea that modern music is boring, but I get where it's coming from. There's so much incredible music happening right now but it's not always easy to find." It's okay to say a lot of modern music sucks rocks.

[@sunkintree]

It's currently the established narrative that "modern music that is good is out there you just have to find it, no I can't show you any, stop asking me!, go look!". This is a direct result of Poptimism, which gained traction last decade as a marketing tool to legitimize soulless corporate music

[@alexs3973]

9:51 - did you really just do that?

[@andercert70]

I wrote this a few seconds in and I think it's still ok: "Before we begin, I want to say, "Can you be wrong?" I mean you're trying to use language to describe the interconnection of sounds, perception, and emotion. With things like this, all we can do is refine really. I think Music Theory is "wrong".... but also right. Know what I mean? We all know it's based on Classical European ideas of sound and music and falls apart looking at music outside that venue. So, it works and it doesn't. Your theory of loops is likely the same." Ohhh, I like the Null Hypothesis. lol As someone that people haven't already heard of, I can definitely say the algorithm isn't nice to me. :D During the video at one point my brain interrupted with the idea of you analyzing "Pretty Maids all in a Row" by the Eagles. Mostly because the loops in it are long and sometimes change, plus there's so may suspensions. Basically your talking about how you are deeply interested in chord loops and my brain said, "Hey, what songs don't have a chord loop." Sorry, my brain is a dick. Peace, Rich

[@matthewvreeke9872]

Could you do an analysis of Kashmir by Led Zeppelin?

[@jeroenwarner4834]

Yeah yeah but you still haven't told us what key Sweet home Alabama is in?!

[@damiens4601]

You could make some simple experiments on a website where we can hear something and answer a question. Not the most scientificaly correct thing but if thousands of your viewers participated youd have some data to explore

[@BrandyHoelscher]

I love Music Doodles ❤

[@peperoni_pepino]

To me, the root of that loop is clearly the lowest tone. I feel like I'm hearing this as a linear zig-zag (or sinusoidal) rather than an actual loop. In that case, using a different voicing might give me a different root. PS: I wonder why research like this never crowd-sources data. You could set up a website where you get a random chord loop and have to judge the root; if all of you subs do that a couple times then you have a millions of data points. This will be noisy data, for sure, but the sheer amount of data should still show you some things.

[@jasonbonifacio2473]

To me, Am sounds like the right answer somehow. And, if I read chart correctly, doesn’t it show Am being the most popular answer excluding the 1st chord?