As a longtime, somewhat reluctant, user of ultimate guitar I will say that often the chord annotations are not high quality. For instance, some annotators will have chord diagrams that show a voicing that actually rings out as e.g. Dsus4 but label it as D and use D throughout. Even more prevalent is songs where there are actually suspens…
As a longtime, somewhat reluctant, user of ultimate guitar I will say that often the chord annotations are not high quality. For instance, some annotators will have chord diagrams that show a voicing that actually rings out as e.g. Dsus4 but label it as D and use D throughout. Even more prevalent is songs where there are actually suspensions or extensions but which are written as plain major/minor throughout. I'm assuming Chordonomicon doesn't correct for this.
I don't think this changes your analysis (except maybe for rap? jazzy/laid back rap beats usually sound suspended/major 7th-y to me). I think it's interesting that this data is (likely) messy in a very domain-specific way.
I was going to post individually about how this study is both fascinating and yet its results are largely unsurprising. (E.g. jazz features 7th chords more than rock; as jazz's popularity has declined, so has the 7th chord. Or: If G is the most popular chord, it stands to musical reason that C, D, A, and F would follow, pretty much in that order.)
But Nathan here raises an important point. Much of what is on Ultimate Guitar is patently inaccurate, and a hefty amount of it over-simplified by well-meaning amateurs posting their baby steps at training their musical ears... It is not the reliable sample set one should be drawing from. Also, multiple songs on Ultimate Guitar have multiple interpretations and I can tell you from experience that the ones with highest star ratings are often NOT the most accurate. Short of reading the authors' paper (which states 666,000 songs not 680,000) it's difficult to sense how they may have compensated for these factors; would they have included all six chord-sequences reported on a single hit record, or did they only go for the most popular of the six, without studying for accuracy?
I really appreciate what you did hear Chris and not trying to knock it, but when you make the point just above, about these errors of over-simplification being presumed as equally distributed across genres and time I might come back with a different theory/suggestion... Those who transcribe(d) complex jazz or fusion-rock or similarly complicated genres may well be more musical, better trained, older too, and therefore accurate in their transcriptions than those who post over-simplified transcriptions of contemporary pop.rock.r&b etc songs, where those suspended 4ths, minor 7ths and often enough, the simple difference between a major and a minor, all goes unreported. Additionally, to the notion that music has become less complex over time, not necessarily going to argue that; however, again given the sample study is being drawn from an amateur database to begin with, is it possible that older songs have more source material to be reported accurately, whereas newer songs are dependent on new transcriptions with less opportunity to revise?
Since it's common knowledge among guitarists that Ultimate Guitar is not reliable for annotations, where should we go to get quality annotations, any tips or tricks?
I would say that Songsterr has better quality annotations on average. Back in the day there was a site called power tab archive that was doing a Wikipedia style approach: ultimate guitar but with peer review. It was awesome but shut down by RIAA
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
If you're not great with pitch like me, you can use sonic visualizer and annotate the spectogram is my best bet if you want a more definitive answer. But depending on the mix, it isn't always as easy.
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
As a longtime, somewhat reluctant, user of ultimate guitar I will say that often the chord annotations are not high quality. For instance, some annotators will have chord diagrams that show a voicing that actually rings out as e.g. Dsus4 but label it as D and use D throughout. Even more prevalent is songs where there are actually suspensions or extensions but which are written as plain major/minor throughout. I'm assuming Chordonomicon doesn't correct for this.
I don't think this changes your analysis (except maybe for rap? jazzy/laid back rap beats usually sound suspended/major 7th-y to me). I think it's interesting that this data is (likely) messy in a very domain-specific way.
That’s a good point but I’d be surprised if those errors were not equally distributed across genres and time
I was going to post individually about how this study is both fascinating and yet its results are largely unsurprising. (E.g. jazz features 7th chords more than rock; as jazz's popularity has declined, so has the 7th chord. Or: If G is the most popular chord, it stands to musical reason that C, D, A, and F would follow, pretty much in that order.)
But Nathan here raises an important point. Much of what is on Ultimate Guitar is patently inaccurate, and a hefty amount of it over-simplified by well-meaning amateurs posting their baby steps at training their musical ears... It is not the reliable sample set one should be drawing from. Also, multiple songs on Ultimate Guitar have multiple interpretations and I can tell you from experience that the ones with highest star ratings are often NOT the most accurate. Short of reading the authors' paper (which states 666,000 songs not 680,000) it's difficult to sense how they may have compensated for these factors; would they have included all six chord-sequences reported on a single hit record, or did they only go for the most popular of the six, without studying for accuracy?
I really appreciate what you did hear Chris and not trying to knock it, but when you make the point just above, about these errors of over-simplification being presumed as equally distributed across genres and time I might come back with a different theory/suggestion... Those who transcribe(d) complex jazz or fusion-rock or similarly complicated genres may well be more musical, better trained, older too, and therefore accurate in their transcriptions than those who post over-simplified transcriptions of contemporary pop.rock.r&b etc songs, where those suspended 4ths, minor 7ths and often enough, the simple difference between a major and a minor, all goes unreported. Additionally, to the notion that music has become less complex over time, not necessarily going to argue that; however, again given the sample study is being drawn from an amateur database to begin with, is it possible that older songs have more source material to be reported accurately, whereas newer songs are dependent on new transcriptions with less opportunity to revise?
Thanks any which way!~
Tony
Since it's common knowledge among guitarists that Ultimate Guitar is not reliable for annotations, where should we go to get quality annotations, any tips or tricks?
I would say that Songsterr has better quality annotations on average. Back in the day there was a site called power tab archive that was doing a Wikipedia style approach: ultimate guitar but with peer review. It was awesome but shut down by RIAA
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.
If you're not great with pitch like me, you can use sonic visualizer and annotate the spectogram is my best bet if you want a more definitive answer. But depending on the mix, it isn't always as easy.
Unfortunately, unless the producers or creators of the song release a full sheet of the music, you would have to rely on yours or other's ears to accurately map out the chords used. I am sure there are softwares that try to simplify this.
But in the end, you would still be relying on others. I recommend training your own ear to this capacity as it can be quite an awesome hobby to figure out songs on your own.