Statistical Analysis of Harmony and Melody in Rock Music. Temperley, D. & de Clercq, T. Journal of New Music Research, 42(3):187–204, 2013.
Statistical Analysis of Harmony and Melody in Rock Music [pdf]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
We present a corpus of harmonic analyses and melodic tran- scriptions of rock songs. After explaining the creation and notation of the corpus, we present results of some explorations of the corpus data. We begin by considering the overall dis- tribution of scale-degrees in rock. We then address the issue of key-finding: how the key of a rock song can be identified from harmonic and melodic information. Considering both the distribution of melodic scale-degrees and the distribution of chords (roots), as well as the metrical placement of chords, leads to good key-finding performance. Finally, we discuss how songs within the corpus might be categorized with regard to their pitch organization. Statistical categorization methods point to a clustering of songs that resembles the major/minor distinction in common-practice music, though with some im- portant differences. 1.

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