CompPop
Return to: Raymond Weiss Mini-Course | The Chord Map | Voice Leading | Instrumentation | Music_Composition
Pop Music
Note: Students who wish to practice their skills learned in this unit are encouraged to access this site for an opportunity to practice composition.
Pop music has often lacked a clear definition. Essentially, Pop Music is whatever music is "popular" in the time in question. For instance, once upon a time Rock music was "Pop music". However, we will be taking a look at more contemporary Pop Music in this course, including acts like Lady Gaga.
In this unit we will readdress the various topics learned in the preceding units by recognizing harmonic movement, voice leading principles, and instrumentation practices. These three skills should give you a base understanding for music composition, and should provide you with all the tools you will need to begin composing for yourself.
Quick Overview
To begin, we'll review the chord map again. If you need further review, return to The Chord Map
Pop music, like many other genres of music, often relies on typical chord progressions throughout an entire song. In this course, we will briefly take a look at one of the most popular chord progressions used in pop music. By looking at a single typical chord progression, we can minimize our efforts on analysis and focus instead on voice leading, instrumentation, and harmonic tendencies.
The chord progression we will be looking at here is: I-V-vi-IV. This chord progression can loop back on to itself, can be started at any chord in the progression, and is used in countless pop songs. Below is the chord progression in the key of C major:
While the chords here are laid out in a nice progression that allows for good voice leading techniques, pop music often does away with voice leading principles in their compositions. However, it is important to recognize the reason these four chords go together in the order that they do. If you've forgotten, please review Voice Leading.
Quick Quiz - Part One
Below are two quick examples of this chord progression being used in popular rock songs. See if you can guess the name of the song, and make sure to understand the chord progression being used.
| 1. Name the song. | 
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|---|---|---|---|
| Answer: Lady Gaga's Poker Face. This song begins its I-V-vi-IV on the vi chord. | Media:Pop2.mp3 | ||
| 2. Name the song. | 
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|---|---|---|---|
| Answer: Green Day's When I Come Around. | Media:Pop3.mp3 | ||
What you've seen above are piano reductions of the songs in question. What that means is that the important parts of the song have been played by a single piano. If you'll recall from Instrumentation, musicians often use a wide variety of instruments in their compositions. It just so happens that Lady Gaga used a piano (keyboard) in her song, but both compositions utilized other instruments as well. See if you can name the song and identify other instruments used in the original song, both with the examples above and below.
Quick Quiz - Part Two
Identify the song and other instruments that were used in the original piece's composition:
| 3. Name the song and identify other instruments used in the song. | 
| ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Answer: Mika's Happy Ending. Other instruments used include strings, drums, and backing vocals. | Media:Pop4.mp3 | ||
| 4. Name the song and identify other instruments used in the song. | 
| ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Answer: Jason Mraz's I'm Yours. Other instruments used include the guitar, bass guitar, and drums. | Media:Pop5.mp3 | ||
Review and Conclusion
Pop music is not unlike other genres of music. Conventions and common practices often dominate the genre, giving rise to a familiar "feel" to the music. However, these conventions are almost always heavily influenced by very old traditions such as chord progressions, voice leading techniques, and instrumentation choices. Understanding how the three components of composition interact with each other is crucial to composing your own works of music in any genre.
It is now highly recommended that you use what you have learned briefly here to practice your own compositions at this site. There are still many details in music theory that can help you compose a greater variety of musical compositions and understand more musical compositions composed by others. If you seek further knowledge, access this site for more lessons and exercises.
Resources
1. Apple Inc. (2000-2017). MusicTheory.Net. Retrieved from: www.musictheory.net
2. Noteflight LLC. (2008-2017). Noteflight.Com. Retrieved from: www.noteflight.com