ChartingTheBeatles
Charting the Beatles: Song Keys
By Michael Deal
www.mikemake.com/72772/Charting-the-Beatles
Song Keys
The shape of these pictographs is defined by what keys the songs were recorded in for each album. The relative distribution of keys (with mid-song key changes considered) have been mapped over a graph framework based on the Circle of Fifths. The pictographs are in order of album recording.
NOTES: The differences between each pictograph reflect the different relationships between songs within each album. For example, the pictograph for Abbey Road hints at the tonal architecture of the Abbey Road Medley, as the pictograph's shape has a more narrow pull towards A-major/minor and the home key of C-major.
Earlier pictographs gravitate towards the upper right, the keys where the standard pop/rock blues I-IV-V chord structure is easier to finger on a guitar. Later pictographs fan out as the band's use of song keys became more varied, and as more songs were composed on the piano.
The data are based on the song key appendix in Ian McDonald's book, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties.
Charting the Beatles: Song Keys
By Michael Deal
www.mikemake.com/72772/Charting-the-Beatles
Song Keys
The shape of these pictographs is defined by what keys the songs were recorded in for each album. The relative distribution of keys (with mid-song key changes considered) have been mapped over a graph framework based on the Circle of Fifths. The pictographs are in order of album recording.
NOTES: The differences between each pictograph reflect the different relationships between songs within each album. For example, the pictograph for Abbey Road hints at the tonal architecture of the Abbey Road Medley, as the pictograph's shape has a more narrow pull towards A-major/minor and the home key of C-major.
Earlier pictographs gravitate towards the upper right, the keys where the standard pop/rock blues I-IV-V chord structure is easier to finger on a guitar. Later pictographs fan out as the band's use of song keys became more varied, and as more songs were composed on the piano.
The data are based on the song key appendix in Ian McDonald's book, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties.