Is Independent (Re)Creation Likely to Happen in Pop Music?

Klaus Frieler* & Frank Riedemann***Universität Hamburg,

**HfMT, HamburgESCOM 2009, Jyväskylä

Background

•„Independent creation“ common defense strategy for defendants in copyright infringement cases

⇒ Forensic music psychology!

Background

• Three cases of copyright infringements1. True plagiarism2. Unconscious borrowing3. Independent (re)creation

Background

• Poses questions of– creative process during pop song

writing– melodic memory– amount of stilistic and cognitive

constraints in pop music

• How big is the space of pop songs?

Experiment

• Production paradigm• Backing track (p, git, bs, dr)• Chord progression I VI IV V (G Em C

D), barwise, played twice• Moderate tempo 120 bpm

Task

• Subjects were asked to produce a „catchy, poplike“ sung melody to the backing track

• No other restrictions• Subjects were not informed about

real intent of experiment

Procedure

3. Experimenters recorded subjects at home using a laptop with a head-set

4. Backingtrack could be downloaded on a web site and self-recorded tunes sent back

Subjects

• 16 subjects, mean age 35.2 (sd = 12.6), 7 F/9 M

• Years of musical experience ranged from 0 to 45 years,

aM = 17.63, sd = 14.73• Hours/week of active music: aM = 7.88, sd = 10.74

Subjects

• 15 subjects needed less than one hour for the task, some less than 30 min

• 7 subjects delivered also lyrics (some nonsensical)

• All subjects rated the task „easy“ or „very easy“

• All subjects had „fun“ or „big fun“ (Commercial potential of Creative Karaoke?!)

Melodies

• Subjects created a total of 19 melodies, one was excluded

• 5 melodies from hit songs over the same chord progression were collected

• Total of 24 tunes

Data Analysis

• Melodies manually transcribed and coded into a digital formal

• Melodies split into four-bar phrases

• 34 phrases, 26 in reduced set (exclusion of minor variants)

Melody Statistics

• Number of notes: 7 to 28, aM = 16.3, sd = 6.32• Three types:

– slow (aM= 9.85, 13 inst.), – medium (aM = 16.74, 13 inst.) – fast (aM = 25.38, 8 inst.)

Phrasal Analysis

Phrasal Analysis

Tonal Analysis – Pitch ClassesOnly diatonic pitches were used

Tonal Analysis – Central notes

• Reduction of melodies barwise to central notes (manually)

• Relate central notes to key or to sounding chord, eg. 1355

• Tonal reduction: 23/26 distinct forms

• Chordal reduction: 22/26 distinct forms ⇒ great variety

Huron‘s Contour

Similarity analysis

3. Comparision of subject‘s tunes with hit songs

4. Comparision of subject‘s tunes with each other

Similarity analysis

3. Similarity matrices calculated with SIMILE using a set of approved measures from different dimensions

4. Selection of tunes with high similarities on more than one dimension

5. Final selection manually

Subjects vs. Hits

• One subject (TK9682) delivered two four-bar phrases with high similarities to two hit songs each

Subjects vs. Hits

• TK9683-1 vs Pink

Subjects vs. Hits

• Sam Cooke vs TK9683-2

Subjects vs. Hits

• Confirmation in a listening experiment (N = 23, dead-pan MIDIs, rating scale 1-10)TK9683-1 vs Pink: aM = 6.1, sd = 1.99TK9683-2 vs Cooke: aM = 8.2, sd = 1.07

Subjects vs. Hits

• Subject TK9683 stated to know both songs, but only vaguely

• Expert witness confirmed high similarity of TK9683-2 and Sam Cooke

• Due to the differences he opted for „unconscious borrowing“

Subjects vs Subjects

• Three phrases showed high similarity to each other

• All three tunes feature – mainly chord root following, – note repetitions,– prominent accents on second

beat.

Subjects vs Subjects

• JOE28-1

• JAG23

• MAR17

Subjects vs. Subjects

• Confirmation in a listening experiment (N = 23, dead-pan MIDIs, rating scale 1-10)– JOE28-1 vs MAR17: aM=7.3, sd=1.99– JAG23-2 vs MAR17: aM=6.1, sd=1.07

Conclusion

• Experiments show evidence that independent creation might be not unlikely to happen in pop music

• No proof, of course

Conclusion

• Case of subject TK9683 could be explained by „unconscious borrowing“

• Other cases show rather trivial melodies along chord roots

Outlook

• Gathered material is well-suited for experiments in hit potential research

• Already done some pretests

Outlook: Hit research

• Metrical factor for hit potential• No correlation between hit potentials

of MIDI and audio versions• Hit potential of audio versions mostly

determined by singing quality• The best singers delivered also the

tunes with highest MIDI hit potential

Thank you!