The Magic Musical Number 4
- tjen024
- Apr 24
- 7 min read
Hit songs through the years have used 4 chords played in 4/4 to hit the sweet spot for listeners. 4/4 with the perfect spacing of 4 beats to a bar, then 1 chord per bar repeating the sequence every 4 bars, is a formula we listeners resonate with. It is simple, not implying a lack of musical skill or technique, but the ability to play what is required by the song and melody. Most songs I find are most affective when the melody has room to breathe, through simplicity in time and harmony.
Simple can be a concept musicians struggle to grasp as they learn to play in more complex ways. It can be tough knowing how to make simple not sound boring. A few musicians can have a compulsive need to play way too much, neglecting the groove, sound, feel and affect in the process. If you’ve heard the saying “serve the song,” it usually means being a good support musician and playing what the song needs, not what your ego wants: stay out of the way of the singer. Prince said that if he heard his bass player then he would fire him, the bass isn’t the star, we notice it when it is not there, but not when it is there, we feel it not hear it.
Music is about the balance of tension and release. There are many devises for creating tension, such as more complex timings, playing notes outside of the chord, playing unexpected chords, denser arrangements, but the listener needs release. Balance these two and you’ll have a song that people get affected by. 4/4, 4 chords, well there isn’t anything tense about that, we have heard that one before, thus allowing a blank canvas for you to take your listeners on a musical journey.
4/4 timing
4/4 is the popular music time signature, I’m guessing over 90% of Western music would fall into this category, as a result we are born and breed on it, it feels right. The top 40 songs, this would probably be closer to 99%, rock, jazz and classical pieces can be more complex in their timing and structure, but for hitting the mass audience one signature is king. “Hey Ya” by Outcast is an exception to the rule, very catchy, but somehow misses a half beat in the chorus, it is awesome when someone can break the rules!
You could probably categorize all music into the even 4 sound and the odd 3 sound, master those two timings and you can play almost anything. Unless you want to split the beat by 5… it’s tricky, not that common and a bit pointless, honestly who needs a beat split by 5? And well I suppose you could do 7, but that’s insane. 2/4 happens but it’s too rushed, too repetitive, the melody needs some more beats to breathe. 3/4, 6/8 and 12/8, are the most common time signatures outside of 4/4. These times turn up in non-Western styles of music a lot, especially the 6/8 and 12/8 in Latin and African styles. They sound incredible but often Western listeners, born and breed on 4/4, can have difficult identifying where the beat could be. Playing along we will naturally try to hear the 4 beats. An example is this clip of an ensemble from Ghana.
Compared to Swift with her banging 4/4 a Western listener can be a bit lost trying to figure out where to groove. If you clap along, you’ll probably 4/4 it, rather than identifying the 12/8.
Tool and Radiohead are two popular bands who love to write outside of 4/4, but they also both write in 4/4 a lot too… well Tool has sections in 4/4 and the occasional full song. “Lateralus,” by Tool has a spiral time signature where each bar loses a half beat decreasing from 9, 8, 7. It doesn’t sound 4/4 in anyway and that’s almost the point, it keeps us on the edge of our seats as the song slowly evolves in a 9-minute epic. To play 4/4 that long, would leave us too comfortable, if we get too comfortable, we get bored, don’t bore the listeners for 9 minutes! Radiohead’s dark and unsettling “Pyramid Song,” is in 5/4. Afterwards we don’t get the release, but there is a beauty to that too. You can hear when the drums come in that even Phil Selway is having a hard time figuring out where the damn beat is. “Pyramid Song,” isn’t going to be breaking streaming records though, if you want to do that, you’re probably best with the time signature we all seem to like and can dance to. Have you ever tried dancing to “Pyramid Song,” chances are you’ll look like an idiot.
We all love to break the rules, but musical rules are there for musicians to make great music, based on the great music already created. The rules are meant to be both followed and broken, just be aware of what you are doing when you want to break them. Play 4/4 is probably the number one rule, learn it thoroughly, then learn to break it.
The Four Chords
When listening to music we not only hear what sounds are created in the present moment, but how these sounds connect to what has been played and what we feel will be played. When there is a G chord the emotional impact will be determined by where it is in the song. The chord will evoke something different if the previous chord was an F than if it was a D, and we will feel it in relation to all the other G chords we have heard in the song. When we hear that G chord we feel where we would like the music to go based on where we have been. Surprise the listener, take them on a journey, have them tense, waiting, but allow their expectations to be satisfied. If the G chord happens every 4 bars we start to anticipate when it will occur again; no surprises foundation for you to surprise and take the listener somewhere they haven’t been. You can do 3 bars, 2 or 5 etc. and many do, but like the 4 beats to a bar, 4 bars seem to circle in an unexplained pleasing natural way.
“Shape of You,” by Ed Sheeran, “Halo,” and “Sweet Dreams,” by Beyonce, “Rude Boy,” by Rihanna, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” by Nirvana, Jurassic Park theme song by John Williams, “Time,” the theme song to Inception by Hans Zimmer, and all those early 2000s hits that Axis of Awesome cover, what do all these songs have? They have 4 chords to 4 bars. Can you hum the Jurassic Park theme song now? Do you get goose bumps when you hear that Inception song? The listener might not have the musical knowledge to know it’s repeating chords, but they will feel it. The Inception song is about layers and arrangement, the repeated chords allow a foundation for the instrumentation to slowly become more dense with each cycle, there is nothing boring about this song, but it is also very simple in many ways.
“Shape of You,” is a different song to “Pyramid Song,” it is grab the listener on first listen. Tension happens in the rhythmic vocal delivery of the verse, then when Ed hits “Girl you know…” everything feels in the right place, and we go f**k yea! It’s still the same chords, but we like the change. He hooks the listener in, then hitting the chorus we sort of float back down, still on the same chords. Repeat, throw in some being babies together, finish, bang, radio hit! We can dance and sing along to picking up girls at bars with nice body shapes, then we’re out, start to finish same 4 chords. “Halo,” is all vocal melody, it feels good, we’re in love, we don’t need 5/4, we need a nice harmony for the beautiful lyrics, don’t need extra chords, just repeat. We can sing that song, we don’t want tension. We can sing “Pyramid Song,” um… where’s that damn beat!
One of the best composition classes I took was with Ken Lampl at ANU where we only wrote in 4 chords to 4 bar songs. It was so basic but the most useful composition class I attended. I found other composition classes tried to push creativity and challenge what has already been created, while neglecting the simple, but the simple is essential to master before understanding anything else. Being creative is about doing what has not been done before, but music is about connecting and affecting those who experience the creation. We connect based on what we are familiar with, our established music tastes.
The great man John Cage (who has some incredible, very simple compositions and is a true innovator), and his water walk is a good example, for us to question what the purpose of music is:
I think it is the musical equivalent of the also brilliant artist’s Marcel Duchamp’s signed urinal. Both pieces question what it means to be a piece of art, they question the meaning behind the piece, why we make art, and what role does art have in society. You as a creative must ask why am I creating and what is the point? What is the point in doing this and putting it out into the world?
Does random Cage noises bring pleasure? Is a signed urinal more of a thrill to look at compared to a Van Gogh painting, or walking through a Yayoi Kusama art installation? Probably not. These pieces are innovative as they ask us to question what the point of art is, but as themselves they are not interesting to the consumer. Push the boundaries, do what has never been done before, but make sure it is something, that someone, somewhere, loves to listen to. 4 doesn’t guarantee that, but it’s a good starting point. If nobody seems to like your music, including the most important person, yourself, then ask, well where is the 4 in the piece? It might show you that the music needs a bit of 4 magic.
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