In this article, we'll continue our exploration into the patterns evident in the chords and melody of popular music. First we will look at the relative popularity of different inversions (e.g. a C/E chord vs. G/B, etc.) based on the frequency that they appear in chord progressions found in the Hooktheory Analysis Database. Then we will take a statistical look at how inversions are most often used. For example, if an inverted chord is found in a song, what can we say about the probability for what the next chord will be that comes after it? This will be compared with how the non-inverted counterpart of the chord is used (e.g. a C/E vs. a C).

This article is Part 2 of a multipart series looking at the statistics gathered from 1300 choruses, verses, etc. of popular songs to discover the answer to some interesting questions about how popular music is structured. You can find Part 1 here.

In Part 1, we used the database to learn what the most frequently occurring chords are in popular music and also started looking at the likelihood that different chords would come after one another in chord progressions.

In Part 2 of this series, we'll continue this exploration into the patterns evident in the chords and melody of popular music. First we'll look at how popular music ends musical ideas and discuss a surprising difference between popular music and classical music. Then we'll talk about the most popular chord progression used by songs in the database and discuss the ubiquity of this progression. Finally we will revisit the question of "which chords occur most frequently in popular music" and look at the reasons for why this is the case.