Karaoke Mashups

I gave a talk at Nerd Nite Tokyo about karaoke mashups! The video will be online eventually, but for now, I want to summarize a few points here.

Key takeaways

What makes mashups work?

Songs mash up well together when they match in terms of…

• harmony
• rhythm/tempo
• harmonic rhythm

How can you make your own mashups?

The hard part of coming up with mashups is usually matching the harmony. You can learn to recognize some common 4-chord loop progressions by comparing them to reference songs. I recommend trying these:

• Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey — the Axis Progression (I - V - vi - IV)
• Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day — the Plagal Cascade (i - III - ♭VII - IV)
• Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley — the Royal Road Progression (IV - V - iii - vi)¹

Why should you sing karaoke mashups?

First off, because it’s fun, and fun doesn’t need an explanation. But if that doesn’t convince you, maybe this will:

Practicing mashing up karaoke songs has helped me develop my critical listening skills, and those are transferrable to other music-making pursuits. It’s helped me embrace a mindset that’s been very useful to me.

You have the opportunity to hone your skills not just when you sit down at the piano or pick up an instrument, but every time you listen to music!

Data

In preparation for my talk, one of the things I did was analyze a bunch of songs from karaoke sessions I went to. You can find the full dataset here:

Footnotes