Let us meditate on music for a moment. In its various forms, it offers us great benefits — pleasure, narrative, therapy, and intrigue among them. Rarely do we hear of anyone who flat-out “hates” music. Perhaps what’s most fascinating about the art form, though, is the way it can be interpreted and recycled by each creator.
On that note (pun intended), in 2009, an Australian comedy group known as “Axis of Awesome” capitalized on the fact that there are four chords which comprise a staggering number of popular songs, deciding to showcase this in highly amusing fashion (as seen below). Today, we hear this chord progression, known as the Andalusian Cadence, in pop songs, but earlier, it was also the groundwork for many classical compositions.
Recently, New York Public Radio station WNYC put together a stream of over 50 songs that all also shared the same chord progressions. The musical artists featured ranged in style across genres, and include such luminaries as Ray Charles, David Bowie, Green Day, Beethoven, and N*SYNC (to name a few).
And of course, you can find variations on many of the songs featured in our own (new!) collection of licensable music. Below, you’ll find a sampling of the Shutterstock music library, highlighting some of the classical tracks that use the Andalusian Cadence. See if you can find any others in our collection!
Stream any of the songs below and click the link to purchase from Shutterstock’s Music site.
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27: II. Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven »
Carol of the Bells »
Quartet for Strings No. 15 “Haydn Quartet No. 2” in D minor KV 421 – Allegro ma non troppo »
Greensleeves (What Child Is This?) »