Don't You Forget About Me – Intro
Don't You Forget About Me – Verse
Don't You Forget About Me – Chorus
Don't You Forget About Me – Bridge
Related Music Concepts
Non-Standard Mode
New scales and home base chords for a different mood
Borrowed Chords
Using chords from parallel modes for contrast and emotion
Chord-Melody Tension
How much the melody clashes with the underlying chords
Basic Chords
Chords naturally found in the key
Song Stats
●
Key
E Mixolydian
Tempo
112 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Rock
Melody Range
B3 – A4
Mood
Tense, Classic
Most Used Chord
VII
Chord Complexity
43
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
89
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
96
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
16
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Song Stats
●
Key
E Mixolydian
Tempo
112 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Rock
Melody Range
C#4 – B4
Mood
Tense, Simple, Classic
Most Used Chord
VII
Chord Complexity
24
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
79
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
83
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
13
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats
●
Key
E Mixolydian
Tempo
111 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Rock
Melody Range
E4 – B4
Mood
Simple, Classic
Most Used Chord
VII
Chord Complexity
21
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
15
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
41
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
11
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats
●
Key
E Dorian
Tempo
112 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Rock
Melody Range
A2 – B3
Mood
Tense
Most Used Chord
bVI
Chord Complexity
44
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
89
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
72
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
21
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Concepts
Song Stats
●
Keys
E Mixolydian, E Dorian
Tempo
112 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Rock
Melody Range
A2 – B4
Mood
Tense, Classic
Most Used Chord
VII
Chord Complexity
32
Chord Complexity: Tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
79
Melodic Complexity: Reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
83
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
13
Chord Prog. Novelty: Measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
About Don't You Forget About Me
About the Key
E Mixolydian
It is the 3rd most popular key among Mixolydian keys and the 27th most popular among all keys. The E Mixolydian scale is similar to the E Major scale except that its 7th note (D) is a half step lower.
I IV VII
Most Important Chords
Mixolydian chord progressions are heavily featured in many genres of music like classic rock, which relies on the major chord built on the 7th scale degree.
E Mixolydian Cheat Sheet
Popular chords, progressions, downloadable MIDI files and more
About the Chord Progressions
| Section | Progression | Songs with this progression |
|---|---|---|
| Intro |
VII
I
|
|
| Verse |
I
VII
IV
VII
|
|
| Chorus |
I
VII
IV
VII
|
|
| Bridge |
♭vi°
III
VII
IV
|
|
About the Melody
Melody data is compiled from all analyzed melody sections, so depending on how a user analyzed a song, "melody" might include instrumental notes.
A2 – B4
Melody range across 26 semitones
1.38 beats/note
Across 128.0 beats of melody
Stepwise Motion
Jumpiness
Repeaty
96%
Diatonic
Percentage of notes within the song's key.
65%
Chord Tones
Percentage of notes that fall on a chord tone of the underlying harmony.
Mixed
Consonance
How smoothly the melody blends with the harmony (0 = dissonant, 1 = consonant).
Loose
Syncopation
How often the melody emphasizes off-beats. Higher = more syncopated.
About the Metrics
Chord Complexity
Chord Complexity tracks when a song goes beyond simple three-note chords—either by adding extra tones (like 7ths or add9s) or by borrowing notes from outside the key—creating richer, more sophisticated harmonies.
Melodic Complexity
Melodic Complexity reflects two factors: the use of notes outside the key and rhythmic syncopation, together capturing how intricate or surprising a melody feels.
Chord-Melody Tension
Chord-Melody Tension quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Progression Novelty
Chord Progression Novelty measures how uncommon a song's chord changes are compared to others in the Hooktheory database, highlighting progressions that deviate from typical patterns.
Chord-Bass Melody
Chord–Bass Melody evaluates how smoothly the bass moves between chords, scoring higher when it travels step-wise, ascending or descending, instead of jumping directly between root position chords.
Hooktheory's metrics are calculated against the entire database of analyzed songs, where 50 is the "average song." Learn more about each of these metrics here.
Chord Complexity
32
Measures how diverse and sophisticated the chord vocabulary is in this song.
Percentile: 32/100 — below average
Melodic Complexity
79
Measures the range, intervallic variety, and rhythmic complexity of the melody.
Percentile: 79/100 — above average
Chord-Melody Tension
83
Measures how much the melody notes clash or harmonize with the underlying chords.
Percentile: 83/100 — above average
Chord Prog. Novelty
13
Measures how unusual or unexpected the chord progressions are compared to common patterns.
Percentile: 13/100 — below average
Chord-Bass Melody
33
Measures the melodic movement of the bass notes across chord changes.
Percentile: 33/100 — below average
Song Data
Metrics Radar Chart
Don't You Forget About MeAverage Song
BPM Comparison
Melody Distribution
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Melodic Intervals
Distribution of note-to-note jumps in semitones (negative = downward, positive = upward)
Note Durations
How long each note is held (in beats)
Syncopation
How many notes fall on each level of metric strength (0 = on-beat, higher = increasingly off-beat)
Level 0
Notes that fall on the downbeat — the strongest metric position in the measure.
Level 1
Notes on a secondary strong beat (e.g. beat 3 in 4/4) — still firmly on the grid.
Level 2
Notes on the remaining primary beats (2 and 4 in 4/4) — moderate metric weight.
Level 3
Notes on eighth-note offbeats — between the primary beats. Audibly syncopated.
