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TheoryTab / Vance Joy / Lay It On Me
Lay It On Me
Song Analysis

Lay It On Me Chords and Melody

Lay It On Me
Lay It On Me – Verse
Lay It On Me – Pre-Chorus and Chorus

Related Music Concepts

Inverted Chords
Using a different bass note to change a chord's sound
Basic Chords
Chords naturally found in the key
Song Stats Verse
Key F Major
Tempo 128 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Pop, Folk/Americana, Singer-Songwriter
Melody Range C4 – D5
Mood Simple, Bright
Most Used Chord V
Chord Complexity 17
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 61
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 38
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 28
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 Pre-Chorus and Chorus
Key F Major
Tempo 128 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Pop, Folk/Americana, Singer-Songwriter
Melody Range F4 – C5
Mood Simple, Classic, Bright
Most Used Chord vi
Chord Complexity 5
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 8
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 53
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty 8
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 All Sections
Key F Major
Tempo 128 BPM
Meter 4/4
Genre Pop, Folk/Americana, Singer-Songwriter
Melody Range C4 – D5
Mood Simple, Classic, Bright
Most Used Chord V
Chord Complexity 10
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 24
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 45
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.

About Lay It On Me

About the Key

About the Chord Progressions

Section Progression Songs with this progression
Verse
vi V6 I IV I6 V
Mountains by Biffy Clyro
Trapped In A Car With Someone by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast
Melt by Supercell
Psycho by Maisie Peters
Do Me Like That by The Paradox
Won't Look Back by BEAUZ and MOMO
God and Satan by Biffy Clyro
33 songs →
Pre-Chorus and Chorus
vi IV V
Mardy Bum by Arctic Monkeys
Yesterday by The Beatles
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
Big Bang Theory Theme Song by Bare Naked Ladies
When You're Gone by Avril Lavigne
Passion for Exploring by SoulEye
A Day in the Life by The Beatles
2,653 songs →

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.

𝄞
C4 – D5
Melody range across 14 semitones
3.46 beats/note
Across 128.0 beats of melody
Stepwise Motion
Jumpiness
Repeaty
100% Diatonic
Percentage of notes within the song's key.
70% Chord Tones
Percentage of notes that fall on a chord tone of the underlying harmony.
Edgy 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
10
Measures how diverse and sophisticated the chord vocabulary is in this song.
Percentile: 10/100 — below average
Melodic Complexity
24
Measures the range, intervallic variety, and rhythmic complexity of the melody.
Percentile: 24/100 — below average
Chord-Melody Tension
45
Measures how much the melody notes clash or harmonize with the underlying chords.
Percentile: 45/100 — below average
Chord Prog. Novelty
16
Measures how unusual or unexpected the chord progressions are compared to common patterns.
Percentile: 16/100 — below average
Chord-Bass Melody
69
Measures the melodic movement of the bass notes across chord changes.
Percentile: 69/100 — above average

Metrics Radar Chart

Lay It On 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.
Contributed by
Last modified by
DrCav
Nov 17, 2017
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Relative notation describes chords and notes by their function within a key, rather than by their absolute pitch. This means a I–V–vi–IV progression is the same pattern whether the song is in C major, G major, or any other key — making it much easier to recognize common patterns across songs.