Strike a Chord
- Top Ukulele Chords
Experimenting with Radial Bar Chart
Have you picked up a new hobby during the pandemic lockdown?
One of the things I start learning during my maternity leave in the middle of the pandemic is: How to play the ukulele?
It had been a source of joy. From learning the basic chords, to how to strum, to how to sing along, it's been wonderful to bring music to the home and to my baby daughter. The journey helped me rediscover the joy of learning something new from scratch. It also reminded me the importance of practice. When encountering something seemingly difficult, it's important not to get overwhelmed and try to breaking difficult tasks into smaller tasks.
For my journey to learn data visualization, I want to start with visualizing information and data that have personal importance to me. I was excited when I found that there is data available on the percentage of times a chord is used in songs. And so I decided to try create a data viz on this topic.
What is this project about:
For beginners to the Ukulele, "What ukulele chords should I learn first" is a common question. Once you master the first few chords, you can start playing hundreds of songs using just a few simple chords on your ukulele. This interactive viz shows the most popular chords in Western Pop and Rock songs. Each line shows the percentage of times the chord appear out 1797 songs on UkeAlong.com.
What is the process:
• Gather and interpret the data from Ukealong.com (https://ukealong.com/statistics)
• Create radial bar chart (see Steps to Create Radial Bar Chart here )
• Design customized map to display chord chart on an interactive fret board
Here is the Viz:
Click here to see interactive viz
What I learned
• How to create radial bar graph
• How to use figma to design the layout of the viz
I hope you enjoyed the viz and check out the ukulele if you have the opportunity. Here are examples of some popular songs that use just 3 to 4 of these popular chords.
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight – The Tokens (F, Bb, C)
• Sunday Morning – Maroon 5 (Dm, G, C)
• Dog Days Are Over – Florence and the Machine (G, Am, Em, F)
• Stay With Me – Sam Smith (Am, F, C, G)
• Hello – Adele (Em, G, D, C)
• Poker Face – Lady Gaga (Em, C, G, D)
• With or Without You – U2 (C, G, Am, F)