I’ve had many problems with user YoMama1999 changing keys/modes incorrectly, and insisting that they’re right, constantly changing it back and forth. They keep citing Wikipedia and Musicnotes as their sources, but those aren’t necessarily credible or reliable sources.
The most recent example is the song “Happy Together” by The Turtles, which has a chorus that is clearly in F# Mixolydian (due to the presence of E notes and lack of E#). Yet this user keeps changing it back without any proper justification, always retreating to their flimsy sources. This user even changed the verse to F# Mixolydian, even though that part is clearly F# Minor. And they even included a passive-aggressive remark in the comments that indicates that they don’t actually care about musical accuracy, they just want to prove they’re right (which they obviously aren’t).
If you click on their page and look through the comments for any song section they’ve edited, you’ll find plenty of other nonsensical changes (like saying “The Way You Make Me Feel” by Michael Jackson is in Lydian mode).
I’ve had problems with this user ever since they first showed up, and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt at first. But now I can no longer see their erroneous changes as misguided attempts at accuracy, and instead they’ve now devolved into a Jefd-like troll. If it were up to me, this user would be banned, but I’m not sure if what I’ve described is grounds for a ban. I just want them to stop and think about what they’re doing. And I hope other people here are just as frustrated as I am.
I think in the case of Happy Together you’re both being very pedantic. Obviously refering back to a Wikipedia article is a very weak argument, not only because it could be wrong, but also because these articles usually don’t take modes into consideration and only distinguish between major and minor. Also changing the verse to Mixolydian is clearly trolling behaviour and shouldn’t be tolerated.
That being said the mere presence of E (and absence of E#) doesn’t automatically put this section into Mixolydian. If either all chords in the section were diatonic to Mixolydian, or the E would also appear over the tonic chord, I would absolutely agree that this section is in Mixolydian, but that is not the case. The E only appears over two chords that are both diatonic to the parallel minor mode and one of them isn’t even diatonic to Mixolydian. That plus the fact that the verse is in the parallel minor mode make a very strong argument that we’re actually dealing with a case of modal mixture and the chorus is thus in F# major.
What I’m trying to say is that once songs start incorporating non diatonic chords, the mode of the song can easily become very ambiguous and we have to accept the fact that different perspectives on the same thing can be equally legitimate. I personally think that it’s best to just stick to major and minor if there’s no definit indication of it being in a different mode, but that’s just my personal opinion. In the particular case of Happy Together both Ionian and Mixolydian are legitimate choices to analyze the chorus section if you ask me.
Thank you for the in-depth analysis, that makes a lot of sense. And admittedly the A major chord in the chorus does kinda throw a wrench into everything I’ve said. I guess calling it a change from minor to major is a sufficient description, and me insisting on Mixolydian is a real "ummmm technically " situation. That said, a lot of YoMama1999’s other changes have been quite annoying to me, but maybe there’s a valid explanation for those ones too and I’m being short-sighted.
Well, I personally can’t recall having any issues with this user and I definitely can’t be bothered to look through all of their contributions, but if you would like to provide some specific examples of cases where you think they are incorrect, I’m happy to have a look at those and tell you what I think.
Looking back through some of their edits, I think I should take back the troll accusations. I just heavily disagree with most of their assessments (i.e. saying the verse of “Only Girl In The World” by Rihanna is B Dorian instead of F# Minor, saying “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons is A Major instead of B Dorian, saying “Word Up” by Cameo is in B Dorian, then A Major, instead of F# Minor).
Me bullying them away probably isn’t gonna help at all, so I’d rather they just keep improving their key-identifying skills. And they’ve made some sensible and understandable changes too (such as labeling “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz as E Major instead of C# Minor).
Now that I think about it, the behavior I’m displaying is exactly what used to irritate me about Stational, who I haven’t seen for a while. I understand them now! I guess I oughta learn to be patient and stop assuming I’m always right.
Okay, I think you need to cut yourself some slack there, man. Learning to be patient and ceasing to assume we’re always right is certainly a noble goal and something we should all strive for, but becoming overly self critical isn’t helping anyone either.
You weren’t being mean to them, just a bit pigheaded. They were the one showcasing absolutely immature behaviour by using capslock, bringing up unreliable sources as “proof” instead of bringing any logical arguments to the table and ridiculing your legitimate opinion by changing the verse to Mixolydian. Maybe just refrain from writing things like “Well sometimes Wikipedia is wrong. Sure sometimes I’m wrong, but I’m not wrong this time” in the future.
I’m absolutely with you on all of these examples. The debate on Word Up really showcases their incompetence. Saying the chorus is in A major because the melody starts on an A is absolutely ridiculous. If I’m not mistaken there’s not a single A major chord in the entire song either. Same goes for B dorian. “B dorian sounds better”
I don’t see any good reason to analyze the verse of Only Girl In The World in B Dorian, although it’s technically possible. Analyzing Radioactive in A Major is within reason, but I would analyze it in B Dorian, too. Same goes for Dynamite. E Major is reasonable, but I would personally go with C# Minor.
That being said, it’s one thing to chose these keys when you’re the one transcribing the song. It’s a completely different thing making absolutely unnecessary changes to someone else’s analysis when there’s absolutely no need to do so. And on top of that using “Major better than minor” as a justification.
True, true. I definitely got waaay too saucy with the “sometimes I’m wrong, not this time” stuff, I guess that’s a result of me getting fed up for so long lol. And yeah a lot of those changes as you said were unreasonable and/or not backed up very strongly. I’d like for the Hooktheory database to be a more robust and reliable source than Wikipedia/Musicnotes/Tunebat and all that stuff, so I’m more resistant to using those as reasoning for Theorytab changes.
@trli
To be fair he could have done with a bit of modesty as well though. Some of his comments were extremely snotty. But his contributions to the database and the forum were obviously invaluable. Does anyone know what happened to him?
Hahaha that actually sounds kind of relatable, not gonna lie. The condescending attitude is obviously not acceptable, but I can definitely see how not having any serious moderation on a platform like this gets really frustrating after a while, especially when you invest so much time and effort trying to improve it.
My name is Leo from HookTheory team. I’d like to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insightful analyses. I understand that it’s very important to keep the integrity of the analyses, however, since our database can be edited by other contributors, it’s inevitable we have this circumstance.
No worries, I’ll communicate with the user involved so we can hear their side and see if we could lessen these instances.
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lol now they’re doing the most childish thing imaginable: repeating what someone else said right back at them
the “GET A JOB” thing is something I said to Jefd, and now they’re oh-so-cleverly throwing it back at me or something. I’m so sick of this idiot. now I got no problem at all with banning them if they’re just gonna fully lean into this annoying childish shtick
why tf is he griefing a tab, restoring it, then editing it . just edit the tab lmfao. I think he also tone deaf because his transcriptions have abnormally many wrong chords and incorrect key
Theorytab would benefit if YoMama was suspended from all theorytab actions. Hes closer to being a vandal than a contributor
" situation. That said, a lot of YoMama1999’s other changes have been quite annoying to me, but maybe there’s a valid explanation for those ones too and I’m being short-sighted.
