Cold Island – Intro
Cold Island – Verse and Pre-Chorus
Cold Island – Chorus
Cold Island – Solo
Related Music Concepts
Altered Chords
Altered (raised or lowered) notes create tension and complexity in chords
Chord-Melody Tension
How much the melody clashes with the underlying chords
Chord Progression Novelty
How unusual the chord sequence is compared to other songs
Borrowed Chords
Using chords from parallel modes for contrast and emotion
Seventh Chords
Adding one more note to the basic chords
Song Stats
●
Key
G♯ Minor
Tempo
140 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Video Game
Melody Range
D#4 – A#4
Mood
Tense, Simple, Unexpected, Upbeat, Moody
Most Used Chord
III
Chord Complexity
3
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
90
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
99
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
94
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
G♯ Minor
Tempo
140 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Video Game
Melody Range
G#4 – D#5
Mood
Tense, Simple, Unexpected, Upbeat, Moody
Most Used Chord
III
Chord Complexity
3
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
98
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
94
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
G♯ Minor
Tempo
140 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Video Game
Melody Range
G#4 – F#5
Mood
Tense, Complex, Upbeat, Moody
Most Used Chord
i
Chord Complexity
78
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
36
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
63
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
27
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
G♯ Minor
Tempo
140 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Video Game
Melody Range
C4 – C6
Mood
Upbeat, Moody
Most Used Chord
iv
Chord Complexity
48
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
95
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
31
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
58
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
G♯ Minor
Tempo
140 BPM
Meter
4/4
Genre
Video Game
Melody Range
C4 – C6
Mood
Tense, Unexpected, Upbeat, Moody
Most Used Chord
III
Chord Complexity
41
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
76
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
95
Chord-Melody Tension: Quantifies how often melody notes fall outside the current chord, producing dissonance that creates a sense of instability.
Chord Prog. Novelty
75
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 Cold Island
About the Key
G♯ Minor
It is the least popular key among Minor keys and the 24th most popular among all keys. Minor keys, along with major keys, are a common choice for popular music.
i iv VI
Most Important Chords
The three most important chords, built off the 1st, 4th and 5th scale degrees are all minor chords (G♯ minor, C♯ minor, and D♯ minor).
G♯ Minor Cheat Sheet
Popular chords, progressions, downloadable MIDI files and more
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 – C6
Melody range across 24 semitones
1.51 beats/note
Across 148.0 beats of melody
Stepwise Motion
Jumpiness
Repeaty
85%
Diatonic
Percentage of notes within the song's key.
55%
Chord Tones
Percentage of notes that fall on a chord tone of the underlying harmony.
Smooth
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
41
Measures how diverse and sophisticated the chord vocabulary is in this song.
Percentile: 41/100 — below average
Melodic Complexity
76
Measures the range, intervallic variety, and rhythmic complexity of the melody.
Percentile: 76/100 — above average
Chord-Melody Tension
95
Measures how much the melody notes clash or harmonize with the underlying chords.
Percentile: 95/100 — above average
Chord Prog. Novelty
75
Measures how unusual or unexpected the chord progressions are compared to common patterns.
Percentile: 75/100 — above average
Chord-Bass Melody
0
Measures the melodic movement of the bass notes across chord changes.
Percentile: 0/100 — below average
Song Data
Metrics Radar Chart
Cold IslandAverage 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.
