Dear Mr. Davis
In the eighties I was a teenager. In New Smyrna city, near the center of Athens, fondly remembering sitting at the upright piano on the 3rd floor. We would listen with my dear grandmother Eleni to Unbreak My heart - Toni Braxton on CD.
Just playing gently along and suddenly by the unexpected sweet change of musical key to D minor at the chorus, her little yellow canary would get crazy and join singing along ecstatically. Each time at the chorus.
It is a wonderful surprise to find out that there is a Clive Davis behind my favorite songs, For example Coming Around Again - Carly Simon, one of the first songs I tried to play by ear trying to figure out what that unexpected beautiful chord change is.
Also Eye in The Sky - The Alan Parsons Project, repeatedly played on cassette in the family car, while my father would say "this song fits you".
Endless quality song list and seeing the ARISTA label on the Whitney Houston LP proudly bought after listening to Saving All My Love For You, I could not imagine whom this well know Hellenic word "arista" would hide behind it. It just never crossed my mind.
So how did I learn in 2025 about you? It is through love of music and electronic engineering.
It was amazing to find out that Michael Jackson's recording engineer Bruce Swedien was using from a list of expensive microphones, a least expensive. This was SM7 (moving coil inside in a magnetic field) by Shure. Similar to the even less expensive SM57 pair used by all USA presidents behind the lectern of the White House.
When wandering about Whitney Houston, I found on YouTube record producer Narada holding the SM7 saying that this is the one used for Whitney and the reason why, it would not distort.
In his interviews he talks about intelligent Clive Davis.
Then I got it immediately, visited your website, printed the executive quotes about you and got as soon as possible your 2nd book, which feels like being in a masterclass.
So here is a humble thank you for making choices that helped me learning and discovering some of the magical world of music.
Assuming that we may have some common taste I am enclosing a list of some of my favorite songs. Trying over the years to play them accurately at the piano I wandered what could be a reason so many people like them on radio. Some elements came up erroneously called hit song ingredients. Maybe not as important as I initially thought, as lyrics for example are not taken into account.
And besides there is something inexplicably ethereal about what we like. But it still puzzles me why Interlude - Morrissey & Siouxsie seems not as well known as I think it should be.
Yours Faithfully,
George Chakiris
This is the URL of the older hit song ingredients list with examples::
https://euroelectron.blogspot.com/2014/11/hit-song-ingredients-with-examples.html
It seems unlikely that the great music industry executive will read this or get the original hand written letter in his hands, sent to the Sony Music Entertainment address in Ney York. But you never know! Life is full of extraordinary surprises when you love what you do.
For example yesterday 1st of May 2025, a public holiday in Hellas full of strikes even in mass media transport. I decided to go to some open on holidays second hand record shops under Acropolis in order to find the song We All Fall in Love Sometimes - Elton John
Although released in 1975 I heard it possibly for the 1st time 2 days ago on the Hellenic Radio and Television program 1 broadcast by Giannis Petridis with Dimitris Zougris which runs from 1975 and teaches musically.
https://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/giannis-petridis/
It is such nice song written in G minor. I luckily found the CD album that contains it. Then I went to the LP section in order to find the 1st Album by Leonard Cohen. No luck there but just after exiting the LP section I heard the vinyl manager talking negatively about our country. I started overhearing but at once said to myself "we carry on" and immediately the edge of my eyesight noticed down below at a corner just outside the LP shop a pack of Billboard back issues. They were apparently waiting for me as I have been searching for Billboard back issues or even the current one since I had started reading Clive Davis' book The Soundtrack of My Life. It proved very difficult and it seems it is not imported in Hellas anymore.
So I once bought all 14 issues published around 2002. When I tried to gently clean them I jumped by noticing on one of them Clive Davis headlined with his photo as "Clive Greatted As New RCA Chief".
I was moved as he had become again in control of ARISTA that he had founded. At such a difficult part of his life he had won by very hard work and his great love of music.
Here is the story from Vanity:
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2000/02/clive-david-bmg-entertainment-ceo-strauss-zelnick?srsltid=AfmBOoreoVj1XvasqiKwi5aj6o_pAsYdXqSMKsOQPgrSdxwXHnv0Vnmz
Below I will attempt from time to time to include some songs I like and why. I am neither a musician or a music industry executive. I just love music.
The Principle of Least Change in Music
Prologue
I have always thought that pop (popular) music is a continuation of classical music. Only musical instrumentation and production technique change dictated by change in technology. The harmony, that is which notes played simultaneously together and when or how, is basically the same. If listeners have similar brain then and now, that may explain it.
In fact a good song by Madonna such as You'll See in E minor, Madonna, David Foster, produced by David Foster is close enough in harmony to a euphonic prelude or other classical composition in E minor without the enhancement of record producing technique..
This can be demonstrated by just listening. Proved by comparing the scores. Even if a score may not be available to compare, the note combinations are there as audio vibratory music signal. This music signal is recorded on tape, transferred to disc, digitized, streamed or whatever.
Those with perfect pitch musical ears recognize, (hear) the notes, may even imagine they could 'see' the "score" in their mind while music is playing even in a cafeteria or other public place. Those who do not, feel the same music anyway.
The author hears, by self training since a very young age usually by comparison to a piano, the seven notes and lets them guide you to this exploration of why we may like a song, hopefully without loosing any of the magic.
(Proceeds if published to charity. Public domain)
The Principle of Least Change in Music
Could there be a universal principle embodying many elements that makes music likeable? Something similar to the 4 Maxwell's equations that summarize Electricity and Magnetism in Physics unifying them as electromagnetism and predicting the existence of electromagnetic waves that travel at the speed of light. E/M waves are light too. And such light travels through the microphone cable, but it conveys the music signal. In fact it is electrons dancing to the music passing on the similar dance to electrons nearby. But the wave travels at the speed of light. But they dance slowly to the music signal.
Let's digress just for a moment to hear the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman talking in his unique way about light without the use of any mathematics:
So getting back to our subject what is the Principle of Least Change in Music?
Less is more. If we strip down music to its elements, melody and bass. They are both one musical note at a time. For example you can cannot have 2 different bass notes at the same time, it sounds unbearably wrong. Now if both melody and bass increase in parallel, for example left hand playing bass and right hand playing melody at the piano, it sounds almost nonsense. But if one of them remains the same and the other moves then we have relative motion and is sounds much more interesting to the listener's brain. And really small changes have a very profound effect. For example just a semitone out can drive you mad. And just the right semitone change can make you feel so happy.
But let's hear some examples where melody stays the same while bass is moving. On this example bass is moving down some steps at the time. At the verse of the so beautiful song Coming Around Again - Carly Simon, released by ARISTA records founded by Clive Davis.
On this example our brain notices the increase of note intervals as bass goes down. The letters of music are the intervals rather than the notes themselves. See What is Melody - Leonard Bernstein
Repetition is an important element of music and the principle of Least Change contains repetition.
Now let's hear an example where bass says the same and other parts or melodies change. Us and Them - Pink Floyd. From beginning till 2:49 the bass is the same note, D or RE.
Step Bass in halftone increments at verse and normal scale steps (in a musical scale some steps are tones, some are halftones) at chorus, the amazing Seven Seconds Away - Youssou N'Dour, Dido (here instead of co-composer Neneh Cherry), this song is written in F sharp minor scale, so bass goes down from F#:
Step Bass down its Key or scale B flat minor, The Captain of Her Heart - Double:
Here Captain of Her Heart played on Vicky's Bechstein piano. Many thanks to Vicky for making me think about is done when we play music, below you can see on the piano keyboard some of the Lest Change in Music elements we have already discussed:
And for now we conclude the Step Bass description with the masterpiece Adagio in G minor - Albinoni, Giazotto:
Oops I forgot this, again from Italy, Pedal Bass at intro and 2nd part of chorus, Step Bass at steps of 2 mainly, on chorus. Ti Sento - Matia Bazar:
oops forgot this too. As a summary so far we have seen that the game is played by subtle changes (objectively) which create a great change (subjectively. In fewer words changing from one chord to another we don't change all notes. We keep some the same and change some others. And in many time as few as possible, just one note at a time. For example Vocalise - Rachmaninov, step bass down at the verse while the right hand makes as few changes as possible as time goes by:
California Dreaming - The Mamas and the Papas, Bass going for most part of the song in scale steps down D minor as D to C to bB to C to A and repeat.
Prelude in C minor - Chopin. At the chorus, i.e. after bar 5 or at 0:37, bass moves down chromatically (in halftones) for most part and then in scale steps:
And here the beautiful song inspired, Could it Be Magic - Barry Manilow, released by Clive Davis' ARISTA:
And we conclude the step bass section with the master Bach's Air on G String, in D major. It is mostly step by step but Bach alternates each note with its (same name) octave, something that latter was also used extensively in disco music. It is didactic here to note least changes in many parts (the 4 voices seen on the pentagram which hopefully will make it easier to listen and distinguish each of the 4 melodies. It is amazing that such a masterpiece as it sounds like too consists of at most just 4 notes at the same time. You may also like to note how he applies the principle of least change by preparing the "dissonant" intervals of 7th or 9th above the bass to the listeners brain, by playing them in advance sustaining them and then adding with them on another voice the 3rd to create the magic consonance out of dissonance as described in his hopefully famous by now manual to his students. Bach bass rules pdf: [ ]. It looks very hard to find a hit song or other hit composition that does not use many of the principles in this manual.
I was extremely lucky to have though taking a photocopy of this score with me while doing my military service in Air Force. At the crest of the higher mountain of the Hellenic island of Lemnos, while good H&R men would assign me the 3am to 6am watch shift. I spent countless of happy hours just reading this, imagining the beauty of it and mankind. Bathed by the light of stars coming from endless time far from the majestic universe.
Here is Whiter Shade of Pale based on it, the organ part conceived by Mathew Fisher playing it all night: This song looks like it broke by a pirate radio station broadcasting from a ship.
And here the Jazz version of .Bach's Air. By the great Jacques Lousier trio. Life was very kind to me again. Before the military service I was studying engineering electronics at Warwick University in the city of Coventry in UK. The university campus has a great arts center. Then one day it seems I greatted our chorus conductor Colin Touchin, in a choir I really enjoyed being part of. With his nice bright with sense of humor face he told me something like "we have a great concert today, don't miss it". I went in and there were just three French men, I did not know. The Jacques Lousier trio. And they started playing in the concert hall the Bach's Air. I could not believe what I was hearing. Such a lovely sound from just 3 men with no microphones. Just a grand piano, drums and upright bass. Unforgettable. They begin with pedal bass played on the upright bass, and then walking bass!
You may notice that apart from the difference of Rock or Jazz optical angle, the last 2 examples have another sound or feel difference. The musical key or scale used is different. The Bach's piece is in D major where as the other 2 are on C major. Just a tone difference yet it creates a great change in atmosphere. Obviously the best way to prove this is to play on the piano exactly the same but first on C, then on D. The difference is to hard to describe in words. Like a new world. But that's what it is . It is called KEY and surely enough it opens the door to the world of sound color at least. So our next section will be conveniently dedicated to key on Hit Song music as a basic ingredient.
This song by David Bowe will help proceed are it includes step by step bass down and up the scale at verse and a sudden modulation to a different key at the second verse. This is Not America - David Bowe in G minor:
Key
My parents provided teachers for piano at some periods of age between 6 and 17 but I could not cope much with them, and most certainly they could not cope with me. Maybe an obstacle was that I did not like notes represented by black dots. I had been trying since almost 5 to train myself from distinguishing notes by ear. But in truth I may not have liked the repertoire too.
My new teacher while finishing high school was a young girl called Ginna who lived in Palaio Faliro town who would come to teach me. Her last studies were in Germany.
This interesting young lady taught me some seemingly basic things that I had never heard before in my life. And here is one. Almost any musical composition is written in a particular key like C major, E minor etc. But how do we very quickly know what is the key of a symphony, prelude or a song? Easy, it is just at the beginning of the piece the 1st note of the bass or at the end the last note of the bass. It is a tonic world and now being 53 most music I have come across follow this simple rule almost 99 per cent. Except Moonlight Sonata - Beethoven, Italian concerto - Bach, and some Shubert that I found really difficult to play, she also got me into Let it Be - Beatles. This last got me into playing more and more by ear and certainly enjoying the freedom from the black dots.
Let it Be is written on the key of C major. I could check this as the first bass is C. It is the simplest key as it uses the natural notes or white notes on the keyboard.
Fast forward, at Warwick University's bookshop I bough a lovely book called Musical Acoustics - Donald Hall. I could read that each key gives a distint color or atmosphere.
Fast forward to 2025. Below are hit song examples for every key. The notes are 7 since everything is refernced in music to the white keys of the keyboard or natural notes. But the keys including the black ones are 12. If the 3rd note of the scale in reference from the 1st note (which is the name of the scale) defines a major 3rd interval the key is called a major, if the interval is a halftone smaller the scale is called a minor. So almost all we ever listen to on western music is written on any of those 24 scales or keys. So here are examples for each. Deliberately they will not be presented in a sequence of 5ths ...,F,C,G...Rather in steps of half tones. The smallest interval in western music. Hopefuly it will show much more dramaticaly how a change from a white note to the next black creates a vast amount in subjective perception. After all this may be considered too a part of the Principle of Least Change in Music.
C
It is very commonly used of course as it is only white keys. And really if you would start to experiment with piano composing, it is a good starting point just to use white keys. Anything you might play will sound good and at lucky breaks you may create something extraordinary. Something important to remember as Ginna told me composers do not use close notes together at the bass for the simple reason it sound cacophonic. Do not take our word. Kust try it and you will hear. Is nt it that music itself or nature teaches us? So empirically bass is just one note at a time. the key of C major sounds a bit happy go like but this is precicly the point, most children toys of tunes themselves amy be in C major, just the white keys. But good composeres have created extra ordinary music with it. Let's begin with coming Around Again - Carly Simon in C major. This is one of the 1st songs I attempted to play by ear after possibly finding it in a vinyl compilation of hit songs. I was still at school and the extraordinary chord or rather key changes inside this song blew my mind. So this song provides an opportunity like good symphonies to hear how modulation (change in key) inside the composition itself wakes up our brain to new world. All in 2 or 3 minutes while the song lasts. But what we feel remains inside us for ever. So here it is. I am so pleased that Clive Davis and ARISTA is behind it:
Change of key on this lovely song is in F major at the chorus. The F major scale has all white keys except that all B are flat, the black key just to the left of B. Then verse is back to the key of C. This song is really helpful for our example as at 2:35 we have the rare chance to hear the verse chord progresion but taking place this itme at the key of F major. In other waords instead of bass going From C to A to F it goes from F to D tobB (B flat). So we can hear how the change of key at same conditions clearly creates a change in atmosphere. I believe in love.
The album Coming Around Again with executive producer Clive Davis provides another oportunity to hear the same song on the key of G major to compare the change in sonic color. The scale of g major has all whites keys except F with is F sharp, the nearest black keyboard note at the right of keyboard note F. So bass here travels from G to E to C at the verse. Let us hear the last track of the album. Itsy Bitsy Spider:
C sharp major
Here you can note the dramatic difference between C major and just one half tone above C sharp major. All notes of the scale are shifted to the next rightmost position of the piano keyboard. And it so happens most are black keynotes. The particular music which won an Oscar that we are going to hear sounds much different almost trivial if transposed in C major. This key is not at all common due to its unfamiliarity and hence difficulty in playing. But this unfamiliarity is exactly what trigers our brain. It is unusual, it sounds unusual, its darker than C major and has a more sweet feel to it. On this live performance pedal melody C sharp can be readily seen taken seriously:
C minor
The C minor key or scale starts at C just like the C scale but the 3rd note of the scale is E flat instead of E, hence the interval from tonic C is a minor third. This is where minor scale take their name from. To generalize in minor scales the 3rd note creates an interval of minor 3rd with respect to the tonic, the first note of the scale. Some other notes of the scale are different too. But the point is that this minor 3rd creates a whole world of difference. Whereas in general a major 3rd sounds happy and open, a minor 3rd in general sounds sadder. Just a whole world change just by a change of one note to the nearest semitone to the left.
To Megalo Mistiko Mou - Xomata, in C minor:
The strange thing about some keys which are flat or sharp is that the listener cannot really tell whether the note C sharp in this particular case is Do or RE that is C or D as C sharp or D flat is in between. This is part of the mystery. Anyway, here the scale starts at C sharp and not only the 3rd in minor, in this case defined by note E, but most keys are black. So this is how poetic it sounds like, this example based on Moonlight Sonata at the original key Beethoven chose for good reason, or did the key chose the music to be composed? Piano and I - Alicia Keys, executive producer Clive Davis:
D major
The D major key, has some grandness, perhaps extravagant feel about it. Does the name, note RE come from REX?
Hallelujah - Handel in D Major:
Gloria - Vivaldi:
Let's dance! While we dance please note also the pedal bass D, the B while a very high violin note plays pedal A at the introduction: Love's Theme - Barry White, in D major:
E flat major
E flat is the closest note to the right of D. The scale of E flat major ,in order to keep intervals the same to any major scale, must have some flat notes which correspond to black keyboard keys. For some reason the atmosphere of this rather rarely used key is different to D major, almost like participating in something very rare and special. Here is Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel. It became famous thanks to Clive Davis and his team insisting that this is something so special that the radio must play it despite it having a long duration. Needless to say there are many elements that make this song very special, but here we are concerned with key and the first few seconds, even the first chord sets us in the mystic mood:
Next, another great song in E flat major. Again Clive Davis involved in his ARISTA after Columbia records. Time - Alan Parsons. Again Eb major immediately sets the mood. There is also pedal bass Eb for most intro and then chromatic step down bass:
The mystery of E flat major continues, Clocks - Coldplay:
Very good composers or song writers dare to use so difficult keys. In music there are only seven notes. those corresponding to the natural white keyboard notes. And everything is referenced to them. Even the score pentagram notation allows only those 7 notes as dots either between the lines or on top of a line. So in a difficult key such as E flat, notes have the same names, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si Do, Re, (Mi) or E,F,G,A,B,C,D,(E) but to some note names must be added the name flat in order to keep the frequency ratio analogy same to the C major key. In this particular case we have bE, F, G, bA, bB, C, D, bE. But this is what can make it easier. We can use for example the code 1 3 5 above let's say bass E which is the bass the above songs start with.. We know then we have to play E G B but since all E and B on this key are flat we play bE G bB and it immediately sounds correct but with the mystery E flat major scale hides or offers.
And now, Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer in E major, note the pedal bass E and Principle of Least Change in harmony, so characteristic of this song. E #G B E, E #G B #D, E #G B D and so on. Our brain perhaps tries to deceive us that a lot is happening, just one single note is being changed in the full part harmony, and this change is just going down down in steps of the least possible frequency change, just a halt tone or semitone. It sounds fantastic:
D minor
There is some kind of melancholy to D minor.
But Let's dance, Careless Whisper - George Michael in D minor. He composed it inside the classroom:
Also, according to his manager's Simon Napier Bell book and other interview engineer sources on YouTube, George did not like the recording produced and decided to produce it himself. He auditioned some of the best sax players only to find one that could play the whole phrase in the same breath. He had all musicians play in the studio again and again until they were melted, or it song was melted, becoming second nature. The red record button was hit!
Interlude - Siouxsie, Morrissay in D minor. When I first heard it on FM radio in Athens, I phoned so many times the radio station to ask the presenter which was this fabulous duet song. It proved very difficult to get hold of him. But finally success:
Lacrimosa - Mozart in D minor:
I like Chopin - Gazebo in D minor. A kid at school played it in the theater on the piano on a concert or something. It sounded unbelievable. It made want to learn to play it too:
Here producer Brian Eno interviews himself and at some point mentions D minors: The Dick Flash interview - Brian Eno:
E flat minor
If you try to play the same song in D minor it sounds in a way so different. E flat minor is a differentr sound world. It is one of the most difficult scales to play or compose with, so many black keyboard keys. So here Against All Odds - Phil Collins in E flat minor - Live Aid, Phil singing on Beyer M88 dynamic microphone:
And now another song out of ordinary, many friends brought their synthesizers at the studio, I Want to Know What Love Is - Foreigner in Eb minor:
Even something done on just a 4 track Tascam cassette recorder sounds not ordinary in E flat minor. Actually it was tracked in D minor or close but varispeed was used to raise the voice, other instruments tp E flat minor. And of course changing their timbre, Tezcatlipoca - Ira, George
Now the classic Woman in Love - Barbra Streisand in E flat minor:
E major
The scale starts with a white keyboard key but has white a few black keyboard keys, E, #F, #G, A, B, #C, #D, E. It sounds warm:
Here is the score, you can see amazing pedal bass E and Principle of Least Change in Music subtle, minimal changes on the right hand creating a great emotional impact and beauty:
In the record production team of the following, Walter Afanasieff (who is a fan of Rachmaninoff), composer James Horner, lyricist Will Jennings, My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion , chorus modulates to C sharp minor (the relative key of E major having the same sharps, these particular sharps correspond to black keyboard keys), introduction also in C# minor, verse in E major:
Let's dance! It's My Life - No Doubt in E major:
E minor
E minor is in its own tender way about love. Obviously not only E minor about love, but E minor is very characteristic. It is easy to see why by just playing E and G and B on the middle part of a piano.
Prelude in E minor - Chopin, Op.28, No.4 - pianist: Denis Zhdanov
Lady, lady, lady - Joe Esposito in E minor, composed, produced by Gorgio Moroder:
Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues in E minor:
Metamorfoseis - Marina Sous Peu, Romanos, Mponatsos in E mninor:
.
Lower perhaps original recording speed with no reverberation added:
M Anastises Kardia Mou - Voskopoulos a capella in E minor:
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