The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #14219 Message #120921
Posted By: Pete Peterson
05-Oct-99 - 10:53 AM
Thread Name: Three-chord songs
Subject: RE: Three-chord songs
I gotta get that "retrograss" album. THANKS. Any Carter Family song uses only three chords, the I, IV and V chords as Gargoyle has described. Example: Little Darling Pal of Mine (which is the predecessor of This Land), Keep On the Sunny Side, and the other 300 or so. Something that can be hard to do but can sound really good, as CarlZen has described, is to simplify a song so it only uses three chords-- good example is (if you know it) the Carter Fam. Meeting in the Air-- that last couple lines: and God's Own Son will be the leading one at that meeting in the air sounds like it should have the same chords as Bill Bailey (I know I'm to blame, well ain't it a shame, BB won't you please come home) but it DOESNT, they just use IV, I, V, I. If you try to get more complicated it doesnt sound like the Carter Family any more and that's a big reason why they sound so great! WW, HAVE FUN; you can do it all with three chords! PETE PS: A good thing to be able to do is to pitch the song in the right key. Are you an alto? I have a good friend with whom I sing a lot; her range is from A above middle C to the G below (sometimes to the E below) which is NOT that big a range-- but we play most songs together in A, because the highest note of a song is usually the "do" above the starting note. Example: Stephen Foster's Hard Times goes very well in A and the highest note is the high "do" in the chorus: tis the song and the sigh of the weary HARD (that's the highest note) times, hard times, Come again no more. . . And then singing in A, the three chrods are A, D, E7. Hope this helps.