Tune Req: Same chords, different songs

Subject: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jun 16 - 06:21 PM

I've been trying think of songs which share a harmonic structure, so that the same chords would fit, but which have very different tunes, so they can be sung together.

The only example I can think of at the moment is Kevin Barry and The Sash - though for reasons nothing to do with musical they aren't often sung together. But there must be lots of others.

I know it's possible with clever timing it's possible to cheat a bit and put together tunes which are harmonically a bit different and make them blend. But I'm after tunes which are harmonically identical.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jun 16 - 07:33 PM

"Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag" and "It's a. Long way to Tipperary" is another example of what I mean - and those in fact are often sung together.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Leadfingers
Date: 11 Jun 16 - 08:33 PM

There are a surprising number of songs that use the Major , Relative Minor , Dominant and sub dominant progression - I learned chord changes by singing Paul Anka's 'Diana' in eight keys - C Am F G G7 , though Blue Moon starts that way too

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: cnd
Date: 12 Jun 16 - 01:56 AM

Here's a video someone shared with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Bert
Date: 12 Jun 16 - 04:57 PM

Way back in the late fifties or early sixties there were records available that were just chords, with a list of square dances that you could sing to them.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jun 16 - 05:15 PM

Try this one. It's brilliant. I saw the TV show and I was blown away.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Five songs simultaneously.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 03:54 AM

This video is quite hilarious too, for all the songs it lists sharing the same structure: Pachebell's Rant

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 05:00 AM

Thank you Helen and Peter. Chances are that I would have missed these. The Ukulele Orchestra piece is brilliant.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 05:19 AM

The ukelele orchestra did a number of those I seem to remember, all brilliant but it's been a few years since I saw them, worth looking for on youtube.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 06:39 AM

On a radio programme a while ago they showed the family resemblance between "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs of Dover". Try it sometime - start "Somewhere" at "Bluebirds"...

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 09:13 AM

Rolling in my Sweet Baby's Arms/Saints go Marching In/Sloop John B all have the same chord progression in pretty much the same place. Chet Atkins used to play Yankee Doodle and Dixie together as a finger picking show piece.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 12:33 PM

"Show Me the Way to Go Home" and "The Preacher" by Horace Silver!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Cool Beans
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 02:07 PM

The Everly Brothers' hit, "Walk Right Back" and Roger Miller's "Engine, Engine Number Nine."

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 03:18 PM

I recently bought a CD by Connie Dover, If Ever I Return. Her version of Ned of the Hill/Éamonn an Chnoic has been running through my head, but oddly enough I have also heard the verse melody of the Welsh national anthem Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau simultaneously in my head. It could be just a similar chord progression but I think the melodies have some similarities.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Jun 16 - 05:51 PM

I can hear that in spots, Helen.

I can't decide if Tramps and Hawkers and Barrack Street by Nic Jones (or Patrick Street by Patrick Street) use the same melody or one that's very similar. You can sing either with the same accompaniment.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 12:33 AM

Re Ned of the Hill/Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, I think it's a little bit of a similarity of melodies, but maybe more of a similarity of the chord progression, but I haven't sat down and compared the two. I just hear one while listening to the other.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 05:45 AM

My Country Danc4e band, sometimes play Shepherds Hey, and The Keel row at the same time, one on melodeon and the other on concertina, it works well !!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 07:36 AM

Henry Piper, you can play "Nae Luck Aboot the Hoose" with either or both of those two

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 08:12 AM

Helen, here's an instrumental version of the Welsh National Anthem at a moderate pace. It seems to me that to sing Ned of the Hill to it would require some serious vocal gymnastics although some of it's musical phrases are similar for a bar or two.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 04:09 PM

Allright, gillymor, tell the WHOLE world I am wrong! LOL

I just hear bits of the melody of one while listening to the other. I plan to have a serious look at the two pieces of music sometime today.

It reminds me of a story I once heard, which may be just a bit of a legend, about a battle in Europe somewhere between the English and the French, I think. The English side also had a group of Welsh fighters and the French side had some Bretons. One night, after fighting all day, the Welsh were sitting around singing songs and then over the stretch of no man's land they heard the same melodies, different words of songs being sung by the Breton people. The Celtic connection I suppose.

I've always wondered, how could you fight - on behalf of another cultural group, the English or the French - people who sing the same songs as you do?

Anyway, back on topic. This is an interesting thread.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 04:22 PM

FWIW, Helen, it brings me no joy to rain down all this shame and humiliation on you. :) I liked your story.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 04:37 PM

The Mason's Apron and Devil's Dream.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 05:42 PM

Anyway, gillymor, a bit of mental (or vocal) gymnastics is great exercise for the brains of retired old dudes like yourself! LOL

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 10:13 PM

Ouch! I prefer to think of myself as a well-seasoned gentleman of leisure. Now EOTICC.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 11:18 PM

Fighting people who sing the same tunes? Happens all the time. The German Empire's Nationall Anthem at the time of the Great War had the same tune as God Save the King.

Rather the same way you get people waxing nationalistic over Red White and Blue, when those three colours are shared by over 20 countries as national colours.

......

Variants of the same tunes exist all the time - sometimes I'll be singing a song I've known for years, and it'll suddenly flash into my mind that it's got essentially the same tune as one I've never associated with it.

How tunes can vary, and grow into other tunes is a fascinating process. There are families of tunes that have evolved, rather like animal or plant species.

But sometimes you get tunes which really are different which just follow the same harmonies.

Maybe it really is like biological evolution and there's some primeval tune from which they have all come... (Though whether that's true of biological evolution either isn't that certain.)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jun 16 - 11:56 PM

All right Dave. I give up. What does EOTICC mean? Does it mean, "stop winding up the old retired dude"? :-)

Interesting ideas, McGrath of Harlow.

I've discussed this before, but white settlement of Australia was a bit of a petrie dish when it came to evolution of music and songs, especially in the pre-communication technology era.

John Anderson & Hugh Meredith collected songs and tunes of white people in Australia and published them in this book back in the late 60's.

These books are more interesting, in my opinion, than just a book of songs and music, because Meredith and Anderson collected the songs and tunes so that they would not disappear, and they provide anecdotal evidence of how the musicians came to know the songs and tunes, and then the different musicians play variations of the tunes or sing variations of the words of the songs.

As an example, a musician may have been able to go to a dance or work as an itinerant shearer, etc, and hear other musicians, or play with them, and they would swap knowledge of music, and then if they were itinerant workers they may not ever meet those other musicians again, so each one would continue on their way with only a short period of exposure to the tune. As a consequence there is a lot of variations in the collected songs/tunes depending on who the musician was who played them. Almost like a game of Chinese whispers played over hundreds of miles and many decades.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 05:33 PM

Re my posting above about the two tunes, Ned of the Hill/Éamonn an Chnoic and the Welsh national anthem Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau/Land of My Fathers.

I tried an experiment in Noteworthy Composer, a music notation software programme.

I put in two lines of music. The first line was the melody only of the verse of Ned of the Hill, and the second was melody of the verse only of Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. I transposed one line to the same key signature of the other (D Major) and lined the first notes of each up and played it. In Noteworthy, when it plays it also lights up the notes and scrolls along the lines, so I watched and listened as each melody went up and down in pretty much the same places, and apart from a couple of bum notes here and there, it sounds ok.

If you are interested in hearing it I can ask a MudElf to post the midi file in this thread.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 15 Jun 16 - 09:24 PM

On a Scarborough Fair thread thread.cfm?threadid=111333#3706974  Brian Peters mentioned the similarity with Four Loom Weaver.

Here are those plus Cod Liver Oil
(find the mp3 or midi "SF FLW CLO")
Scarborough Fair v Four Loom Weaver v Cod Liver Oil 
There are some discords there so maybe the chords wouldn't match.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 16 Jun 16 - 08:31 AM

Even more basic than the "magic changes" (C Am F G) is 1 4 5 4 1, or G C D C. About a billion 12 bar blues and many early R/R songs (Louie, Louie, Hang on Sloopy, Get off my Cloud) Mike

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 10 Jul 16 - 06:21 AM

I thought of one of my favourite movie scenes:

Donald O'Connor & Ethel Merman - I Hear Singing and There's No One There

I first saw this when I was knee-high to a grasshopper and loved it right from the start. Ethel is so OTT (over the top) and Donald is so buttoned up. They play off each other bautifully. It's a classic!

Helen

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen
Date: 10 Jul 16 - 06:23 AM

bautifully, battifully, beatifully

Beautifully!!