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Tune Req: Same chords, different songs

11 Jun 16 - 06:21 PM (#3794936)
Subject: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: McGrath of Harlow

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.


11 Jun 16 - 07:33 PM (#3794948)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: McGrath of Harlow

"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.


11 Jun 16 - 08:33 PM (#3794956)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Leadfingers

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


12 Jun 16 - 01:56 AM (#3794976)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: cnd

Here's a video someone shared with me.

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


12 Jun 16 - 04:57 PM (#3795129)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Bert

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.


12 Jun 16 - 05:15 PM (#3795135)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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.


13 Jun 16 - 03:54 AM (#3795215)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Peter Laban

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


13 Jun 16 - 05:00 AM (#3795233)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Mike Yates

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


13 Jun 16 - 05:19 AM (#3795241)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Peter Laban

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.


13 Jun 16 - 06:39 AM (#3795252)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel

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"...


13 Jun 16 - 09:13 AM (#3795299)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Phil Cooper

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.


13 Jun 16 - 12:33 PM (#3795353)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST

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


13 Jun 16 - 02:07 PM (#3795379)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Cool Beans

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


13 Jun 16 - 03:18 PM (#3795397)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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


13 Jun 16 - 05:51 PM (#3795424)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor

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.


14 Jun 16 - 12:33 AM (#3795470)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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.


14 Jun 16 - 05:45 AM (#3795502)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery

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 !!


14 Jun 16 - 07:36 AM (#3795518)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Snuffy

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


14 Jun 16 - 08:12 AM (#3795526)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor

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.


14 Jun 16 - 04:09 PM (#3795679)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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


14 Jun 16 - 04:22 PM (#3795680)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor

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


14 Jun 16 - 04:37 PM (#3795687)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Seamus Kennedy

The Mason's Apron and Devil's Dream.


14 Jun 16 - 05:42 PM (#3795700)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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


14 Jun 16 - 10:13 PM (#3795754)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: gillymor

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


14 Jun 16 - 11:18 PM (#3795769)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: McGrath of Harlow

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.)


14 Jun 16 - 11:56 PM (#3795773)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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


15 Jun 16 - 05:33 PM (#3795972)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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


15 Jun 16 - 09:24 PM (#3796004)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: FreddyHeadey

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.


16 Jun 16 - 08:31 AM (#3796058)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: mkebenn

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


10 Jul 16 - 06:21 AM (#3799638)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

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


10 Jul 16 - 06:23 AM (#3799639)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Same chords, different songs
From: Helen

bautifully, battifully, beatifully

Beautifully!!