It is always interesting to have someone point out that which is self-evident but we don't generally take notice of. Most of the "one chord" songs presented are well known to most of us. I don't think we normally think in those terms.
I defiantly knew this "one chord" idea was associated with certain blues artists but I never made the connection with purely vocal music and the lack of any obvious harmonic structure.
This defiantly is a songwriting idea worth exploring. This idea could continue through the whole song or only in a certain section.
I have been trying to teach myself the single bass note drone on guitar. It requires a high degree of attention to timing and is not so easy to learn. It appears to be easy at first glance. It is anything but easy when done correctly.
Timing is the definite hallmark of a good blues player.
Billy
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Thank you for the link. Fascinating. My favourite DRONE song You Won't See Me by The Beatles. OK, Macca played a running riff Bass but back in the day WE played the main theme as a constant A note Bass. Just to be different. If you listen to the backing vocals - its the A note as a vocal drone. Bests Ian
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OK, I'm just going to say, this idea bothers me a little, in that it seems to be missing the point.
"Within You Without You" is not a "one chord" song. Indian music is not "one chord music". This is music that doesn't use chords, at least not in the sense of chord-change-based progressions (to be fair, the video guy does say something like this.)
Really, imagine someone looking to play "Within You Without You" and buying a chart that told them to just strum an E major. That would make for a very disappointing performance, if they didn't know better.
I guess what bothers me is that "non-chord-change-based music" is SO broad a category, it sounds, I don't know, kind of reductive to me to describe it all as "one chord music".
I actually like the idea of droning to a single chord/harmony...I never tried to compose with less than 2 chords, but that must a soon to come challenge. I'm not sure BIAB is an ideal tool for that. :-)
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Hi, most one-chord songs are very familiar to a large number of people. I knew that this "one chord" idea was associated with certain performers, but I'd never think to associate it with purely vocal music or a lack of any clear harmonic structure. I once tried to learn to play single chord tunes on the guitar using music distribution platforms music distribution platforms, as I thought it would be a breeze of a job. Well… turns out it kind of was . No wonder some of them cracked the Billboard 200.
This guy has great videos and I love how he shows examples across many epochs of music and cultures as well.
I do think some of the examples stretch the definition of what a chord is. Anything with a pedal note and drone could be considered multi chordal where the two notes; the pedal note and the other simultaneous note in the melody hint at different chords.
Regardless, it’s clearly a songwriting tool we can learn from.
This is the first song I can recall being a one chord song. I guess the main reason is I was learning to play the guitar at this time and CCR was high on my play list. I recall some of the others of that era mentioned in the video. Interesting and cool stuff. I tunes out on the hip hop/rap part.
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An excellent and well researched presentation from David Bennett:
Around 8:53, David starts talking about sidelining harmony to give other song elements space. One of my favorite 1-chord songs that does this is Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme that uses a 1-bar ostinato in F major.
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. No wonder some of them cracked the Billboard 200.
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