Award Sounds

Sometimes it's easy to get lost in more complicated structures and then a song brings back the joy of a simple structure. A lot of pop/rock songs have been based around three chords, hey some popular songs had only two. That should be no surprise. I'd expect most readers to already know that.

But when was the last time you wrote a song using just three chords?

I find that they're looked on with disdain, but for the average member of the public they provide something they can hang on to. In the UK, most people have come across Wild Thing by the Troggs by now. My personal guess is that the percentage of the population who could sing or play part of it is decreasing, just down to it not having been featured heavily in adverts or movies in the last few years. The fact remains that it's entrenched in the average music listener whether they like it or not.

There's a good referne for typical 3 chord structures over at Olav Torvund's Guitar Site.

So how about just playing 3 chords on the nearest instrument?