Why two chords?
The short of it:
I decided that two-chord songs would be good for a) learning to improvise, b) learning to compose, and c) learning to play ukulele. It became more of a rabbit hole than I ever expected and I spend probably too much time hunting down two-chord songs. I hope you, too, will find this useful.
Who is this, anyway?
Andrea La Rose plays flutes big and small, ukulele (just the smallest one), and lots of little whistley things. She improvises (mostly in the free improv tradition) and composes (mostly in the quirky chamber music tradition). She teaches ukulele and songwriting to people 8 and up, and private instrumental lessons. Living in Prague, she struggles with Czech and enjoys riding public transit with her wife and son.
If you want a long-winded deeper explanation, you may continue:
The long of it...
This blog started out on Tumblr just before the pandemic, like so many things, and it fell by the wayside, like so many things. My life is such that it makes sense to attempt to resurrect this once more. Mainly I'll be looking at songs with simple harmonies. I will also be writing about one of my other small obsessions, listening and responding, which also involves improvising and composing. Occasionally, I will muse on education itself.
The obsession with two chords all began as trying to find easy songs — rhythmically and melodically — for my students to learn to play their instruments. I taught a middle-school, instrument-based music class at an international school in Germany. The job was pitched to me as a traditional American style band program, but when I got there, I felt that it just wasn’t working for the students. And if it ain’t working for the students, it ain’t working for the teacher. I slowly changed things. Very slowly.
Then the two-chord obsession became something to help my students learn to improvise. I eventually started making leveled materials and had students working mostly in small groups according to experience and instrument transposition. I wanted students to learn to hear things for themselves. While teaching, I found Christopher Azzara’s Developing Musicianship through Improvisation which showed me the value of two-chord songs. Most improvisation books start with the blues — not a bad place to start, but Azzara’s book made me realize it could be even simpler and provide access for people with “no background,” with a jazz background, and with a classical background. Anyone who’s learning music, of course, has some background, even if it’s only listening.
I felt volumes two and three of the series went too fast, particularly volume three: suddenly, after doing two songs with three chords, we’re doing Rhythm changes? Secondary dominants? Altered chords? A bit much. The basic model of the method, however, is solid, and the idea of working with a very limited harmony set was appealing. My ideas and materials still needed a lot of work, but I left the job and the town to be a mom as our family moved to Prague. The seeds were planted: break things down into the smallest musical units and find repertoire that fits.
Most recently the two-chord obsession became something to teach ukulele and songwriting. I was offered an opportunity to teach ukulele and saw it as a chance to work out my two-chord ideas. I looked at what chord combinations are possible in open position and started filling in a spreadsheet with songs that fit the bill. We learn a song and then we write a new song over the same chord progression. In this way, we review the chords and we develop a sense of what these chords can do musically and emotionally. To make that happen, you need to develop a working relationship with harmonies. My students have come up with some pretty fabulous little ditties and it keeps them motivated.
Why just two chords? With two chords, it’s one chord or the other chord and that is easy to hear. It’s easier to audiate melodies that fit the chords. With more complex songs (i.e., more than two chords), a cadence — the chords that mark the end of a phrase — consists of two chords, so working with two chords can help you hear cadences, too.
I am going to try to present all of those things: pedagogical materials, improv materials, songwriting materials, all in the order that I use for teaching ukulele, but they should be used by anyone on any instrument (and yes, voice is an instrument).
