ramblin' man (1951)

Hank Williams. country, Nashville TN USA.

key: A minor
mode: A B C D E F F# G G# 
melody: l d r m l' m'
form: strophic with refrain
meter: duple

English function names:     tonic     dominant
Tagg (modified):            home      counterpoise (away)
Riemann:                    t         D7
Scale degrees:              i         V7
Chords:                     Am        E7

  Am             
|:/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |
 E7                         Am
|/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / :| 3x

The only thing that makes this difficult to sing with middle school kids is the tessitura. If we pop it up an octave, kids are not going to want to sing E5 even though they can reach it, especially as a yodel, like Hank does; if we leave it as is, they simply won't be able to reach A2. I can't reach A2.¹ The Mark Lanegan/Isobel Campbell version in Eb (again up an octave) might be more feasible, but still tricky; also — the dreaded barre chords. We do what we can.

The simplicity and the delivery make it a hard song to resist, even though its slow tempo might also be a put-off for the middle school set. The simplicity of the melody in particular deserves a closer look. I've put a whole bunch of pitches up there in my little chart. But the very first verse tells you exactly what's going on: There are four pitches total. In solfege, it's la mi la' mi'; in absolute pitch we have A2 E3 A3 E4. Everything else is ornamental. If you listen very, very closely and slow down the recording just to make sure, you'll hear even in the first verse on the word "freight," he slides down to a ghosted D3, re in solfege. But really: a whole world in four pitches. And to get extra deep into theory, we can mention that it's merely two pitch classes: A and E. Wow. Hank has a whole world of emotion with such economy.

Of course, we run into another fun pedagogical issue. Am I always exhorting my students to not make up melodies that are only leaps? Why, yes. Yes, I am. There's "The Wheels on the Bus" — that's the most famous example (even the Czech kids know it) and it's not exactly a model of great songwriting. I would argue, however, that this here Hank Williams' song definitely is. Here's the difference: When my students write a melody that is mostly leaps, it's because they are not attempting to audiate the melody; they are just trying to get the assignment done and make me go away. I've given them a pitch set and they are just randomly choosing things. This isn't a bad lesson for them. It's trial and error. It's a practice — something we don't emphasize enough in school. Repeating a process and expecting different results is not insanity, it's a practice. Yoga, running, songwriting, drawing. Practice.

Hank Williams is not leaping about between many different pitches; he's got four, which belong to two pitch classes. He's been reduced to the shell of man and we experience that same reduction with the limited pitch and harmony set. We experience it! As Christopher Small says, music doesn't merely show us, it brings these relationships into existence. This is a very deliberate choice from someone who has engaged in a songwriting practice.

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other recordings:

Dr. John, Things Happen That Way, Rounder. G minor. More of a rock blues style, and definitely worth hearing how Dr. John makes this song totally his own.

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Ballad of the Broken Seas, Cooking Vinyl Limited. Eb minor. They turn this into a nice partner song about halfway through.

1. If anyone is unfamiliar with these pitch indications, this is a good primer. Some people still unfortunately use one of the old systems involving capital and lowercase letters and marks like the ones I use with solfege. There are at least three of these systems out there and they are all difficult to remember. I think the only reason why they are still used at all is that some people went through the trouble of memorizing them and they wear this ability as a badge of honor to feel better about themselves. I implore you to use this new system which makes a zillion times more sense. No badges, sadly, but clarity of communication is a true blessing.