We have seen how two chord songs templates help us play guitar by ear when we are working our children’s songs, we’ve also applied this concept to classical music. This is just the top of the musical iceberg, the more that you Practice and apply the 8 bar 2 chord song templates combinations we have studied so far lots more songs will come to mind.
As we widen our study of 2 chord songs to incorporate country music we’ll notice how a variation our early eight bar template can link a simple children’s song to a number one country music hit song. Are you aware you could use the exact same 2 chord, 8 bar song template for both these songs?
Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley and Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” use the same harmonic background, of course the tunes of these 2 songs are dissimilar.
Here is our third two chord template :
| C/// | C/// | C/// | G/// |
| G/// | G/// | G/// | C/// |
and the mathematical code for this progression is …
| 1/// | 1/// | 1/// | 5/// |
| 5/// | 5/// | 5/// | 1/// |
Realizing the likenesses in the chord progressions will be a great help if you are playing at a party and someone requests Achy Breaky Heart, it also underlines the significance of practicing and studying the children’s tunes.
I’m sure you have heard the phrase “that hits a chord with me”. Actually that’s what will be beginning to occur for you …chords and even entire chord progressions will start to “connect”.
Guitarists who play by ear have mastered this crucial ability of “connected learning”, by associating new material with something that they already know they can recall and recall this information quickly and exactingly. Our studies up to this point have been prohibited to songs that use the eight bar modules repeated for the period of the entire Piece.
Many songs use two chord, 8 bar modules as an element of the song,the following eight bar module would work for the verse of Roy Orbison’s hit song ‘Blue Bayou’.
| C/// | C/// | G/// | G/// |
| G/// | G/// | C/// | C/// |
Side note : Blue Bayou’s verse is comprised of sixteen bar so you need to play the 8 bar module thru twice.
Attempt to work out this progression in other keys, the formula is :
| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 5/// |
| 5/// | 5/// | 1/// | 1/// |
Guitar Lessons for Children: You can be playing your first song by fifth lesson – guitar notes for beginners.