This article is a personal workthrough — one of those situations where I need to write something that can be read by other people in order to clarify my own thoughts to myself.
On a related note, I’ve been trying to figure out which songs I can sing a cappella to my sons and have them land. These are the songs that have a strong implicit harmony or do not require harmony (i.e., chords) to land.
I think there is strong overlap with what I would consider “folk music” and what fits this criteria. But maybe it’s just “is it pentatonic?” 😆
Yes! I feel like that overlaps with my definition of "it must be carried by the melody." I think I frame it in terms of needing to be carried by the melody because my first folk tradition has been Irish, where the harmony is the main improvisatory element (as opposed to something like bluegrass where the chords are more standardized).
Irish melodies does often have really strong implicit harmony, though. But... Irish melodies are pretty quirky. That's kind of another topic. The instrumental ones don't overlap much with the more "ballad"like songs we tend to think of with folk
Regardless, it's a really important distinction. I play a lot of solo weddings, on the violin, and I get many requests for songs that are beautiful but NEED the production to work. "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Ray comes to mind. The melody does almost nothing structurally - I think the melody is actually often like the 9th of the chords? Which is what gives it some of its haunting quality that people love... but when I play it by itself it doesn't sound like anything. To me. I always send them a demo to make sure they're okay with it and they always reply enthusiastically, so, what do I know. Maybe people just love how violin sounds.
But yeah, if you need anything other than the melody to learn the song, I think that spits it out of the folk music arena. Don't think it needs to be pentatonic, necessarily. Let me know if you find some non-pentatonic examples lol. My dad used to sing "Do you want to know a secret" by the beatles to us, which worked pretty well - but in a very different way from the studio recording.
I love this.
On a related note, I’ve been trying to figure out which songs I can sing a cappella to my sons and have them land. These are the songs that have a strong implicit harmony or do not require harmony (i.e., chords) to land.
I think there is strong overlap with what I would consider “folk music” and what fits this criteria. But maybe it’s just “is it pentatonic?” 😆
For example:
“Bird Song” by the Wailing Jennys ✅
“You Can Close Your Eyes” by James Taylor ❌
Yes! I feel like that overlaps with my definition of "it must be carried by the melody." I think I frame it in terms of needing to be carried by the melody because my first folk tradition has been Irish, where the harmony is the main improvisatory element (as opposed to something like bluegrass where the chords are more standardized).
Irish melodies does often have really strong implicit harmony, though. But... Irish melodies are pretty quirky. That's kind of another topic. The instrumental ones don't overlap much with the more "ballad"like songs we tend to think of with folk
Regardless, it's a really important distinction. I play a lot of solo weddings, on the violin, and I get many requests for songs that are beautiful but NEED the production to work. "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Ray comes to mind. The melody does almost nothing structurally - I think the melody is actually often like the 9th of the chords? Which is what gives it some of its haunting quality that people love... but when I play it by itself it doesn't sound like anything. To me. I always send them a demo to make sure they're okay with it and they always reply enthusiastically, so, what do I know. Maybe people just love how violin sounds.
But yeah, if you need anything other than the melody to learn the song, I think that spits it out of the folk music arena. Don't think it needs to be pentatonic, necessarily. Let me know if you find some non-pentatonic examples lol. My dad used to sing "Do you want to know a secret" by the beatles to us, which worked pretty well - but in a very different way from the studio recording.