Three Chords and the Truth

Lesson Goals:

♦ Learn to recognize a 3 chord progression song
♦ Begin to understand basic song structure

In this lesson you will not need the guitar!

Many years ago, Harlan Howard, the legendary Nashville songwriter coined the phrase "three chords and the truth" to describe country music. Obviously the "truth" part of that referred to how country songs tend to describe real life situations. The "three chords" part referred to the fact that many country songs are written using only three chords.

This applies not only to country music but many other genres including rock, blues, pop and dance music. You may have noticed that most of the songs we have covered up to this point are 3 chord (and even 2 chord) progressions, and you may have thought that we put them in because they were simply easier to learn. Not true!

The fact is that many numerous hit songs have been written over the years using only 3 chords. Some of them will have an extra "off" chord or two thrown in for variety but many can be broken down into a basic three chord progression.

In order to make this point clearer we need to discuss some very basic song structure. It is good to be able to understand how a song is put together. Keep in mind, this is very very basic and there are exceptions to all the "rules".

In popular music most songs can be broken down into 3 basic sections. The chorus, verse and bridge. They are described as follows.

Chorus - The chorus is the main part of the song. It is the "hook" of the song and this is where the title usually repeats, sometimes over and over. This is the part of the song that most people remember when they sing along.

Verse - The verse usually tells a story and prepares the listener for the big "hook" in the chorus. The chord structure in the verse is often different than the chorus (even if it's the same 3 chords in a different order)  and the melody is typically more subdued to let the chorus shine when it hits.

Bridge - The bridge serves the purpose of breaking up the song so it does not become too monotonous. A bridge is usually pretty short and can be comprised of completely different chords than the rest of the song. It can also be sung lyrically or it can simply be a musical "lead" to break things up.

Quite often in popular music a song can be mapped out as follows:

INTRO - VERSE - CHORUS - VERSE - CHORUS - BRIDGE - CHORUS

In a song made up of only a 3 chord progression -  the verse, chorus and bridge often are built over the same 3 chord repetition,  sometimes with a very minor variation of those same 3 chords between the verse, chorus and bridge. A song sometimes will not have a bridge at all and there may be an instrumental lead in its place.

Throughout this course we have quite often discussed visualizing "patterns" and, although there are no set "rules" in song structure, there are in many cases, easily recognizable song "patterns" in popular music that you should be aware of as you progress on the guitar.