[Harp-L] SPAH doo wop changes I vi IV V

[philharpn@xxxxxxx]

Just when you've concluded that you've heard or seen it all at least once at a SPAH convention over 15-20 years, along comes Joe Leone with his doo wop/jazz seminar.


For the uninitiated, doo wop is kind of 1950s choral music which features background singers imitating the sounds of various instruments -- especially the double bass -- behind a lead singer singing in a chord progression of I vi IV V. In scat singing, the lead singer sings what are considered  nonsense words in imitation of horns as an embellishment to the song or when he forgot the words. In doo wop, the lead singer is the only one who doesn't sing the nonsense sounds.


They say idea of doo wop originated when a group of guys got together on the street corner to harmonize and didn't have any instruments to back them up. They they made their own backing sounds and harmonized. 


This is only half the equation. The second half of doo wop  is the ice cream chords used in songs like Heart and Soul, Blue Moon. The chord changes are similar to the 12-bar blues: I  IV V. But add the vi chord. Thus the chords are I vi IV V -- also known as the "ice cream changes" because in the 1950s, teenagers could hear songs featuring these changes  on the juke boxes at the local ice cream parlors (soda fountains). Each booth had a small coin operated device that allowed the patron to remotely select a song  on the juke box without leaving the booth to walk across the room to the juke box. The juke box was a automated record playing machine (pre CDs) )that could play both sides of a 78 rpm or  45 rpm record untouched by human hands. 


In the key of C, the chords of C, Am, F and G. Play each chord once and you have Stay. Play each chord four times and you have Wonderful World. Play each chord 8 times and you have Please, Mister Postman. 


For harmonica players, this means you need a chord harmonica with the major chords of C, F and G and a minor tuned harmonica in the key of A minor. 


Or the harmonica player could play the individual notes of the chords on a C diatonic or chromatic -- arpeggios/broken chords -- by playing C chord = C E G, F chord = F A C, G7 chord = G B D F and A minor = A C E. 


To play the chord version, you need 3 harps: C, low F and G. The arpeggio version is also easy with the C F G harps because the notes of the chord are easy to find. 


The  C harp for the blow C chord ( 1 2 3 ) and draw (2 3 4 5) for the G7; 


an F harp for the blow F chord (1 2 3) 


play the A minor on a G harp Draw  4 5 6 (or an A minor harp for the A minor blow chord). 


So if you have two harmonica players, one could play the chord changes (aka chords) while the other plays the melody of a song.


Here is a harmonica layout page: Maybe you can find other combinations.


<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Harmonica/Harmonica_Layouts_and_Alternate_Tunings>


"The Doo-Wop Songbook"; "The Best of Doo Wop and Beyond" are the two doo wop books I own. Caution: they have guitar chord boxes, music notation and lyrics for lot of songs. There are NO HARMONICA TABS. You have to make your own tab from the music notation. 


Since these books have guitar chord boxes for simple chords you could play uke or guitar for the four chords. NOTE: some songs vary from the 4-chord ice cream chords -- but that just makes them more interesting.


Hope this helps.
Phil