Song made up of only chords ?

[thelizard]

One that immediately came to mind is "Visiting Friends" by Animal Collective. Just chords + delay. For 12 minutes.

[NewSc2]

Beethoven has a song that's all chords, called something like "The Glory of God in Nature" (or Sound, or something to that regard). No leads, just a bunch of powerful chords. Not a hard song to play... short too, it fit on one page.

[SomeCallHimWhitey]

I don't know if there's any popular music that is strictly speaking chords only, but a lot of hip-hop may be very close to qualifying.

This is partially dependent on whether or not you consider rapping melodic. It certainly has pitch and some rappers are more sing-songy with their rhymes, but if someone else were to recite the words back you might have a drastically different melody. Maybe that means that there is in fact a melody but not a fixed one.

Either way, on the production end, I've heard tons of hip-hop songs with just chord samples that are played rythmically over the beat. The only other pitch in there might be a sub bass sound playing a fixed pitch which may technically make it not all chords, but if someones listening to the track on tiny earbud headphones they may not even preceive the bass, still like the song, and therefor it may still be popular?

I mean, there are other beats that don't even have a bassline, but I just wanted to how far we can stretch the interpretation of a popular song composed of just chords because maybe there are a lot of potential examples being ignored

[Gamma-UT]

Either way, on the production end, I've heard tons of hip-hop songs with just chord samples that are played rythmically over the beat. The only other pitch in there might be a sub bass sound playing a fixed pitch which may technically make it not all chords, but if someones listening to the track on tiny earbud headphones they may not even preceive the bass, still like the song, and therefor it may still be popular?

I mean, there are other beats that don't even have a bassline, but I just wanted to how far we can stretch the interpretation of a popular song composed of just chords because maybe there are a lot of potential examples being ignored

I think it's possible to argue that some trance is chord-based in that the melody follows the chord progression so tightly that it doesn't have a role other than to emphasise the chord progression. Progressive house leads often rely on notes being doubled at the fourth or fifth - it's about as basic a chord you can get. But guitarists are happy to call these power chords, so I guess they qualify.

Some techno was chord based as the tracks used chord samples heavily and 'planed' them in new progressions.

Looking again at the OP's original question, I think that's what they meant about the use of chords in place of a single melodic line.

[milkshakeiii]

Can a song be made up of only chords?

Chopin's famous prelude in C minor comes close (hm, that's odd, this might be the second time I've mentioned that song on this board!) It is a _fantastic_ example of how to integrate melody and chordal work.

I think I've been playing around with music too much

I can promise you you haven't!

On the other hand, one of the best things that happened in my musical career is that I took music theory (the full stuff with part writing and analysis all the way up to post-tonality.) It made me realize that this what I had been learning on my own all along, and in doing so it made me feel much more confidant and united me with genres of music I woulden't otherwise be able to emulate properly. If you are tired of "playing around," theory is great.

[vespers75]

Anything from just about any genre you can think of, will have some melody in there somewhere.

Just about...but there are exceptions, notably in the dark ambient and noise genres.

[jopy]

You could have melody without harmony, but I think an argument could be made that it's impossible to have harmony without melody.

Your voicings create a melody; the highest notes in a chord become a sort of melodic point of interest whether you want them to or not. It's not a lyric melody, but most listeners will naturally gravitate their attention to the highest pitches in chords if you don't point them to a figure-ground relationship with the comparative activity level of the melody and harmonic parts.

[djriddle]

Can a song be made up of only chords? Can somebody provide some examples?

For instance, is it a good idea using chords for bass and for leads at the same time?

see the piano piece "run, run" by david levi. brilliant, fast—all chords.