Song of the Week 3 - 2nd April 2020

“If the Poor Don’t Matter” - Tom Paxton

Where to find the song: Songbook 2 page 88

Original song: Click the button below to hear original. When finished click back arrow to get back here

Up for a challenge?

This is a pretty straightforward folk song which Osher suggested could be played as a tango. Feel free to play it as the original or spend a bit of time exploring the arrangement I have put together. If enough folk get this under their belt it would make another original performance piece when we get back together.

I will try to break down the song into sections which you may want to try bit at a time - remember,

You can only eat a salami slice by slice

So learn this song section by section

You may want to have a quick look at the whole song at the end of this page to get an idea of the overall shape.

Rhythm

The strum pattern is D D ududu (the capital letters indicate a stronger strum)

Try the rhythm out with the track below using Am

Now try strumming along with the verse using Am Dm E7 and Am Keep going until you get the rhythm under your fingers.

Song

We’ll now try 2 verses and choruses of the song. To try to get the tango feel there are more stops than in the songbook. Also for the moment strum a single Am at the start.

Instrumental

We are now going to put an instrumental in which will be used as both.

· an introduction – Parts A & B and

· an instrumental after the second chorus. Part A only

The strumming is exactly the same as the verse for Part A with no strumming for Part B

Bridge

Between the instrumental and bridge there is -

[Am] x1bar [Am]/

Then single downstrokes through the whole bridge

Let’s Try the whole song

“Beware this is a bit rough and ready and eventually we would be aiming to play the song faster”