Rock 'n Roll on the Hammer Dulcimer

It's time for rock-n-roll on the dulcimer!  The choice is the 1960's rock-n-roll song Stand By Me   

It's a great tune that has endured for half a century.  Here are some points to note about it.

    * Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Stand By Me as number 122 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

    * In 1999, BMI reported that Stand By Me was the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century, with more than 7 million performances.
A number of well know songs have been nearly overlooked or rejected.  An executive producer at ABC records heard Buddy Holly's That'll Be the Day and declared it "the worst rock-n-roll song ever written."  Over the Rainbow was originally cut from the movie The Wizard of Oz because the producers thought the movie was too long. 

Ben E. King was a singer in the popular group The Drifters.  He wrote Stand By Me for the group, but The Drifters decided not to record it.  Instead they recorded Rose In Spanish Harlem during their session.  The producers asked if the group had any more songs.  King played Stand By Me on the piano and  they loved it.  They arranged the song to incorporate the memorable bass line and Latin percussion.   That's why the list of composers of the song includes the names of the two producers.  The Drifters never recorded Stand By Me.  Ben E. King put it out as a single and followed it with a series of solo albums. 

You can see Ben E. King as a young man performing his famous song and then as an older fellow at this URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbg7YoXiKn0

The video was made to promote the movie Stand By Me.

The tune is not difficult to play.  Well, except for all that melismatic vocal stuff!  That can be easily altered to become chord runs and embellishments on a dulcimer.  The tune is essentially pentatonic.  That's a five tone scale.  In the key of D those tones are D E F# A B.   The opening phrase ends on the tone of B supported by a D chord.  That gives a nice airy feeling.  The sound produced by the combination of the melody line and supporting D chord is a D6 chord.  Add the tone of B to the basic D triad (D F# A B) and it becomes a D6 chord.  Or the sound could be thought of as a Bm7 chord (B D F# A).  It's a matter of context.  Since the chord appears as the opening harmonic expression, it’s reasonable to think of the combined sound of the vocal line and supporting chord as creating a D6 chord.  When you play it on the dulcimer, that's exactly the sound you'll produce. 

The key thing about Stand By Me is to keep the chord changes moving.  This chord progression: [D  Bm G A D] has been used so often in pop music that musicians call it by one of several names: 1) the 50's progression, 2) the "turn-around", and 3) the "Stand By Me” changes.  The song is memorable because the melody is pentatonic and so is easy to sing.  But, perhaps the bass line punctuated by the scrape of the güiro is so distinctive that no one can forget the melody.   And remember, Stand By Me is essentially a gospel tune.  Keep that feeling in your mind when playing it and your performance will be great. 

Stick with the chord changes, introduce the bass line, hammer anything close to the melody and you can't miss!

I can't publish the melody because it is protected by copyright.  But the chord changes are public domain.  Listen to the opening of the tune to hear the changes.  The chords are D (2 measures)  Bm(2 measure)   G (1 measure) A (1 measure).  That progression repeats throughout the song.

Rock on!