I’m not referring to lyrics here. More something in the music itself that makes your brain say “that’s country music”.
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Musically, it’s the style (articulations, note length, etc.) of the acoustic guitar mixed with a basic traditional drum beat and some range of 4 basic major chords that make up the chorus
I have always wondered this too!!! All I came up with is that they use acoustic guitars rather than electric most of the time, but that’s all I was ever able to guess and it’s probably not right 😂
The classic country rhythm guitar style is usually a big part of making music sound country. Usually, they’ll play a bass note on beats 1 & 3, and strum on 2 & 4. Rock or folk rhythm guitar will usually be full strums, and are often more syncopated (strums between the main beats). Blues (and blusier rock) rhythm guitar follows a triplet-based “swung” rhythm. I think there are similar difference in drumming styles too.
Instrumentation too. Part of country music evolved from the old fiddle-led stringband dance music, so those instruments (fiddle, mandolin, banjo, string bass) are common in country, and rare in other 20th century popular music.
Structurally, they’re pretty similar though (chord progressions, song structure, rhythms, etc.) It’s pretty simple to do a country arrangement of a 3-4 chord rock song, and vice versa.
Association. Certain sounds, tones and melody are associated with country music.
You can ask this question about anything and the answer will be associating something with an occurrence. If I told you that the music was called jazz your entire life then every time you heard it you would say, I do so love listening to jazz.
I, IV, V is country. If you want pop you have to switch it up to I, V, vi, IV. There’s all the songs.
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