Wild Thing. Blowin’ in the Wind. All Along The Watchtower. Bad Moon Rising. Ring of Fire. Brown Eyed Girl. Workin' Man Blues. Countless Ramones songs.

The basic twelve-bar blues progression is three chords: tonic, subdominant, dominant. Most early Rock & Roll (Elvis, Chuck Berry...) was simply Blues played cut-time.

Cut to Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground: "One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz." Some Hank Williams' tunes have only two chords.

The songs of Tom Waits are brilliantly creative lo-fi masterpieces. Their base? Usually three to five chords. Yet, there's no mistaking his songs, accentuated by the rumble and rasp of his voice, for anyone else's. Tom convinces us he exists in a world populated only by freight trains and hobos, barmaids and rodeo clowns.

Three Chords and the Truth: It's not about how many chords you play. It's about eliminating the unnecessary so that the necessary can be heard. Subtracting the obvious, leaving only the meaningful. Sharply defining yourself so you can cut through the noise and competition, right into the hearts and minds of your fans.

Fundamentally, it's about sacrifice. Giving up something can be good for your art (and business). Adding more can weaken it. The more you layer on, the more "complete" and "perfect" you try to make your offering, the more you risk undermining your differentness — not to mention delaying your fans’ gratification. Followers of The Dead, Nirvana, Dylan...care much more about interpersonal connection — the one thing that can't be sampled — than perfection.

Leaders, the ones who get out in front of their followers (and competitors), who shake things up and stir movements, know:

• You can't create a movement without a differentiating idea.
  
  
• You can’t be everything to everybody.
  
  
• Being just like the other guys, but trying harder, won't make you great, but it does make you a poser.
  
  
• The best thing you can do is to keep a narrow focus on your story.
  
  
• The right strategy is to stay focused on your audience — not someone else's, yours. Chase another and odds are you'll chase away your original fans.
  
  
• If you stay in the garage, you'll always play in the garage. You need to communicate your differentness or the truth won’t spread.
  
  
• Followers are better at marketing than leaders are
  
  

Three Chords and the Truth: It's not just all you need, but all you should ever use. When you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything — except maybe a few chords.

Anthony Vlahos
Tony Vlahos is the Chief Marketing Officer at ExecuNet. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/tonyvlahos.

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