I mentioned in a previous post how most music tends towards phrase structures in groupings of two, four, eight, etc. Verses and choruses that are built on some sort of pattern in groups of three, on the other hand, are fairly rare. That is, unless you are listening to music by the Pixies.

The Pixies have a neat little trick that they used throughout their career on a number of albums. The trick is that they build chord progressions in groupings of three instead of the standard two, four, etc. The triple groupings help give the Pixies a very unique and fresh musical signature.

One good example of this technique can be heard in “Dig For Fire” off their Bossanova album:

Pixies: “Dig For Fire”

The verse chugs along nicely in groups of four chords; everything is hunkey-dorey. Once the chorus kicks in, though, the hypermeter shifts, and the chords are repeating in groups of three. The effect is almost like the fourth chord is suddenly missing. As the group of three repeats, it sounds like an anticipation. In general, the chorus is pushed forward and made more exciting by the shortened phrase structure.

The same exact sequence gets used on Doolittle in the song “Wave of Mutilation”:

Pixies: “Wave of Mutilation”

Again, the verse is laid back and relaxed, organized in a simple group of four chords, one chord to a bar. When the chorus arrives, here too the grouping of chords switches to three. Moreover, the rate at which the chords go by is also increased. The result is a definite increase in tension that builds up the impact of the chorus itself.

A couple other songs on Doolittle make use of triple groupings of chords as well. Both “Tame” and “Dead” dispense with the juxtaposition of groups of four against groups of three:

		Pixies: “Tame”
		Pixies: “Dead”

Instead, these two songs have triple groupings running throughout both the verses and the choruses. What I find happens when I listen, is that unless I am actively listening for the groupings of three, I instead end up hearing groups of four that are constantly changing. In other words, the first chord of a second repetition of a group of three sounds like the last chord in a group of four. The result, to a casual listener who may be assuming a simple duple hypermeter, is a seemingly more complex progression of chords than actually exists.

Finally, I want to mention one other song in which triple groupings of chords persist throughout. On the album Come on Pilgrim, the song “I’ve Been Tired” sees the Pixies using this triple grouping technique even in their early years:

Pixies: “I’ve Been Tired”

The most interesting thing about this song, though, is that when the chorus rolls around, the grouping for the vocal part switches to a grouping of two while the chords stay in their triple grouping. There is what music theorists would call a “grouping dissonance” between the vocal part and the chords in the chorus since they are repeating at different rates. The effect in this case is also a varied musical fabric from bar to bar despite the use of fairly simple compositional resources.

This look at groupings of three in the Pixies is certainly not exhaustive. I am sure that many other examples can be found. I should be clear that these triple groupings are periodic, in the sense that they persist beyond just a single statement. Whether the groupings of three are in just the chorus or throughout the song, though, it is certainly a central technique of the Pixies, a technique which adds signficant individuality and metrical interest to their music.