Chord progressions

[jontah]

I'm currently trying to train my ear and I'm trying to replicate this type of chordprogression:

https://soundcloud.com/astronautuk/astr ... brooks-jnr

But I just can't figure out the chords.

I know the key and that it's in F# major. But I can't seem to figure out the right chords.

How do I figure it out? and can someone help me figure these out for me?

Thanks.

[MadBrain]

I'm currently trying to train my ear and I'm trying to replicate this type of chordprogression:

https://soundcloud.com/astronautuk/astr ... brooks-jnr

But I just can't figure out the chords.

I know the key and that it's in F# major. But I can't seem to figure out the right chords.

How do I figure it out? and can someone help me figure these out for me?

Thanks.

- It's in F# minor actually
- Basically, listen to the bassline. If the bass plays D, B, F#, E, C#, these are probably the chord roots, which means the progression could be D, Bm, F#m, E, C#m if the song is in F# minor (since the chords in F# minor are F#m G#dim A Bm C#m D E, plus B).
- Once you have the bassline down, it's easy to hear if a chord is major or minor (not the same sound), or if it's an inversion (F#m/A, etc), or if it's got 7ths (F#m7 etc).
- You can play along with an instrument to check that your guesses are okay. (I checked with a melodica).

[sjm]

How do I figure it out?

With practice and trial and error. Try to learn to recognize certain chord changes and how they sound. For example the sound of the chord changes I IV (e.g. C->F) and I V (e.g. C->G) ought to be instantly recognizable to you after a little bit of practice.

Playing along also normally makes it a lot easier to get the chords down right.

and can someone help me figure these out for me?

Yes, but then you wouldn't have gained anything from it apart from the chords. You'll only learn to do it yourself by actually doing it yourself.

[jontah]

Thank you guys! I appreciate the answers.

You say "figure out the bassnotes first", sure. Easy said. It's extremely hard to hear what those are. How do I train my ear to hear this?

I've started to train my ear with Earmaster pro, interval training like you suggested (chord changes from I > IV etc). But this takes ages to train, doesn't it? feels like it's going to take years.

Is there no easy way to just play along and try to figure it out? I've tried. Even if I get to know what scale it is in, I just can't figure out the chord progressions. In some cases I can, but in this particular case I cannot. Since it involves 6 chordchanges. And in most cases minor 7th chords, add9, 11 or 13ths or even jazzchords are involved, so I find it extremely hard to figure those chords out. How can you do that? I mean really, practice, sure. But how can ANY human even hear what every single 7th, add9, 11 & 13 chords sounds like?

Sounds like madness to me. You need a perfect ear for that.

What should I do? thanks.

[Touch The Universe]

interesting read, i also and looking at earmaster pro to help with learning notes by ear

[DocAtlas]

Thank you guys! I appreciate the answers.

You say "figure out the bassnotes first", sure. Easy said. It's extremely hard to hear what those are. How do I train my ear to hear this?

I've started to train my ear with Earmaster pro, interval training like you suggested (chord changes from I > IV etc). But this takes ages to train, doesn't it? feels like it's going to take years.

Is there no easy way to just play along and try to figure it out? I've tried. Even if I get to know what scale it is in, I just can't figure out the chord progressions. In some cases I can, but in this particular case I cannot. Since it involves 6 chordchanges. And in most cases minor 7th chords, add9, 11 or 13ths or even jazzchords are involved, so I find it extremely hard to figure those chords out. How can you do that? I mean really, practice, sure. But how can ANY human even hear what every single 7th, add9, 11 & 13 chords sounds like?

Sounds like madness to me. You need a perfect ear for that.

What should I do? thanks.

Yes, there is an easy way to play along and figure it out; simply play along with it. It really doesn't take that long to develop your ear. It may seem hard at first, but there really is no substitute for practice. Figuring out more complex chords comes with more practice, too. It helps to learn what different types of chords (minor, major, 7th, etc.) sound like, and also what different intervals sound like. You don't need a perfect ear, just patience.

[MadBrain]

Thank you guys! I appreciate the answers.

You say "figure out the bassnotes first", sure. Easy said. It's extremely hard to hear what those are. How do I train my ear to hear this?

Same as any musical dictation. First you have to look up the song's key using an instrument to compare. Next, for each bass note (you only need to listen for the notes that match with chords, not the whole bassline), you listen for the interval with the previous note. Most songs start with "I" on the bass (using "I", "II", "III", "IV", "V", "VI", "VII" to mean the 7 notes in the song's key) - in other words they start on the tonic. From there, you listen for the interval between each note and the previous one. If you hear the second note go up a step, that means the song starts with "I II". Then if the third note goes up a third, you can extend this to "I II IV". If it goes up another step after that, you have "I II IV V". And so on.

There's a second technique that you should combine with that: you can sortof hear the interval between the chord note and the song's tonic (key). If you hear that the bass is playing the tonic, you can already write that down as "I". Generally, the dominant (5th note) is pretty easy to hear too (which gives you a "V"). It might take some practice but eventually you can sorta hear each of the 12 possible intervals between the song key and the currently playing bass note.

I've started to train my ear with Earmaster pro, interval training like you suggested (chord changes from I > IV etc). But this takes ages to train, doesn't it? feels like it's going to take years.

Is there no easy way to just play along and try to figure it out? I've tried. Even if I get to know what scale it is in, I just can't figure out the chord progressions. In some cases I can, but in this particular case I cannot. Since it involves 6 chordchanges. And in most cases minor 7th chords, add9, 11 or 13ths or even jazzchords are involved, so I find it extremely hard to figure those chords out. How can you do that? I mean really, practice, sure. But how can ANY human even hear what every single 7th, add9, 11 & 13 chords sounds like?

Sounds like madness to me. You need a perfect ear for that.

What should I do? thanks.

It's very hard to hear every single note in a 13th chord yes. But you can definitely hear the difference between a 13th chord versus a 7th - while the 13th might be lost in the middle of 7 other saxophones playing the chord, you can still hear the difference in tone in the whole chord. In particular, it's not too hard to hear the difference between chords with a 7th, and chords without.

One trick you can use is that the top note of the chord is still relatively easy to hear, so you can get that one for free. Another trick is to play along with an instrument, and try out a note and figure if the result is dissonant, that will often let you rule out some chord hypothesis.

[JumpingJackFlash]

...for each bass note (you only need to listen for the notes that match with chords, not the whole bassline), you listen for the interval with the previous note. Most songs start with "I" on the bass (using "I", "II", "III", "IV", "V", "VI", "VII" to mean the 7 notes in the song's key) - in other words they start on the tonic. From there, you listen for the interval between each note and the previous one. If you hear the second note go up a step, that means the song starts with "I II". Then if the third note goes up a third, you can extend this to "I II IV". If it goes up another step after that, you have "I II IV V". And so on.

That only works if the chords are in root position. - They might not be.
For example, that second chord in your example could just as easily be a first inversion vii, and/or the third could be a first inversion ii (although vii-ii would be somewhat rare in many styles).

[JumpingJackFlash]

But this takes ages to train, doesn't it? feels like it's going to take years.

Yes, it takes ages (for most people)... and it might even take years.
Like all skills; the more you do, the better you become. You can't expect to be good at something straight away; you get out what you put in. Whoever told you music was easy was lying

[MadBrain]

...for each bass note (you only need to listen for the notes that match with chords, not the whole bassline), you listen for the interval with the previous note. Most songs start with "I" on the bass (using "I", "II", "III", "IV", "V", "VI", "VII" to mean the 7 notes in the song's key) - in other words they start on the tonic. From there, you listen for the interval between each note and the previous one. If you hear the second note go up a step, that means the song starts with "I II". Then if the third note goes up a third, you can extend this to "I II IV". If it goes up another step after that, you have "I II IV V". And so on.

That only works if the chords are in root position. - They might not be.
For example, that second chord in your example could just as easily be a first inversion vii, and/or the third could be a first inversion ii (although vii-ii would be somewhat rare in many styles).

True but I still track those using the bass note plus the chord timbre. For instance, if I hear "I", then "VI" in the bass but it doesn't sound like "VIm" and sounds kindof inconclusive (inversions have a particular sound that you can hear), then I figure it's an inversion. Since by far the most common inversions have the bass playing the chord's third, that means the chord is probably "IV/VI".

Some music styles barely use inversions at all though (in general, they are heavily used in classical music but not in jazz), so this might not be relevant.

[JumpingJackFlash]

True but I still track those using the bass note plus the chord timbre. For instance, if I hear "I", then "VI" in the bass but it doesn't sound like "VIm" and sounds kindof inconclusive (inversions have a particular sound that you can hear), then I figure it's an inversion. Since by far the most common inversions have the bass playing the chord's third, that means the chord is probably "IV/VI".

Yeah, but it's best to use Roman Numerals only for chords, not actual scale degrees (IV/VI for example has a very different meaning).

Some people use letters after the numeral to indicate the inversion (b for first inversion, c for second inversion and so on), and others use figured bass (so 6 or 6/3 for first inversion, 6/4 for second inversion and so on). Or if you're talking about specific chords, then C/E for example is fine.

[MadBrain]

True but I still track those using the bass note plus the chord timbre. For instance, if I hear "I", then "VI" in the bass but it doesn't sound like "VIm" and sounds kindof inconclusive (inversions have a particular sound that you can hear), then I figure it's an inversion. Since by far the most common inversions have the bass playing the chord's third, that means the chord is probably "IV/VI".

Yeah, but it's best to use Roman Numerals only for chords, not actual scale degrees (IV/VI for example has a very different meaning).

Some people use letters after the numeral to indicate the inversion (b for first inversion, c for second inversion and so on), and others use figured bass (so 6 or 6/3 for first inversion, 6/4 for second inversion and so on). Or if you're talking about specific chords, then C/E for example is fine.

I know about the classical music figured bass scheme with 64 and 6, but I've never been a fan of it - it's not very key independent, and it tends to have a very superficial analysis of chords with chromatic alterations (imho). Also it has conflicts with chords that have added 6ths (Fm6 -> IVm6). (plus, I disagree with the traditional analysis of the german augmented 6th - it's a bVI7 to me)

That's why I use the Jazz-inspired scheme of using the specific chord thing (C/E) with actual notes replaced by scale degrees (I/III) - it's just much clearer and easier to read to me (even though it conflicts with the notation used for secondary dominants). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_nume ... p_numerals

[jancivil]

I know about the classical music figured bass scheme with 64 and 6, but I've never been a fan of it - it's not very key independent, and it tends to have a very superficial analysis of chords with chromatic alterations (imho). Also it has conflicts with chords that have added 6ths (Fm6 -> IVm6). (plus, I disagree with the traditional analysis of the german augmented 6th - it's a bVI7 to me)

Using figured bass below a roman number gives no particular chromatic information per se.
That is done by + and - signs per parts of the harmony.

It deals with the linear aspect of part-writing (voice-leading), which you apparently are not real interested in. How is it key-dependent? It's completely objective.
I did two years of seriously chromatic part-writing using it, I assure you yours are not real problems. The figures given were never a mystery, "superficial".

Also, an aug sixth is what it is, your opinion notwithstanding. It is made by augmenting the sixth of a iv6. That's the reasoning, so that's the 'traditional' analysis. It makes sense when applied to the music; it's how we make the most sense of:

the 'Tristan chord'

it's just your interest lies elsewhere.

[jontah]

Right, so much weird info here, but I know all about inversions, I can play all of them, well not all, but most of them, including 13th, 9th 7th chords etc.

and I know more than the basics of theory too. I recognize these roman numbers very well and know their meaning and the intervals etc.

So the question is:

how do I train the ear? any good method to practice eartraining? should I stick to a program like "Earmaster pro 6" or are there any excersies I could use, using the piano only?

I've tried to figure out the chords in this song for example, but I fail. Eventhough I know the scales in and out and I know the chords in the scales too..

[MadBrain]

Right, so much weird info here, but I know all about inversions, I can play all of them, well not all, but most of them, including 13th, 9th 7th chords etc.

and I know more than the basics of theory too. I recognize these roman numbers very well and know their meaning and the intervals etc.

So the question is:

how do I train the ear? any good method to practice eartraining? should I stick to a program like "Earmaster pro 6" or are there any excersies I could use, using the piano only?

I've tried to figure out the chords in this song for example, but I fail. Eventhough I know the scales in and out and I know the chords in the scales too..

You should practice recognizing at least your 12 basic intervals (m2, 2, m3, 3, 4, b5, 5, m6, 6, m7, 7, octave). Once you can reliably tell them apart, you should work on being able to at least write down a basic melody by ear (by recognizing the interval from note to note, and recognizing the interval from the song's key to each note).