How do I get better at deciphering chords by ear? I can replicate pretty much any melody on piano by ear easily...

How do I get better at deciphering chords by ear? I can replicate pretty much any melody on piano by ear easily, but I have trouble replicate each individual note of a chord.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7b7YC93qQ
vocaroo.com/i/s1HQSb2EuN3y
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_chord
yomuma.com/
youtube.com/watch?v=UKcLXtzhiYo
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

find the root note first

Be able to work out if it is major, minor, dominant, diminished in your head

While we are on this topic, is it me or is the drop in this song not possible on piano?

youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7b7YC93qQ

at around 1:05 is the part Im thinking of. I just can't seem to find the notes that sound right.

Sort of both of these...

I think the best approach is to pick out the lowest note of the chord, then the highest note. Those should be pretty easy. From there try to determine the quality of the chord- major, minor, or sus.

From there if you have a basic understanding of chord structure and theory you should be able to make educated guesses about the rest of the notes in the chord. Trial and error basically, but hopefully with educated guesses.

depending on natural skill, it'll be harder/easier, but it is definitely learnable to some degree. most advice in here is good, but i don't like lowest note. I actually like tonality/scale degree base as a strategy. if a chord is minor and I can pick up two of the tones in it, and I know how it relates to the tonic generally, it's pretty simple to figure out the chord itself. that's my 2 cents anyway

if you're talking about the "woo woo woo woo" part then definitely not, those aren't really tonal. if you're talking about the melody afterward, tho, then definitely. I can fgure it out for you and tell you what it is if you want

yes the melody of the drop. It almost feels like the notes are inbetween notes on the keyboard, please attempt it

>sus
That's alt >:/

Usually when I hear a chord I can pinpoint what I feel like the "main" note of the chord is, its usually the note that I hum when I sing the song. I guess I just need to learn some more theory on how to correlate the other notes to the one I hear.

Not in most notation that I've seen. Alt implies an altered 5th and/or 9th. Sus describes the third of the chord, usually meaning that the third is replaced with a 4th or sometimes with a 2nd in some kinds of music.

hmm, idk what problem you're running into here, but it seems to fit just fine into c min/eflat maj for me. bflat c eflat f g bflat bflat c eflat f eflat bflat g f eflat d bflat g

its super fckn messy but idk how to write it into a Sup Forums post, lemme know if that helps or if you need more

That's not what it says here

hmm thats right. I guess my ear is just bad, I was starting the melody on C for some reason and it was throwing everything off. Also I'm not sure what the eflat d bflat g is supposed to be, but the rest is right

heres a crude vocaroo if that helps at all

forgot the link mate, post it anyway

my bad didnt see this reply, the eflat d bflat g thing is the descending synth melody (the airy synth in the background at around 1:09)

vocaroo.com/i/s1HQSb2EuN3y kms here u go

Thank you I was also wondering about the 2 bflat in a row midway through the sequence you posted, the vocaroo clears that up.

I mean I guess you could consider a sus4 to be an "altered 3rd" but in practical music terms in America musicians use the term "altered chord" to refer to altered 5ths or 9ths in a chord

Remind me not to play with them then

but they are the majority, not you. you are the one using more confusing terminology in this situation. sus chords are just called sus chords.

You are either stupid or lying

idk, i played in a jazz trio for a while. like other user said, we'd just call sus chords sus chords, anything with like a funky 9th or a thirteenth id call an altered chord though

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_chord

yomuma.com/

Does anyone know the piano chords in the beginning of this song?

youtube.com/watch?v=UKcLXtzhiYo

a lot of good info in this thread already. minus the altered/sus convo.

I don't know what you mean, which means you're thinking about it too much. Focus on making interesting melodies, hearing the sound in your head

Roughly:
Fmin, Cmaj, Ebmaj (second inversion), Ebmaj

I guess I'll post this here
is it possible to become competent at music theory if my only instruments are my laptop and a busted bass guitar a friend gave me

I consider listening to music to be one ofm y major hobbies and I'm sick of it just being a consumer kind of thing
plus I was recently rejected by a classically trained amazing musician in a wide array of instruments so I kind of feel like this is something I should rectify
Would you guys jump into it immediately or save up for a piano/keyboard first

Im not talking about making chord pogressions or melodies, Im talking about translating existing songs to piano

uh how old are you and do you only want to do self teaching or would you consider school?

go on craigslist and buy the cheapest keyboard you can find. Im sure you could get one dirt cheap.

24
I should have done this years ago but I couldn't find time during school to commit which has fucked my life up in ways I couldn't have imagined.

Does quality really not matter?

Oh and it'd probably be self teaching since my schedule is really in flux at the moment

For learning? Not really. You will eventually want a better one, but I dont see why you couldnt learn on a cheap one.

Yea well for that matter I would say tabs or listening to the song one note at a time

id say yes (tho if someone rejected you because you weren't a talented enough musician they're petty af)

learn about the progressions and chords in your favorite songs. Like learn about scale degrees and types of chords and cadences and just listen for them. Start simple, and then move on once it becomes automatic. Like once you can tell that take on me's chorus is a 1,5,6,4 then you can move forward and understand other melodic elements or other more complex songs

You have no clue what the fuck you are talking about

yeah im gonna be a little bit nicer but i dont think this is that great advice. learning from tabs is not gonna improve your ability to earplay, and one note at a time is not that winning of a strategy either

well i only ask about the age because usually it's easier to be more dedicated to learning theory/musicianship when you're younger than when you're older and working, etc.

sounds like you're busy so i guess self teaching will be okay for you. definitely get an 88 key digital piano or midi controller, if you can get one with weighted keys that would help. you can still use bass as your main instrument, but as uni music grad, regardless of instrument, the piano is used as the main instrument to demonstrate theory/musicianship which is then transferred to your instrument of choice. i'd also highly recommend you find a private teacher on craigslist that can at least assign you some stuff to work on based on what you want to accomplish and have that person check on your progress from time to time.

I have been playing piano for a long time but never too intense on the theory side, I can play some pretty advance pieces but have no idea what you are talking about take on me's chorus. Can you enlighten me what you mean by those numbers?

If you're trying to cover a song then YES you should know each note, you can play around with it once you know it but if there are no tabs then I don't see the big deal with learning each note, one by one

learn on a piano. it will make A LOT more sense than on bass.

if you can learn piano you can pick up anything else easily, but it will take a lot of time, discipline, and patience.

you will probably give up and fail.

First post was me, OP, I'm talking about simply listening to a chord, in a song or otherwise, and playing it without tablature. Your advice is literally the opposite of what I wanted.

Also how can I listen to one note at a time? Chords all play at the same time?

>(tho if someone rejected you because you weren't a talented enough musician they're petty af)

She did because I'm a fuccboi who wasn't worthy of her, but thank you for the advice I greatly appreciate.

Yeah just intuitively it seems like a teacher would be better but I'm not sure if I'd be able to afford one that would be able to dedicate maybe more than a half hours worth of time. I always got that vibe about piano since it seems like all of my musically inclined friends have at least a basic understanding of it, but is it not hard to translate the physical gestures to an entirely separate instrument?

Thank you for the knowledge as well.

Ok well i'm saying chords = notes in a way, if there is no tabs and i'm assuming you can't read or own the piano book, then you have to play around on the piano and find the write chords according to each one.

Most songs go verse/chorus/verse/chorus

Do you see what you are saying? Everyone knows you have to work out the song step by step. I was asking for techniques in aiding the recognition of notes within a chord, not tips on the high level process of covering a song.

so if i had to pick one essential thing to learn to help figure out chords and the theory side of pieces, it'd be scale degrees. Each scale has seven scale degrees, 1-7, usually written with roman numerals. I'm assuming here that you understand scales, so like a c major scale is c to b, basically. Those are the seven scale degrees. So C is 1, D is 2, E is 3 and so forth. so when you look at the chorus of Take On Me, when he sings "Take", that's the 1 chord, the chord of the key you're in; it's called the "tonic". If we're in C, C major is the 1 chord, the tonic. then when he sings "On" it goes to a G chord. if you count up C D E F G in the scale, G is fifth, so it's the fifth scale degree, the 5 chord, or formally the "dominant". "Me" is sung over A minor, the 6 chord, and the "take! on! me!" in the background before it repeats comes over an F major chord, the 4 chord. This is one of the most common progressions in all of pop music, and once you know it you'll hear it everywhere. Keep in mind that the scale degrees change based on the key, so in G major, G is the 1, or tonic, and D is the 5, or dominant, and so on.

well you wouldn't need to have a private instructor on like a retainer, just one that you could meet once to give you advice on how to get on with the stuff you want to accomplish and then agree with that person that you will contact them in a few months to see how you've progressed to help you again. there's plenty of instructors that work this way, not everyone has the time/money to keep a weekly lesson schedule so don't worry about that. i only suggest it mainly as a way to assure yourself that you are dedicating/committing to this enough that you satisfy yourself in the long run.

like you said, your musician friends are all familiar with the basics on the piano, it's kind of the usual approach both academically and those serious in learning on their own. and yes, going from piano to bass is obviously different instruments/finger/hand positions/postures, but the idea is that you understand a concept on the piano and then learn to play it on the bass. like take a c major scale, once you learn it on piano, you would then transfer it on bass and then work your way around the scale. by self teaching, you would be able to google/youtube videos on the hand positions required in piano and then on bass, etc.

>recognition of notes within a chord

I don't know, experimenting? Try not having a shitty tin ear and try not making shitty threads about how bad you are of covering songs

Once you get familiar enough with what 1-7 chords will sound like in major and minor keys, especially 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, you'll be able to hear them pretty easily. You'll hear a chord go from the 1 to the 5, and it'll instantly make sense to you. This makes songs easier to figure out, since in most accessible music there are usually just combinations of these 7 chords, sometimes with some variation. Once you have this foundation, most everything will be easier to tackle; you'll be able to figure out inversions (the chords stacking themselves differently but producing the same tonality), common melodic elements, and a sort of likely pattern a song will take. For example if you hear a 2 chord in a major key, you'll know which chords its more or less likely to go into right afterwards.

Hope this helps a little as a jumping off point, and is at least a little intelligible.

you don't need to be a dick, you and i both know this is to some extent a learnable skill

And just for the record, in take on my the chords in the chorus are the background vocals right? If so I can only here like a one note difference between your supposed 1 and 5.

Also I always sing in the car and when a song I never heard comes on I try to predict the chord progression I almost always get it close to correct, so I think this is the technical side of this prediction, it makes more sense now.

You know how to copy, don't pretend it's some unachievable task to copy a song

I don't mean to be mean but maybe you need a kick in the ass from someone to say just do it

the chords are the tonal shapes that the music fits into. so the melody he sings is, lets say we're in C major, C (take) B (on) C(me). Those notes do not necessarily MAKE the chord, they more like fit into it. like if you have a piano hand, play a c major chord. then play a B over it. It wont sound bad, but it'll sound weird. You can tell if you have a wrong chord or note because itll sound "off" together. If you try to play D minor, F major, E minor, A minor to the same melody, it'll sound weird af. C fits into the 1 (CEG), B into the 5 (GBD) and C into the 6(ACE). it won't always be that neat, but this is just an example.

Anyway, the chords are in the background instruments. The synths and whatever else play a combination of tones that produce the chord. Take another song, Your Mother Should Know by The Beatles. The first chord is an A minor, and it comes not just from the vocal harmony (mostly E and C IIRC) but also the bass guitar (moving between A, E, and low A) and the piano chord repeating. The chord doesn't come from just one of these elements, it's produced by all of them acting together.

I'm not the OP. I know I'm talented at this, but I also know that someone can get better at it if they are given the tools to do so. People don't just wake up understanding how chord tonality explicitly works, even if they have naturally gifted ears. Having a set of tools or a language to describe what's happening in music can help a lot.

Listen to the bassline. More often than not, the bass plays the roots, if the chord doesn't fit over the bass, it's most likely an inversion.
What will be of great benefit is to start singing baselines and scale degrees to a lot of songs. That way you'll internalise harmony and start to be able to identify chords by ear.