Playing By Ear X
THE CHORD CHANGE
"How do we know the chord is going to change and how do we know what chord to go to?"
Unfortunately, there's no easy answer. One way would be examine the notes that fall on the strong beats and see what chords they fit into. But that can sometimes be misleading. In I Saw The Light, for example, the notes that fall on the strong beats of the 2nd chord are A - G - and - E, but the chord is C. Besides, music - particularly Bluegrass/folk music - is supposed to come more from the right - emotional - side of the brain rather than the left - rational - side. It's more important for you to be able to hear the chord changes and this can only come with time and practice, and most importantly, playing with other people.
There are some shortcuts you can use, however, to figure out the chord being played, assuming it's not the G chord. (For the sake of this discussion I'll assume we're only playing in the key of G) The G chord is your home base, and like your home it's where you go to rest. All the other chords revolve around it. Your home base chord, the root chord of the key is sometimes called the "Tonic" or the I (Roman Numeral 1) chord.
The second most used chord is D, or D7. It is sometimes called the "Dominant" or V (Roman Numeral 5) chord and it's very often the final chord used before you go home to the tonic at the end of the verses and choruses and at the end of the tune. There are countless tunes in the Bluegrass repertoire that use only these 2 chords.
If the tune has 3 chords then the 3rd one is most likely to be C, sometimes called the Sub-Dominant or IV chord.
These are the 3 "major" chords in the key of G and you could play 99% of all Bluegrass tunes using just these 3 chords because every note in the G major scale is in at least one of them.
Well, that's nice but what is the next chord in Do Lord? If you can't hear it then maybe you can figure it out from the melody:
------------:------------:-------------
------------:------------:-------------
------------:-0--0-------:-0--0--0-----
-2--2----4--:---------2--:----------2--
------------:------------:-------------
Hmmmmm. Well it's not obvious, there's no C or D note there but if you sing it while playing one of the 3 major chords you'll see that it only fits with one chord. Can you hear it?
"How do we know the chord is going to change and how do we know what chord to go to?"
Unfortunately, there's no easy answer. One way would be examine the notes that fall on the strong beats and see what chords they fit into. But that can sometimes be misleading. In I Saw The Light, for example, the notes that fall on the strong beats of the 2nd chord are A - G - and - E, but the chord is C. Besides, music - particularly Bluegrass/folk music - is supposed to come more from the right - emotional - side of the brain rather than the left - rational - side. It's more important for you to be able to hear the chord changes and this can only come with time and practice, and most importantly, playing with other people.
There are some shortcuts you can use, however, to figure out the chord being played, assuming it's not the G chord. (For the sake of this discussion I'll assume we're only playing in the key of G) The G chord is your home base, and like your home it's where you go to rest. All the other chords revolve around it. Your home base chord, the root chord of the key is sometimes called the "Tonic" or the I (Roman Numeral 1) chord.
The second most used chord is D, or D7. It is sometimes called the "Dominant" or V (Roman Numeral 5) chord and it's very often the final chord used before you go home to the tonic at the end of the verses and choruses and at the end of the tune. There are countless tunes in the Bluegrass repertoire that use only these 2 chords.
If the tune has 3 chords then the 3rd one is most likely to be C, sometimes called the Sub-Dominant or IV chord.
These are the 3 "major" chords in the key of G and you could play 99% of all Bluegrass tunes using just these 3 chords because every note in the G major scale is in at least one of them.
Well, that's nice but what is the next chord in Do Lord? If you can't hear it then maybe you can figure it out from the melody:
------------:------------:-------------
------------:------------:-------------
------------:-0--0-------:-0--0--0-----
-2--2----4--:---------2--:----------2--
------------:------------:-------------
Hmmmmm. Well it's not obvious, there's no C or D note there but if you sing it while playing one of the 3 major chords you'll see that it only fits with one chord. Can you hear it?
j
posted by Joe | 8:19 AM
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