How To Hear Chord Changes

How can the numbers 1-4-5&6 unlock the secret to playing by ear and writing your own songs?

The answer is sound patterns. To help you understand this idea completely you need to know some basic chord progression theory.

So what is a chord progression? by definition its a group of chords that belong to the same scale or key.

Lets look at the C Major scale for example
—————-
C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C
1  2  3  4   5  6   7  1(8)
—————–

As you can see their are 7 different notes in the Major scale. This is true for all keys. A key is the same thing as a Major Scale, so the key of G Major is the same thing as the C major scale.

Each note in the scale also represents a chord. There are 7 chords total in every Major scales.

The 7 chords are written using roman numerals like this:

l-llm- IIIm -lV -V -VIm -VII

You may also see them like this I- ii- iii- IV- V- Vi- VII which is the classical style of writing chord numbers.

Chords I-lV and V are always Major.

Chords llm- lllm and Vlm are always minor.

At this point you may be asking “so whats so important about numbering chords anyway?”

Great question! For one thing almost every song you have ever heard has a l-lV- & V chord in them.

Thats a powerful piece of information.

Imagine if you learned just the l- lV & V chord for all 12 keys.

You would already know at least 3 chords for any song you want to learn!

Most songs only contain 3 to 4 chords anyway and you will already know 3 of them just by learning
your l -lV – V progressions in all 12 keys.

Once you have memorized the sound of l -lV & V you can begin to play by ear.

#1 Listen to a song you want to learn. Listen to just the 1st few seconds. Now try to match the pitch of the 1st chord you hear using just the b string (The Big string on the guitar).

#2 Identify the name of the note you just found on the Big String.

#3 Now figure out what type of chord that note represents.

All chords can be grouped into 3 Basic chord sounds, Major and minor & dominant 7. Try playing all 3 types of chords from the bass note you found on string 6.

4# Now that you know the 1st chord of the song you can use your chord progression knowledge to find the other chords.

For example, lets say the 1st chord is G and the other 3 chords will most likely be C D & Em. These are the 4 primary chords in the key of G major.

Like this…

G  Am   Bm    C     D      Em     F
l – llm – lllm- IV- V- VIm-bVII

Most songs only contain 3 chords but many will contain 4 chords or more. The most popular format is 3 major chords plus 1 minor chord.

The most important minor chord in every key is the relative minor chord Vlm (pronounced six minor).

The Vlm chord is also the most popular minor chord and is used 99% of the time when you have a song containing 3 major chords and 1 minor.

So the 4 most important chords in every key are called primary chords. The sound created by these 4 chords is the strongest and most complete sound you can create.

That’s why do many songs use nothing but these 4 chords. They can be played in any order but the most common order is, 1-5-6-4. So all you have to do is just memorize 1-5-6-4 in all 12 keys and you will be well on your way to playing any pop, rock, and country song you hear.

You can also use these chords to create your own songs. Try creating your own jam tracks to solo over using these same 4 numbers, 1-5-6-4.

In Guitar in 60 seconds you’ll learn 2 visual tools that you can use to identify any chord progression directly on your guitar fretboard. With these powerful tools you’ll create progressions on the fly, without having to have a chart in front of you.

You’ll also learn 3 more popular progressions and learn how to create even more interesting progressions using my chord progression circle.

Just imagine this time next month you could be writing your own songs! it’s possible with Guitar In 60 Seconds.