Before diving headfirst into chord ear training, you’ll need to identify the intervallic relationships between two notes. Now that you understand how chord progressions work in music theory, you can move on to building up the tools you will need to hear them. The Ear Training Process: Intervals, Chords, and Progressions To learn more about how chords are constructed, check out our ultimate guide to seventh chords. If this is new to you, make sure you make this chart your friend and commit it to memory. This is fairly basic, so make sure you have this concept down. What’s the I chord? You can use this chart to create any different combination of chord progressions. If it’s not immediately clear to you where I got that from, look at the chart. Lower case= minor).įrom all of this, we can derive chord progressions.įor example, a ii-V-I chord progression in the key of C is Dmin7-G7-Cmaj7. The bottom line is the Roman Numeral association (Upper case= major and dominant.The second line is the chord quality associated.There is a similar chart for triads, but I want to deal with seventh chords since they are the most common chords in jazz. I have taken a concert C major scale and harmonized each note as a seventh chord (if you want more info on this, check out this post). This is the Major Diatonic Series of Seventh Chords.
Though this post will be geared toward ear training exercises, we have to touch upon the theory first if we want to become an expert at recognizing chord progressions. If you already understand how triads and seventh chords harmonize with major scales and the Roman Numeral numbering system for chords, skip to step 2. To start hearing chord changes, we need to understand how chords are constructed and how they change. We need words and concepts for all the major chords, minor chords, chord inversions, chord voicings, and chordal relationships we will encounter in real music. Though we can’t promise you perfect pitch, we certainly can give you the best practices for developing near-perfect relative pitch.Įar training needs to start with some music theory. The ability to hear chord progressions and easily identify any chord or note on any instrument is the musical holy grail. Join The Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle.Įar Training Chord Progressions Step 1: Understand Chord Progressions Progressions Ear Training: Establish the Key Center Progressions Ear Training: Identify Chord Quality of Each Chord
Progressions Ear Training: Identify the Root Note of Each Chord
If you follow these steps, you’ll be on course to hear seventh chords by ear, identify chord inversions, pick out individual notes, and enhance your musical life. Luckily for you, we can get you started in 4 steps. But how does one develop the ability to identify chords by ear on the spot? But where do you start?īut many musicians don’t know where to start with ear training. Wouldn’t it be great to listen to music and immediately start following along on your instrument? We all want to get to the level where we can hear any song and begin recognizing chord progressions. Being shackled by reliance on sheet music can be draining, especially in styles of music like jazz which are based on improvisation. Two of the freedoms we yearn for as musicians are recognizing chord progressions on the spot and understanding songs by ear.