Chord Investigation

[JimmyK]

It took about three minutes to figure out the single notes for the first part of "Smoke Gets in your Eyes". Ok, now I've got the melody notes, but I want to add some chords. If I take the note, let's say it's G and take the Triad i.e. G, B, D and F# for the Major seventh and invert each till I get the sound I want, am I starting on the right track? Yes I could use the sheet music, but I want to hear the song + chords and play it by ear. A teacher about twenty years ago could hear a cd and play it in about five minutes! I could play any chord and he could tell me what it was, just by the sound. So what's the path from notes to the ear. Or is it just repetition of a chord e.q. Em7b5 and burn it into your brain. I'm looking for "simple answers", got any ideas?? btw I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel.
ps. yes, I can read notes and know plenty of chords, but not just by sound, maybe not any by sound alone
Regards,
Jimmy

[JimBobWay]

Originally Posted by JimmyK

I'm looking for "simple answers", got any ideas?? btw I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel.
ps. yes, I can read notes and know plenty of chords, but not just by sound, maybe not any by sound alone

I'm not sure if this will help, because I learned by ear and that's still how I pick up most music. The more complex pieces send me to the library for the sheets. Anyway, early on in my journey I was at a friend's house and he was playing an album, and said "I wish I could play that!" So I picked up his guitar and played along with the tune, and he reacted like it was magic. But then it got serious: he asked me what the notes/chords I was playing were. When I admitted I didn't know, he was stunned. How could I play it if I didn't know the notes?

Unfortunately that was the 'ask the caterpillar how it walks' moment for me. In the long run, it was excellent because it sent me on a lifelong quest to understand music, and I am a better guitarist because of that. But in the short term it left me frustrated and wondering where to look for the answers to questions like the one you ask here. My approach was to get some great books out of the local library, and start learning basic music theory and notation. But I also taped myself playing chords, and notes and intervals, and made a text guide to what they were. When I played them back I could easily locate them and play them without even thinking, but it took a lot of repetition for me to get to the point where I could say "that's an Ebm7".

The breakthrough for me was solfege, an ancient method of learning sight-singing & relative pitch. I recommend you look into this, it sure isn't re-inventing any wheels, and it worked wonders for me. Check your local library for books & CD's. It has some beneficial side-effects too, you sort of learn what you are tuned to. Try it, & good luck! (But also look at Mehegan's & Abersold's approaches if you are going to jam with jazz musicians just so you know that vocabulary - same thing, expressed differently).