How do you go about figuring out the chords without a lead sheet?

[voyage]

I want to figure out the chords for Greg Skaff's "Angola." I think it's an original by him so I doubt that a lead sheet is obtainable. In my rock and roll days it wasn't hard to figure out chords just by ear. But jazz is a different animal. Is that how you guys do it? Just keep guessing and trying chords, voicings, and alterations until you feel you've got the right chord? Thanks.

[pamosmusic]

That’s a long journey. Some individual ear training trying to get used to recognize individual chord sounds is important but the big one I think is melodic ear training in the bass register.

Do some of that and then start trying to figure out where the bass notes of important chords are. Blueses are great place to start because there is a pretty varied but still limited number of set piece chord progressions and any one solo, the bassist might play five different combinations of movements. Meaning “is he going to the iii in m7 or to the I, or something different” etc.

Bass lines are where it’s at. Even if you can’t recognize the underlying chords right away the bassline is almost always enough to teach you the function of the tune.

More modern tunes with less obvious functional movement are harder obviously, but you have to start at the start.

[grahambop]

I want to figure out the chords for Greg Skaff's "Angola." I think it's an original by him so I doubt that a lead sheet is obtainable. In my rock and roll days it wasn't hard to figure out chords just by ear. But jazz is a different animal. Is that how you guys do it? Just keep guessing and trying chords, voicings, and alterations until you feel you've got the right chord? Thanks.

Angola is a Wayne Shorter tune, you can probably find a chart somewhere.

[rpjazzguitar]

I don't find it easy. That said, here is how I think about it.

Most chords in jazz are four notes. Or, if there are more, it's usually still possible to capture the essence with four notes.

The lowest note (played by the bass) and the highest note are, to my ear, the two easiest to identify. If you're transcribing guitar, the possibilities for the remaining two notes are more limited than for piano.

For less adventurous harmony, you may only need to figure out b3 vs 3 and b7 vs 7. Of course, that may be a little tricky if the bassist happens not to be playing the root of the chord you want to identify.

So, you play along with the chord, playing only one note, first trying the b3 and then the 3. That tells you major vs minor. Or maybe it sounds like the Hendrix chord, which has both.

(Using slow-downer software with a looping feature, facilitates this process).

Same for the b7 and 7. That tells you dominant 7 vs maj7.

Then you can do the same thing with the b5 and 5.

Then the 9. For the 9, it will usually be natural 9 or it will be one-or-both alterations of the 9.

So, the strategy is going one note at a time, not guessing grips. If you're transcribing the guitar, and you know the notes, there won't be that many grips to consider. If you're transcribing piano, you may get a group of notes that don't lay well on guitar. In that case, you can shuffle things around or find a voicing that gets most of what you want.

That makes it sound easier than I often find it to be. I can identify chords played on guitar more easily than chords on piano. Often, recordings seem murky to me and I'm unable to distinguish the chord clearly.

I have read many times that it gets easier with practice. Formal ear training may be quite helpful if you get stuck.

Good luck with it!

[ragman1]

Quick google. Might be of use.

[ccroft]

Graham beat me to it, as he often does :) It's backed up by a review of Greg's album that I googlerized to see if maybe he had used the name on a different tune.

Peter and RP's advice on ear training is right on. It's good exercise. Wayne is often in the "More modern tunes with less obvious functional movement are harder" category. This one's a bit simpler than some newer ones.

[Christian Miller]

I want to figure out the chords for Greg Skaff's "Angola." I think it's an original by him so I doubt that a lead sheet is obtainable. In my rock and roll days it wasn't hard to figure out chords just by ear. But jazz is a different animal. Is that how you guys do it? Just keep guessing and trying chords, voicings, and alterations until you feel you've got the right chord? Thanks.

Get the melody, get the bass

Chord qualities aren’t to bad after that

I’ve done a few Wayne things by ear

That said, Wayne isn’t the easiest start. There’s easier stuff to cut your teeth on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mick-7]

I want to figure out the chords for Greg Skaff's "Angola." I think it's an original by him so I doubt that a lead sheet is obtainable. In my rock and roll days it wasn't hard to figure out chords just by ear. But jazz is a different animal. Is that how you guys do it? Just keep guessing and trying chords, voicings, and alterations until you feel you've got the right chord? Thanks.

As was mentioned, this tune was composed by Wayne Shorter, it's on this album, and too new to be in any of the older fake books:
Alegria - Wayne Shorter | Album | AllMusic

Re: chord recognition, you'll need to develop the skill to recognize the primary types of chords: Major/Minor/ Dominant-Dim (often used interchangably, i.e. D7b9), and their harmonic function will cue you to that, i.e., their place in common chord progressions - II-V-I, etc. In one of his books, Joe Pass categorized chords by their sound: major sounds, minor sounds, etc.

In my rock and roll days it wasn't hard to figure out chords just by ear. But jazz is a different animal.

Its not that different, you can probably already identify minor, major and dominant chords (maybe not their altered forms). It's just that the harmony is more complex so it's harder to recognize the chord progressions.

I haven't heard this Wayne Shorter tune but knowing him, it probably doesn't have standard harmony (I see that ragman has posted a chart). If you're weak on hearing chord types, start with the bass line and melody as has been suggested. That will give you two chord tones, and make it much easier to identify the remaining notes.

[ccroft]

Quick google. Might be of use.

Thanks Rags! I've been meaning to look this one over or a while now, but it's not in my book.

[grahambop]

As was mentioned, this tune was composed by Wayne Shorter, it's on this album, and too new to be in any of the older fake books:
Alegria - Wayne Shorter | Album | AllMusic

It’s actually older than that, it was recorded in 1965 but not released until the 1970s (on the album Soothsayer), that’s where I know it from.

[ragman1]

Thanks Rags! I've been meaning to look this one over or a while now, but it's not in my book.

All I did was google 'Angola lead sheet'. You can get some strange ones that way but I checked it against the recording and it seemed okay. The chords may not be accurate but you'll probably find it in a book somewhere. Make sure it's a good one :-)

[pauln]

I want to figure out the chords for Greg Skaff's "Angola." I think it's an original by him so I doubt that a lead sheet is obtainable. In my rock and roll days it wasn't hard to figure out chords just by ear. But jazz is a different animal. Is that how you guys do it? Just keep guessing and trying chords, voicings, and alterations until you feel you've got the right chord? Thanks.

I have done it that way from day one on the guitar,
Turning guesses to internalized recognition by ear.

[tbeltrans]

I will comment on the "ear thing" only since folks here have already answered the OP's needs.

Listen to the bass since it usually will outline the chord. Practice matching what you hear on the recording to your guitar.

From there, learn to recognize when you are hearing major, minor, and dominant chords. From there, you can play around with the voicing since it will be a matter of just trying to find something that sounds like what you are hearing on the recording. I would guess that the performers rarely play it the same way twice anyway.

Over tie and with practice, you can learn to hear extensions, recognize inversions, etc.

Relative pitch (which is what this is), is something anybody can learn. We aren't born with it, but we all can develop it just by doing it over and over.

These days, we have software that really helps with this so you can slow down a small section and loop it until you get it. Transcribe! is what I use since it is available for Linux. On my Android tablet, I use Amazing Slow Downer. I don't know what Mac users have, but I would bet that Transcribe! is probably used by many Windows users.

Tony

[voyage]

Thanks. I use Transcribe! On my Mac and I have been trying to get Amazing Slow Downer to work on my iPad, no luck so far. I can use another piece of software capture the video on YouTube but then I can't share it with the iPad for some reason. Still working on it. Thanks very much.

[pamosmusic]

Thanks. I use Transcribe! On my Mac and I have been trying to get Amazing Slow Downer to work on my iPad, no luck so far. I can use another piece of software capture the video on YouTube but then I can't share it with the iPad for some reason. Still working on it. Thanks very much.

Youtube has it built in. The little gear wheel at the bottom will usually give you the options for 1.0 0.75 or 0.5 speed

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Youtube has it built in. The little gear wheel at the bottom will usually give you the options for 1.0 0.75 or 0.5 speed

It even can go down to 0.25 speed, but than the artifacts of the time stretching/expansion algorithm start to get annoying.

[yebdox]

Amazing Slow Downer is my fave, but the iOS version does not have the hold feature that the desktop version has, which makes a huge difference when trying to sort out all the voices in a chord. I use Transcribe! a lot as well, but it does not have a hold feature like ASD, though I wish it did. I am exclusively a Mac guy, btw.

[voyage]

Well, I guess I need to give up trying to use my iPad for this and just use my MacBook pro. I'm interested to see what that hold feature is.

[pamosmusic]

It even can go down to 0.25 speed, but than the artifacts of the time stretching/expansion algorithm start to get annoying.

Yeah no one’s time is perfect either so I use .5 in emergencies, but even that can be a bit tough to find the rhythms

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Yeah no one’s time is perfect either so I use .5 in emergencies, but even that can be a bit tough to find the rhythms

For slow tunes it might even help sometimes to speed up a little to find the rhythms.

[Reg]

Yea... all good advice....

Peter was close... you start with the FORM.

And play the fill in the blanks game.

Back in the 70's I transcribed for a living, (along with gigs).

Most generally don't need to get fast at punching out lead sheets or arrangements etc...

Depending on what or where your going.... with transcribing or figuring out the tune(s). You use tools to help or not. I'm old and never had the choices.... we used our ears and what musical skills we had.

Personally.... if your just looking for a chart to play tune at home or even gigs.... just search LOL.

But if your trying to get your ears together... and develop skills etc... do the work.
Start with ...The Form and fill in the blanks.

There are standard approaches for filling in the blanks. Generally because the order of what you figure out will help make the rest become obvious and help train your ears to understand what you hear. Almost teaching or training you how to hear.

[Mick-7]

In pre-personal-computer days (Reg was there), we did not have slow downing apps, so we had to play our records or tapes (later) over and over to transcribe them. An advantage of this is that it develops your musical memory, you had to recall and sing the musical phrases you heard lest you wear out your favorite records or cassette tapes. So-called perfect pitch is actually just a very acute memory for sounds.

[Christian Miller]

The app Moises is well worth getting


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[voyage]

The app Moises is well worth getting

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks, what is that? A slow downer?

[Mick-7]

Thanks, what is that? A slow downer?

No, it isolates the instruments in a recording so that the one you want to hear (say the guitar) stands out.

Website: Moises: The Musician's App | Vocal Remover & much more