Identifying jazz chords and scales on the fly

**bako** · 09-01-2016, 09:34 AM

There are at least 4 perspectives on hearing notes.

1. Adjacent notes (note to note intervals)

2. In relation to the tonal center(s)

3. In relation to the chord of the moment

4. Hearing multiple possibilities for harmonic content of a melodic phrase

There is probably a default way of contextualizing (varies by individual) each interval.
Out of context, C - E is likely to be heard as C major.

C - E is among other things also:

b3 - 5 in Am7 or AmMa7
3 - 5 in Ab+
5 -7 in a Fma7 or FmMa7
7 - b3 in DbmMa7 (C-Fb)
b7 - 9 in D9 or Dm9
9 - #11 in Bb9(#11)
b9 - 11 in B7b9sus
#11 - b7 in Gb7(#11)
11 - 13 in G13sus
b13 - b9 in Eb7(b9/b13) (C - Fb)

and many more.....

It is a natural thing to hear a default context for each interval.

Range plays a factor at times as to how an interval is perceived.
It is a bit harder to hear C - E as #11 - b7 in a bass register.

While contextual hearing has broader applications to real time playing, it is all part of a unified package in my opinion.

**Boston Joe** · 09-01-2016, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

I spent years trying to do things intervallically alone because that's what was on the exams I was doing etc. Now I've focussed on scale position/solfege it does seem to reaping results. I can hear the melodies distinctly in my head when I look at music. Not always, but often. It's quite strange to come to this in my late thirties - this isn't something I could do before, although it's common among my peers.

Now I'm not say that the intervallic approach is completely useless, but I think that scale position work is the bedrock of aural musicianship.

I could go on, but I doubt I will convince anyone that hasn't already. :-)

Christian, could you tell a bit about how you went about learning this? I've never worked much with solfage (Outside of singing "doe, a deer".

**christianm77** · 09-01-2016, 09:39 AM

Originally Posted by emanresu

I must somewhat agree - just knowing how clean intervals sound is just scratching the surface. And even what the OP was, thats again surely not enough when it comes to helping our practical playing.

But there are so many different things to do to get the whole bundle. We can pick out a few that will be the most effective but thats not a good reason to drop plain interval recognition exercise. Or any other little extra skillie. We do this thing for many decades.

Actually, I'm finding that my interval recognition is often getting in the way of scale position tests! For example I will hear A# E in the key of C as a tritone instead of b7 followed by 3 and so on - which is no help, because if all you hear is a tritone it could equally be a B F, say. To hear the notes within the key you actually have to condition yourself out of that....

Another thing which can be a problem for developing this type of hearing is pitch memory. Oh I know that's an A# because there was an A# in the last one. That's not actually what this stuff is about either, although pitch memory can be a useful technique where nothing else will do.

In the end, hopefully I'll end up being able to do both, but the conflict between the two ways of hearing are in conflict, at least for me.

**christianm77** · 09-01-2016, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by Boston Joe

Christian, could you tell a bit about how you went about learning this? I've never worked much with solfage (Outside of singing "doe, a deer".

A book I found good was this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sight-Sing-.../dp/1575605147

This covers diatonic scale steps and some basic embellishing chromaticism. That's a really good basis for most of the melodies in standards etc. I found it to be a great introduction and was able to pogress very quickly with this book, although it's not without some faults.

Beyond that, Bruce Arnold's courses are built around scale degree recognition for all 12 chromatic pitches. They might seem expensive, but one of these will keep me occupied for about 6 months.

Ear Training Archives - Muse EEKMuse EEK

Other useful exercises include singing different scale pitches against chords, learning melodies by ear by singing the scale degrees (and checking yourself) and sight singing as much as possible.

You can use chromatic solfege syllables or numbers - the former have the advantage of being mono syllabic.

**christianm77** · 09-01-2016, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by bako

There are at least 4 perspectives on hearing notes.

1. Adjacent notes (note to note intervals)

2. In relation to the tonal center(s)

3. In relation to the chord of the moment

4. Hearing multiple possibilities for harmonic content of a melodic phrase

There is probably a default way of contextualizing (varies by individual) each interval.
Out of context, C - E is likely to be heard as C major.

C - E is among other things also:

b3 - 5 in Am7 or AmMa7
3 - 5 in Ab+
5 -7 in a Fma7 or FmMa7
7 - b3 in DbmMa7 (C-Fb)
b7 - 9 in D9 or Dm9
9 - #11 in Bb9(#11)
b9 - 11 in B7b9sus
#11 - 3 in Gb7(#11)
11 - 13 in G13sus
b13 - b9 in Eb7(b9/b13) (C - Fb)

and many more.....

It is a natural thing to hear a default context for each interval.

Range plays a factor at times as to how an interval is perceived.
It is a bit harder to hear C - E as #11 - 3 in a bass register.

While contextual hearing has broader applications to real time playing, it is all part of a unified package in my opinion.

I think you have to learn to walk before you learn to run, and basic solfege is very much about walking. It is however, also surprisingly useful.

It's also revealing that you are talking about chords, not keys. This approach is about keys. Chords happen within keys for the majority of everyday jazz repertoire - standards, bop and so on. We are not talking about pitches over chords. That's a different type of hearing, probably closer to intervallic.

(Actual the global key approach I find rather useful for analysis. It's useful to me to know that le (b6) tends to resolve to sol (5) in the key, because that's the way a lot of bop lines and chord progressions work in jazz, for example, and allows me to unify and reuse a lot of vocabulary over different progressions. But that's by the by.)

In any case I can only really talk about my experience of myself and my students.

Here's the question -
- can you play a simple melody within in one key that you can sing first time without mistakes?
- can you write down the same melody on the stave?
- could you sing such a melody at sight?

I would regard point 1 very much as basic practical aural musicianship. If I cannot do this I have failed basic practical aural musicianship. No ifs, not buts.

It also a useful practical skill. Someone asks me to play the melody for a tune in a guitar trio and I have to busk it - being able to do that with absolute confidence would be a great thing.

Add that skill to being able to being recognise common chord progressions by ear (which I already can), and I think that's a pretty useful skill set - much more so than being able to distinguish a 7b9b13 from a 7b5b9 chord.

(The last two steps are not so important, but they are emergent from the scale degrees approach - because lest we forget, Western staff notation and solfege were first invented at the same time by the same person - and I'll take them as a cheeky bonus.)

However, judging from my students I am not terribly unusual in this regard. On the other hand, most of the people I work with who are not guitarists have this stuff down. It's embarrasing to admit, but sometimes you have to be prepared to be vulnerable in order to progress.

I think Bb9(#11) and Eb7(b9/b13) can wait until that side of it's a bit better.

TH · 09-02-2016, 05:50 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Everyone learns differently. However, some approaches are more effective than others. I don't mean to be nasty, but there's a lot of not particularly helpful advice on this thread...

So - intervallic and scale position/solfege training. They are not the same thing. Example.

Intervallic hearing - the gap between the notes C and A is a major sixth. I remember the first two notes of Days of Wine and Roses. Boom. One mark in your Aural test.

In the real world - we need scale position hearing - let's take those two notes in keys around the cycle.

...
I could go on, but I doubt I will convince anyone that hasn't already. :-)

Thank you for making this so clear. I see your point.
This does work well for you, and my point was that there are different approaches that are rooted in the relevance of the music you play, the way you hear and the diversity of awareness needed. You make a good assumption that people will play the music you do and think the way you do.

Intervallic hearing - more than two notes from some song. That's the most rudimentary use of intervallic hearing. For me, when I'm playing outside of a tonal context, either in free improvisation, playing within a tonal context but atonally, composition outside of diatonic situation (reharmonizing with a goal of creating a specific control of tension... developing a line along a specific chromatic interval progression, composing with awareness of intervallic relationships in key and through modulations-in a piece AND within a solo, working with others and creating appropriate responses to an intervallic idea or motiv they have presented, playing thematically in diatonic, chromatic or intervallic sequence, etc.) there are many ways of hearing that I rely on. It's not just a matter of, as you say "Boom. One mark on your Aural test."

Granted that's me. But I'm not the one advocating don't learn intervals.

So feel free to dismiss other types of music and hearing as irrelevant; learning differently as a less advanced distraction from the true path, but know that I've found that at all stages of playing from fundamental awareness to compositional improvisation and soloing, at least one person on this forum (giving bad advice I guess) does see some value in a diversity of approaches, intervallic ear training among them.

Boom. Take it, leave it or give your own advice.

David

**bako** · 09-02-2016, 06:32 AM

Adding a fifth category to my list of four from a few posts back.
This one is less exacting, more dependent on individual creativity.

5. Hearing the harmonic and rhythmic negative space, the awareness of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic content
that is not yet there but might serve the music if it were.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 09-02-2016, 06:40 AM

When I went to university, seems like it was mostly intervalic emphasis. Since then, solfeggio/ key center has become a big thing in the States. I taught a lot of it, in teaching choir kids sight reading. It's really helpful in learning to hear foundationally IMO, more like we initially hear things in childhood etc. We tend to hear "place" moreso than distance between in the beginning.

All that being said, to paint this this as a right or wrong is unnecessary. It's like saying "should you be aware of letter name, scale degree or chord degree while playing?". The obvious answer is "yes". All inform each other. Just as we use fixed key relationships from tunes to inform our hearing of intervals, the opposite is also true when the music gets more complex.

One approach has an obvious bias towards music which is more purely tonal/single key center and vice versa. With the nature of jazz, I'd think you'd need both. Again, you don't need to know letter name OR scale degree/chord degree/interval of the moment. You need to be aware of all I'd think, at least eventually.

TH · 09-02-2016, 06:46 AM

Originally Posted by bako

Adding a fifth category to my list of four from a few posts back.
This one is less exacting, more dependent on individual creativity.

5. Hearing the harmonic and rhythmic negative space, the awareness of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic content
that is not yet there but might serve the music if it were.

As a possibly oblique confluence of category, when playing free improv, or working with atonality, the association of an identifiable mood or feeling with an interval often informs the direction or choice of notes.
I really got this when I started working with Modus Novus. That book is an organized study of atonality progressively introduced in chapters by interval. It is especially notable that in it, the author specifies that the exercises should be sung, but sung without traditional solfege syllables, that is, by aural intervallic identification only.
It was through this book that I came to really know the intimate musical choices of playing notes based on their intervallic sequence.
Bako, you know this book?

David

**christianm77** · 09-02-2016, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

Thank you for making this so clear. I see your point.
This does work well for you, and my point was that there are different approaches that are rooted in the relevance of the music you play, the way you hear and the diversity of awareness needed. You make a good assumption that people will play the music you do and think the way you do.

Intervallic hearing - more than two notes from some song. That's the most rudimentary use of intervallic hearing. For me, when I'm playing outside of a tonal context, either in free improvisation, playing within a tonal context but atonally, composition outside of diatonic situation (reharmonizing with a goal of creating a specific control of tension... developing a line along a specific chromatic interval progression, composing with awareness of intervallic relationships in key and through modulations-in a piece AND within a solo, working with others and creating appropriate responses to an intervallic idea or motiv they have presented, playing thematically in diatonic, chromatic or intervallic sequence, etc.) there are many ways of hearing that I rely on. It's not just a matter of, as you say "Boom. One mark on your Aural test."

Granted that's me. But I'm not the one advocating don't learn intervals.

So feel free to dismiss other types of music and hearing as irrelevant; learning differently as a less advanced distraction from the true path, but know that I've found that at all stages of playing from fundamental awareness to compositional improvisation and soloing, at least one person on this forum (giving bad advice I guess) does see some value in a diversity of approaches, intervallic ear training among them.

Boom. Take it, leave it or give your own advice.

David

Just passing advice I was given and found helpful. I made my point quite forcefully - it's not that I think that intervallic hearing is wrong in some way or irrelevant. On the contrary it is useful for some things.

It's just that haven't found it terribly useful for my day to day work, and I spent a lot of time barking up that particular tree, so I feel quite aggrieved. :-) tbh it was very little use for anything I did as a musician. Waste of time - perhaps not, but I would have loved to have worked on the scale position stuff ten years back.

I also think that you could learn to play melodies by ear with no formal course of ear training at all simply by doing it. But solfege gives you the ability to hear staff notation into the deal.

But everyone I know who is any good at sight singing has learned scale position hearing, and England has the best sight singers in the world. (To the detriment of some other areas frankly.)

Anyway if you can play a straightforward melody in any key without hesitation or error, all this stuff is baby steps. I know nothing about your level of musicianship.

**christianm77** · 09-02-2016, 09:40 AM

My aim here is not to convince anyone else here that I am right - I won't - but rather to give advice. I don't really care what many people here say because I know nothing about them. On the other hand im sure others feel the same about me.

Anyway it's my belief there are two types of people who post on this forum; those who offer advice and those who aim to win arguments. I'd rather be in the first camp. However - it is not always the case that all disagreements can be smoothed away by saying 'it's all the same thing' (because sometimes it's not.) that said I can agree to disagree without spite.

Again I would caution anyone against asking for advice on this forum - there's too much advice much of which contradicts. It's a waste of time.

Find a teacher instead who can do things you want to do - and critically- has students who have learned to do the same.

**Boston Joe** · 09-02-2016, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Anyway it's my belief there are two types of people who post on this forum; those who offer advice and those who aim to win arguments.

I don't think I'm in a position to do either. All I can do is say what's worked (or not) for me. My brain has its own way of working that may or may not be similar to anyone else's on any given area. (I like to say "My brain won't fit into anyone else's skull.")

**christianm77** · 09-02-2016, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by Boston Joe

I don't think I'm in a position to do either. All I can do is say what's worked (or not) for me. My brain has its own way of working that may or may not be similar to anyone else's on any given area. (I like to say "My brain won't fit into anyone else's skull.")

True - I think you have to try a few things out. Give that book a go though - I'd be interested to hear your experiences with it.

TH · 09-02-2016, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

I would caution anyone against asking for advice on this forum -

Good advice!
Many questions. Too many answers.

David

**emanresu** · 09-02-2016, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

Good advice!
Many questions. Too many answers.

David

Maybe too many for people who know enough already (wihout sarcasm).

I kinda wanted to get ideas for exercises that target the OP issue very accurately. Also, I'm still planning to write another badass ear training app and hoped to get different viewpoints. Got some, and big thanks for that.

Just a rant(skip it - not in topic):
"Instead get a teacher...." may not be enough also. I got 3-4 important things + priorities from my guitar teacher and the rest of my pack of exercise ideas I had to figure out or get help from the internet. Strangely that stupid simple but helluva useful "sing and try to play the same thing" exercise wasn't mentioned ever in my 4 years of jazz school with dozen of great players as teachers. So, those advices are scattered all around in books and booklets and sites random workshops and what not. And that way those advices turn up randomly. If we have a topic, lets stay on it - for people that care about such things. Going wide and philosophical doesn't help at all. Well.. it sometimes has helped to prove that you can do things the opposite ways but that itself is completely another topic

**Jonah** · 09-02-2016, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

I would caution anyone against asking for advice on this forum -
Good advice!
Many questions. Too many answers.

David

That's what forum is sbout... open - really open - space..

I know I just gratefully sort it out and take what's needed)))

My personal cocept when I answer is sharing... even not giving an advice - but just sharing...

**christianm77** · 09-02-2016, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by emanresu

Maybe too many for people who know enough already (wihout sarcasm).

I kinda wanted to get ideas for exercises that target the OP issue very accurately. Also, I'm still planning to write another badass ear training app and hoped to get different viewpoints. Got some, and big thanks for that.

Just a rant(skip it - not in topic):
"Instead get a teacher...." may not be enough also. I got 3-4 important things + priorities from my guitar teacher and the rest of my pack of exercise ideas I had to figure out or get help from the internet. Strangely that stupid simple but helluva useful "sing and try to play the same thing" exercise wasn't mentioned ever in my 4 years of jazz school with dozen of great players as teachers. So, those advices are scattered all around in books and booklets and sites random workshops and what not. And that way those advices turn up randomly. If we have a topic, lets stay on it - for people that care about such things. Going wide and philosophical doesn't help at all. Well.. it sometimes has helped to prove that you can do things the opposite ways but that itself is completely another topic

Well that's a minefield, finding a teacher. If you wish to train your ear I do wonder if even a really good guitar player is necessarily the best person to ask. In my experience guitarists tend to have quite poor musicianship compared to pianists or horn players...

My biggest teacher in this area is my wife who can sing at sight pretty much any music. She has performed everything from ockenghem to ligeti at a professional level.

After hearing me play Joyspring a few times she was able play it perfectly at the piano in all 12 keys.

This is a skill I am terribly interested in learning. What I am telling you is how she was taught. She mastered this skill in adult life btw - she's not one of these choir school kids who sight sing Palestrina before breakfast at the age of 7 and have completely forgotten how they learned, which is really helpful!

I might add that this level of skill is not terribly unusual among professional musicians although by no means ubiquitous. In fact my wife's sight reading wouldn't qualify her for say the BBC singers (Boulez at sight anyone?) but I can't do it and to have myself reminded in my domestic life keeps me working on it :-)

On the other hand she doesn't have any harmonic concept.... Which is obv. important too, but I think most of us have that already.

Please write an ear training app with a function for scale position/solfege. Not many apps have this and I would recommend your app to students if it had this function. If it already does this - I will buy it.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 09-02-2016, 02:49 PM

I'm trying to reconcile this:

Originally Posted by emanresu

If we have a topic, lets stay on it - for people that care about such things. Going wide and philosophical doesn't help at all. Well.. it sometimes has helped to prove that you can do things the opposite ways but that itself is completely another topic

with this:

Originally Posted by emanresu

Just a rant(skip it - not in topic):

I'm not following.

Anyway, some of us enjoy the philosophical aspects. Why not take what you like, and leave the rest?

Originally Posted by emanresu

Just a rant(skip it - not in topic):

**Boston Joe** · 09-02-2016, 03:03 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Please write an ear training app with a function for scale position/solfege. Not many apps have this and I would recommend your app to students if it had this function. If it already does this - I will buy it.

Ear Trainer has exercises for identifying notes after chords and for identifying pitches in a melody. I don't know that that's exactly what you're talking about, but I think it's in the neighborhood.

**emanresu** · 09-02-2016, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher

I'm trying to reconcile this: with this:

I'm not following.

Anyway, some of us enjoy the philosophical aspects. Why not take what you like, and leave the rest?

This was my attempt to keep it on rails. Pls, lets stop adding those twists here. You can open a new thread for the exact thing. It's interesting for me too but not in here.

**bako** · 09-02-2016, 07:20 PM

David,

I worked from Modus Novus with one ear training teacher in college.
We were assigned to prepare one exercise per class. It was over my head at the time.
I used to record each line on a cassette to memorize it. Not exactly sight singing but I still found the process helpful.
It would be interesting to revisit.

**Sabicas** · 09-28-2016, 03:11 PM

I'm curious why no one has mentioned the "Functional Ear Trainer". Plays a cadence then a single note you have to pick it out by scale degree or solfege (if you prefer). Is this not the contextual learning that Christianm77 is pushing? It's free, by the way, and it keeps track of your stats over time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/func...088761926?mt=8

**christianm77** · 09-28-2016, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Sabicas

I'm curious why no one has mentioned the "Functional Ear Trainer". Plays a cadence then a single note you have to pick it out by scale degree or solfege (if you prefer). Is this not the contextual learning that Christianm77 is pushing? It's free, by the way, and it keeps track of your stats over time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/func...088761926?mt=8

This is a lot like some of Bruce Arnold's stuff. I've found this pretty good. I am downloading now, will share my thoughts on it....

**jordanklemons** · 09-28-2016, 05:52 PM

Originally Posted by Sabicas

I'm curious why no one has mentioned the "Functional Ear Trainer". Plays a cadence then a single note you have to pick it out by scale degree or solfege (if you prefer). Is this not the contextual learning that Christianm77 is pushing? It's free, by the way, and it keeps track of your stats over time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/func...088761926?mt=8

Sounds very similar to the Ultimate Ear Trainer app I use. Same thing with the cadence followed by a note. Does it contain any other features? UET also allows for the cadence to be followed by 2-8 notes played simultaneously rather just 1. And it also allows for 3 note triads and 4 note 7th chords to be played in any inversion to be identified.

Does FET have any other features like this? Or others that are different on top of the single note identification game?

**christianm77** · 09-28-2016, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by jordanklemons

Sounds very similar to the Ultimate Ear Trainer app I use. Same thing with the cadence followed by a note. Does it contain any other features? UET also allows for the cadence to be followed by 2-8 notes played simultaneously rather just 1. And it also allows for 3 note triads and 4 note 7th chords to be played in any inversion to be identified.

Does FET have any other features like this? Or others that are different on top of the single note identification game?

Seems good. The Bruce Arnold stuff I've done over the past 12 months or so has prepared me very well for this app so I won't be needing it. I like the BA stuff. It's well paced and you just do it every day until you get high enough marks and can move onto the next thing.

Makes for a nice sense of progression.

A little pricey though, perhaps.

The app is a good intro to it though. I'm not sure about his recommended method.

EDIT: it's one note at a time.