Play Guitar by Ear, part nine

Chords for a Christmas melody

By Darrin Koltow

In this episode of Playing by Ear, we're going to continue what we started last episode: recognizing possible chords for the Christmas tune Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Let's dive in.

We're working out chords for the tune's first four bars. Here are the first four bars:
http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/012203.MID. And here are the chords in those four bars, as my ear hears them. Note that there are two beats per measure for this tune, not four.

Bar 1:
All F major
Bar 2:
All F major
Bar 3:
We'll go with F/A for the first beat, Bb for the second beat
Bar 4:
C for beat 1 and F for the second beat.

Let's have a listen to the next four bars. Here they are:

http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/012903.mid

Listen to this fragment, and write your impressions. Use the guidelines and procedure notes from the previous lesson to work out some chords that sound good to you. Be aware that there's a key modulation in here. We're going to modulate to C. You will hear this as you listen carefully. Your ear will say, "Hey, there's something different there." Once you know the new key center you're going to, you'll use basic music theory to create a new list of chords that go with that key. For C major, our chords are as follows:

C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G7 or G, A minor, B dim.

I doubt we'll use the B dim. It doesn't show up too much. I want you to see how straightforward, even easy, this process of assigning chords to a melody is. Once you know you're moving to a new center, you can begin working backwards. That is, listen for and identify the destination chord whose key we're modulating to.

From there, you move back a chord and ask, "Okay. I know that to establish a convincing modulation to a new key center, I need more than just the chord from the new key. I need a *cadence* to go with that: a V7 to the new I." So, since you know you're going to the key of C major, what chord in C major comes right before C, as if it were announcing C? Yes, G7. Listen for that.

Here are chords that go well with bars 5-8. They are not necessarily *THE* chords, but they sound appropriate and musical to me. As Duke Ellington said "if it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!"

Bar 1:
All F major

Bar 2:
Beat 1: D minor
Beat 2: G7, add9

Bar 3:
Beat 1: A minor
Beat 2: C

Bar 4:
Beat 1: F major 7
Beat 2: C

That's all we're going to do with this tune. You can get the rest of the chords by importing the MIDI file into Power Tab or another sequencer. You can get the full MIDI file at Cyberhymnal.org. Thank you, Cyberhymnal.

I recommend putting chords to the remainder of the tune if you're inclined to. Plus, if you have strong feelings about seeing more Guitar Study lessons devoted to harmonizing melodies, drop me a line.

Effective technique for ear building

This next technique is highly effective for helping you to play by ear. Take any tune you know pretty well and transpose it to another key. Except for the first few chords, don't do the transposition by writing it out. Instead, use a combo of your ear and your knowledge of theory. How does this work, exactly?

Let's say I'm doing a basic I-IV-V progression in C major. The chords in a I-IV-V in C are C, F, G. Now I transpose to F. I know the I chord is F. I want the IV chord for F, but the part of my mind that understands theory is just a bit slower than my growing, musical ear, so my fingers find their way to the Bb: that's IV in F major, and we found it by using our ears for the most part, with a bit of help from our existing knowledge of the song.

Do this for any tune you want to have the pleasure of learning again. The transposing process will develop your ear. Start by picking a song you like and know. Write down the chords for the key you're currently playing the tune in. Then, transpose the tune to any other key: Going a fourth higher from the key you learned the tune is, is a good idea. For each chord in the original key, find its transposed chord in the new key. If we're going a perfect fourth higher, every chord will simply be a fourth higher. Only write down the first three chords in the new key, and let your ear guide you as much as possible through the rest.

Playing by ear letter

I got a letter recently that I want to share with you. The gist of the letter expressed awe at some famous musicians, and it also expressed frustration at playing by ear, especially figuring out chords by ear. Here's my response to the letter:

Hi, Bob. Thanks for your message. I want to talk about a couple of the points you brought up in your last email. One of the main things you expressed was amazement at the skills of some players. Just how do they get that good? Are they born with musical ability? Did God choose them to have more musical talent than others?

I don't want to get into a God debate here. I'll simply mention that I believe in Him, think He's a pretty cool Supreme Being, recognize that He is probably not a He at all, nor a She, but something marvelously different, and leave it at that. As for musical ability, don't take my word for it, but listen to the (paraphrased) words of an expert teacher player. Jamie Andreas has written repeatedly that anyone with enough *desire* can get the music skills they want. She also says that "natural talent" is merely the tendency to put your hands in the right places at the right times.

So, if someone has less -- or even no -- natural talent, does this mean that he/she cannot acquire that tendency through training? There's no conclusive scientific evidence that consistently shows that training cannot get you the musical skills you want. But there *is* a mass of anecdotal evidence showing that sufficient training of the correct types will build your skills.

Mark Twain wrote, "There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship."

Check out what Troy Stetina says about the importance of desire compared to that of "natural talent." His site is Stetina.com, and his articles about natural talent and motivation are here: http://www.stetina.com/instruction4.html

Much of what you're dealing with is being a bit blinded by your admiration of other players. Sometimes, admiration prevents us from seeing the possibilities in things. How did we come to believe that an apple seed would one day become an apple? Have we witnessed the growth of the seed directly? Probably not, but were are *taught* or *conditioned* to believe that the everyday miracle of an apple being produced from what was once a small, bitter seed is normal and natural.

Do you see the power of conditioning? Can you also recognize that sometimes what we are conditioned to believe is not true or good? Think of the infamous Supreme Court decision made a mere 150 years or so ago, proclaiming that a Negro was 3/5 a human being, or something to that effect.

That's the Supreme Court reacting from and perpetuating, some pretty ineffective conditioning, don't you think? Now, think about how pervasive are attitudes about musical talent. Most people do not make music, do not believe they can understand how to music, and *express* that disbelief, which conditions others who listen to them into believing the same thing. Remember that there was a time when everyone believed the earth was flat.

Consider this also: through conditioning, and a need to learn, you have already been successful in learning the hardest thing your mind will ever have to learn: speaking and understanding spoken and written language. Language is one of the most complex *skills* developed by humans, yet virtually everyone learns how to apply it.

Just imagine what it would be like if you had kept a journal that you had begun writing in at, say, 5 or 6 years old. How skilled would the communication in those scribblings be compared to your present skills in writing? Yet, all that 6-year-old Bob needed was the same thing every language learner needs to become an effective language user: a supportive environment, and desire.

So, the next time you stare in amazement at a guitar player, picture in your mind an apple and apple seed, and 6-year- old Bob writing his first words. All you need is desire and training.

Bob, I didn't mean to harangue you, but I'm on a mission. I've felt the feelings you felt about learning something we both love: playing guitar. And I've replaced those feelings with confidence, because I focused on my desire to play -- and also ways of freeing up the time and other resources I need to build additional skill.

I can appreciate the time and energy constraints involved in working a full-time job while wanting to build guitar skill. At two hours a day, you naturally won't achieve the same *physical* dexterity that someone putting in 6 hours a day would -- at least not in the same time frame. However, two hours a day is nothing to sneeze at: it *is* a substantial chunk of time. If you study the right things, an *understanding* of how music works will come to you quickly.

Within a year, probably much, much less, you can understand how chords go together, how melodies go with chords, and related topics. So, even if you're listening to a blistering Albert Lee solo and knowing your fingers can't hit that speed, your mind will be able to say, "Oh yeah: he's just doing a pentatonic run in E over that. No biggy."

One last thought: I don't mean to push you to learn songs solely by ear, when you want to get playing tunes quickly. Learning by ear can be a time drag at *first* and learning tunes from tab can be a satisfying experience. Think of learning by ear as an investment in deep, future fulfillment. It might be uncomfortable at first, as you come up against the present boundaries of your knowledge of music. However, as you continue *investing* just a bit of time to learn music theory and apply what you know to playing by ear, those boundaries will move back further and further until you finally can see what the composers of your favorite tunes see: structures within structures, on which you build music.

Once again, sorry for going on so long. I hope I've been helpful.

Take care.

Darrin

A bit more playing by ear

We're wrapping up the Playing by Ear series in the next episode. If you've learned nothing more than the belief that you can play by ear, even if you haven't yet taken the time to build this skill that everyone can build, then you're way ahead of where you were.

Click here to go to the next lesson in this series.

Click here for software that can help you play by ear. Use it for 30 days for free.

Guitar Chords (GC) builds your chops and helps you identify the most important chords by ear. GC shows you how to substitute and combine chords; play Jazz, Rock and Blues progressions; transpose songs; put chords to a melody; apply fingerpicking, alternating bass, arpeggios, and much more.

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