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Your preferred method of deciphering chord progressions?


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As a person with a not-so-great ear for picking out notes, this has always left me wondering. What do YOU GUYS use mainly to figure out the chord progressions of songs you remix? Do you find a ready-made midi and just figure it out from there? Do you hunt for some sheet music that may or may not exist and go along with the chord symbols that like to make their homes there? Or do you pick them out note by note with your ear alone?

Just wondering.

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Well, the way I've always done it seems to work pretty well, so let me explain it:

If you can pick out even just one note from the chord (i.e. any note that sounds significant in the current context of the harmony), then you can find the chord - there are only so many possibilities, and (a) most often you're hearing the bass note (B) after a while you kind of get a sense for the function of a note in a chord just by hearing it.

If two significant-sounding notes are present and easily pick-out-able, even better - and if you've got three or four, well, it's not exactly a problem to figure out the chord from there, is it? In most cases this process will get you to an accurate chord progression quickly (although it can be easy to mistake functional equivalents, especially relative majors/minors).

I guess that's all pretty intuitive for anyone once they've actually worked at it for a bit, but I just wanted to make the point that you don't have to pick out all the notes to form your chord, because it's more of an informed guess-and-check process - so that even if you're not good at picking out notes, you still can figure out chord progressions by yourself, and over time you'll probably get a better sense for what you're hearing.

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The problem with listening to just the bass note is that if you have inverted chords then that's not going to be any more help than picking, say, the top note of the chord. Though, it's not a bad place to start.

Really the best way to train your ear to recognize chords and melodies is to simply practice. The more you spend time at a keyboard or a sequencer, the faster you will recognize different intervals and chords. Taking an ear training course or two can help as well. I'm taking my second ear training course at Drexel right now and my ability to recognize ANY interval (major or minor, up or down) has vastly improved. As far as I'm concerned there's no secret technique besides working at it.

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No doubt practice makes you better.. I can figure out almost any melody now with relative ease. It's just picking out the nuances of a progression. Chords like Csus(13) can be hard to figure out by ear.

Additionally, hard chords don't really matter - they're generally equivalent to more friendly chords, just with added or subtracted notes for "flavor", so if you pick out a note or two, you can still form an equivalent chord that isn't exactly the same but has the same function. Once you've got a basic representation of the chord progression, if you want a more accurate rendition, then you can listen back and see what's different.

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  • 1 month later...

Well, when I made a couple Genesis midis, I used GYM2MID or whataver it's called that converts a .gym file to a totally crappy midi, just to see the notes, chords, and intervals. From there it was much easier to write an accurate midi from scratch.

There's also a converter out there that can convert .spc to .it

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That doesn't work for any chord that is inverted... eg. the second chord in the progression of "Final Fantasy Legend". The bassline goes from an E to a D, while the melody continues to play back and forth between E G# and B. Can't assume the root note determines the chord. You have to look at all the notes and rearrange them.

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That doesn't work for any chord that is inverted... eg. the second chord in the progression of "Final Fantasy Legend". The bassline goes from an E to a D, while the melody continues to play back and forth between E G# and B. Can't assume the root note determines the chord. You have to look at all the notes and rearrange them.

I'm not talking about figuring exact progressions all at once using the root of the first chord. I'm talking about figuring ONE chord, exactly how to play on a piano, one at a time. I've had success using that method, and that's what the poster is asking, what we've had success using. Please don't discount my method just because you personally don't believe in it or use it.

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding your method. To make sure we're being clear, using your method, how would you approach analyzing the chord progression of the Final Fantasy Legend main theme? The mp3 is here. Take me through step by step.

http://www.soundtempest.net/FFLTheme.mp3

Keep in mind I'm not trying to discount you simply because I feel like it, or because your opinion isn't my opinion. I just don't want a method to be used that doesn't actually work in all cases, or one that will give you incorrect information when used. That is obviously bad. And of course, I wouldn't be posting a response at all if I didn't think there was the possibility that I might be mistaken and that I might have misunderstood you.

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I just listen for the root note of the chord. After you know that, and figure what key the song is in, it's VERY easy to build the chords after that.

Or you can use midis. That's easier.

That is not always true, especially when you get into stuff that's maybe a bit jazzier.

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