Authors: Erich Andreas
The
payoff for this learned skill is HUGE
so don’t
give up, okay? The only thing that we are trying to do
right now is hear, NOT play. Rushing this process WILL slow you down and
hinder the “strengthening of your ear”. If you feel you can’t hear it
correctly, try a smaller section of music, or use headphones or turn it up.
Do something logical to get it “in your ears”. Once you feel sure
that you are hearing the passage correctly, proceed to step two. (If you
are having difficulties, keep pressing on. It’s in EVERYONE to have this
ability. Be patient with yourself and take it from someone who used to
have a TERRIBLE ear…YOU CAN DO THIS!!!)
2.
Hum the vocal melody-line, bass-line (or some
other part of the song you are trying to decipher). Once I feel I can
“hear” the music selection, I attempt to hum it. This is a learned skill!
I say this because some say that it is a gift (which is TOTALLY false and
assumes a LOT of things). However, you will find that the more you
practice, the better you get.
Coincidence?
Now the fun part! This can be a bit tricky if you are not used to
humming or singing. The trick is to commit to the note that you are
humming until you can successfully find it on your guitar. Take the first
note of the series of notes and hum it – LOUD AND PROUD! That first note
is crucial. If you are not convinced that you have the note, slide (sing
it up and down in pitch) until you get it. Be
aware/focused
and limit distractions, especially other noises.
NOW
that you have hummed the note correctly…
3.
Find the note on the fret board.
How? Go fish! Yup, just play a note on the fret
board, preferably in a place on the neck you think is logical. You
probably won’t be WAY up on the neck unless it’s a high melody. If you
don’t luck out and get the note right off the bat, determine if the note that
you are humming is higher or lower than the note being played. ATTENTION:
This is the most important part of the puzzle with the exception of hearing the
note correctly in step 1. You MUST determine the “highness” or “lowness”
of the two pitches. This is where most people bail out, and try going
back a step or going forward a step. Don’t do it! It will only slow
you down. This is the normal process for everyone in some capacity or
another. Once you have determined that the played note is higher or lower
than the hummed note, move your played note in the direction of your hummed
note BY HALF STEPS (1
fret
at a time). For
example, if your hummed note is higher than your played note on the guitar,
then you would move your played note UP by half steps slowly until the note is
in unison (the same). For beginners, try moving up in half steps on 1
string. If you are not trained, changing strings will only confuse you.
If you don’t find that first benchmark note, the other notes
will be much harder to find, so don’t skip any steps in this process. It
seems tedious, but the more you do this the quicker you’ll get. Whether
you are really slow at this in the beginning or get REALLY quick over time, the
process is the same. Like a speed-typist, the speed comes from
methodically doing the correct steps EVERY time, not randomly doing some steps
and hoping for a good outcome. That’s called “
dum
”
and that’s not you. Yeah, I know I spelled it without the “b.” Just
making sure you are paying attention! And without the “b” it's EXTRA
stupid. Gotcha again!
4.
Find more notes on the fret board.
So once you get that first note, half the battle is done.
Use the same method above to find the other notes. Another great
practice is to take small “chunks” of music at a time. Like eating a
meal, you don’t take more than you can chew or swallow, so don’t do that with
musical passages, okay?
5.
Determine the key.
The combination of whole steps and half steps will determine
where your tonic or “1” is. Now, assuming you have a few notes that you
have successfully “found” on the fret board due to your stellar humming skills,
what do you do with them? Well, we are looking for a pattern,
specifically the major scale. If you remember, the major scale pattern is
WWHWWWH (whole-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step, whole-step,
half-step) or (1 W 2 W 3 H 4 W 5 W 6 W 7 H 1) - where the numbers are the scale
steps. A half-step remember, is the distance between one fret and the
next. A whole-step is two half-steps.
SO, let’s say the 3 notes that you have found show a pattern
of WWH. DEAR WATSON, a clue…or three to be exact!! Here is where that WWH
falls into our little major scale pattern from above: 1 W 2 W 3 H 4 W 5 W 6 W 7
H
Get it? So, in our example, there are
two places
that that pattern falls, so we are closer, but no cigar just yet. You are
the detective and are looking for clues as to what key we are in. The
song has the “fingerprints and DNA” of the key we are looking for, ALL OVER IT,
but we have to look carefully, and jumping to conclusions could give us wrong
answers. We need to get more notes from the song to determine where the
“1” from the scale is. Let’s say after further listening, humming and
translating our hummed notes to the guitar, we find that the pattern now has a
W before the initial WWH to create WWWH. Voila!! NOW, we are
getting somewhere! Now we have WWWH and notice how there is only one of
those in the following pattern: 1 W 2 W 3 H 4 W 5 W 6 W 7 H 1. That means
that the note at the end of the WWWH would be the 1, tonic or key of the song.
That is HUGE to know and I will show you why.
Once we have determined the key, we have a matrix of very
possible chords and notes that will coincide with that particular key (the
Nashville Number System chord matrix and major scale are examples of this).
So for example, let’s say after using the above method and determining
that our song is in the key of C. Our chord “subset” or family of chords
would MOST LIKELY be: C, D-, E-, F, G, A- and B dim (diminished). I say
most likely, because it’s not always the case, BUT it’s a great place to start.
Your ear will most likely tell you if a chord is different from that
“rule of thumb” set of chords. So now that we know that these are the
most probable chords that we should expect to see in our example song, we are
not just grabbing chords randomly. Often times, that 7 chord WON’T be
diminished, but will be a “flat 7” chord. So in the key of C, the B
diminished would be a Bb Major. See what we did there? We flattened
the B by one half-step, making it a Bb. Then we built a major chord off
that Bb. Remember the “flat 7” chord. You will see it A LOT in pop,
rock and country music.
As a side thought
, when I am teaching my one-on-one
students a song, I almost always pull up the video online. Often times,
videos will show the artist as they are playing their guitars. Since the guitar
is so versatile, the same melody or chord progression might have 3 or 4
possible solutions (ways to play it) on the neck. So it’s helpful to
notice where or if a capo is used, or where on the neck the guitarist is
playing. This will all make more sense to you as you gradually learn this
process.
6.
Hum the bass notes to find your chord progression.
Using the above methods, once I have determined the key and
have the subset of probable chords and notes, I listen to the bass notes.
When I refer to the bass notes, I mean those notes that are played by the
bass player or are in the lowest register of the composition. Basically,
I am listening to the lowest notes (in pitch). 9 times out of 10, the
bass notes will tell you what the letter name of the chord is. Now mind
you, there are many different methods people use to transcribe music by ear.
The way that I’m showing you is one way, and for me is the easiest and
most logical way. As you sharpen your own aural-awareness, you will most
likely develop your own techniques and habits that are unique to you.
Let’s say for our example, that we hear the bass line play a C for 4
beats, a G for 4 beats, an A for 4 beats and an F for 4 beats. Remember
our melody determined that we were in the key of C and that the associated
chords for that key are C, D-, E-, F, G, A- and B dim (diminished).
Remember that the bass note is only one note of the chord and does not
determine the “flavor” of the chord like major, minor, diminished, 7th etc.
So the four bass notes that we found, C, G,
A and
F would most likely represent chords C major, G major, A minor and F major.
Could it be that the chords that are actually played in the song are
different than that? Sure, but most likely not. They usually fit
the matrix of the key that we are in.
The method that I just showed you was how I taught myself
how to transcribe songs. For those of you just starting out, I would
suggest going through each step. If you are finding success skipping some
of these steps, then more power to you! However,
if you are having
difficulty
, do them all. This is an incredible skill to develop and
will SERIOUSLY revolutionize
your
playing. All
of my students are different. Each comes with a unique skill set and way
of learning. Now, when I sit down to transcribe a song for a student, I
will usually jump straight to step 6 where I am humming the bass notes.
From doing this process so much, I can usually determine what the tonic
of the song is right away. Finding my bass notes tells me my chord
progression and also tells me where I might put my capo to simplify the song.
Again, let me remind you that this is a learned skill.
I hate even saying that one person might be naturally better at this than
another because I don’t want to give you an excuse to not learn this skill.
It can be frustrating at first but if you are persistent, the rewards are
great and every time you find a new note and new chord it’s like finding a piece
of gold. It’s always helpful to start with a song that you are very
familiar with and that you love. It will make this whole process a lot
easier and more enjoyable.
Also, remember, regarding guitar and anything associated
with art in general, there is no perfect way. It’s all subjective and
open to interpretation. I’m not saying that there are not definite notes
or chords represented in the song, but that your method for determining those
may be different than someone else’s. Always be open to learning.
In this way, you will always be increasing in skill and not grow
stagnant.
As defined in the
Diatonic Harmony
chapter, a chord
is 3 or more notes played at the same time. Let me add a bit more detail
for the real world. The most basic type of chord is a 3 note chord,
called a triad. Usually, those three notes are different notes.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming this means how many fingers are
holding down notes for your chord. For example, an E minor chord only
utilizes 2 fingers while still sounding 3 or more notes. I happen to run
into this a lot with new students, which is why I mention it.
With every chord there is a root. The root is the
letter name of the chord (i.e.-A, B, C#), and the one note on which the rest of
the chord is built upon. For instance, C major and A major have the same
formula – which categorizes both as major chords - but since that formula is
calculated from 2 different roots (A and C), then 2 different chords are
produced.
In this section, we will discuss the 4 basic triad types
(major, minor, diminished, and augmented). All chords are analyzed and
named according to the notes (or better yet, the intervals) that they contain.
An interval is the distance between 2 notes. These notes, or
interval distances, are all derived from the major scale. In order to
build or embellish chords from scratch, one must have a good working knowledge
of the major scale, it’s formula of whole-step, whole-step, half-step,
whole-step, whole-step, whole-step, half-step (WWHWWWH) and the scale step
names (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or one). Also, remember that when we
sharpen (#) a note, we raise it one 1/2 step, and when we flatten (b) a note,
we lower it one 1/2 step.
Please note the following formulas, as you will need
them as we continue
.
Major chord (1, 3,
5
):
a major
chord consists of the 1st, 3rd and 5th scale steps of the major scale.
The distance between the 1st and 3rd notes is 2 whole-steps. The
distance between the 3rd and 5th notes is 1 and 1/2
steps
.
Minor chord (1, b3, 5):
a minor chord consists of the
1st, flat 3rd and 5th scale steps of the major scale. The distance
between the 1st and 3rd notes is 1 and 1/2
steps
.
The distance between the 3rd and 5th notes is 2 whole-steps. This
means that any major chord you know can easily be converted to a minor chord by
flatting the 3rd, or lowering it by a half-step (1
fret
).
If you already know your E major and E minor chords, notice that the only
thing that changes between the 2 chords is the 1st finger. When that 1st
finger is pressed down (on the 1st fret of the 3rd string), it’s sounding the
3rd of the scale. When the finger is released the string is played open
and the flatted 3rd is sounded.
Another example is the A major and A minor chord.
Notice the difference between the 2 chords. There is only 1 note
that changes between the 2 and that takes place on the 2nd string when the C#
is flattened by a half-step making the note a C which changes the chord from
major to minor.
Since there is only 1 note that changes
from both chord examples that we just used (E minor and A minor), we can assume
that all the other notes are ones and fives.