Secret to find chords?

[NewWave]

You know.. I've been listening to some 50s song which are played a little different than songs that I've been listening to before. I can play the song (with the vocals too) melodically (notes) but just can't find the chords of the rhytm. All I Have to Do Is Dream for example. Is there any secret to do it?

[FretFire]

Re: Secret to find chords?

If you've found the melody, you can probably figure out what key it's in pretty easily. That cuts down your chord options pretty significantly .

EDIT: Listening to the first verse of "All I Have To Do Is Dream", it sounds like I-vi-IV-V in E. That'd be E, C#m, A, B.

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Secret to find chords?

Here you go.






Tongue placed firmly in cheek.

[kilphody]

Re: Secret to find chords?

3 notes.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Secret to find chords?

extensions, inversions, substitutions....basically all the stuff that all musicians worth their salt used to know before television made image and fashion sense more important to performers and the audience than harmony and melody.

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Secret to find chords?

Knowing your chords helps a lot, especially when trying to pick out older songs that either used full chords or used the "bottom half" of major chords.

Check YouTube for clips as well, especially if the artist in question was on TV (Joe Pass, et al) so you get some idea of the chord forms and positions.

[ItsaBass]

Re: Secret to find chords?

No ''secret.'' It takes a combination of a natural ear, and a learned understanding of melody, harmony, chord structure, and common patterns used in music (a.k.a. ''theory'').

For instance, on the bridges in that song, when you hear that chords are going IV to III and then II, you know that the III and II are minor, because you don't hear any accidentals (''out of key'' notes) in the chords. However, when the bridge wraps around to end on the V (which your ear quickly recognizes, as it is an extremely common way to end a section of a song), it passes through the II again. But this time you hear the telltale b5 accidental coming from the guitar and piano, telling you that the chord is major...and the tonic in the vocal harmony, telling you it's also a 7th chord. (The major third of a II chord is the flatted fifth of the key, and a tonic is the flatted 7th of the II.) This might sound weird until you realize that using a major II before a V in a major key is incredibly common, at least as far back as some baroque music I've heard, and probably even farther.

You wouldn't really consciously think it through like that forever, though. This is just a drawn out way of explaining the instant and almost unconscious listening/computing process that goes on in the brain of a practiced musician figuring out a song.

[RorySquier]

Re: Secret to find chords?

My main instrument is guitar, but for some reason, I can pick up a tune much better when I play bass guitar. On bass, I can easily figure out the chord progressions to a song because I only have to worry about one note at a time instead of playing full chords on a regular guitar.