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Thank you for this. It interests me because I don't think I have a very musical ear, even though it has improved a lot over 45 years.
"To improvise you need to hear how the seven notes of the major scale sound against the I, IV & V chords. "
How would one use the ability to hear notes over chords to improvise?
"the I chord contains 1 3 5 Do Mi So
the IV chord contains 1 4 6 Do Fa La
the V chord contains 2 5 7 Re So Ti "
I have always thought of major chords in terms of 1,3,5 of their own scale. e.g, the IV chord, C as CEG or the 1,3,5 of the C scale. Is this a bad practice?
quote:
Originally posted by FathandThank you for this. It interests me because I don't think I have a very musical ear, even though it has improved a lot over 45 years.
"To improvise you need to hear how the seven notes of the major scale sound against the I, IV & V chords. "
How would one use the ability to hear notes over chords to improvise?
"the I chord contains 1 3 5 Do Mi So
the IV chord contains 1 4 6 Do Fa La
the V chord contains 2 5 7 Re So Ti "I have always thought of major chords in terms of 1,3,5 of their own scale. e.g, the IV chord, C as CEG or the 1,3,5 of the C scale. Is this a bad practice?
That's pretty much the standard way to generate chords, Fathand; nothing wrong with that in the abstract. But it looks to me like mmuussiiccaall is interested in looking at how you can use the scale of the key you're in to target the notes of the I, IV, and V chords. That makes practical sense when you're in the middle of playing a tune. You're both looking at the same thing from slightly different perspectives.
I have a terrible "ear", though it has improved slightly over time. I tried Hatfied's ear training materials and didn't make much progress, but that's on me. One of the things I did learn was that it was easier to pick out the chord changes if I hummed along (one could sing of course), as that gave me a "physical" cue as well as the aural one.
What helped me more than anything in hearing chords and chord changes was going to jams, listening, watching the rhythm guitar picker and changing chords when he/she did. Eventually I began to "feel" a change coming up, although I might not be sure what it was. After a lot of jams, I could figure out the chord changes with little difficult except when there were a lot of "off" chords and even that eventually worked itself out.
For some time, couldn't tell you whether I was playing a G or D or A NOTE, but I could tell you if it sounded right in a song, eventually my fingers and brain knew where to find those notes when picking a song. Note to beginners: this took several years, didn't happen overnight.
quote:
Originally posted by mmuussiiccaallIf you’re on the correct chord at the time, you have a 50-50 chance of hitting the new correct chord as long as you can hear that they’ve changed chords,ha, ha
You're right, it's just about that simple if you stick with the traditional type bluegrass songs. Most only have 3 chords with maybe an odd one thrown in.