Chord Progressions Help Thread

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Chord Progressions Help Thread

Postby Sonarch » 21 May 2013 17:10

Alright, I don't know about the rest of you, but i'm no good at figuring out chord progressions in songs. I was wondering how you all did it, if you do. And maybe this could also be a thread for people to ask for help with chords in specific songs that they can't figure out.

For example, I was trying to figure out the chords for Winter by Jackle App, and I thought it was F C D D, but i'm doubting myself because it only really sounds like it's right when I sing one particular part. Can anyone help me on this? I'm not sure if the chords are wrong or if my voice doesn't work very well with the original key.
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Re: Chord Progressions Help Thread

Postby JSynth » 21 May 2013 19:51

Ear Training.

If you want to figure out the chords for a song, ear training can go a very long way. Find a good relative pitch ear training course and work with that. (Or you could train for perfect pitch, but there is only one real course out there for that.) I will warn you ahead of time, ear training is a bitch. It take a lot of time and hard work to fully develop your ear.


In the mean time, sit down with your prime instrument and play it along with the song. Listen to the bass line in the song and figure out the notes. Most of the time, the chords in contemporary music are in root position, so the bass will name the chord for you. After that its simply a matter of major or minor chords, which mostly boils down into knowing your scales.
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Re: Chord Progressions Help Thread

Postby ChocolateChicken » 22 May 2013 01:46

First figuring out what key the song is in and what scale it is using can eliminate a lot of the work and makes finding chords easier through process of elimination. Also determining what notes the bass is playing can help too, but bass doesn't always play the root note of the chord.

Whenever I learn songs on the piano or guitar, finding the scale and key is pretty much the thing that helps me the most. When you think a chord isn't quite working out for you, play every individual note in isolation along with the song to see if it matches the song. This is a good way to identify notes that don't belong as well.

The tricky part is when there are key changes in the chord sequence.
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Re: Chord Progressions Help Thread

Postby S.P.P » 22 May 2013 06:22

I find the easiest thing to so is break it down. Like really break it down. Start with the root rote. Once you've found that, start working on the other notes around it. When you feel you have all the notes used, then you can find out what chord it is based on them. Move onto the next chord, rinse, repeat.

The other way is to find the key of the song. It's usually then fairly easy to determine the chords used providing you know your scales (or have charts or something). The challenge here is when suspended or diminished chords are used - in which case I tend to revert to method one a little.
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Re: Chord Progressions Help Thread

Postby Acsii » 23 May 2013 17:34

JSynth wrote:Ear Training.

This.
I kinda just play chords together until I get a full chord progression that sounds right. Also a note a lot of my chords are in the Minor pentatonic Scale for some reason
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