We’re delighted to announce the release of our new chord progressions ear training album: Popular Progressions!
More than any other reason, wanting to play chords by ear is what brings musicians to ear training. Our students regularly ask us for more training tools and resources to help them learn to recognise progressions. That’s why we recently added a progressions section to the ear training exercises page, and it’s why we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to create this new Popular Progressions album.
We called on composer Sabrina Peña Young to create some all-new tracks to demonstrate the most commonly used chord progressions in the most familiar musical styles, and then worked with our wonderful team of beta testers to help us make sure the tracks really teach the chord recognition skills effectively.
The album uses the Unravelling Music method pioneered by our Introducing Intervals album, which lets you learn essential listening skills – just by listening to music!
How It Works
Unravelling Music is a simple 3-step method for learning musical listening skills:
and read some short and simple explanations of the musical concepts in each.
which demonstrate what you should be listening for in each one.
and begin to hear more, and understand what you’re hearing.
Once you’ve understood what each track is teaching, you can just listen to these tracks from time to time to reinforce the listening skills.
Listen to Popular Progressions
Popular Progressions features 5 original tracks which help you learn to hear common chord progressions in real use. Listen to a quick clip from each of the tracks:
Full album preview
- Summer School Rock: 1950s Rock’n’Roll
- Pleasant Morning: Traditional Waltz
- Baby Blues: Classic 12-Bar Blues
- Beautiful World: New Age
- Home Grits: American Country Rock
These tracks were written to be as similar as possible to the real songs you hear every day. Why? Because it means that you can immediately start applying the listening skills you’ll learn to real music.
Each track comes with a number of excerpt clips which highlight exactly what you should be listening out for to help you recognise the chord progressions by ear. The progressions have been chosen to take advantage of the “80/20 rule of chord progressions” to let you learn more, faster.
In fact, with just the progressions taught in this album you’ll be able to play thousands of real songs by ear. Sounds like an exaggeration? Read all about 3-chord songs and discover the powerful musical formula behind it all. In fact, our 3-Chord Songs and the 4-Chord Trick book is such a good match for this new album, we’re offering a special bundle deal when you buy both together!
If you want to play thousands of modern songs by ear, Popular Progressions can teach you the vital listening skills you need, bringing them to life using real music that you’ll want to listen to again and again.
