Chord Ear Training How-To: Chord Progressions
Learning to play chords by ear and improvise freely over chords are essential ear training goals for many musicians. Chord ear training is a big topic but can be broken into two main skills: recognising chord types and identifying chord progressions. In this article...
Chord Ear Training: What is it and What can it do for you?
Chords are a fundamental part of music.Musicians consider melody, harmony and rhythm to be the three core components of any piece of music. Chords are how we tend to think about harmony. Why are chords important to musicians? Take all the notes playing at any given...
Why You Should Learn To Play By Ear FIRST
Playing by ear is not an advanced technique, or a gift you must be born with. It’s actually a simple learnable skill you can start doing today. Learn how.
Why you should learn the I-IV-V chord progression
Discover the formula used by many pop, alternative, indie, country, hymns, gospel, blues, rock, reggae, and more, which lets you play those songs by ear.
Playing by Ear, with Brad Mavin: 1-4-5 Chord Progressions
Want to play songs by ear? This video series shows you how, step-by-step. In the last episode Brad Mavin explained the Cycle of Keys (a.k.a. Circle of Fifths, Cycle of Fifths) and now he’ll extend that concept to “1-4-5” chord progressions, the...
The Sexy Secret of "One, Four, Five" (Lisa McCormick)
Being able to play by ear is one of the most desirable skills among musicians. But many people assume it’s a gift: you’ve either got it or you don’t. In this series so far I hope we’ve convinced you otherwise. You can learn to play by ear!...
Don’t get stuck writing ‘four-chord songs’
If you write songs, you’ve probably been faced with the troubling ‘blank page’ syndrome when choosing chords. Learn how to get unstuck and write better songs.
Meet vi, the sad twin of the chord family
Are you looking to play pop songs by ear or improve your music transcription skills? Want to spice up your song-writing? Have you heard of a ‘four chord song’ and wondered what that means? My recent articles have explained the 3 chords every musician...
How to learn from thousands of 3 chord songs
There are a huge number of songs which rely on just 3 chords. These songs are great for beginner musicians and are also the perfect tool to train your ears.
The 3 chords every musician should know
There are three chords used more than any other, in every genre and era of music. Find out what they are and how to recognise them by ear in this tutorial.
