Beginner impro How to learn to hear chord quality?

[Colin the Bear]

Sack the bass player.

 

[MikeMorrell]

They ain't all that evil.
One is doable on a good VI, and two are beyond Parker, Brecker and even Rousseau.
Great during lightning storms as opposed to a Rhodes.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_PzG_qbn8U

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co0aKg3EKGg

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLvaEnaVUo

Amazing! I well remember practicing and playing Bach's Cello Suite nr 1 on classical guitar (less well than this performance!). It's such a wonderful piece. I always had the association of a 'waterfall' when playing it, based on the way the notes often just seemed to tumble over each other. I still love this piece, played on any instrument!

 

[Pete Thomas]

What happens to your notes if D is in the bass?

Makes it a D11

 

[Pete Effamy]

Makes it a D11

Yes. So context is everything. Same notes, but a very different prospect with a change of bass note - and that bass note doesn’t have to be a note in that original set of 4 (or more).

E works too, for a start - just sit at a keyboard and try stuff out. You’ll be surprised at what does work.

 

[Pete Effamy]

You can learn “everything “ about harmony from good books, a good teacher or online.

When I was at college 3rd year harmony was taken by a guy who had the knowledge but wasn’t the best at imparting it. Frequently, most of the class were confused.

I understood quite a bit (after the classes) but making shapes with my fingers (noodling around) on the keyboard. When I found a nice sound, I looked at it and worked out what was going on - I learned a lot about harmony this way, even though I was on a formal jazz course.

 

[mizmar]

I think the whole “hearing “ inversions is a classical aural practice

Yeah.
There's a YouTube channel/teacher who focuses on "classical" (late baroque ?) / four voice arrangement, harmonisation etc. .. so vertical chords and these lovely Rules about parallel 5ths etc. And he often has examples where this or that inversion will work while some other inversion won't... And, as Colin says, it's all about the sequence.

 

[Pete Effamy]

Yeah.
There's a YouTube channel/teacher who focuses on "classical" (late baroque ?) / four voice arrangement, harmonisation etc. .. so vertical chords and these lovely Rules about parallel 5ths etc. And he often has examples where this or that inversion will work while some other inversion won't... And, as Colin says, it's all about the sequence.

Yes parallel 5ths and octaves. Unacceptable in Baroque times but beautiful in Impressionism.

 

[wakyct]

Reviving this thread because what a difference a few months makes.

I stopped doing regular ear training practice I think shortly after this thread. However I just started a 10 week in-person ear training class and one of the week one exercises was recognizing chord triad qualities, and now I hear them around 90% of the time.

 

[wakyct]

The ear training class finished last week. I wasn't sure when I signed up if an in-person class would be worthwhile when there are so many online tools, apps, etc., many free, but I found that, apart from just the structure of weekly homework, focused listening with the teacher at the piano and discussion with other students was a really good experience.

For anyone interested these were some of the resources we used in the class:

Recognizing notes:

Note Ear Training

www.musictheory.net

Recognizing notes in melodies (melodic dictation, really difficult!):

Melodic Dictation Ear Training Practice

tonedear.com

Chord identification:

Music Chord Identification Ear Training

tonedear.com

We also did group exercises and homework with solfeggio.

It was interesting being in a group to see how much better some people were with their listening skills. It definitely was motivating and showed a path to improvement.

The class used an app called Harmony Cloud for listening to harmonic progressions, but it's iOS only and I was the only one using Android 🙁. The app looked quite useful though so I've been having a go with making something similar for my own use (a little demo of what I'm working on).

edit: Reading old threads here today I found the great blog Online Ear Training | Jazz Improvisation | Trumpet | IWasDoingAllRight and that site has an amazing ear training tool at Online Ear Training with Intervals, Melodies, Jazz Chord Progressions | IWasDoingAllRight.

 

[ZeroZero]

I would thoroughly recommend EarMaster. This sorted me out. This is an app where you can define such things as what type of exercise you wish, how many notes from a scale, speed of exercise and a lot of other parameters. It keeps a track of our scores and has lots of recommendations. Ear training is SLOW, especially at first, as the ear is not accustomed to identifying the particular qualities of a sound that distinguish it's pitch, but as you work rfegularly on it, you will find it speeds up. EarMaster really helped me. The other thing that should be done at the same time is to be able to count your way through a song, identifying exactly when the changes occur. I use this method: "1234, 2234,3234,4234,5234" etc. The first digit of the group is the bar number and this means your mind indefies exactly where it is. No need to be counting 52, 234 as when you get accustomed to it you simply work in eight bar passages. Counting in this way is now innate in me.
Quick aside a man named John Bennett ( nee Gurdjieff) once decided to make the Lords prayer innate in himself. He repeated it over and over every day for months and then repeated it every minute in a "subconscious way". I did the same thing with timing. Everytime I listen ot a piece of music I would set my left foot tapping and count every bar of the songs. At frist my foot tired and I fumbled, but soon the muscles found it trivial. After a month or so I found that I could identify things like intros, bridges, stops and much more, very easily. After more work I found I could identify any bar's position without counting. I knew I was on bar 13 or bar 25. This goes hand in hard with chord recognition because by taking a casual glance at a lead sheet (or simly by listening) you can tell if a song generally goes by a chord per bar or two chords per bar. Because you know that a chord is about to change, you can then prep your ear to hear if it is minor or major or etc.

 

[wakyct]

The other thing that should be done at the same time is to be able to count your way through a song, identifying exactly when the changes occur.

That's interesting, to be honest I rarely count. Normally I hear the melody in my head and associate the changes with parts of the melody. That said, at this point in my playing (a year and a half in) I almost never think of the actual chords on the leadsheet (I know I have to address this at some point). When I solo I try to play harmonically but I don't know what actual named chord or what exact bar I'm on if that makes sense. But I nearly always play on time and can end my solo at the right point to pass it on to the next soloist. Definitely something I should work on though.

 

[MikeMorrell]

That's interesting, to be honest I rarely count. Normally I hear the melody in my head and associate the changes with parts of the melody. That said, at this point in my playing (a year and a half in) I almost never think of the actual chords on the leadsheet (I know I have to address this at some point). When I solo I try to play harmonically but I don't know what actual named chord or what exact bar I'm on if that makes sense. But I nearly always play on time and can end my solo at the right point to pass it on to the next soloist. Definitely something I should work on though.

Whatever works best for you, I'm truly delighted for you! Just enjoy: IMHO the most important thing about playing sax!

It seems like you're way ahead of me in this respect. So again, congrats!

In my Big Band I play a few solos but - as you say - I can usually pretty much 'play by ear' based on the key signature, the melody, and what I'm hearing around me (backing chords). Our sax sheets sometimes have written-out solos (which I avoid like the plague!) and sometimes chords too. But not always. If in doubt, I can download the piano/guitar sheet music and note the chords on my 'solo bars'. Solos are occasionally more difficult in 'counting' than others. I don't need to count continual 8, 12, 16 or 32 bar solos. But occasionally I need to play the 1st part of a solo over, say 14 bars, then stop playing for 2 bars (while the whole Big Band plays 2 bars) and then start the 2nd part of the solo for 12 or 16 bars. The '2 bar interruption' is not marked up in my sheet music so I need to annotate 'stop' and 'start' and also work out some 'sensible' 14-bar solo (and a pick-up after the 2-bar 'break').

I've once ever played a one-off live 'blind' gig (without any idea what the band would be playing, without any 'lead sheets, etc.). My only guide to what key the next number would be in was by looking closely at the guitarist's chord shapes and transposing (to ♭ on the fly.

My pop/rock band uses an app that shows (only) lyrics and chords + indications for solos, but not who by 😉. We get used to who (usually) fills in which solos but it's often based on a 'nod' (= your turn) from the band leader. The current songs we play are in various (concert) key signatures including A, FLAT]A[/FLAT], Am,♭, Bm, C, Cm, D, Dm, ♭, Em, F, Fm, and Gm,

Each of these +/- 40 songs each have their own individual chord structures, often with major variations on the 'choruses'. TBH, there's no way that I could just immediately 'hit the mark' based solely on what I hear. Yes, I'd get there reasonably quickly (by trial and error). But I do rely on the written 'chord structure' to remind me (or for new tunes to enable me) to provide 'uitable fills', 'accompaniments' and solos that are at least 'in tune'.

The 'music app' that the band uses is pretty basic (lyrics + chords + short text notes). It does have a 'transpose chord' function which is sometimes useful (when, during a rehearsal, band members suddenly decide to play in a different key).

The general advice to me from café members was 'learn to transpose (from concert to ♭' in your head, rather than relying on a 'transposition function' on a phone/tablet. For me, that was great advice! My 'on-the-fly' transpositions from 'concert keys' (guitars, keyboards, bass) to tenor sax has improved enormously during the past 9 months. This experience has also meant that I've (gradually) had to learn to play in many more (transposed) keys than I've ever done playing in BigBands.

 

[wakyct]

It seems like you're way ahead of me in this respect. So again, congrats!

Thank you, but I have to say I doubt that 🙂. The jams I play in are very loose and a far cry from actual arrangements or any need to really play as a unit (of course it would be good to do that!). Hopefully at some point I can join an ensemble and learn that aspect.

edit: I'm reading a profile of the late great James Moody by Bill Milkowski at the moment and there's a great quote,

“It seems like jazz musicians want to live a long time so they can learn how to get through all these changes,” he says. “I’ll never forget when I was 18 years old and I was so frustrated and kept saying, ‘Man, these changes! I gotta get these changes!’ And Dave Burns said to me, ‘You’re going to be 92 years old talkin’ ’bout you wanna get those changes.’ Here I am 78 years old and that’s what I’m still sayin’-I wanna get those changes! It’s a lifetime struggle. For the longest time I didn’t know the changes. I was playing strictly by ear. Now I know the changes, and I’m just trying to get better with them. So I feel like I really haven’t reached my peak yet.