Learn to identify chords by ear by numbering them as scale degrees, then mapping each chord tone to its position in the octave. Recognize the top note of each chord to infer function and hear progressions like 1→5 or 5→6, even without hearing the root.
Yo, what's good if you know a lot of songs but you still can't figure them out by ear? This is why. All right, we're gonna take a very simple song. This is, like, the first thing that came to my head. We're gonna take, like. Let's say, you know a song. The chords are G, D, E minor, C. Like Adele. That Adele song. Someone like you. I don't know this is the right key. It doesn't really matter. It's like, never mind. I. Never mind. I'll find someone like you. And you're just playing. You're like, y. Yeah. G, D, E minor, C, D, E minor, C. Let's take the levels of awareness up. So first of all, if you're just like. I don't think most of you guys are at, like, the point where you're just like, my fingers go here, and I don't know what I'm playing. Most of you are aware that it's like G, but it's like, first of all, know the damn key of the song. So in this case, the. The G is the one chord. So this is a one. And if we go. If the next chord. If next is D, we can crawl up the scale G1. A is 2, B is 3, C is 4, D is 5. Okay, so that's a 1. And then my D chord is 5. If D is 5, E is 1 higher than 5. So E minor must be 6. Okay, good. That also tells me that sixth chord is a minor chord. And then If D was 5, and now I have to go to C, that means C is 4. Okay, 4. Okay, so that's a 1, 5, 6, and 4. So if you're not numbering every single chord that you play, you're, like, way behind. But once, let's say you're like, okay, yeah, I get it. Like, I understand 1, 5, 6, 4. But, like, I still can't learn by ear. Let's talk about why. That's because you're not aware of the components of each of these chords as they relate to the tonal octave. So I'm sure that most of you guys are like, yes, I get it. Like, a chord is like, the root, third and fifth of that of that, you know? So it's like. It's like the 1, 3, 5 of whatever the chord is. That is true. But I want you to take it another level. So if our one chord is 1, 3, 5. First of all, if you want to really be Navy SEAL about it, you should be able to name all of these notes. That you're playing. So, like 1, 3, 5, 1, 5, 1. But then this is when it really gets interesting. When we go to our five chord, it's not just root, fifth, root, third. No, baby, it's five, two, five, or, excuse me, five, two, five, seven. You need to understand what is every note in every chord as it relates to the tonal octave, right? So if the 1 is 1, 3, 5, the 5 is not the correct order on the fretboard, but it's 5, 7, 2. That's what the V chord is. The 6 would be 6, 1, 3, all as they relate to the octave. And then 4, 4 would be 4, 6, 1. These are all the triads. Why is this important? And how does this relate to learning songs by ear? Well, if you noticed only one out of those four chords that I just named had note seven in it, do you know which one it is? It's not one. One is one, three, five. It's not four. Four is four, six, one. It's not six. Six is six, one, three. It's five. It's five, seven, two. Right? And so if you can understand, that one is your top note. And then you hear the next chord go to 7, and it has the Note 7 in it. Even if you don't. Even if you can't hear that buzz the root, as long as you can hear that motion of, you know, instantly, oh, that must be. That must be one to five. Because I just heard two major chords, and then I heard that one to seven move. And then the next one, it's like, okay, well, I heard a minor chord with this note six on top, so that's most likely six. And then I heard a major chord. Oh, wait, it's a major chord, but it still has the six in. Has to be four, right? Because the one chord doesn't have six in it. It's just one, three, five. And the five chord doesn't have six in it. It's five, seven, two. So it has to be one, and I hear the seven. Oh, that has to be five. Oh, I hear a minor chord. Okay, that's six. And I hear a major chord with six. So it has to be four. And so it can help you develop an appetite for this. Additionally, something I would encourage you guys to do is after you have something like this, if you have a song with four chords, start reordering them and just seeing what you find, you know, 1, 5, 6, and 4 is the baseline of, like, so many thousands of songs. Guys, I'm not kidding when I say thousands. It might be ten thousands. You know, what if we did four, one, five, and you might find new sounds songs there. You know what I'm saying? What does that remind me of? Why can't I remember? Oh, you know. You know what song this is? We're. We're going up. Oh, no, no. 4, 1, 5, 6. Isn't interesting how that works. So, yes. Know what you're doing. You're gonna notice a lot of these videos are kind of saying the same thing. Know what the hell you're doing, put a number on it, and understand everything as it relates to the key to the tonal octave. Cool. So if you want to start this journey of actually understanding this in a methodical way, and you're tired and ready to stop learning songs by tabs and just random YouTube tutorials, you want to be able to just pick them up yourself, go to the link in the description I got you. There's free stuff in there. It'll help you go from zero to a methodical approach to how to get this. If you want to go further, there's also information on my coaching program. Leave more video requests in the comments. Scadios.
