How to recognise chord progressions by ear

this video is sponsored by hook Theory being able to work out the chords of a song by ear is an incredibly valuable skill and it's also something that pretty much any musician can learn now although some musicians have the special gift of what's called Perfect Pitch when they hear a chord they literally can hear oh that's a c chord what we're trying to learn is actually called relative pitch it's a similar skill but instead of hearing the absolute note the absolute chord oh that's C with relative pitch we're trying to hear oh that is the one chord that is the chord built on the first degree of the scale really when we hear a chord progression we're not necessarily hearing c f g we're hearing the relationship between those chords 1 4 and five for example 1 4 5 1 has the same effect in sound regardless of key so that was in C but I could go 145 1 again in the key of D you can hear that it's the same Melody the same chords the same effect just slightly higher so in this video we're going to go through all of the different chords we could encounter in the major key and get an idea in our head of what they sound like what they feel like when we hear them in context also stick around to the end where I'm going to play you some chord progressions and you'll have to identify them by ear so let's begin with the one chord what we could call the tonic the one chord has the quality of sounding completely resolved and finished what you're listening out for when you're looking for a tonic chord is could it go anywhere else is it actually completely at rest if it is completely at rest you're probably listening to the one the tonic of course there's loads of examples of tonic chord that you could go with as a sort of arle typo version of the one chord but I like this one the end of Imagine by John Lennon you just can't imagine it being any more complete it just sounds fully finished and that is the sound of the one [Music] chord so that's the one chord where everything sounds fully complete and at rest now let's look at the five chord which is basically the opposite the five chord the fifth chord of the key which we can refer to as the dominant has the most amount of tension in the key really it really really wants to move back to the one now of course there's loads of instances of the five chord being used in famous songs which we could use as an archetype but I think my favorite is from Twist and Shout which is in the key of D so the five chord is the fifth degree of D which is a and there is that famous section in Twist and Shout where we're effectively building on that five chord building up all the tension and we can feel it's really wanting to resolve back two the one chord that's the characteristic of the five it wants to [Music] resolve the next chord we're going to look at is the four chord the fourth chord of the key so in the key of C that would be F now the quality of the four chord is like a subdued version of the five chord so the five chord really wants to go back home but the four chord it's more it's it's planning on going home at some point but it it will take its time so we get that we do get a sense of release and relief when we go from four to one but not as much as five to one so if you hear a chord that sort of sounds reasonably at rest but wants to go somewhere eventually you're probably dealing with the four chord now a great example of a song largely based on a move from one to four back and forth is Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed which is in the key of C and is largely based on a move just from one to four does go somewhere else later on but it's a great example of just the fact that the four chord has momentum it wants to go somewhere but it can chill out and take its time Take a Walk on the Wild [Music] Side so the next chord we're going to look at is the six the sixth chord of the key now the quality of this chord is almost like a different version of the tonic chord an alternative place to find rest and resolution so with the one the tonic chord we have that sense of we are fully at rest and resolved with the sixth chord you can sort of imagine the song could end there it would sort of be a darker ending a minor ending now a great example of the sixth chord of the key is in the iconic song Stand By Me by Benny King which is in the key of A starts on the chord A and then climbs down to the sixth chord of the key no I won't be afraid oh I won't be afraid next we're looking at the second chord of the key so in the key of C that would be the chord D Minor the second chord of the key is always Minor by default that's the chord we get when we build a chord on the second degree of the scale now the two chord is almost like an alternative version of the four chord in the key they have a similar feel it's it's kind of like the two is the sort of minor feeling version of the four chord so in the key of C the chord f is four and remember with the four chord we get a sort of a sense of wanting to resolve but it's in no hurry and that's similar with the two chord it wants to resolve eventually but it can take its time now a great example of this chord is the song Time After Time by Cindy laper where in the verse we're going back and forth from 2 to 1 and it's in the key of C so we're going D Minor C D Minor C so we keep getting that resolution from D Minor to see in my B hear the clock think of you next on the list is the third chord of the key E minor in the key of C so here's C our one chord and here's E minor our third chord of the key which just like the two chord that we just looked at by default is a minor chord so we have E minor here going back to C the one chord now the third chord of the key has this sort of mixed sound it's not necessarily at rest but also not NE necessarily tense it's kind of a per perfect balance between the two you tell here this is the one chord and when we go to the E minor we could get a nice sense of resolution by going back to one so in that sense the three is kind of tense but we could also just stay on the three and you could imagine the song ending here it would be a slightly less satisfying ending but it would be an ending all the same so that's the quality of the three chord it has like a a mix of both tension but also rest it's sort of balancing on the edge in the middle and a great example of this chord which is in the key of C just like we are here is the verse of Space Oddity by David Boe and E minor there you are that's the three chord space odity is going from one to C and then the three chord E minor round control to [Music] ma ground control [Music] to being able to work out the chords of a song just by hearing it is an incredibly useful skill for any musician training your ear to recognize chords just by listening can seem like a really daunting task but the more you practice it the easier it gets and a great tool to make your ear training practice both both fun and structured is Chord crush the ear training tool from Hook Theory chord Crush teaches you how to recognize chords by ear through interactive puzzles that increase in difficulty as you learn there are various different modes by which you can practice you can drill into specific chords and cord patterns or test your skills on audio clips taken from real songs for a limited time enjoy 20% off select hook Theory products including a yearly cord Crush premium subscription by using my unique Link in the description so the six chords we've looked at so far are the chords that are diatonically found in a major key they're the chords that we don't have to go outside of the key to create and because of that they are by far the most common chords that you will encounter but of course most songs don't stay just in the major key they will venture outside of it and introduce notes that aren't technically within the scale and a really common cord that you will find in a lot of songs is the flat seven chord the chord built on the flattened seven degree of the scale so for example if we were in the key of E major usually the 7th degree would be D sharp but we're going to have a chord that's built on the flattened version of that note the lower version D natural instead so the flat 7even chord is the chord built on D natural in the key of E flat 7 1 and from just that move alone you might be able to recognize the song that I'm going to give you as a sort of reference which is Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds not only does that song open with that move from Flat 7 to one but in the chorus we also get move from 1 E down to Flat 7 so it's really across that song and it's a great example of this chord because this flat 7even chord to me at least has a very sort of open sound it sounds quite Epic Pi kind of the moment we hit that chord this is the one e and the moment we hit that flat 7 it's almost like the Horizon has suddenly come open to us it's opened a new dimension in the [Music] song another really common chord to encounter that's not technically in the key is the flat three chord so in the key of C major usually the third degree of the scale is e natural so the flat three the chord we're talking about now is the chord built on the flattened version of that third degree E flat so the chord E flat in the key of C and I think the chord flat 3 has a sort of almost like bluesy Edge to it and that kind of makes sense really because the blues is all about mixing major and minor together and right here here we're in a major Key C major but we're using a chord built on the minor third degree of that key so we're sort of getting that major minor mix that is so indicative of the blues sound now the example I'm going to give you for this chord is Love Shack by The B-52s which in the chorus climbs up from C to E flat the three chord it then climbs on to four and flat six but we just need to focus on the first two chords in that [Music] movement so just then with love shack I briefly mentioned another chromatic chord which is the flat six chord so for example in the chord of d d is R1 the flat six would be the chord B flat there's D there's B flat so usually in D the sixth note would be B natural here we're using B flat now the example I'm going to give you for this chord is the opening of the song Poison by Alice Cooper which starts on a D major chord but then moves to B flat and we suddenly feel this sense of whoa we've moved to a new space here in the tonality and that makes sense right because B flat isn't in the key so the moment we land on that chord we're sort of taking a a unusual turn left turn in the [Music] [Music] key the next chord we're going to look at is quite an unusual chord a chord that doesn't come up that often but it's a very distinctive sound and it's the chord built on the second degree of the scale but flattened so for example in the key of F sharp we usually have the second degree as G Shar G Shar would usually be the second degree but here we're talking about the flat two chord so we want the chord g in the key of FP and this has a very typically exotic sound almost sort of Arabesque sound and that sound really comes through in one of the most famous examples of this chord a song that is actually effectively named after this exotic Arabesque sound and that is Pyramid Song by radio head which starts on F Shar and then moves up to G major technically it's a G major 7 but we're still getting that same quality of one to Flat [Music] two the next chord we looking at is perhaps the rarest chord you will ever encounter in the major key so this is one where you don't really need to worry too much about being able to identify it but if you need to find a rare cord a good place to go is radio head so we're going to stick with a radio head example here the chord I'm talking about is the chord built on the flattened fifth Dee of the scale or the sharpened fourth degree it doesn't really matter how you think about it so in the key of C for example that would be the chord F Shar major in the key of C F Shar major if you're thinking sharp 4 or g flat major if you're thinking flat [Music] five has a very unusual sound I think it's quite a cinematic sound but it is sometimes and I really do mean sometimes used in popular songs in Rock songs and the example I'm going with today is just by radio head where in the chorus we get the chord c then F sharp and then it goes to F so what we're getting here is one flat five and then four do it to [Music] yourself that's what it to [Music] do so we've now looked at all of the dionic cords of the key all of the chords that appear naturally in the key without changing anything we've also looked at all of the prevalent chromatic chords the sort of modal interchange chords that you could encounter but there's also another sort of category of chords that comes up a lot and that is when we are dealing with a cord that has been slightly modified from its default diatonic state so for example in the key we usually have a major four chord so in the key of C the chord built on four F is usually major by default but it could be minor we could have an F minor chord but in the key of C and that is a very distinctive sound it's often described as a very sort of melancholic Bittersweet long sound and you'll often hear it in the context major four minor 4 one it's really common remove now the song I'm going to give you for this there's loads of examples of this but the song I'm going to give you is yet another radio head song it's creep now in this context we're in the key of G creep is in the key of G it goes to the chord B then we get the chord c which is the four four chord the usual four chord in the key of G major and then it goes to C minor which is the minor version of that four chord and then resolves back to the tonic chord the one G [Music] majorin makes me c now just there in creep you may have noticed that I started on the chord g and then I went to the chord B major and the eagle eyed in the audience will know that B major doesn't belong naturally in the key of G so the usual chord you'd have in G on the third degree would be B minor that's our space odity chord from earlier right the third chord of the key but in creep we have a major version of that chord instead and that's a really common sound [Music] when we have that that three chord but major it usually wants to go to one of two places it either wants to go to the four chord like we just heard in creep or it might want to go to the sixth chord and if it does go to the sixth chord then then we kind of get a very resolved sound and that's because this cord is what we call a secondary dominant which I won't explain too much about now but I do have a video on so creep is a good example of the major 3 chord being in this example going to the four but for a example of the major three chord going to the six so in this example the key of C that's our one that's our three major chord E major and that's our six we could use happier than ever by Billy eyh as an example which is in the Key C goes to e major the major 3 chord and then that sound that tension resolves onto the sixth chord of a minor from you I'm happier than ever so that major three chord we just talked about as I said there's an example of a secondary dominant and another example of a secondary dominant chord is the major version of the two chord so if we were in the key of D for example the usual chord you'd get on the second degree would be E minor that was that time after time chord Cindy laa but here rather than going E minor we're going to go E major so we're going the key of D that's one then major two chord E major and it has a very bright sort of colorful sound I think the moment you hear that it's like a ray of sunshine is comeing to the song and that chord will often doesn't have to but often then resolve onto the fifth chord of the key and then of course the fifth chord of the key wants to resolve back to the one so that is a very typical way to hear the major 2 chord it's one major 2 five and then one and a song that does that is Love Me Tender by Elis [Music] Presley love me tender love me sweet so the next cord we're going to look at is the major sixth chord which in the key of G for example would be the chord E and just like all other secondary dominants they have a tendency to want to resolve to the chord A fifth up so you'll often hear that chord going to the two chord which would be a fif up from where we are currently so G e that's the one chord E that's our major version of the sixth chord and then it kind of feels like it logically wants to go to the two chord so that's something you can listen out for when you're hearing these secondary dominant chords these major versions of chords that are typically minor is where is it pulling us to in the key of G when we get an E major chord we can hear that pull towards two that's what we want to listen down for and that's exactly what happens in the example I'm going to give you which is I Get Around by The Beach Boys which often features this move from one g to the major six chord E and then it moves to a minor the two chord as I was [Music] saying the next chord we're looking at is the major chord built on the seventh degree of the scale so in the key of G for example the seventh degree of the scale is F sharp so we're talking about an F sharp chord in the key of G seven major that's the chord we're talking about it's a very unusual chord really to encounter it's quite rare but a great example is the song Karma Police by radio head the chorus of Karma Police goes four which is C five which is d 1 which is G and then 7 which is F [Music] sharp so it's quite an unusual sound you can hear when we reach that chord it still a little bit jarring and that's the sort of sound you're looking out for when you're listening to a a seven chord A major chord built on sth degree is a slightly unusual quality really this is what you get and that takes us to the last chord we're going to look at today which is the minor version of the five chord so we already looked at the minor version of the four chord remember that was our sort of very melancholic chord F minor and the key of C for example but now we're looking at the minor version of the five chord so sticking in the key of C we're talking about G minor for example might then go to four one that's a common way that's used now the minor version of the five chord I think has a a slightly sort of reflective wistful sound to it it certainly adds it takes a different angle Wick almost sort of we're expecting the the far more obvious major five chord so when we get the minor version of the five chord we get this sort of reflective alternative take on the chord now a great example of this chord is in the song Clocks by Co play which is an E flat and it goes to B flat minor which is the fifth chord of the key but minor so usually it would be going from E flat to B flat major but instead here we're going from e B flat the B flat [Music] minor that's our minor five chord then he goes to two and he goes back to one be so now I'm going to play you some chord progressions and I want you to work out by ear what those chords are now I'll keep everything in the key of C and I'll start a little bit easier and get progressively more hard so this is our one chord c now I'm telling you that because when you're working out a song by ear it's very valuable to First identify where the one is so your very first thing you want to do when you listen to a song and you're working at the chords is work out what the key is where the tonic is and in this case it's C and from there we can work out other chords so here's the first chord progression that's our c chord and then where does it go next okay I'll play that one more time so we've [Music] got that was the chords c one then 2 D Minor four F major and then back to one C major okay keep track of your score and put it in the comments at the bottom next one so stay staying in the key of C here's the second chord [Music] progression okay what was that we had C then we went to the minor 3 E chord so E minor then to the sixth chord a minor and then to the two chord D Minor okay so hopefully you're two for two right now we're going to do three more examples so here is the third example the third chord progression to work out by ear what was that I'll play it one more [Music] time okay so what was that we started on C then we went to the flat seventh chord B flat then we went to the sixth chord of the key A minor and then the four chord F major and then we looped around back to see again here we go with the penultimate chord progression [Music] what was that so that one was the first time we've not started on the one chord because of course cord progressions don't have to start on the one even if that is probably the most common way they start they don't have to and here we started on that chord which was F in the key of C so four four chord then we went to F minor the minor four chord and then we went to one C that was that okay and now we're going to do the last chord progression this is going to be the hardest one so listen out here we [Music] go okay I told you it was hard so what did we have there well we started again on the one chord c then we went there what's that that is the flat two chord d flat in the key of C then we went to that chord A a flat the flat sixth chord of the key and then to B flat the flat seventh chord of the key so the majority of the chords here were not in the usual major key which definitely makes it harder and by having a whole string of non dionic chords it starts to actually muddy where the key Center is so that was certainly quite a mean example so if you did get that last one then I'm very impressed so do put your score for that little quiz in the comments down below now all of the chords we've looked at in today's video have been in the context of the major key but of course you could be listening to a song that's in the minor key and chords can have a satly different sound in the minor context so what I'm going to do is do a second video a follow-up video to this one where we listen to minor key core progressions we do ear training in the minor key so if you're interested in that then do consider subscribing so you don't miss out [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 384,496

Keywords: relative pitch, roman numerals, chords, recognize, ear training, quiz, chord progression, how to, explained, music theory

Id: H9e_1DTm-VQ

Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 07 2023