It might sound a bit boring to be practising an instrument without any sort of fixed goals. So , i am going to give you one !! Yes , so now you know how most songs are played , since you have had enough practise playing them. Now , how about i tell you to play these songs without looking up the chords ?? Dont protest ! There is a way.
One thing i have learnt from experience is that , a lot of songs can be played with a very simple set of chords. These are called the major and minor chords , and yes , you already know them ! But how do you figure out what chord goes where ?? A rather foxing question if you are a relatively new guitar player. It was something that confused me too , and i am still not an expert at it. But there are some tips that i have for you .
All songs , almost all the simple ones atleast , will be set to one key. This is the pitch or the scale at which the song will be sung . So , most songs will be in one key , and this key could be a C , C# , D , D# etc , and so on ... Now . How do you figure this out ?? This is where the ear comes in handy. Most songs you played with the help of the internet will also be set in some key right ? Its a good exercise to go back and check what these songs are set in... Now , this is the main part.
All major chords and minor chords will fall into some scale , and the simplest one is the Major scale. The major scale follows this order. Let me start with an example.
The chords comprising the C major scale look like this --
C , Dm , Em , F , G , Am, Bdim ( i am not sure if its dim or dim7..but i am not going to discuss diminished chords here ).
The D major scale will look like this
D , Em, Fm,F#,G#,A#m,,C#dim
You might be able to see a pattern here .. No ? Ok , let me tell you .
All major scales are based on an interval rule . The first note is called the root note , and that will be the key of the major scale . So C major scale has a C root note. The notes are separated by the following intervals
full step , full step , half step , full step,full step,full step,half step
And hence , if you follow this rule ( also keeping in mind that E and B do not have sharps) , you will get a beautifully neat C major scale as shown below.
C- D - E -F-G-A-B-C
Now , lets apply this rule to D major scale or also known as Major scale in the Key D
D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#
You can apply the same rule to all major scales in any key .... !
So ,now , coming back to chords, they also follow the same notes in the scale ! This means that if you are playing a song in C major scale , all the chords will be some form of C , D , E , F ,G , A or B ! Also these forms are usually either major or minor , and sometimes a diminished. Lets take a look at how chords look like in the C major scale .
The C major scale chords would be ...
C major , D minor , E minor, F major , G major, A minor , B dim .
Same way , D major scale chords would be ...
D major , E minor , F#minor , G major , A major , B minor , C# dim.
See a pattern ? Yup , the chords will be of sequence major (root note ), minor , minor , major , major , minor , dim ! This you will learn from some practise , and its nothing to worry about .
So , now we know what chords come in a scale . The next tough part is to figure out how these chords/scales fall into a song . Lets think about this now !
PS : these sequences of chords are usually called chord progressions. The above method is helpful in figuring out songs that have major chord progressions , as it lets you play/strum songs freely without making them sound too bad.
Playing by the ear - revisited, and the magic of chord progressions
To pick up any song by the ear , what you need to do first is figure our the root chord or the scale for the song . This can usually be figured out by humming that song in your head and trying , and hoping to find a major chord that goes with the song. This takes a lot of hit / miss , and practise. It is very essential that you have experience in playing some chords and some songs before you attempt this . But its totally possible that you are good , by the ear player and you get this stuff on the first go. So , once you have this figured out , try to work your magic by checking if its a major scale song by attempting the other chords in the major scale , of that key. As you keep experimenting , you will slowly understand which key the song is in .
For instance , say the song is in C major scale , and you do not know it , but you got the stanza of the song with F major in it. Now the next thing you might want to check is if the next line goes with a G major or a C major and so on , and you strike up a E major chord in it. Now you know for sure that its not a C major scale song since there is no E major chord in a C major scale ( using the above rules) . And you go ahead and fiddle with a major scale progression that has E major chord and the F major chord in it. Once you start narrowing it down this way , it gets a lot easier to predict the chord progressions and for jamming the song on your guitar while playing along . Once you hit the right scale and the right progressions , its very hard for the song to sound wrong , even if you are not playing the exact chords. This is the magic of figuring out the right progressions !!
One thing i have learnt from experience is that , a lot of songs can be played with a very simple set of chords. These are called the major and minor chords , and yes , you already know them ! But how do you figure out what chord goes where ?? A rather foxing question if you are a relatively new guitar player. It was something that confused me too , and i am still not an expert at it. But there are some tips that i have for you .
All songs , almost all the simple ones atleast , will be set to one key. This is the pitch or the scale at which the song will be sung . So , most songs will be in one key , and this key could be a C , C# , D , D# etc , and so on ... Now . How do you figure this out ?? This is where the ear comes in handy. Most songs you played with the help of the internet will also be set in some key right ? Its a good exercise to go back and check what these songs are set in... Now , this is the main part.
All major chords and minor chords will fall into some scale , and the simplest one is the Major scale. The major scale follows this order. Let me start with an example.
The chords comprising the C major scale look like this --
C , Dm , Em , F , G , Am, Bdim ( i am not sure if its dim or dim7..but i am not going to discuss diminished chords here ).
The D major scale will look like this
D , Em, Fm,F#,G#,A#m,,C#dim
You might be able to see a pattern here .. No ? Ok , let me tell you .
All major scales are based on an interval rule . The first note is called the root note , and that will be the key of the major scale . So C major scale has a C root note. The notes are separated by the following intervals
full step , full step , half step , full step,full step,full step,half step
And hence , if you follow this rule ( also keeping in mind that E and B do not have sharps) , you will get a beautifully neat C major scale as shown below.
C- D - E -F-G-A-B-C
Now , lets apply this rule to D major scale or also known as Major scale in the Key D
D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#
You can apply the same rule to all major scales in any key .... !
So ,now , coming back to chords, they also follow the same notes in the scale ! This means that if you are playing a song in C major scale , all the chords will be some form of C , D , E , F ,G , A or B ! Also these forms are usually either major or minor , and sometimes a diminished. Lets take a look at how chords look like in the C major scale .
The C major scale chords would be ...
C major , D minor , E minor, F major , G major, A minor , B dim .
Same way , D major scale chords would be ...
D major , E minor , F#minor , G major , A major , B minor , C# dim.
See a pattern ? Yup , the chords will be of sequence major (root note ), minor , minor , major , major , minor , dim ! This you will learn from some practise , and its nothing to worry about .
So , now we know what chords come in a scale . The next tough part is to figure out how these chords/scales fall into a song . Lets think about this now !
PS : these sequences of chords are usually called chord progressions. The above method is helpful in figuring out songs that have major chord progressions , as it lets you play/strum songs freely without making them sound too bad.
Playing by the ear - revisited, and the magic of chord progressions
To pick up any song by the ear , what you need to do first is figure our the root chord or the scale for the song . This can usually be figured out by humming that song in your head and trying , and hoping to find a major chord that goes with the song. This takes a lot of hit / miss , and practise. It is very essential that you have experience in playing some chords and some songs before you attempt this . But its totally possible that you are good , by the ear player and you get this stuff on the first go. So , once you have this figured out , try to work your magic by checking if its a major scale song by attempting the other chords in the major scale , of that key. As you keep experimenting , you will slowly understand which key the song is in .
For instance , say the song is in C major scale , and you do not know it , but you got the stanza of the song with F major in it. Now the next thing you might want to check is if the next line goes with a G major or a C major and so on , and you strike up a E major chord in it. Now you know for sure that its not a C major scale song since there is no E major chord in a C major scale ( using the above rules) . And you go ahead and fiddle with a major scale progression that has E major chord and the F major chord in it. Once you start narrowing it down this way , it gets a lot easier to predict the chord progressions and for jamming the song on your guitar while playing along . Once you hit the right scale and the right progressions , its very hard for the song to sound wrong , even if you are not playing the exact chords. This is the magic of figuring out the right progressions !!
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