How do you know how to hear the chords so quickly?
By Association and Ear-training!
I started taking guitar lessons when I was 13-years-old in 1976. My lessons consisted of practicing the weekly lesson in the "Alfred - The New Guitar Course" book that my guitar teacher, Tony, insisted we use for my lessons. I didn't know any better, so I had my parents purchase the book for my lessons. I knew nothing about learning how to play the guitar. I knew that you could play notes and chords, and I knew that you strummed and picked the strings in order to play the guitar. Tony taught me a few of the basic open-string chords like C, G, Em, Am, D, etc.
However…
The lessons in the book were extremely boring to me, but I tried to practice reading the notes as best I could. Even as a kid, I knew that my brain didn't work like the brains of most people. Where it was easy for others to read books, read homework assignments and concentrate on the words in front of them, I struggled to read, comprehend and absorb even one or two pages. This was the same problem I had trying to read notes on a staff. I could figure them out, I just couldn’t read them quickly.
Chords were very easy for me because they were symbolic shapes, not notes. I didn't know why the chord shapes had the names they did. All I knew was playing them and memorizing them was easy for me. I could hear the difference between a C chord and a G chord. I could hear the difference between an Am chord and an Em minor chord.
How did this happen?
The word of the day is - "Association".
I was a huge Peter Frampton fan. I Also liked The Eagles and America. I liked John Denver and Styx. I liked Fleetwood Mac and Heart. I liked Boston and Chicago. The list goes on.
You see, in the 1970's, the music that was available for me to listen to, all came from the radio. Back then, music wasn't thought of as being strategically placed into categories or genres. It was more like "good and bad" music. If a song sucked, nobody listened to it. If it was a good song, it became a favorite for everyone. Radio stations knew this when they did their weekly programing of songs to play.
Then I got my first cassette tape recorder for Christmas. This contraption, this book-sized marvel of modern technology changed my musical life in a matter of minutes. I recorded everything. I recorded songs off of the radio and practiced them everyday. I wanted to know how to play all of these songs on my guitar. Having a tape recorder helped me tremendously.
One of the first "pre-recorded" cassettes I ever had in my collection was "Frampton Comes Alive!". I sat for dozens of hours, listening to every song on that tape. I tried to figure out the chords for every song, just by listening to each song over and over and over again until I had it. I started to keep a mental list of the first chord(s) for each song. I didn't always get them all correctly, but I got them close enough that I could play along with each song.Â
"Baby I love your way" was all over the radio in 1976-77. That song started off with the G chord. This was an easy song for me to figure out because they were mostly all of the chords in the key of G major: G, D, Am, C, Bm, E7. I knew all of those chords already, so figuring them out in that song was nothing for me. I started doing this with many other songs. I would associate the song with the first chord of the song.
For example...
"Em" will always belong to "Horse with no name" from America.
"A" will always belong to "I need you" also from America.
"D" will always belong to "More than a feeling" by Boston.
"G" will always belong to "Take it easy" by the Eagles.
"Dm" will always belong to "Cry to me" from Heart.
"E" will always belong to "Peaceful easy feeling" by the Eagles.
"Em7" will always belong to "Wish you were here" by Pink Floyd.
"Am" will always belong to "Crazy on you" by Heart.
"Asus2" will always belong to "Dog and Butterfly" also from Heart.
(I should mention that particular chord: Asus2 as being the perfect chord to tune your guitar because of the way it is played in the song. Four of the notes are open string notes.)
The list goes on and on. Here's the thing about this association technique - I can now hear any one of those songs in my head at any time. After a few years, and as my chord vocabulary expanded, I began to hear dozens of other chords in the middle of songs. This helped me anticipate the process of elimination in learning songs much faster. I understood that every key in music has its own set of seven notes and chords, which also helped me figure out the obvious chords opposed to simply guessing.
Hearing Blues chords.
I began to hear the differences in types of "7" chords. I learned G7, C7, D7, A7, B7 and E7 - but I didn't quite understand why I needed to know them. Then I realized that they were alternate or replacement chords for minor chords. It all depended on context in the song. The Blues was a really good guide in understanding how much you could get away with when you played dominant sevenths and minors and combined them to make minor 7th chords. As far as I was concerned, these types of chords were both jazz and blues.
Hearing Jazz chords.
I have no idea when or how I started to learn (what I call) "Jazz" chords on the guitar. I think I must have stumbled upon them as I was experimenting with learning new chord shapes. I didn't know what they were, but they sounded cool to me. This opened up the possibilities of expanding my chord vocabulary even more.
Hearing the differences in chords.
Those first basic open-string chords I started learning when I started lessons, were simple triads. To tell them apart was just a matter of listening to both major and minor versions of each of the chords (i.e. D and Dm, A and Am, E and Em, etc.). Major chords sounded happy, whereas minor chords sounded sad. I could tell which was which by listening for that one note difference in both types of chords. This didn't happen overnight. Over time, I could tell the difference between major and minor chords, instantly.
When (dominant) "7th's" were introduced into these triads, the proverbial bar had been raised. Again, over time, I began to hear the differences between major 7th's, dominant 7th's and minor 7 chords, with little effort. It took a long time for me to get to the point where I could hear a chord and know exactly what type of chord it was. I think this might have been about the time I started hearing music in color. I learned to associate chords and notes to color. This is called "Synesthesia". The audio form of this processing is called "Chromesthesia".Â
The process of elimination in hearing chords.
Let's pick a basic open-string chord. The "G" chord is a major chord, which makes it a "happy" chord. When you play this chord on your guitar, how many strings get played? The answer is six. This will be important to remember for this exercise. How many strings are played for the C chord? The answer is five. How many strings are played in the D chord? The answer is four.
So, if I play a chord and it sounds like a happy chord to you, your next step is to listen for how many strings are being played in that chord. Let's say that it's all six strings. That would mean that the chord is G, right? Not necessarily. I tricked you. There's another one-string "happy" chord that uses all six strings. Any idea which chord it is? If you said "E", then you are correct.
Okay so, now we know that two of the open-string chords that are happy (major) and use six strings, are G and E. Now, it becomes a matter of learning to hear the differences between those two chords. There's only one way to do this - practice! Play these chords back and forth as many times as you can. While you play each chord, name each chord by saying their names out loud. Trust me, this works.
Okay let's try another exercise. Let's say that I play a chord and you have to decide whether or not it's happy or sad. You listen again, and the chord doesn't sound all that happy. Maybe this chord is a minor chord. Okay, what's the next step? How many strings are being played in the chord. You determine that there are only five strings being played in this chord. Since we already know that it's an open-string chord, it can only be one chord. Which one is it? Did you answer: "Am"? That is correct! Okay so, what would be the other open string chord that uses five strings, but is a happy (major) chord? The answer is: "C".
Hearing 7th's
This is how you learn to do the process of elimination when listening for types of chords. Of course, once you begin to expand your chord vocabulary, the process becomes a bit more involved. Especially when you are listening for types of 7ths and beyond. The way I do it is to think in terms of two types of 7th's. Major 7th's sound like happy jazz chords. Dominant 7th's sound like blues chords. Minor 7th's sound like a cross between jazz and blues chords. They are happy and sad at the same time.
For me, hearing and learning rhythm chords came fairly easy to me over time. I'm talking years of practice, years of playing in bands, years of learning thousands of songs and years of expanding my vocabulary and learning and teaching basic music theory applied to the guitar.
Basic music theory - Learning all of the keys and knowing the notes and chords for each key, learning both diatonic and pentatonic major and minor scales and a few modes, and learning common chord progressions and song writing, cookie-cutter techniques used in popular music. Then, learning how to play various strumming patterns in common and odd time signatures, along with various patterns in picking. All of this took many, many years to learn.
I should also point out that early on, the most important, most influential tool in my arsenal of training my ears, was recording everything I did. I recorded myself practicing songs, playing with friends, band rehearsals and gigs, etc. Recording was a way for me to hear where I needed to fix or practice something in a song or just having the satisfaction of proof that I knew how to play a song. It was a great way to validate the hard work and effort I invested in my practicing.
I highly recommend recording yourself when you practice your music. Just think of it as proof of effort. With today's smartphone technology, you can use the simple voice recorder app already installed on your phone.
Hopefully, this lesson will help you better understand what is needed to learn how to train your ears in music. Please comment below if you have any questions.