Re: Memorizing Chords and Progressions
With enough time (not really under your control) and attention (VERY MUCH under your control), you'll begin to "hear", and maybe anticipate, the chord changes as they occur.
For pure listening and ear training purposes, knowing the key of a song is unimportant, but knowing what the 1, 4, 5, and maybe minor 6 (or I, IV, V, vi) sound like is important. Way back when, I'd recite the chords of (admittedly simplistic) rock songs along with the car radio: 1, 5, 1, 4 etc.
Since you've been fiddling for 20 years, it might be good to examine the tunes that you know well (meaning write in the chords if you have the tunes in notation or tab), which should reveal a few consistencies:
- Most start and end on the 1 chord, and often the 1 note, of the key that you're playing in.
- Most melodies (especially fiddle tunes) select the melody note on the stronger beats from the chord that you're currently playing over. In-between & less-emphasized "passing" notes are often outside the current chord.
- Virtually every verse or major phrase in roots/popular/folk/rock and even classical music ends by going to the 5 chord before returning ("resolving") to the 1 chord.
There are "sounds" of each chord that can be equated to the emotions that they tend to generate:
- The 1 chord is "home". It's comfortable, familiar, safe, a nice place to chill. Maybe not real exciting, but that's okay; you're feeling content.
- The 4 chord is a bit more exciting, a fun place to visit for a while: day at the beach, hike in the woods, ride in a speedboat. But you won't want to stay there 24/7.
- The 5 chord is WAY more exciting: great in small doses, irritating in larger ones. It's nice to get home (or back to the 1 chord) after visiting friends. Three weeks in Paris? That's enough, thank you. Five months in the Gobi Desert? GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!!
Not to sound TOO optimistic but: When you can feel how the melody is going, the chords start to become almost obvious.
(Disclaimer: I'm talking/thinking "most mandolin music" here, which is mostly major key. There are lots of exceptions, like minor key and modal stuff that's outside your current dilemma.)
Last edited by EdHanrahan; Aug-21-2018 at 11:42am.
- Ed
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