{"id":1844,"date":"2018-10-25T16:36:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T20:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/?p=1844"},"modified":"2018-10-25T17:06:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T21:06:08","slug":"learning-to-play-by-ear-using-chord-progressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/?p=1844","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Play \u201cBy Ear\u201d Using Chord Progressions!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Being a long-time music teacher, I have found out that my students tend to do better learning to play \u201cby ear \u201cin any key when they learn chords and then learn to use those chords in chord progressions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why?<\/strong>&nbsp; Once the student learns a chord and its inversions, they need to immediately start learning to use that chord in a progression or they will just be learning a bunch of chords and not learning <strong><u>how to USE<\/u><\/strong> those chords to play a song.<\/p>\n<p>Start with just the basic progression that every song has\u2014the I, IV, V.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>The I to IV <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Start with the ROOT position of the I, then move UP to the closest or the most logical move to the IV.<\/li>\n<li>Be aware of what notes move up or down and half or whole steps.<\/li>\n<li>Be aware of HOW THIS MOVEMENT sounds so you can identify it later when listening to another song.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Usually the IV sound \u201clifts\u201d or moves higher<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>If the melody line notes move 1, 2, 3, 4 it is a clue that you are will probably be moving to the IV.<\/li>\n<li>If you are starting with the ROOT position of the I, you will probably move to the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> inversion of the IV.<\/li>\n<li><strong>NEVER<\/strong> move from the ROOT position of the I to the ROOT position of the IV. That is CHUNKY and sounds NASTY!<\/li>\n<li>Make your chord progressions move smoothly and logically. <strong>Don\u2019t make big GAPPY moves!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>The I to V<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Start with the ROOT position of the I, now move down to the closest or the most logical move to the V.<\/li>\n<li>Be aware of what notes move up or down and half or whole steps.<\/li>\n<li>Be aware of WHAT HOW THIS MOVEMENT sounds so you can identify it later when listening to another song.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Usually the I to V has a \u201cdropping\u201d or \u201clowering\u201d sound.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The melody line notes may move, 1, 3, 4, 5.<\/li>\n<li>You will be able to \u201cimagine the sound\u201d of the left hand moving down 8, 7, 6, 5. <em>At first you may need to make the left hand movement, but it can sound \u201cdorky\u201d so you don\u2019t want to get into the habit of doing that movement whenever you move I to V.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>NEVER<\/strong> move from the ROOT position of the I to the ROOT position of the V. Think CHUNKY and NASTY!<\/li>\n<li>Make your chord progressions move smoothly and logically. <strong>Don\u2019t make big GAPPY moves!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Logical-Moves.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"353\" height=\"295\" class=\"wp-image-1846 aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Logical-Moves-300x251.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Logical-Moves-300x251.png 300w, https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Logical-Moves.png 479w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>\u00a9 2018 Pamela Rentzel &#8211; www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Join us on Facebook at &#8220;Play This &#8211; Not That!&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being a long-time music teacher, I have found out that my students tend to do better learning to play \u201cby ear \u201cin any key when they learn chords and then learn to use those chords in chord progressions! Why?&nbsp; Once the student learns a chord and its inversions, they need to immediately start learning to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/?p=1844\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Learning to Play \u201cBy Ear\u201d Using Chord Progressions!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-instructional","category-motivational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1844"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pentecostalmusicians.com\/PMblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}