No such thing as cheating 
The only advice I can give is to listen to the overall chord âqualityâ (maj/min/dom7/dim/aug) then listen to the bass to identify the inversion. Hearing inner voices was always a challenge for me. Not sure if you are looking at that level of accuracy (i.e. every single pitch present in exact order)
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I too am on this journey so I donât really have any definitive answers for you. My dad can figure out the chords on the fly, as people sing songs heâs never heard before, and accompany people live that way. Iâve always wanted to learn that, but itâs hard work.
He picked the skill up listening to the radio as a teenager. Whenever a Beatles song or whatnot came up in the rotation he would listen his heart out and try to reproduce the same noises on the guitar. Eventually he got damn good at recognizing them noises
Two books have stood out to me, and I think you might enjoy them too:
- The jazz harmony book by Berkman. The book is on the theory side of things, but takes a very practical approach. It starts out with the I IV V chords and goes on the re-harmonize in all kinds of ways to show you why those more exotic chords make sense and how they come into play. It comes with audio so you can listen along which is obviously super helpful.
- The real easy ear training book by Roberta Radley This book is very hands on and shows you various strategies you can use to narrow down the list of potential chords and how you can hear them. This book also comes with audio, but it also has an extensive list of suitable music that you can use to practice the various skills on. That list was worth the price of the book alone to me. The title makes the book sound stupid (and nothing about this was easy lol), but the book is a real gem imo.
I also used EarMaster a lot. Itâs a dated piece of shit in many ways, but the custom exercises let you practice recognizing chords in a very efficient manner. Depending on your level you can start with hearing major/minor, then identify all the various 7th chords by name, then you can progress to all the 9th chords etc
Once you can hear the quality of the chord and can pick out what the bass player is playing (usually the root of the chord), the rest falls into place quite quickly.
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chords and chord progressions, two perspectives that overlap significantly:
-
Brute force:
a. identify the bass note/lowest voice
b. identify the highest voice you can hear in the chord
c. try to fill in the blanks of inner voices - some tips on that:
c1. set things up so you can loop/isolate an individual chord
c2. try some âyes or noâ testing with individual pitches. For exampleâŚok I think I hear a 7th in the middle there, letâs play a 7th (the individual tone) then listen to the chord and see if I can hear that tone. Ok maybe, letâs compare it against b7, 6, or rootâŚhmm actually I definitely hear the 6 in there, no 7. Time consuming? Sure, but gets faster the more you do it. And also a good way to really check accuracy. Chords are groups of notes - of all 12 notes * X octaves, every note is either a âyesâ or a ânoâ, basically (without getting into overtones, which can be very annoying when trying to figure out chords) -
The more you know about harmony, the better, the more you can sing common cadences and progressions - and think and hear in roman numerals - the better. When you understand harmonic movements common in different genres, youâre not hearing chords anymore but movement. It takes time but imo has advantages well beyond just being able to transcribe. For âjazz relatedâ progressions I make sure students are familiar with the following the triads and seventh chords of the major and minor scales, secondary dominants, backdoor cadences, tritone substitutions. I make them be able to both analyze and transpose relatively simple pop tunes (think mainly diatonic triads) as well as basic âReal Bookâ tunes like Autumn Leaves, there Will never be another you, Alone Together, etc.
When you study harmony, things are much easier to recognize! The âbrute forceâ method becomes more so a means of double checking your guesses. However thereâs an efficiency question here that becomes a very personal/individualized thing: you can spend a year studying harmony to make it faster to figure out songs, or you can spend the year figuring out songs. How much to focus on one vs the other depends a lot on the individual, imo.
Hope that helps!
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Thatâs a really good point. It is like the âchunkingâ concept. Donât think in letters or even words but sentences/phrases.
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Thanks Joe. With regards to bass notes I find that if I shift the track up an octave itâs easier to hear the bass notes. No idea why this works, but it does!! Iâm not after 100% accuracy, just close enough is good for me.
I was looking at the EarMaster site and am wondering if you need to be able to read standard notation for it to be useful? I can read standard, but I am very slow at it!
Thanks Jake. I like this brute force method. I had been working off bass notes, but hadnât thought about identifying the highest voice in the chord - that seems to open up more possibilities.
No need to be able to read standard unless you want to get into sight-singing If you were to do the chord quality quiz the app will play a chord and youâd hit one of several buttons marked e.g. Maj7 or Min7 to submit your answer.
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Iâve transcribed a lot, but I donât use anything complex. I record the clip on Audacity and then reduce the tempo to make it easier on myself. Audacity has a good algorithm for tempo change without introducing undue distortion. If the instrument is on the left or right side Iâll take just that mono side to help isolate it, but thatâs all I do for isolation. I have my instrument with me because I need to see how the transcription feels under my fingers while Iâm figuring it out. Iâll tab it out while Iâm transcribing using an app (Iâve used Tabledit for over 20 years now) . Iâve not used headphones before, just a good set of speakers, but thatâs not a bad idea.
This has always worked well for me.
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If youâre on Mac/iOS, Iâve found Anytune+ invaluable.
Besides the software, Iâll search for isolated/STEM tracks and live performances or covers for neck positioning, pick direction, or see someone play the dang thing. Songsterr isnât bad for finding things. But like most tabs - itâs never 100% according to my ear.
The rest of this is a lot longer than expected. Itâs not a rant, so bear with me. I doubt I am, but Iâm also hoping Iâm not alone in my opinion.
I understand that âcloseâ may be good enough if youâre learning a song for a one-off and, or short on time, OK. If you are intent on understanding the feel of a player, slowing things down and getting it as close as you can becomes very relevant.
Not because âThatâs exactly how they did it.â - but because it will highlight rhythmic nuances you canât hear at speed. The space between the notes. From a Cracking the Code perspective, one note/nuance makes all the difference. An example is Yngwie using pull-offs when descending. Troy thought he picked everything until he slowed it down and saw this little nuance that changed things significantly.
One may call this obsessive as if itâs unhealthy in some way. It would be if there werenât a real point to it, and itâs not bragging rights for playing note-for-note.
Slow Eruption down, and what sounds like pure blasting is a metric ton of swing feel. EVH never played purely âstraightâ. Thereâs always a pulse in there. Thatâs one reason his stuff sounds playful, and your body wants to groove.
The same is true for Eric Johnson. Subtle stuff that, at full speed, sounds like a specific note value, but slow it down, and you find a drag here and a rushed note there. Miss those notes and the rhythm - and therefore the feel - changes. Itâs slight, but so is a fingerprint.
Alex Lifesonâs solo in YYZ is another fantastic example. Typical of his playing, itâs a very angular, oddly phrased, almost âoutâ sounding solo. It sounds like heâs blazing notes (and he is). But doggone if he hasnât woven a deep groove throughout the entire thing. When I discovered (heard) it, I thought, âThatâs crazyâŚand now the whole thing makes SO much more sense.â
We obsess about pick techniques, vintage vs. new, and what amp/speaker/cabinet/strings/pedal/pick the player used.
Why not this? What if Troy hadnât seen things like Yngwieâs descending pull-off trick? Would we even be having this conversation?
If you made it this far, thank you for playing. I hope this makes some sense.
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Exactly. To me, the stuff Iâm into emulating (namely EJ) is either playable vs not-possible if you donât have the exact notes and even fingerings correct. Obviously the picking has to make sense with the mechanic but there are often several ways that would âworkâ to get the correct notes. Itâs not until you get it to the target tempo that youâll discover which âcorrectâ way is humanly possible, because some of his most challenging runs could take decades of failure instead of just a few weeks of doing it an easier way (i.e. EJâs way).
Thatâs kind of a long winded way of saying, if you donât spend the time to get it ârightâ you may end up with something you are anyone might not be able to actually play lol
That said, as of late Iâm more on this kick of just doing things âmyâ correct way. In other words, whatever makes the phrase feel easiest for me to play. That could involve changing actual notes in a solo of someone elseâs Iâm learning. Thatâs obviously out of the scope of this thread, but assuming part of the reason someone would transcribe is so they could âplayâ the challenging music they like. An adaptation of the original could be an alternative.
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Understood.
Thatâs why I qualified the intent to be on understanding the feel of a player.
The one thing I want to emphasize is that my comments arenât pointed at the right notes, fingerings, pick technique etc.
Itâs about the one thing almost no one discusses, and thatâs the micro-timing a player has and how that affects how everything feels.
In the context of understanding a playerâs nuances, yeahâŚyou can get âcloseâ and do your own thing. But then you still really havenât sorted out what they did. The YYZ solo taught me so much about Alex, itâs silly.
My point with the nuanced timing is to dig into a playerâs âfeelâ. The notes, fingerings etc. are fine. With enough focused practice, almost anyone can figure out where and how to put their fingers in the right places. You can find those players all over YouTube. Flawless technique, with apparently no effortâŚbut its lacking somehow.
I donât think the individual sense of rhythm gets discussed enough in guitar circles. We talk about it at a macro level but tend to dismiss most everything else it seems.
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Ah sorry I see I missed your point. Yes, thatâs all vital also. For some players, like the ones you mentioned. Probably not as big a deal in learning someone like Al Di Meola since Iâd imagine his phrases are pretty much locked to the grid.
When Iâm in my EJ copying phases, Iâll regularly loop the phrase Iâm working on in SoundSlice and set the tempo to like 65% and just focus on playing each not exactly when he plays it. Iâve found thatâs an area where gradual (5% or 10%) increments in tempo are pretty helpful. On the good days when I get to 100% it really does feel like Iâm playing with his vibe. Itâs pretty hard.
I havenât tried that with any Van Halen stuff, other than the âRight Nowâ solo but I recall similar (good) progress with that one. Iâd always sort of written his solos off as things Iâd never be able to play. The notes themselves and the speed werenât quite the issue, it was nailing the nuances. Even at tempo it just didnât sound like him.
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Lots of different ones:
Sibelius (subscription, but has a free tier)
Finale (not cheap)
MuseScore (Totally free, Win/Mac/Linux. No adsâŚworks well)
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You can also create that in soundslice, just afaik not with those specific fonts.
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excellent - thank you!
