How to Learn Chord Progressions by Ear (No Sheet Music)

I always preach: learn jazz standards by ear, not sheet music. The benefits are numerous. Many find it easy to learn a melody by ear, but chord progressions are a totally different story.

In this video, we take a look at a "mystery chord progression" and together go through my process for figuring out the chord changes, without my instrument and without sheet music. This is a longer video, but I'm holding nothing back!

💥Important Links and Resources💥

[Mr_Kirk_]

This is great. The "thinking out loud" style of teaching is REALLY impactful. This is the first video I've seen of yours and I hope there are more like this. Diving in now! Thx!

[blasserre]

The explanation is very clear. My only difficulty was hearing the base notes

[BlaziNTrades]

This video is so far above where I'm at, but I love it. Beginning to get into learning how to recognize intervals for the first time, and I was never into music as a kid. 32 now, started guitar 3 years ago and piano one year ago. Between your channel and a few others I'm beginning to get a much better picture of this thing.

[sergeychironov]

all this is so sharp and so relevant! wonderful

[gclaborn]

Brent, I completely agree with your approach: 1) Listen to the bass to identify the root note of the chord. 2) Determine if the base chord is major or minor 3) Identify the notes comprising the quality or color of the chord. It's this third step you're consistently getting wrong; my guess is that your truly excellent grasp of theory is causing you to make assumptions that over-power what your ears are trying to tell you.
Here are two more examples:
- Measure 5's key quality/color note on top is clearly a high D; not part of an Am7(b5). Try an F13 (maybe without the F) here.
- And finally, the last chord: The two very distinct color notes on top are Eb and Ab which have nothing to do with G7. Abmin is a lot closer to the keyboard's voicing than G7. Then the wonderful Db-D walk up back to Cm7.
I don't know jazz, and I didn't know this song before watching the video, so I only had my ears to rely on.

[wes]

I find that hearing and knowing the bass notes was easy for me but hearing the full chord quality in the piano voicings was really difficult for me. Particularly on the EbM7 in the fourth bar. I heard the root in the bass but couldn't be totally sure what chord the piano was playing. Thanks for this video. Much appreciated.

[stuartlimbrick]

Thank you so much! My stage of learning is ready for your direction of teaching here, so it is an eye opener, but at least I can understand what you are saying. I am presently coincidentally studying Autumn Leaves, so it applies there too. Trouble is, that you have said enough in one video, to make me disappear into the study room for a long time!!

[tahmeng]

Only witnessed how good you are at listening to chord progression. I dont really "learn" how to do it🙃

[taraadcock]

Great lesson in ear training and Jazz theory. Thanks. Will be listening more to you.

[georgeschumann]

You're a fantastic teacher. Thank you💜🎸

[hearpalhere]

I really got a lot out of this video, thank you very much for sharing your approach Brent!

[rodrigobertoa]

"you don't have to have any super skills with relative pitch"
Say's the guy who have super skills with relative pitch.
LOL

[MyronChoe]

"i don't know what chord progressions will be..."
*plays Autumn Leaves*

[ashishvivian]

This is the simplest progression to teach with regards to Jazz!!
But might help a beginner in Jazz!!

[noam]

Definitely and eye opener. Only until the last part when Brent disclosed that it was Autumn Leaves did I recognize that. I do need consistent ear training. Love the video.

[dwightfrie]

I nailed it!! Exact changes you came up with! First time trying this exercise Awesome video!
.

[enharmonic]

I just heard Autmn leaves -ish when you played the track at first and knew the chords when you said the Bb

[alfredbellanti]

Thanks Brent. I will have to go back to the podcast on intervals and become familiar with them.

[allanjeong]

I use this method to extemporaneously reconstruct and/or approximate the chord progressions on the fly by using the following four steps (combined with your personal memory/familiarity with each song):

1. The last root note of the basic chord (not inverted chords) of a song is almost always the same note (+1 or more octaves below) as the final note of the song/melody (or final note of the opening stanza/verse).

2. When the melody progresses upward or downward chromatically, the root note of the basic chord is often 3 note intervals below (+1 octave) the melodic notes played on the main down beat (or sometimes immediately after the main down beat if the down beat melodic note is just a passing note).

3. Otherwise, the root note of the basic chord is either 1, 3, or 5 note intervals BELOW the melodic notes played on the main down beats (or immediately after the main down beat). Try playing some traditional Christmas carols on piano in the key of C to easily confirm this simple correspondence between melodic and root notes.

4. Form the chords by playing the root note with left hand pinky along with the notes at 5, 8, and 10 note intervals above the root note by holding your left hand in a fixed claw position.

Use these four steps to identify the chords to play with any given song melody (if you’re playing the piano) by simply and literally watching for the melodic notes played on the right hand on the main down beats - a process I’ve come to call “playing by sight” as opposed to “playing be ear”.

If you’re not playing the melody and just playing the chords, you’ll need to “play by ear” by identifying the melodic notes as you sing the melody in your head using the solfege (do-re-me) method and apply the steps above to identify the root notes and chords.

[TommyRarivoson]

Thank you for this video! I was wonddering if you could provide the link to the aime Noltee podcast please?