Identify Chords and Become a Great Musician

The difference between common songwriters and exceptional songwriters can often be found in their chord vocabulary. In order to succeed in the music world, you must stand out from the rest. When you listen to music on the radio, a lot of it sounds the same. Usually that's because they are using the same overtired chord successions.

Finding your unique voice involves finding unique ways that chords can shape your music. You know when you listen to a song that is unique, that there is something magical in it. If you haven't graduated from Conservatory, to identify chords in a song may seem impossible. Is there a shortcut?

Everybody's Got Jazz

Aside from catchy rhythms, jazz is a great place to go for learning chords. Great jazz musicians will take standard songs, which have very regular chord progressions, and work their magic on them. They take the same melody, but harmonize it in entirely new ways.

But even without jazz, even in classical, you can see this magic at work. In Beethoven's 7th Symphony, there is a section where the melody is one repeating note. It repeats 12 times before it goes up. Beethoven created the magic by putting different chords underneath that note each time.

And What If I Can't Read Chords Out Of Music?

Nowadays, you can identify chords from a recording! There is a fantastic software called Song Surgeon, which analyzes an MP3 or other audio recording, and displays the chords at the bottom of the waveform. You can then export them to a file, and format them however you wish.

A recommended technique would be to take a song you wish to learn from. Choose a classic song, something far better than all of the usual fare. Put it into Song Surgeon, and then export and print the chord list. Now practice those chords, and see how they progress.

An ad writer once recommended copying a great advertisement by hand before writing your own. We can borrow that technique. Analyze the chord progressions of a great song, before writing your own song. It puts you into the mindset of the great songwriter you are learning from.

Does This Program Do Anything Else?

Absolutely! It can change key, together with the chords, it can slow the song down without it changing the key, and it can give you a four beat click intro. You can download a full demo of the program here, and try it for four hours. I have tested it, founded of excellent quality and ease-of-use. Highly recommended.

 

 

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