Remembering the changes.

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

Like Jerry Byrd said, "You have to know the chord progression." Easy enough on 3 or 4 chords, but some Hawaiian and Jazz tunes have a lot more. Andy Cummings' Waikiki has about 12! Whoa!

So what are some good methods of committing them to memory?
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Bill McCloskey · From: Nanuet, NY

Know your circle of 5ths. and if you are playing jazz, your circle of 4ths. Most chord changes relate to the circle in some way.
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Jim Kaznosky · From: New Jersey, USA

Chord melodies help me with learning songs I am not familiar with. It is a little less straight forward then I have done on guitar but it still works for me. A tune like Moonglow, for example, has a fair amount of chords. Try to focus on the movement of the chords with the melody.

In the key of G, the simplified chords to the first eight bars would lay out to:
IV- iv - I - II7 - ii - V - I
C-Cm-G-A7-Am-D7 -G

Find the melody in there and grab the closest dyads and triads that are near that chord.

Start small and build out for there. Eventually, you'll be able to pick some things out. In this tune in particular, there's some common movements.
(a) IV-ivminor-I
(b) I-II7
(c) ii-V-I

Learn to recognize these movements in charts/songs and learn them throughout the cycle (as Bill suggested) in all keys. I've not mastered this, but I try to do things like this in my daily practice and when learning tunes for gigs.

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

Thanks Bill and Jim, I will endeavour to apply your methods.
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Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Dom Franco · From: Beaverton, OR, 97007

Some Jazz standards and The Great American Songbook tunes are quite complicated. With practice you can memorize all the changes, but I still need cheat sheets for some of them.

Learning the sound of the II. V. I change, and recognizing those recurring patterns can help greatly. I have also worked through "THE REAL BOOK" and tried to memorize the most popular songs.

However, There is no substitute for a "Good Ear" for harmony, it usually takes years to instantly identify the next chord coming up in any song, by knowing the melody and if the written harmony is major, minor, diminished, sus4 etc. It's hard work, but very satisfying in the long run.
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

Here’s my tip: Everything is a blues. Lol Laughing

But seriously. Understanding a song’s roadmap is just simply a matter of pooling together what you already know about harmony and seeing how one event leads to another. There are many tells in dissecting tunes. Dominant chords tend to be the ones that direct traffic. They usually always resolve to a specific place, and if not, then they take you to another dominant (usually) that will resolve (cycling).

The thing about jazz that I find the most rewarding, even if playing jazz isn’t your goal, is that it teaches you how to really learn harmony and then be really creative with it. But that is a discussion for another day. Right now, it’s important to learn the basics. I would say a tune like “The Way You Look Tonight” is a great piece of music to teach you about how harmony and modulation work. The bridge modulates to another key seamlessly and then back. Check it out.
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Jim Kaznosky · From: New Jersey, USA

If all else fails, take a break too. I finished a run of gigs with my old band (on a new instrument - used to be the other guitar player) and the last night featured a whole bunch of players who called tunes I've not yet worked out on steel. This tune in particular, "What a Little Moonlight Will Do", is one that kind of messed me up a bit. You can see through the first chorus that I'm reading changes and going down in flames a little bit. By the second chorus, I had the key, most of the changes, and used some of the tricks that have been discussed here. Taking a breath, using common patterns I've practiced, listening for the dominant chords, playing minimally and trying to not embarrass myself or ruin the tune. Warts and all, it's not easy but when you get those moments, it's kind of nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVttpoCbg5U

Bill McCloskey · From: Nanuet, NY

BTW, there is a great book I'd recommend picking up: "Hearing the Changes" by Jerry Coker.
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David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

Thanks for all the tips. They should keep me busy. Jim, great video, great song.
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Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Lloyd Graves · From: New York, USA

Hi David,
I don't have any music theory recommendations that can top what others have said but I will say that most gigs I play are 2 hours. At approximately 10 songs to the hour, that's only 20 tunes you need to know.

I always take comfort in that, anyways!

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

I am not an authority on this, fellow student, but I love the question. Mike alluded to this, but I think distilling things down is the most useful thing, where are the modulations, secondary dominants. One thing steel guitar has made me realize is to make use of harmonic equivalence. Relative minors, diminished and 7th chords triads in other words etc. chords are flexible as long as you know where they flex. Also helpful is remembering the song is not the chord changes, the song is the melody. I listen to a ton of blues and world music and some people view these as primitive forms of music. I feel they can convey some very advanced concepts even if the performers have no idea what they may be doing in terms of theory. Lonnie Johnson for example played a number of jazz standards, but always turns them into a simple ii-V-I or I-IV-V. He sings the melody and your ear implies the rest. Arther Crudup (That's Alright Mama) somehow never seems to play a V chord, but you hear it never the less. Sometimes less is more. I no longer try to play every chord, but let the melody decide what chords are important. Miles Davis is the master of this IMHO.

Samuel Phillippe · From: Douglas Michigan, USA

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

I am most interested in melodies, however, as some great man once said, "steel guitar is about harmonised scales." So I am always looking for the harmonies, hence the interest in chord progressions. I am going to save this thread to archive for careful consideration.
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Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

I figured I would mention this website again for anyone else interested in learning standards. https://www.jazzstudies.us
The nice thing with this is it automatically transposes to any key. Usually I put it into a familiar key to learn it. (usually C or G for regular guitar) This really makes the chord movements more obvious compared to being in an unfamiliar key where you may not know the common chords. I have heard it is always best to learn every song in every key, if you really want to learn to play jazz. I am far from being able to do that!

Bill McCloskey · From: Nanuet, NY

If I was going to pick one key to learn standards in, I'd pick one of the flat keys: Bb, Eb, Ab, F since most of the tunes are written in those keys to accommodate horn players.
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

I often take for granted that most players learn to how to play in every key, regardless of tuning, but I realize that is not always the case. It’s really great to learn to play in all keys, especially some of the less frequently used in country and rock, like Db, Gb etc. You will find that some of these keys have certain little tricks and advantages depending on your tuning. This is great for when you are stylizing your playing.

But what you really need to know most are the I, VI, II, and V chords of every key, because they generally tell you where the tune is going next, especially if it is modulating or leaving the key momentarily. Ear training is invaluable.
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Nick Fryer · From: Ohio, USA

One thing that people don’t check out enough is the melody and how the melody dictates the harmonic implications of a tune. I know a couple hundred standards from memory at this point and can play them in all keys. I’m not saying this to brag. My point is, I remember at one point years ago feeling like I was really starting to get a bunch of tunes under my belt and then I would get on gigs with some veteran bass players who literally knew a couple thousand tunes. I always asked them how they did it and they all said the same thing. “Learn the melody in all keys”. And that means really learn the melody inside and out. Once you do that you can start to harmonize the melody. Don’t just learn the RealBook changes, that is a trap that will hinder your progress in the long run. Nothing wrong with using that book as a reference but you have to dig deeper. From there it’s really important to realize a few things: all tunes can be reduced down to I IV and V chords. All the other changes are subs for these three chords. The other dominant chords are just secondary dominants that lead to these subs. From there learning the harmony on the macro level based around the melody. If you are just thinking change to change to change etc you are going about it the hard way. After that being able to know the changes using the number system is very important. Also don’t get locked into the chord qualities as much, any chord can be changed to a dominant 7th chord, depending on the melody. Find a tune you like and leverage modern technology and check out as many different versions as you can and see what different players play. You’ll find all the common moves but then each recording might offer a new harmonic nugget. From there you’ll start to make categories of tunes that are similar I.e. tunes that start on the II7 or tunes that start on IVMaj7. Also learning forms like AABA or 16 bar etc is essential for learning. The other thing to remember is that the first ten tunes feel like climbing Mt. Everest the next 50 will come much quicker.
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Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Carey Hofer · From: South Dakota, USA

That is a good way to think about it. There are basically only 3 types of chords anyway. Like you mentioned, major, minor and dominant. Even diminished and augmented chords are in the dominant family. Since most people that play standards learned them from a Real Book (warts and all) if you learn them in the Real Book key, that's the key most people would play them in I think, unless a singer is involved, then all bets are off. Laughing

Nick Fryer · From: Ohio, USA

Don’t want to split hairs too much but good to state for the record that dim and Aug chords can be applied to Maj, Min and Dom7 chords. They are not simply just dominant chords.
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Carey Hofer · From: South Dakota, USA

Maybe I should have put it this way to be clearer. There are three families of harmony in Western music: Major, minor and dominant. All chords can be categorized as one of the three.

Carey Hofer · From: South Dakota, USA

My bad, I should have stated: there are "fundamentally" three families of harmony in Western Music: major, minor and dominant. All chords can be distinctly categorized as one of the three. It's a quote from Just Jazz Guitar by Dr Jeffrey George, Professor of Guitar Studies at the University of Lousiana. Thought it was interesting when I read it and it stuck with me. Don't think we really disagree, just a matter of terminology.

Nick Fryer · From: Ohio, USA

I don’t want to veer too far off the OP and get too in the weeds with theory and harmony. I’m not simply looking to go back and forth and again don’t want to veer too far off the path of learning and memorizing chord progressions. If we really want to simplify things, chords either have a major third or a minor third. Dominant IMO has really nothing to do with those two categories. If we want to get in the weeds, from there you either have triads or seventh chords. I’m typing from a phone so I’m keeping it brief.

The basics:

Triads -
Maj
Min
Aug
Dim

7th -
Maj7
Dom7
Min 7
Min7 b5
Dim7

I know we already know all this stuff, I just think that someone who might be learning and reading this stuff could get confused very easily if not careful. Back to the OP, learn melodies, learn functional harmony, learn form, transcribe tunes from recordings, throw away the RealBook and iReallB , learn how to reduce tunes down to I IV and V and then learn how all the subs relate to those chords. And ear training so you can learn to hear all these colors and combinations.
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Tim Toberer · From: Nebraska, USA

Nick Fryer · From: Ohio, USA

Tim - I think your response is right on point. The RealBook can serve as a great reference. The strength of the RealBook is that it has the melody, the iRealB app lacks and melody which makes it only good for a gig survival type tool in a pinch. Transcribing can be very challenging but your ear will grow and grow the more you do it. One nice approach to transcribing a tune is to write out the road map of the bars and fill in the chords that you can and leave the tricky spots w question marks and then over time you can fill in those unknown spots. Try and at least get the root note if nothing else. BTW….Stardust is such an amazing tune but also one of the most unique and challenging in terms of form and melody in the entire cannon of great American songs. If you can conquer that tune the rest are like walking down Easy Street.
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