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Basics of Ear Training Part 1 · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:35
  Steve: Hey Steve Stein from Guitar Zoom Academy here, and today we're going to be looking at the first series of videos I'm going to make for you to try and work on your ear training a little bit.
• 0:44
  Steve: Okay, so we're going to start as basic as we can and start building up from there.
• 0:49
  Steve: And what we want to focus on more than like uh intervals, distances between notes, we're going to be looking at things from a chord perspective so I can try and better help you learn songs by ear, number one.
• 1:01
  Steve: Or number two, maybe you're in a situation where you're going to be playing with other people and somebody calls out, hey, this song is going to be in the key of D or something like that.
• 1:10
  Steve: And you don't panic.
• 1:11
  Steve: You know kind of what to do.
• 1:13
  Steve: So the first thing I need you to be aware of is studying some basic fundamental practical theory.
• 1:20
  Steve: Okay.
• 1:21
  Steve: So the first thing we're going to talk about today to prep for this thing is six chords that come out of a major scale that you want to know.
• 1:28
  Steve: And this is easier than you think it is if you've never done this before.
• 1:31
  Steve: So if we understand that music theory is based on what we call the major scale, do, remi fasolati, do.
• 1:37
  Steve: Okay, it sounds like this.
• 1:40
  Steve: Now I don't we don't need to worry about that scale.
• 1:42
  Steve: We don't need to worry about any of that stuff.
• 1:44
  Steve: I just need you to understand that when we're talking about a key, and we're going to talk about the key of C to keep this simple.
• 1:49
  Steve: The key of C has no sharps and no flats.
• 1:51
  Steve: So the notes are C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then C again.
• 1:57
  Steve: Now, you'd eventually want to learn all these keys and things like that, especially the ones that you use a lot.
• 2:03
  Steve: You don't need to worry about the key of B flat if you don't play in it very often.
• 2:06
  Steve: Learn the notes of the key of G and the key of D and the key of A.
• 2:09
  Steve: And I actually have uh a music theory course that you can look at over on the Guitar Zoom YouTube channel that will teach you all this sort of stuff.
• 2:17
  Steve: Um, but that's something that's very important to learn.
• 2:20
  Steve: It's just basic theory.
• 2:21
  Steve: So let me explain this to you.
• 2:22
  Steve: So if we were in the key of C, the first note is obviously C, the second note is D, the third note is E, the fourth note is F, the fifth note is G, sixth note is A, and seventh note is B.
• 2:32
  Steve: Every one of those notes generates a chord.
• 2:36
  Steve: And this is the important part.
• 2:38
  Steve: There are six chords that we use all the time when we write music or play music, whatever it might be.
• 2:45
  Steve: And those six chords are the first six notes of whatever major scale we're in.
• 2:51
  Steve: Doesn't matter if we're in C or D or G, you're gonna learn they all function exactly the same way.
• 2:55
  Steve: It's just a different starting point, is the only difference.
• 2:58
  Steve: So here's what I want you to understand.
• 3:00
  Steve: I'm gonna get to the cheat part of this.
• 3:01
  Steve: We're gonna skip the stuff in the middle and just go to the cheat.
• 3:04
  Steve: So the first chord and the fifth, fourth chord and the fifth chord, excuse me, one, four, five, those are always major in a major scale, in a major key.
• 3:13
  Steve: So if you're in the key of C, your first chord is C major.
• 3:16
  Steve: Makes sense.
• 3:17
  Steve: If you were in the key of C major, your first chord wouldn't be C minor, it would be C major.
• 3:22
  Steve: So you have to trust me on this.
• 3:24
  Steve: The fourth note, C D E F, is also major.
• 3:28
  Steve: And the fifth note, which would be G, is also major.
• 3:32
  Steve: So one, four, five is always major in a major key.
• 3:37
  Steve: Now again, we're not going to worry about weird stuff and all that, you know, minor keys and modes.
• 3:42
  Steve: And let's just start with one thing that we can use.
• 3:44
  Steve: Very practical.
• 3:45
  Steve: So if we're in a major key, the one, four, five is major, which means G, for instance, G A B C D, G C D.
• 3:54
  Steve: Think about how many times you've played those chords together.
• 3:56
  Steve: Well, that's why.
• 3:57
  Steve: One, four, five, G, C, D.
• 4:01
  Steve: Okay.
• 4:01
  Steve: So G, C, D.
• 4:03
  Steve: One, four, five.
• 4:05
  Steve: If we're in the key of C, C, D, E, F, G.
• 4:08
  Steve: C, F, G, One, Four, Five.
• 4:13
  Steve: The three, excuse me, the two, three, and six are the minor chords in a major key.
• 4:19
  Steve: So two, three, and six.
• 4:21
  Steve: So if you're in the key of C, C would be major, because it's a one.
• 4:25
  Steve: D would be minor, D minor, because it's a two.
• 4:27
  Steve: E minor, three.
• 4:29
  Steve: F major, G major, that's your four and five.
• 4:32
  Steve: And then A minor would be your six.
• 4:35
  Steve: So if you just start by learning what are common keys that you you would play in.
• 4:41
  Steve: Again, you can just count up, although there's a little theory behind this that we have to learn.
• 4:45
  Steve: Some keys have sharps, some keys have flats.
• 4:48
  Steve: Again, don't get off in the weeds, just stay with me for now.
• 4:51
  Steve: So if we count up and we think one, four, five, that's our majors.
• 4:56
  Steve: Two, three, six is our minor.
• 4:59
  Steve: So if we're in the key of C major, we get C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, and A minor.
• 5:06
  Steve: And it's important to know this because as we start trying to figure out songs, again, normal songs, not we're not figuring out slayer right now, right?
• 5:14
  Steve: Figuring out standard songs.
• 5:16
  Steve: And we figured out that a song was in the key of C or somebody told us, hey, this song's in the key of C, we can already anticipate what we expect to see.
• 5:25
  Steve: We're probably gonna see the C and the F and the G, and we might see the two with three or the six would be D minor, E minor, or A minor.
• 5:34
  Steve: Now I'll let you know this too.
• 5:36
  Steve: In order of importance, the one, four, five are almost always there.
• 5:41
  Steve: Not always, but most of the time.
• 5:43
  Steve: If you're gonna see a minor chord, the first one you try is the six chord.
• 5:49
  Steve: Because the six chord is used more than anybody else.
• 5:52
  Steve: And if the six doesn't work, then you can try the two or the three.
• 5:56
  Steve: Okay?
• 5:57
  Steve: So that's how you would approach these things.
• 5:59
  Steve: So for instance, if we were gonna play knocking on heaven's door, it's in the key of G.
• 6:05
  Steve: So the first thing you do is you'd think in your head, well, what do I understand about one, four, five, two, three, and six?
• 6:11
  Steve: So you'd go through it.
• 6:13
  Steve: G would be one, so G major, two would be A minor, because after G we go to A, we don't go to um H or something.
• 6:22
  Steve: The only notes in music we have are A, B, C, D, F, and G.
• 6:25
  Steve: So again, if you don't know that, that's something you'd want to learn.
• 6:27
  Steve: So G major would be the one, A minor would be the two, B minor would be the three, C major would be the four, D major would be the five, and E minor would be the six.
• 6:38
  Steve: So we expect to see G, C, and D, one, four, and five.
• 6:43
  Steve: We expect to maybe see the E minor chord because that's the six, but if we don't, we'd probably see two or three, which would be A minor or B minor.
• 6:51
  Steve: Well, guess what?
• 6:51
  Steve: The song goes G to D to A minor.
• 6:56
  Steve: So it uses the two and then G, D, and C.
• 7:03
  Steve: So there's your one, four, five in a different order, which music has a right to do.
• 7:07
  Steve: It doesn't have to play everything in order, obviously.
• 7:09
  Steve: You can use these chords however you want.
• 7:12
  Steve: So it's very important to get used to that.
• 7:13
  Steve: If we were gonna play Last Kiss by um Pearl Jam, okay?
• 7:19
  Steve: A cover song, right?
• 7:20
  Steve: But the Pearl Jam version.
• 7:22
  Steve: It'd be G.
• 7:24
  Steve: Well, let's talk about it.
• 7:25
  Steve: It's in the key of G.
• 7:26
  Steve: So again, you're thinking G, C, D.
• 7:28
  Steve: Think about how many songs you've learned, or you know, whatever it might be that are in the key of G.
• 7:33
  Steve: We have G, C, D, A minor, B minor, and E minor.
• 7:36
  Steve: So this song goes G to E minor.
• 7:39
  Steve: There's your six to C, which is the four, and D, which is the five.
• 7:45
  Steve: So that's one step of learning ear training or being in a situation where you're gonna play with other people is having some general knowledge of theory, of chord theory.
• 7:56
  Steve: Again, right now we don't have to worry about what notes are in each chord and all these different things.
• 8:01
  Steve: Just start off very basic and understand that one, four, five in a major key is always gonna be major.
• 8:07
  Steve: Two, three, six is always gonna be minor.
• 8:09
  Steve: The seven chord is what we call diminished, and we're not gonna worry about that right now.
• 8:14
  Steve: Why?
• 8:14
  Steve: Because we don't use it very often.
• 8:16
  Steve: I'm not saying it's not important to some people in some styles of music.
• 8:20
  Steve: Whatever, that's fine.
• 8:21
  Steve: I'm just saying practically we don't use the diminished chord, the seven chord that much.
• 8:26
  Steve: We use one through six most of the time when we're playing standard music, pop music, you know, basic rock music, whatever, folk music, whatever we want to call it.
• 8:37
  Steve: And when you're trying to learn, you know, theory and ear training and all this stuff, the easiest thing to do is start with something basic.
• 8:44
  Steve: Again, don't overwhelm yourself.
• 8:46
  Steve: Start with something really straightforward and try and learn that.
• 8:49
  Steve: So that's step one is to get some basic theory under your fingernails of understanding one, four, five, two, three, and six.
• 8:56
  Steve: And try that in some different keys as well.
• 8:59
  Steve: If you know some different keys, for instance, if you were going to be in the key of, uh let's say you were in the key of D, now you'd have to know which sharps and flats there are.
• 9:07
  Steve: Okay.
• 9:07
  Steve: In the key of D, we have sharps.
• 9:10
  Steve: So we'd have D major, we'd have E minor because it's a two chord, we'd have F sharp minor because it's a three chord, and then G A would be the four and the five, and then B minor would be the six chord.
• 9:22
  Steve: So again, being able to figure that out very quickly.
• 9:25
  Steve: And there are shortcuts that you can learn on the guitar too to figure this stuff out.
• 9:28
  Steve: So this is just the first video of a series of these that I'm gonna do about basic ear training and prepping for it and how to do it.
• 9:36
  Steve: So again, if this is something that you're really interested in and you're struggling with all this kind of stuff and how to put it all together, you can always head over to guitarzoom.com and check out the Guitar Zoom Academy, jump on a conversation with myself or one of my instructors, and we can talk about this stuff, see whether or not the academy is a fit for you.
• 9:53
  Steve: All right.
• 9:54
  Steve: So take care, stay positive, and keep practicing.
• 9:56
  Steve: And I'll talk to you soon, okay?