As a musician, my ear is developed enough to understand where music typically wants to go and the sound I’m expecting, but I’m not practiced enough on my instrument to be able to replicate what I’m hearing in my head in real-time.
I can play most things on a piano (at least the basic chords, not necessarily complicated melodic stuff lol), but with a guitar, I'll frequently run into a chord I have no idea how to make (and then I look it up and realize my fingers don't even make that shape and I gotta try like the 4th voicing on the 7th fret and I die a little inside 😂).
Dont think "understanding where music wants to go" is that much of a matter of having a developed ear. Im pretty sure that people who just listen to music occasionally also have a feeling of where the chords want to go/where the resolution is supposed to be. Also depends on what type of music you're listening to. Listening to pop songs? There is a chance you've already heard this chord progression before. Jazz? Much harder.
I would describe this skill as "pattern recognition." The pattern could be a certain song structure, a typical chord progression, or even a chord itself. The ability to pick out a dominant with a flat 9 comes from having heard the chord hundreds of times before, and having consciously identified what you were hearing.
Absolutely. Our brains are word for pattern recognition. I'm not a musician, but I play rhythm games at a reasonable high level, (and I have played flute and trombone for a bit on high school) and being able to recognize patterns of notes, and rhythmic patterns or song structure in the music are absolutely part of what I use in order to play difficult charts. Some people focus exclusively on the notes/visual patterns, but I focus as much on the music as the visual patterns. While I haven't developed the kind of relative pitch or cord recognition that musicians do, I've definitely developed a capacity to listen deeply to music. I can recognize the sound of augmented, major and minor chords. I can count all sorts of polyrhythms and odd meter without much trouble too. What gets me is the ability to recognize specific inversions, that shit is nuts.
Most songs only use 7 chords (6 because VIIidim aren't often used) and the fact that most mainstream songs use the same chord progression it makes things easier. Harder songs would need more time, but if you only play the basic version, it's still not that difficult
Hearing a flat 9 wouldn't be pattern recognition. That's just straight ear training to identify a sound, like just drilling major and minor triads. Chord progressions can make patterns. I'd say a musical pattern requires a sequence of chords or notes through time. I don't think people hear a chord as a pattern. It's more like identifying the name of a color or the meaning of a word through memorization.
Ear training exercises such as transcribing a piece by listening have really been how I’ve trained my ear. There are also awesome apps like Chet that gamify the experience.
Yes! Earlier this week I transcribed my first big band chart and holy cow my ears are so much better now. I’m still not great, but I’m a lot better than I was two weeks ago lol
The "There was a zoom there" bit was actually a perfect example of another application of exposure and immersion. Charles's familiarity with the language of video editing told him, "There will be a zoom at this comedic accidental note moment." Not sure if it was intentional, but it shows the point really well.
I'm convinced Charles has hacked into my friends group chat lol. Out of the last 5 videos 3 of them were topics we had just talked about a couple days prior. Great info as always! Love how you sort of 'demystify' these concepts that usually only musicians with some experience would understand and know how to apply them
Another example of a concept where the language analogy is spot-on lol. Just like hearing someone say something and then repeating it perfectly with the right pronunciation and inflection, because immersion gave you a fundamental understanding of the language.
When I first heard somebody say music is just a language it blew my mind. Seems so simple but combine that with some basic theory knowledge and it opens up so many doors artistically
It’s absolutely pattern recognition. And it’s developed by continually listening to and learning as many songs as possible. Going outside your comfort zone and listening to/playing songs outside your preferred genre will develop your ear even further, faster. The best, most well rounded songwriter I’ve ever met played in a death metal band, but he listened to jazz, orchestral music, top 40, show tunes, South African highlife, country and hip hop. He rarely listened to death metal, except to stay on top of emerging trends in the genre.
I recently got gifted a piano from my AMAZING music teacher. Your channel has helped me learn the theory. Without both you and my teacher I wouldn't be able to pursue my musical journey. Thank you for making these videos!
That's awesome! I hope you can take time to play around with it. One of my favorite things to do with s piano is literally what Charles was doing in this video: playing along with a song, ideally not pausing it and learning to keep going if I hit a "wrong" note. (Imho there are no wrong notes, just ones you weren't expecting 😂)
As someone who's been the bass player in the house band for open mic jams, my rule for anyone wanting us to back them up was "five chords or less", just because we can pick up these kinds of songs immediately. Forget listening to a song once, try playing a song you've heard maybe once in your life but never payed attention to, and now you gotta figure it out live on stage. Super fun!
Six is kind of within reach too, right? For a song without key changes would usually simply revolve around IV V I of the major, along with ii iii vi (I think of them as IV V I of the relative minor), and this gets you very far.
this is a skill I used a couple of weeks ago at a jam to find things to play. I cannot exactly recite the changes of the new tunes, but i was able to navigate the key change at the bridge, and follow the generic minor chord progression for the A sections. It's so much more valuable of a skill and i wish it was introduced earlier in education. It's just not that useful for middle school band and i think that's part of the problem...
100% agree with the importance of ear training and learning to play along with an unknown piece of music. I wish education in general wasn't so hyper-focused on utility and allowed room for exploration and discovery and playing around. It's so much more engaging for students and helps nurture creative thinking, communication, working together, and a ton of other skills that are honestly more useful than a lot of "book learning" that people can just Google nowadays.
Wow, way to describe my inherent knack for harmonies in my church's music. They've hit me with something new several times before and after figuring out the main melody, this was the approach that I use ALL THE TIME to learn the harmonies.
I think it’s really awesome to take what you’re saying in this video and apply it to my own memory of your other videos. When I’ve seen you fiddle around with fairly standard pop music, you can play it back instantly. Makes sense, fairly basic chord progressions, clear melody that’s probably not doing anything too weird, and anything weird it is doing is so distinct and obvious that it naturally becomes the focus of you playing it back. Then I remember watching you break down Jacob Collier and Bill Wurtz. While you’re still pretty quick to pick up some movements and ideas, their outside the box style means you end up being actually flawed sometimes and having to slowly breakdown sections of their music, individually hunting down particular notes in a big stacked unconventional chord, or doing what it SEEMS like they’re doing, only to notice your attempt sounds a little off and then trying to work out what little nuance your missing.
Hey Charles! I’ve always had this question about music: When you’re analyzing a piece you can see it’s final form, “oh, here’s a key change, here’s this motif… etc” but when you’re the one writing a piece how much of those characteristics are deliberate choices and how much is the composer just going “hmm, this sounds cool” and it just happen to be whatever we end up listening to?
I suppose if you’re purposefully composing say a sonata, you probably get something that sounds cool and go “hey, this would be good for a theme.” And then you could construct a sonata using the parts of a sonata. Other things I don’t know, and the rest is presumptions.
If you know theory then 90% of the time the choices are deliberate insofar as most songs typically follow the same structure, assuming you aren't playing jazz. If you don't know theory then I'd say about 10% of the time lol.
It depends on the artist and its knowledge of music theory, speaking of my own experience if I do a key change I will uninevetably notice because I think about theory a lot. But it also may happen that I come up with a melody that's in a odd time signature and I don't even realize until later. The thing is that in music a lot of stuff isn't deliberate because at least in my case, improvisation is a big part of composition so a lot of things come in the moment.
The way I explain this to my friends is that it’s the difference between somebody putting together a dresser by following ikea instructions and a skilled carpenter looking at a dresser and saying “yup, I can make that”. For one, it’s a matter of following instructions, and the more skilled the follower the easier it will be to put it together for them. The carpenter, on the other hand, doesn’t have instructions, but instead he knows the wood and the tools well enough that just from one look he can roughly figure out how it was made and knows how to use his tools to make it like that. Playing by ear is being the carpenter-you don’t get to that level of skill overnight, but it’s possible to have a carpenter who is terrible at reading instructions but can build anything. Just the same, those who play by ear may not read music as well, but they can recreate a song from just a single listen because they know how to use their musical tools to make the song.
Language was a really good example for explaining emersion. I can personally say exposure and experience will probably be the most important parts of learning a new language. My family comes from China, and while I took Chinese classes, my parents would always talk to me in Chinese. Through this, I learned how sentences should sound, where the nouns/verbs/adjectives go in a sentence, how the region you're from affects your accent, and how to speak casually to others. It helped out a LOT when answering my teacher's questions and writing sentences for homework.
Good description. Harder in jazz because the chords are more expanded and harder to hear exactly what’s in them. What determines how easy something is to pick up is how predictable it is. Some groups are harder to learn than others for either (or both) of two reasons: the chords are way expanded (Steely Dan) or the band just likes throwing in lots of unorthodox changes in unexpected places even if the chords themselves are simple (some of the Grateful Dead). Some of the modulations in Springsteen are unexpected, like the bridge in Born to Run (E St. Band version). Also understand that this has nothing to do with perfect pitch. For those of us who can do this a lot of the time but don’t have perfect pitch, if you played me a pitch and told me it was a different one, assuming I didn’t learn the song while playing along with it, the chords I’d play would be off by how far off the actual pitch you told me the pitch was. For example, if you played me an F and told me it was a G (and I didn’t notice), all my chords would be a whole step high.
omg finally a video like this is what I've always wanted. ear training has always been put at such a high pedestal, making it seem impossible for people starting out or people wanting to start out with music.
So I know Spotify has their pre-made playlist with all kind of genres, but could you make a playlist with your favourite jazz songs? Thanks anyway for the weekly-ish music knowledge.
As a guitar player from the start I learned a lot of my favorite rock bands songs by ear while I was learning. In the first few years I was playing kiss, Ac/dc, Ozzy, and black Sabbath by ear. That's all I did throughout my 20 years of guitar, listening and being able to pick up songs on my first to second listen through.
bro, it’s such a fun party trick, especially when it’s your freshman choir and they have no idea that harry styles’ sign of the times is literally the same 3 chords for 90% of the song
If you listen to a lot of music have a good sense of timing and ear, sing along and hum often, if you play an instrument, hum or listen along to a song you like and play along trying to make the sound of the instrument match the song, repeat and repeat. It’s helped me connect the dots of music theory than what I grew up with it. Being taught in our baseline poor western education in most schools in the US, they know how to teach but they didnt always know how to teach how and why learning is as fun as it can be. Presentation goes a long way. And the same goes for the ear , I am learning piano as my fourth instrument. I started with drums, so I have a real sense of timing and rhythm, but wanted to learn guitar and so I did that and the former helped inform the latter just as my guitar has helped inform my piano and Vice versa, I am an advanced intermediate player whose played for a decade and a half or more now but each pieces in the craft of music helps lean into and reinforce other pieces
Great video! I can also confirm that it doesn’t even take to long you just need to be exposed/surrounded by music. For me I’ve been training for 3 years to be a MT performer and I’ve been working on my ear and piano and I’m starting to notice that I can hear a song and sketch it out on a piano based on my ear.
I've been doing this in church since quite a lot. People singing a song I don't know and me playing guitar and catching on along the way. Ear exposure to patterns and chord progressions. And I'm not a musician, just an amateur with basic theoretical knowledge. And I love unusual challenging songs and figuring out the chords and the beat.
Hi Charles, if you have a minute, I was wondering something. How are you selecting the voicings for these chords that you're using, and how did you get to a point where you can select these particular voicings without really thinking about it? (and if Charles doesn't have a minute, but someone else has an answer, please let me know) Enjoyed the video! Thanks.
Take a V to I progression for example. The major 3rd of the V chord is a half step away from the root of the I chord. Let’s say we’re in G and going from D to G, the V to the I. If you play the D in first inversion or even D/F#, you’re going to emphasize that half step resolution from F# to G more so than you would in root position, which emphasizes the perfect fifth interval from D to G. And depending on how you want the song to sound, you can add that emphasis with an inversion or not. Other than that it’s immersion and practice.
Fairly similar idea to what he talks about. Personally I find that I not only listen for chords but also their voicing as well. If you know your way around chord inversions then you can develop hearing them. I listen out for which note is on top. In Ghost many of the chords are just 5ths (AE) and he/I can hear that there's no 3rd (C#) in there. Pop music tends to not use thick sounds and the 3rd is often what drops out
@@aanesijr Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like you’re talking about smooth voice leading/choosing chord inversions that move as little as possible? But he seems to be using some Open voicings here. Between the left + right hand there are a lot of options that exist there, so I’m wondering how he ends up using what he does.
@@jaidenp7426 Hmm. I understand that he could be hearing the inversions on the fly, but hearing the entire open voicing is another thing altogether. I’m not really under the impression that what he’s playing is exactly what’s on the recording. So in the case if a chord that omits the 3rd, are you saying that he’s just planing the 1 and 5 with both left and right hands?
My Grandma was a church organist, the only music link in my family, she didn't know the names of any of the notes or know what chords were, it was all in the ears.
Beautifully put Charles! This is stuff that I've inherently known but had a hard time communicating it to my students. I'll be coming back to this video
This is one of my favorite things about being a musician and it makes me feel like a superhuman. As a drummer it works a little different since I don’t rely too much on the chord progression (although it does set the feel) but if you throw me on stage with a genre I’m comfortable with, I’ll pick it up with one or two listens. Or heck, even just a prompt (e.g. for this Bieber song: moody, low volume, high energy). Jazz is a different story… don’t expect any good jazz from me 😅
I play 2nd (solo) trumpet in my college jazz ensemble. I used my ear power all the time. Actually I prefer to solo by ear and listening to the changes rather than looking at the changes and doing more work.
I love your channel. I'm a classically-trained string player, and I can play the melody of something I just heard a lot of the times, but its the left-hand part that pianists can also do that boggles my mind.
Same skills but certain instruments just train you on harmony far, far more. Guitar is similar. It's not really a right hand / Left hand / both hands thing.
I've been a musician for 21 years and recording artist (albeit not very good nor remarkable one). I learned by ear. I even have very out of practice "perfect pitch" recollection. I V VI IV - Beato. My theory is totally broken but fills in knowledge gaps here and there. I really like Charles' relating learning music to language. It is a near perfect analogy. One can be fluent in English without an English major. You learn it by hearing it and "speaking" it.
Knowing some basic music theory such as how to construct major and minor scales, and how to construct chords certainly contribute to your ability pickup songs by ear.
jake lizzio from signals music studio put it this way: it's like looking at a stop sign, you immediately recognize that it's a stop sign, rather than stopping and analyzing that it's red, an octagon, says "STOP", etc. you are able to attribute a unique identity to a particular chord progression or change, and use that to identify a chord progression or change in a song without a reference
This was cool but I would have loved if you covered through the fire and flame or Everlong or anyting difficult with fast notes or meter changes. I'm curious to see how your mind works through that
PLEASE, for the love of music, review the Hollow Knight ost. It is so good that it physically pains me to not see you review it. The whole thing is a master class in instrumentation, composition, theory, take your pick. PLEASE!
I call it "musical vocabulary". Once you've heard a given chord enough you can recognize it. If you have a classical music education this helps a great deal as a lot of composers of the past used the spectrum of the musical palette to create soundscapes. The more music you play in more genres, keys, tempos, and time signatures, well it's just like learning more words and complicated grammar in spoken language; you know more, so you understand more and can replicate it more quickly. The first time you hear a Eb dim3 aug5 B6 add9 dom11 your reaction is "WTF was that?!" After you've worked it out, you know it and can identify it.
When I took up Melodeon I decided to only learn to play it by ear. If I want to learn from the dots I learn something on a keyboard and internalise it but mostly I go to sessions and listen and try and join in. It also helps that the instrument is diatonic only plays in two keys and a push on a particular row plays 1,3,5 of the scale a pull everything else. So if you get the rhythm/chords right just go for following the melody up or down you usually get it right.
Recognizing familiar patterns and then the differences to those, store them as blocks. In that Bieber song there is about 5-6 blocks. I once had to do a mini-tour replacing a rhythm guitarist. I learned 2 hours of new material in 45 minutes. It was very formulaic, schlager, classic 60s etc. so each new song was: check the key, learn the chords and strumming pattern (i had chord charts for each song ready...), then learn the hooks and extra pauses etc. that were unique for the song and then the song structure. So, intro, one verse, one chorus, bridge, done, next song.. I had played about a hundred gigs with the band before so we got our 4-5 hour set ready in one practice session, something like 90 minutes in total.
*think of it this way* - it's knowing music completely enough to be on level with how one would know their own language. So all they do is *'listen to what someone said'* and then simply tell someone else what that person had *just* told them. simple but you have to know music on the same level that you know your own language. That is the start for sure.
This was a super cool video to listen to and kind of helped me understand what I was attempting to do when I was younger and would lie about having heard a new pop song and then when singing along I'd be guessing what the next rhyme would be and where the melody would go. I have since stopped lying when I haven't heard a song, but I still like to guess which way a melody will go and what the next word will be. The songs I'm consistently wrong about tend to be my favorites because they're surprising and fun.
You're putting to words very eloquently what I've been trying to explain for a long time. It's all about exposure really, and you start to see how most music has a lot of the same. I used to be this human jukebox at parties sometimes - "say a song, any song at all, and we'll play and sing it together". For people not accustomed to that concept it may sound like magic, but in practice, people will say basically always say a popular song (that you probably know if you're a music nerd), and then it's really you just taking it from C and applying one of the usual chord progressions and you're there (and maybe you spice it up with a 7 or 9 here and there for flavor). My tip for anyone who wants to start doing that is: just listen to music and play along. A lot. If you have a big music interest, experiment and try to play songs you like from C because it's easiest. And most importantly - if you have a hard time identifying chords to songs you like, listen to the bass. More often than not, the lowest note you hear in the song is the chord that accompanies it. Have fun, delve into it - sheet music and theory definitely has it's place but playing along with music, trying to recreate songs, learning to play by ear is some of the most fun, playful and creative things you can do in music and you grow tremendously from just sitting down and doing it, with friends or by yourself.
Excellent video! To me, the difference between knowing music theory and not is like listening to a song in a foreign language as opposed to your native tongue. I can hum along and harmonize to some anime's opening theme pretty easily, but I'll have to memorize the words because I don't know what they mean, and it'll take me a lot longer to learn. For a song like "Ghost," I can do all that in the first listen and have the chorus down pat by the second time it comes around because the words fit into my brain and make sense, so I can put them on autopilot and focus on the music. Same with something in French, although I have to read the lyrics cuz my listening comprehension isn't as good as my reading lol.
This video has made me sad that I spent so many years of my life studying music but suddenly stopped when I dropped out of the music college in university. I never got to fully finish training my ear while in the college, but this has motivated me to start training my ear again as I'm picking music back up. Although playing my old pieces I can feel how rusty I am. lol But I can fully see what you mean by being exposed to it so many times. Even for this very song, I was able to pick up the chord progression and "anticipated" it.
Playing both Classical (mostly just chords) and Bass Guitar really helps me to get the chord structure of a song down. I generally start playing just the bass notes on the guitar (and then listening to make sure they're actually the root notes of the chords, not just an inversion) and go from there. Sometimes I have to literally play every possible wrong note before I find one that fits to a chord though, perfect pitch would be pretty nice! I can say for sure that practice makes perfect (or for me so far, practice makes *better*), this year I've been playing a lot of new songs and that really helps to get the ears going and picking up patterns and chord progressions
I always tell my students that learning a pop song is a matter of letting the music defy your expectations. You can generally go into a pop song expecting it to follow a lot of norms such as a format of verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus. Or to be using a four chord progression using the I, IV, V, and vi chords. But it's important to be listening for when a song defys your expectations and does something unique. For instance the little change up in the justin beiber song. That would probably be hard to catch on the fly, but a seasoned musician might be able to catch it the second time around as Charles did here. Anyways, great video!
Exposure over long periods of time is a highly effective means of being able to do this especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of music theory knowledge or music experience in general. But the most effective way especially for those that do have at least a little experience and/or theory knowledge (and those willing to learn the basics if not more advanced concepts) is ear training: melodic dictation, harmonic dictation, sight singing, transcribing, etc. Which is still practice. Albeit a more mentally involved form of practice but still practice.
Music is a language, with shared patterns and phrases and idioms. Thank you for being an amazing teacher, and bringing insight where I didn't know I could still find it. 😀
I had never heard that song before and honestly I never expected a Justin Beiber song to emotionally hit me that hard. It made me think of some people that I've lost and whose losses still hurt. So that's something.
I once wrote a paper on intuition in music improv and as much as this video wasn't really about, it was more about playing what you hear, not going with the flow of a certain 'mood', exposure to repeated keys/chords/sequences enhance subconscious memory and intuition throughout the years - especially thanks to the prolonged time of being exposed to that *thing*. Charles not only used a melodic structure that has been overused, and repeated, that he himself heard many times (bear with me, I'm not so musically endowed from the theory pov, si idk the Ghost chords), but he also intuitively knew where the song was going to bring him. That's like when we hum, we somehow guess the next part of a song (especially one that follows a repeated musical structure, or one that belongs to a music genre) because we got so used to hearing it that we can predict what comes next. It obviously does not pertain to all music and not everyone has the same level of affinity to music, things might not be as noticeable to others, but many studies have been certainly made to prove what Charles is also saying. So, in case you're like me and living the struggle between equally giving up on music or pursuing to improve yourself, why should you give up in the end? At least keep on practising, and play with what you hear, even if you mess up, who cares? Go back to your instrument, or whatever you're using to create music, and have fun. Practice, practice, practice and keep listening to and discovering new music. Now, I'm gonna go paly a bit on my piano.
I'm impressed by how quickly I identified Jon Bellion's songwriting. As soon as Bieber started singing I thought "this is Jon Bellion", I looked it up and it was. I really love Jon 🤣🤣🤣
I really appreciate these videos because I assume you instantly lose youtube monetization playing so much of a top track. Glad you're still able to make it work because there is a lot of value in these lessons.
This song was written and produced by my favorite artist Jon Bellion and I realllly enjoyed watching you break it down. I would pay to see you break down more of his songs
This is 100% true, I'm by no means a great or even good musician but I've been playing punk bass and guitar for so long and I've been listening to this music for such a long while that it's become easier for me to learn even more complex songs from bands I like. Music theory has very much not been a part of my training outside of basic scales but even that small amount with all the experience has made it easier to play by ear.
Hey Charles, it's great to see a true musician revealing some of the mysteries of music. I'm always humbled when I see that happening. I wonder though what your goal is with this video? As a guitarist with some rudimentary music theory, progressing along the continuum, I have to say that your demonstration didn't really help me all that much, even though your ability is clear. I was able to pick out the chord roots B, G, F# and A on the guitar's 6th string. A little more attention on my part would have likely had me realize that the B was a Bmin chord and the F# chord was a F#min7(?). I found myself wondering which key it was in to get to the place where I could say, "Aha, this is a vi, IV, iii, I or whatever it is, given some inversions, and from there to play it from memory with ease. It seems to be a classic case of "You don't know what you know", and conversely, a case of forgetting that others don't know what you know. Then again, maybe your goal is not didactic. Anyway, thanks for the video.
Thank you so much for doing this; I do this in a much sloppier, less experienced, and less effective way, and you just gave me better direction and a glimpse at what I can develop this into❤️thank you !!!!!!’
I do this a lot…but with my voice…? Lol I’m not sure how to articulate it but I’ve sang in high school and college choir (2nd Soprano), and to this day I can hear a brand new song and I can hum it and know where the song is going, including any harmonies and adlibs. By the second listen I can sing the entire song. I’ve always done this, whether I enjoy the song or not, I always instinctually harmonize along. I love music and your videos remind me of why I love it so much! ❤️
I feel like this could be summed up by explaining that music is a language, lol. If I say something to you in a language you understand, you better understand what I am saying enough to repeat it back to me, even if it's in your own words. Which is how pianists can make something simple sound super complex immediately as well, they simply understand the music to the point where they can "say it back" in their own "words".
I didn't know that Drum'n'Bieber was a thing, and I didn't know I would like it. Also what about the voice leading ? Did you just recognize it instantly because you know from experience the sound of each different inversions and voicings and how they lead one into another, or did you have to calculate it on the spot ?
Please do a video on Derek Paravicini. Media used to refer to him as the "human jukebox" because he can perfectly reproduce any piece after hearing it once. He's a piano savant. The most awesome stuff is when he does mashups like "x in the style of y", mashing up different composers. I think there'd be a ton to analyze in how he juxtaposes styles on top of one another. He's an actual genius
I mean I think I do that for 4 reasons 1. I learned guitar by ear before I knew theory, didn't have internet and had to play around and find it 2. I did theory in high school and college, did a lot of ear training exercises. 3. I am well versed in the structure of a lot of music 4. I'm autistic, and I'm very focused on music as a topic. So it has been easy for my brain to spend a huge amount of time on it.
I do this all the time lol. I'm a drummer and I will be listening to a song and know where the cymbal hits are going to be and where fills are or even what the groove it. I will tap along to a song I've never heard before and be pretty much on. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly when a chorus is going to hit or a drop but mostly I can tap along to a song I've never heard before
If I hear a melodie I like, I can get something like my guitar and try so long, till I can play that melody as I remember it. Also, this is really fun, cause I can sing a song when I hear it the first time (Yes, it's way easier if I have the lyrics). I can tell really good, how the melody will be after the first halfor even the first fourth ofthe song if it's pop or rock. So I sing the lyrics I hear. But if only I would hear it and others only mine, it wouldnt sound so good, cause I "sing the melody of the words". But if a song gets myattention I can feel it, it's going trough my body, thoughts and all! I life the song! Also I can learn trough that,how to play a new instrument, cause I just try til the tone sounds right.
I'm not sure if you've seen it, but the improvised live performance between the pianists Jacob Koller and Yomii is amazing. It would be lovely to see a reaction and analysis to their arrangement of Lupin III or Yoru Ni Kakeru
I would say being able to read music to a good fast level can be a faster way to play any tune .These days you can get music for most songs and tunes . I can read fast so playing back a tune is as fast if not faster than working it out by ear , plus you are playing it exactly as written . Learn to read to a fast level .
The thing I always find impressive is: someone who can listen to the song without an instrument and then sit down and play the song with the chords and melody. There was a guy at my uni who could do this for any song and you could even call out different genres for him to play the tune in, can you make a video explaining how to that hahahahaha (and not just pop songs either, he could this for chopin, rachmaninoff and jazz too)
Check out gabriella montero, she does this in concerts (an audience member will sing a melody and she will improvise a piece in a style of their choice)
Ear is very important but the theory knowledge is important too. If I'm hearing a minor 7th chord it makes it much easier to identify because I know what a minor 7th chord is and what it sounds like right away. If I didn't it would be harder to figure out. If it's a minor major 7 chord I can tell what it is right away because I know what it is and what it sounds like. If I hear a hirajoshi scale or a phrygian dominant scale I know what they are right away because I know exactly what they are and what they sound like and how they are constructed etc. If I hear a 2 5 1 chord progression I know what it is right away because I know exactly what they are and how they are constructed etc. I can tell in a second if I hear a perfect 5th or major 6th because I know what they are etc. If I hear a less common chord progression or interval it is still easier for me to identify because I am so familiar with the more common ones and can figure it out from there. I teach music and I do this every single day and I absolutely use my theory knowledge as well as my ear.
Fantastic explanation. From a rock guy perspective, it's like if you never heard Dirty Water before and there you are on stage but you have played the hell out of Chuck Berry or Eddy Cochran- you kind of get where it's going. Just find the rhythm. Suspiciously specific, yes.
The way I do it is just a mix of intuition developed over years and years of playing music + theory (in case intuition fails) to logically know where chords are supposed to go
I love your videos, because my ear has always been far more developed than my music theory knowledge, so although I could pick music up quickly and sense direction and help with choices, I haven’t had good ways to communicate some of it, even in my own head. This kind of activity is one of my favorite instrument playing pass times - just scroll through songs I haven’t tried or don’t know and figure them out by ear - all kinds of genres to encourage new ideas. As long as I can remember, I’ve been a heavy music listener, and have had a knack for picking things up by ear (to whatever extent I can with a couple listens). However, the good and bad is that my ear developed well beyond my music reading and theory, so I sometimes feel impatient trying to learn things intricately through music sheets… I just want to do it by ear and focus on the intent, style, and emotion directing the music rather than the details. Cheers!
I think my ear was natural. As a kid I could do this. I never developed. It was always there. I discovered it when I started piano lessons. I learned to cheat and not learn to read notes. God given. I wish I had continued lessons because I hated them. Now I wish I had the skill. I haven’t had a piano for 30 years but have access to one occasionally
I don't read music...ad lib all the time "playing by ear" however I have musician friends who have played for 40 years...but without music they are lost. Exposure & experience does nothing for them. That said there is a unique gift to playing by ear.
hi. i am a player by ear. i can also play songs that i listen too as logn as i memorize the song or music i can play them. I dont know how to read notes too and i just base on chords and even my chords have their own version (my fingers dont coordiante with the standard chord pattern). whenever i hear a new song sometimes i can predict what chord is next maybe because its a very common set of chords. there are usual time if someone played a familiar song and they start into a familiar chord, like G or C or D, i can identify the set of chords for that whole song.
Its kinda like how I, as a singer, am usually singing the second chorus in a pop song like I've known it for weeks during my very listen. Melody is easy and the words have already come up once and verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure is the lyrical form of predictable.
I can suggest you to listen Fazıl Say Who is a Turkish Pianist. And he is a Genious. Just like this videos caption, he can play songs after just once listen. He also dont use any sheets, in concerts, he plays them just using his intelligent :)
I was expecting the secret of decoding every songs harmony. This song you picked is a very simple one. It’s basically the harmony of every song you can hear in radio. A commercial easy song by Bieber.
Years ago, I taught 4 Taylor swift songs to a single student in a single lesson and they were ALL this progression. (vi-IV-I-V) and they all sounded totally different. Also notice: this is just the "axis" progression, (I-V-vi-IV) but starting halfway through!
While years upon years of experience can develop an year, is a talent out of the question? I for one was able to play back simple tunes at 3 years old on my 8 key toy xylophone, and now I can play much more complex tunes, of course after many years of exposure.
Yes, assuming you know which keys or strings make which sounds and you can physically play them in the required way. With a guitar, there are some chords my small fingers just can't reach, and I have to look through alternate voicings and pray there's something I can use, which generally entails losing out on the lower strings. My B and F are sad, pale things compared to my E, D, A, G, and C. (Maybe I need a child's guitar lol 😭)
Yeah, I totally agree with the premise that it's mostly having a trained or experienced ear that allows someone to learn a song after only listening to it once or a few times. But having a few music theory tools in the tool box sure makes it easier. Knowing that this is a i - bVI - III - VII progression doesn't really do much, but if you're able to identify intervals - That's pure gold for picking up a song within a short amount of time. This song, however, is a really simplistic one harmonically, as is most "pop" music. Four chords and a few more sprinkled in during the buildup to the chorus, which is more of the same four chords. No 7ths. The VII chord does have an add11 sound, which is pretty cool - much like Like a boy by Charlie Puth, not that that comparison works in any other context. Also, your piano needs a slight tuning, I think. Or am I the only one who spends more time tuning my guitar than actually playing it? Would probably make a cool video to tune it using true temperament, which is a kind of compromise between 12TET and just intonation. Maybe you've seen electric guitars with those squiggly frets? Pretty sure Misha Mansoor has one. Would be cool to find out whether 6-9 chords work in that tuning, cus it REALLY doesn't in just intonation. Or just really spicy dominant chords like in one of your latest videos. Gonna stop rambling now.
I don't know how but during when I started playing the trumpet at 7-8 yrs old, I can imitate notes in an instant without sheet music. Also, If my peers asked me what note this is without looking, I can imitate it instantly Maybe it's because of exposure to music I guess.
brb going to go listen to Ravel once and play it back perfectly here I go ok see you soon
Ok
off you go, as you should
Hi Charles :)
Can't wait
Please do a video on Ravel, his music is so amazing!!
As a musician, my ear is developed enough to understand where music typically wants to go and the sound I’m expecting, but I’m not practiced enough on my instrument to be able to replicate what I’m hearing in my head in real-time.
Yes
I can play most things on a piano (at least the basic chords, not necessarily complicated melodic stuff lol), but with a guitar, I'll frequently run into a chord I have no idea how to make (and then I look it up and realize my fingers don't even make that shape and I gotta try like the 4th voicing on the 7th fret and I die a little inside 😂).
Oh my God, someone put it in words! I have enough musical experience to fill in musical gaps, but not in my instrument.
This
Dont think "understanding where music wants to go" is that much of a matter of having a developed ear. Im pretty sure that people who just listen to music occasionally also have a feeling of where the chords want to go/where the resolution is supposed to be.
Also depends on what type of music you're listening to. Listening to pop songs? There is a chance you've already heard this chord progression before. Jazz? Much harder.
I would describe this skill as "pattern recognition." The pattern could be a certain song structure, a typical chord progression, or even a chord itself. The ability to pick out a dominant with a flat 9 comes from having heard the chord hundreds of times before, and having consciously identified what you were hearing.
Absolutely. Our brains are word for pattern recognition.
I'm not a musician, but I play rhythm games at a reasonable high level, (and I have played flute and trombone for a bit on high school) and being able to recognize patterns of notes, and rhythmic patterns or song structure in the music are absolutely part of what I use in order to play difficult charts.
Some people focus exclusively on the notes/visual patterns, but I focus as much on the music as the visual patterns.
While I haven't developed the kind of relative pitch or cord recognition that musicians do, I've definitely developed a capacity to listen deeply to music. I can recognize the sound of augmented, major and minor chords. I can count all sorts of polyrhythms and odd meter without much trouble too. What gets me is the ability to recognize specific inversions, that shit is nuts.
Most songs only use 7 chords (6 because VIIidim aren't often used) and the fact that most mainstream songs use the same chord progression it makes things easier. Harder songs would need more time, but if you only play the basic version, it's still not that difficult
Hearing a flat 9 wouldn't be pattern recognition. That's just straight ear training to identify a sound, like just drilling major and minor triads. Chord progressions can make patterns. I'd say a musical pattern requires a sequence of chords or notes through time. I don't think people hear a chord as a pattern. It's more like identifying the name of a color or the meaning of a word through memorization.
@@richarddoan9172 chords can absolutely be thought of as patterns. They're patterns of intervals.
Pattern recognition is simply intelligence. Musical understanding is the variable one can change
Ear training exercises such as transcribing a piece by listening have really been how I’ve trained my ear. There are also awesome apps like Chet that gamify the experience.
Thank you so much for suggesting Chet! I just downloaded it and it's so fun!
@@TheSpaceRealm Chet is the only good one I’ve found so far
Yes! Earlier this week I transcribed my first big band chart and holy cow my ears are so much better now. I’m still not great, but I’m a lot better than I was two weeks ago lol
Learning music in Church forced me to develop these skills. Took it for granted until I saw this video.
@@darcebader2126 That’s a great way to learn it as well even if you don’t have music theory vocabulary to put to it
The "There was a zoom there" bit was actually a perfect example of another application of exposure and immersion. Charles's familiarity with the language of video editing told him, "There will be a zoom at this comedic accidental note moment." Not sure if it was intentional, but it shows the point really well.
The editor couldve just put the zoom there because Charles said there would be, it mightve gone there anyway but still
I'm convinced Charles has hacked into my friends group chat lol. Out of the last 5 videos 3 of them were topics we had just talked about a couple days prior. Great info as always! Love how you sort of 'demystify' these concepts that usually only musicians with some experience would understand and know how to apply them
How many topics did you discuss in the group that Charles did not make a video of?
That happened to me too with one of his videos!!! It's insane and no one believed me!
@@isacericsson7218 vibe
Must be nice to have a group chat
@@michaelvarney. Let people have their
serendipity without mansplaining statistical coincidence. It’s cool. Let people have their moments.
Another example of a concept where the language analogy is spot-on lol. Just like hearing someone say something and then repeating it perfectly with the right pronunciation and inflection, because immersion gave you a fundamental understanding of the language.
When I first heard somebody say music is just a language it blew my mind.
Seems so simple but combine that with some basic theory knowledge and it opens up so many doors artistically
It’s absolutely pattern recognition. And it’s developed by continually listening to and learning as many songs as possible. Going outside your comfort zone and listening to/playing songs outside your preferred genre will develop your ear even further, faster. The best, most well rounded songwriter I’ve ever met played in a death metal band, but he listened to jazz, orchestral music, top 40, show tunes, South African highlife, country and hip hop. He rarely listened to death metal, except to stay on top of emerging trends in the genre.
I recently got gifted a piano from my AMAZING music teacher. Your channel has helped me learn the theory. Without both you and my teacher I wouldn't be able to pursue my musical journey. Thank you for making these videos!
Congratulations on your piano!
@@hisky. thank you!
@Double 15 second no-skip UA-cam ads. She's absolutely wonderful.
That's awesome! I hope you can take time to play around with it. One of my favorite things to do with s piano is literally what Charles was doing in this video: playing along with a song, ideally not pausing it and learning to keep going if I hit a "wrong" note. (Imho there are no wrong notes, just ones you weren't expecting 😂)
A piano or a keyboard?
As someone who's been the bass player in the house band for open mic jams, my rule for anyone wanting us to back them up was "five chords or less", just because we can pick up these kinds of songs immediately. Forget listening to a song once, try playing a song you've heard maybe once in your life but never payed attention to, and now you gotta figure it out live on stage. Super fun!
Six is kind of within reach too, right? For a song without key changes would usually simply revolve around IV V I of the major, along with ii iii vi (I think of them as IV V I of the relative minor), and this gets you very far.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, Charles!
Frank!!! Love your vids man! Keep up the great work, eagerly waiting for that vid with Marcus Veltri again
you are the master at this for having a relative ear! Love your stuff :D
hey i know this guy
this is a skill I used a couple of weeks ago at a jam to find things to play. I cannot exactly recite the changes of the new tunes, but i was able to navigate the key change at the bridge, and follow the generic minor chord progression for the A sections. It's so much more valuable of a skill and i wish it was introduced earlier in education. It's just not that useful for middle school band and i think that's part of the problem...
100% agree with the importance of ear training and learning to play along with an unknown piece of music. I wish education in general wasn't so hyper-focused on utility and allowed room for exploration and discovery and playing around. It's so much more engaging for students and helps nurture creative thinking, communication, working together, and a ton of other skills that are honestly more useful than a lot of "book learning" that people can just Google nowadays.
Wow, way to describe my inherent knack for harmonies in my church's music. They've hit me with something new several times before and after figuring out the main melody, this was the approach that I use ALL THE TIME to learn the harmonies.
I think it’s really awesome to take what you’re saying in this video and apply it to my own memory of your other videos. When I’ve seen you fiddle around with fairly standard pop music, you can play it back instantly. Makes sense, fairly basic chord progressions, clear melody that’s probably not doing anything too weird, and anything weird it is doing is so distinct and obvious that it naturally becomes the focus of you playing it back.
Then I remember watching you break down Jacob Collier and Bill Wurtz. While you’re still pretty quick to pick up some movements and ideas, their outside the box style means you end up being actually flawed sometimes and having to slowly breakdown sections of their music, individually hunting down particular notes in a big stacked unconventional chord, or doing what it SEEMS like they’re doing, only to notice your attempt sounds a little off and then trying to work out what little nuance your missing.
Congrats on joining Sungazer!!! Hyped to see what music you make with them
Hey Charles!
I’ve always had this question about music:
When you’re analyzing a piece you can see it’s final form, “oh, here’s a key change, here’s this motif… etc” but when you’re the one writing a piece how much of those characteristics are deliberate choices and how much is the composer just going “hmm, this sounds cool” and it just happen to be whatever we end up listening to?
That's actually a real difficult question I think.
I suppose if you’re purposefully composing say a sonata, you probably get something that sounds cool and go “hey, this would be good for a theme.” And then you could construct a sonata using the parts of a sonata. Other things I don’t know, and the rest is presumptions.
Seeing interviews with the pros... composing my own shit... I've found that the "hmm, this sounds cool" approach is, almost exclusively, what happens.
If you know theory then 90% of the time the choices are deliberate insofar as most songs typically follow the same structure, assuming you aren't playing jazz.
If you don't know theory then I'd say about 10% of the time lol.
It depends on the artist and its knowledge of music theory, speaking of my own experience if I do a key change I will uninevetably notice because I think about theory a lot. But it also may happen that I come up with a melody that's in a odd time signature and I don't even realize until later. The thing is that in music a lot of stuff isn't deliberate because at least in my case, improvisation is a big part of composition so a lot of things come in the moment.
The way I explain this to my friends is that it’s the difference between somebody putting together a dresser by following ikea instructions and a skilled carpenter looking at a dresser and saying “yup, I can make that”. For one, it’s a matter of following instructions, and the more skilled the follower the easier it will be to put it together for them. The carpenter, on the other hand, doesn’t have instructions, but instead he knows the wood and the tools well enough that just from one look he can roughly figure out how it was made and knows how to use his tools to make it like that. Playing by ear is being the carpenter-you don’t get to that level of skill overnight, but it’s possible to have a carpenter who is terrible at reading instructions but can build anything. Just the same, those who play by ear may not read music as well, but they can recreate a song from just a single listen because they know how to use their musical tools to make the song.
Language was a really good example for explaining emersion. I can personally say exposure and experience will probably be the most important parts of learning a new language. My family comes from China, and while I took Chinese classes, my parents would always talk to me in Chinese. Through this, I learned how sentences should sound, where the nouns/verbs/adjectives go in a sentence, how the region you're from affects your accent, and how to speak casually to others. It helped out a LOT when answering my teacher's questions and writing sentences for homework.
Immersion ?
Good description. Harder in jazz because the chords are more expanded and harder to hear exactly what’s in them. What determines how easy something is to pick up is how predictable it is. Some groups are harder to learn than others for either (or both) of two reasons: the chords are way expanded (Steely Dan) or the band just likes throwing in lots of unorthodox changes in unexpected places even if the chords themselves are simple (some of the Grateful Dead). Some of the modulations in Springsteen are unexpected, like the bridge in Born to Run (E St. Band version).
Also understand that this has nothing to do with perfect pitch. For those of us who can do this a lot of the time but don’t have perfect pitch, if you played me a pitch and told me it was a different one, assuming I didn’t learn the song while playing along with it, the chords I’d play would be off by how far off the actual pitch you told me the pitch was. For example, if you played me an F and told me it was a G (and I didn’t notice), all my chords would be a whole step high.
omg finally a video like this is what I've always wanted. ear training has always been put at such a high pedestal, making it seem impossible for people starting out or people wanting to start out with music.
So I know Spotify has their pre-made playlist with all kind of genres, but could you make a playlist with your favourite jazz songs?
Thanks anyway for the weekly-ish music knowledge.
As a guitar player from the start I learned a lot of my favorite rock bands songs by ear while I was learning. In the first few years I was playing kiss, Ac/dc, Ozzy, and black Sabbath by ear.
That's all I did throughout my 20 years of guitar, listening and being able to pick up songs on my first to second listen through.
I've been practicing this lately, and it's an incredibly satisfying skill to develop for myself. Plus it's a neat party trick.
bro, it’s such a fun party trick, especially when it’s your freshman choir and they have no idea that harry styles’ sign of the times is literally the same 3 chords for 90% of the song
If you listen to a lot of music have a good sense of timing and ear, sing along and hum often, if you play an instrument, hum or listen along to a song you like and play along trying to make the sound of the instrument match the song, repeat and repeat. It’s helped me connect the dots of music theory than what I grew up with it. Being taught in our baseline poor western education in most schools in the US, they know how to teach but they didnt always know how to teach how and why learning is as fun as it can be. Presentation goes a long way. And the same goes for the ear , I am learning piano as my fourth instrument. I started with drums, so I have a real sense of timing and rhythm, but wanted to learn guitar and so I did that and the former helped inform the latter just as my guitar has helped inform my piano and Vice versa, I am an advanced intermediate player whose played for a decade and a half or more now but each pieces in the craft of music helps lean into and reinforce other pieces
I just want to let you know that these teaching videos are my favorite videos you make. They are very helpful and inspiring.
Great video! I can also confirm that it doesn’t even take to long you just need to be exposed/surrounded by music. For me I’ve been training for 3 years to be a MT performer and I’ve been working on my ear and piano and I’m starting to notice that I can hear a song and sketch it out on a piano based on my ear.
I've been doing this in church since quite a lot. People singing a song I don't know and me playing guitar and catching on along the way. Ear exposure to patterns and chord progressions. And I'm not a musician, just an amateur with basic theoretical knowledge. And I love unusual challenging songs and figuring out the chords and the beat.
I can imagine some of them would ask you if you'd heard the song before. 😎
@@TheSeeking2know Yes, generally people who don't play music ask that.
Hi Charles, if you have a minute, I was wondering something. How are you selecting the voicings for these chords that you're using, and how did you get to a point where you can select these particular voicings without really thinking about it?
(and if Charles doesn't have a minute, but someone else has an answer, please let me know)
Enjoyed the video! Thanks.
Great question, I always wondered this too!
Take a V to I progression for example. The major 3rd of the V chord is a half step away from the root of the I chord.
Let’s say we’re in G and going from D to G, the V to the I. If you play the D in first inversion or even D/F#, you’re going to emphasize that half step resolution from F# to G more so than you would in root position, which emphasizes the perfect fifth interval from D to G.
And depending on how you want the song to sound, you can add that emphasis with an inversion or not.
Other than that it’s immersion and practice.
Fairly similar idea to what he talks about. Personally I find that I not only listen for chords but also their voicing as well. If you know your way around chord inversions then you can develop hearing them. I listen out for which note is on top. In Ghost many of the chords are just 5ths (AE) and he/I can hear that there's no 3rd (C#) in there. Pop music tends to not use thick sounds and the 3rd is often what drops out
@@aanesijr Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like you’re talking about smooth voice leading/choosing chord inversions that move as little as possible?
But he seems to be using some Open voicings here. Between the left + right hand there are a lot of options that exist there, so I’m wondering how he ends up using what he does.
@@jaidenp7426 Hmm. I understand that he could be hearing the inversions on the fly, but hearing the entire open voicing is another thing altogether. I’m not really under the impression that what he’s playing is exactly what’s on the recording.
So in the case if a chord that omits the 3rd, are you saying that he’s just planing the 1 and 5 with both left and right hands?
My Grandma was a church organist, the only music link in my family, she didn't know the names of any of the notes or know what chords were, it was all in the ears.
Beautifully put Charles! This is stuff that I've inherently known but had a hard time communicating it to my students. I'll be coming back to this video
This is one of my favorite things about being a musician and it makes me feel like a superhuman. As a drummer it works a little different since I don’t rely too much on the chord progression (although it does set the feel) but if you throw me on stage with a genre I’m comfortable with, I’ll pick it up with one or two listens. Or heck, even just a prompt (e.g. for this Bieber song: moody, low volume, high energy). Jazz is a different story… don’t expect any good jazz from me 😅
I play 2nd (solo) trumpet in my college jazz ensemble. I used my ear power all the time. Actually I prefer to solo by ear and listening to the changes rather than looking at the changes and doing more work.
I love your channel.
I'm a classically-trained string player, and I can play the melody of something I just heard a lot of the times, but its the left-hand part that pianists can also do that boggles my mind.
Same skills but certain instruments just train you on harmony far, far more. Guitar is similar. It's not really a right hand / Left hand / both hands thing.
I've been a musician for 21 years and recording artist (albeit not very good nor remarkable one). I learned by ear. I even have very out of practice "perfect pitch" recollection. I V VI IV - Beato. My theory is totally broken but fills in knowledge gaps here and there. I really like Charles' relating learning music to language. It is a near perfect analogy. One can be fluent in English without an English major. You learn it by hearing it and "speaking" it.
Knowing some basic music theory such as how to construct major and minor scales, and how to construct chords certainly contribute to your ability pickup songs by ear.
jake lizzio from signals music studio put it this way: it's like looking at a stop sign, you immediately recognize that it's a stop sign, rather than stopping and analyzing that it's red, an octagon, says "STOP", etc. you are able to attribute a unique identity to a particular chord progression or change, and use that to identify a chord progression or change in a song without a reference
For me the number system really helped to remember degrees chord quality and how they can vary in songs
This was cool but I would have loved if you covered through the fire and flame or Everlong or anyting difficult with fast notes or meter changes. I'm curious to see how your mind works through that
PLEASE, for the love of music, review the Hollow Knight ost. It is so good that it physically pains me to not see you review it. The whole thing is a master class in instrumentation, composition, theory, take your pick. PLEASE!
Or the celeste soundtrack!
Ahh another of greats, good recommendation!
I call it "musical vocabulary". Once you've heard a given chord enough you can recognize it. If you have a classical music education this helps a great deal as a lot of composers of the past used the spectrum of the musical palette to create soundscapes.
The more music you play in more genres, keys, tempos, and time signatures, well it's just like learning more words and complicated grammar in spoken language; you know more, so you understand more and can replicate it more quickly.
The first time you hear a Eb dim3 aug5 B6 add9 dom11 your reaction is "WTF was that?!" After you've worked it out, you know it and can identify it.
When I took up Melodeon I decided to only learn to play it by ear. If I want to learn from the dots I learn something on a keyboard and internalise it but mostly I go to sessions and listen and try and join in. It also helps that the instrument is diatonic only plays in two keys and a push on a particular row plays 1,3,5 of the scale a pull everything else. So if you get the rhythm/chords right just go for following the melody up or down you usually get it right.
Recognizing familiar patterns and then the differences to those, store them as blocks. In that Bieber song there is about 5-6 blocks.
I once had to do a mini-tour replacing a rhythm guitarist. I learned 2 hours of new material in 45 minutes. It was very formulaic, schlager, classic 60s etc. so each new song was: check the key, learn the chords and strumming pattern (i had chord charts for each song ready...), then learn the hooks and extra pauses etc. that were unique for the song and then the song structure. So, intro, one verse, one chorus, bridge, done, next song.. I had played about a hundred gigs with the band before so we got our 4-5 hour set ready in one practice session, something like 90 minutes in total.
*think of it this way* - it's knowing music completely enough to be on level with how one would know their own language. So all they do is *'listen to what someone said'* and then simply tell someone else what that person had *just* told them. simple but you have to know music on the same level that you know your own language. That is the start for sure.
David Bennett has good videos on common chord progressions in songs. Worth a check
They're easy to look up.
This was a super cool video to listen to and kind of helped me understand what I was attempting to do when I was younger and would lie about having heard a new pop song and then when singing along I'd be guessing what the next rhyme would be and where the melody would go. I have since stopped lying when I haven't heard a song, but I still like to guess which way a melody will go and what the next word will be. The songs I'm consistently wrong about tend to be my favorites because they're surprising and fun.
You're putting to words very eloquently what I've been trying to explain for a long time. It's all about exposure really, and you start to see how most music has a lot of the same. I used to be this human jukebox at parties sometimes - "say a song, any song at all, and we'll play and sing it together". For people not accustomed to that concept it may sound like magic, but in practice, people will say basically always say a popular song (that you probably know if you're a music nerd), and then it's really you just taking it from C and applying one of the usual chord progressions and you're there (and maybe you spice it up with a 7 or 9 here and there for flavor). My tip for anyone who wants to start doing that is: just listen to music and play along. A lot. If you have a big music interest, experiment and try to play songs you like from C because it's easiest. And most importantly - if you have a hard time identifying chords to songs you like, listen to the bass. More often than not, the lowest note you hear in the song is the chord that accompanies it.
Have fun, delve into it - sheet music and theory definitely has it's place but playing along with music, trying to recreate songs, learning to play by ear is some of the most fun, playful and creative things you can do in music and you grow tremendously from just sitting down and doing it, with friends or by yourself.
Excellent video! To me, the difference between knowing music theory and not is like listening to a song in a foreign language as opposed to your native tongue. I can hum along and harmonize to some anime's opening theme pretty easily, but I'll have to memorize the words because I don't know what they mean, and it'll take me a lot longer to learn. For a song like "Ghost," I can do all that in the first listen and have the chorus down pat by the second time it comes around because the words fit into my brain and make sense, so I can put them on autopilot and focus on the music. Same with something in French, although I have to read the lyrics cuz my listening comprehension isn't as good as my reading lol.
This video has made me sad that I spent so many years of my life studying music but suddenly stopped when I dropped out of the music college in university. I never got to fully finish training my ear while in the college, but this has motivated me to start training my ear again as I'm picking music back up. Although playing my old pieces I can feel how rusty I am. lol But I can fully see what you mean by being exposed to it so many times. Even for this very song, I was able to pick up the chord progression and "anticipated" it.
Playing both Classical (mostly just chords) and Bass Guitar really helps me to get the chord structure of a song down. I generally start playing just the bass notes on the guitar (and then listening to make sure they're actually the root notes of the chords, not just an inversion) and go from there. Sometimes I have to literally play every possible wrong note before I find one that fits to a chord though, perfect pitch would be pretty nice! I can say for sure that practice makes perfect (or for me so far, practice makes *better*), this year I've been playing a lot of new songs and that really helps to get the ears going and picking up patterns and chord progressions
I always tell my students that learning a pop song is a matter of letting the music defy your expectations. You can generally go into a pop song expecting it to follow a lot of norms such as a format of verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus. Or to be using a four chord progression using the I, IV, V, and vi chords. But it's important to be listening for when a song defys your expectations and does something unique. For instance the little change up in the justin beiber song. That would probably be hard to catch on the fly, but a seasoned musician might be able to catch it the second time around as Charles did here. Anyways, great video!
some musicians are amazingly talented.
Exposure over long periods of time is a highly effective means of being able to do this especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of music theory knowledge or music experience in general. But the most effective way especially for those that do have at least a little experience and/or theory knowledge (and those willing to learn the basics if not more advanced concepts) is ear training: melodic dictation, harmonic dictation, sight singing, transcribing, etc.
Which is still practice. Albeit a more mentally involved form of practice but still practice.
Music is a language, with shared patterns and phrases and idioms. Thank you for being an amazing teacher, and bringing insight where I didn't know I could still find it. 😀
I had never heard that song before and honestly I never expected a Justin Beiber song to emotionally hit me that hard. It made me think of some people that I've lost and whose losses still hurt. So that's something.
Check out “Mah’s Joint” by Jon Bellion (who wrote and produced the Bieber song in this video).
@@philosophiabme Is it going to make me super cry? I don't know if I'm ready to super cry right now.
Yes!!! I've been looking all over UA-cam for ages to learn how to do that!
I once wrote a paper on intuition in music improv and as much as this video wasn't really about, it was more about playing what you hear, not going with the flow of a certain 'mood', exposure to repeated keys/chords/sequences enhance subconscious memory and intuition throughout the years - especially thanks to the prolonged time of being exposed to that *thing*. Charles not only used a melodic structure that has been overused, and repeated, that he himself heard many times (bear with me, I'm not so musically endowed from the theory pov, si idk the Ghost chords), but he also intuitively knew where the song was going to bring him. That's like when we hum, we somehow guess the next part of a song (especially one that follows a repeated musical structure, or one that belongs to a music genre) because we got so used to hearing it that we can predict what comes next. It obviously does not pertain to all music and not everyone has the same level of affinity to music, things might not be as noticeable to others, but many studies have been certainly made to prove what Charles is also saying. So, in case you're like me and living the struggle between equally giving up on music or pursuing to improve yourself, why should you give up in the end? At least keep on practising, and play with what you hear, even if you mess up, who cares? Go back to your instrument, or whatever you're using to create music, and have fun. Practice, practice, practice and keep listening to and discovering new music. Now, I'm gonna go paly a bit on my piano.
I'm impressed by how quickly I identified Jon Bellion's songwriting. As soon as Bieber started singing I thought "this is Jon Bellion", I looked it up and it was. I really love Jon 🤣🤣🤣
Especially that little pitched up vocal beatboxing sample thing. If that’s not classic Jon, idk what is.
@@philosophiabme exactlyyyy
Me after 17 hours: guys guys guys... I've learned smoke on the water on guitar
I really appreciate these videos because I assume you instantly lose youtube monetization playing so much of a top track. Glad you're still able to make it work because there is a lot of value in these lessons.
This song was written and produced by my favorite artist Jon Bellion and I realllly enjoyed watching you break it down. I would pay to see you break down more of his songs
Yesss, I recognized his song
writing as soon as the melody started
You'll get the same break down. 99.9% of pop uses this exact formula.
This is 100% true, I'm by no means a great or even good musician but I've been playing punk bass and guitar for so long and I've been listening to this music for such a long while that it's become easier for me to learn even more complex songs from bands I like. Music theory has very much not been a part of my training outside of basic scales but even that small amount with all the experience has made it easier to play by ear.
(also not to suck up but another big help has been watching music edutainment vids like yrs)
Hey Charles, it's great to see a true musician revealing some of the mysteries of music. I'm always humbled when I see that happening. I wonder though what your goal is with this video? As a guitarist with some rudimentary music theory, progressing along the continuum, I have to say that your demonstration didn't really help me all that much, even though your ability is clear. I was able to pick out the chord roots B, G, F# and A on the guitar's 6th string. A little more attention on my part would have likely had me realize that the B was a Bmin chord and the F# chord was a F#min7(?). I found myself wondering which key it was in to get to the place where I could say, "Aha, this is a vi, IV, iii, I or whatever it is, given some inversions, and from there to play it from memory with ease. It seems to be a classic case of "You don't know what you know", and conversely, a case of forgetting that others don't know what you know. Then again, maybe your goal is not didactic. Anyway, thanks for the video.
Thank you so much for doing this; I do this in a much sloppier, less experienced, and less effective way, and you just gave me better direction and a glimpse at what I can develop this into❤️thank you !!!!!!’
I do this a lot…but with my voice…? Lol I’m not sure how to articulate it but I’ve sang in high school and college choir (2nd Soprano), and to this day I can hear a brand new song and I can hum it and know where the song is going, including any harmonies and adlibs. By the second listen I can sing the entire song. I’ve always done this, whether I enjoy the song or not, I always instinctually harmonize along. I love music and your videos remind me of why I love it so much! ❤️
I feel like this could be summed up by explaining that music is a language, lol. If I say something to you in a language you understand, you better understand what I am saying enough to repeat it back to me, even if it's in your own words. Which is how pianists can make something simple sound super complex immediately as well, they simply understand the music to the point where they can "say it back" in their own "words".
That's actually a really good analogy. I would consider the different genres different accents by that logic.
I didn't know that Drum'n'Bieber was a thing, and I didn't know I would like it.
Also what about the voice leading ? Did you just recognize it instantly because you know from experience the sound of each different inversions and voicings and how they lead one into another, or did you have to calculate it on the spot ?
Please do a video on Derek Paravicini. Media used to refer to him as the "human jukebox" because he can perfectly reproduce any piece after hearing it once. He's a piano savant. The most awesome stuff is when he does mashups like "x in the style of y", mashing up different composers. I think there'd be a ton to analyze in how he juxtaposes styles on top of one another. He's an actual genius
I mean I think I do that for 4 reasons
1. I learned guitar by ear before I knew theory, didn't have internet and had to play around and find it
2. I did theory in high school and college, did a lot of ear training exercises.
3. I am well versed in the structure of a lot of music
4. I'm autistic, and I'm very focused on music as a topic. So it has been easy for my brain to spend a huge amount of time on it.
First time to hear such a teaching on UA-cam. Thanks for sharing. Liked & Subscribed.
Fantastic! This explains it soo simply and effectively relatable! Thanks🙏
You recognise patterns after a while. The 4 chord song is a good example.
I do this all the time lol. I'm a drummer and I will be listening to a song and know where the cymbal hits are going to be and where fills are or even what the groove it. I will tap along to a song I've never heard before and be pretty much on. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly when a chorus is going to hit or a drop but mostly I can tap along to a song I've never heard before
If I hear a melodie I like, I can get something like my guitar and try so long, till I can play that melody as I remember it. Also, this is really fun, cause I can sing a song when I hear it the first time (Yes, it's way easier if I have the lyrics). I can tell really good, how the melody will be after the first halfor even the first fourth ofthe song if it's pop or rock. So I sing the lyrics I hear. But if only I would hear it and others only mine, it wouldnt sound so good, cause I "sing the melody of the words".
But if a song gets myattention I can feel it, it's going trough my body, thoughts and all!
I life the song! Also I can learn trough that,how to play a new instrument, cause I just try til the tone sounds right.
I'm not sure if you've seen it, but the improvised live performance between the pianists Jacob Koller and Yomii is amazing. It would be lovely to see a reaction and analysis to their arrangement of Lupin III or Yoru Ni Kakeru
I would say being able to read music to a good fast level can be a faster way to play any tune .These days you can get music for most songs and tunes . I can read fast so playing back a tune is as fast if not faster than working it out by ear , plus you are playing it exactly as written . Learn to read to a fast level .
The thing I always find impressive is: someone who can listen to the song without an instrument and then sit down and play the song with the chords and melody. There was a guy at my uni who could do this for any song and you could even call out different genres for him to play the tune in, can you make a video explaining how to that hahahahaha (and not just pop songs either, he could this for chopin, rachmaninoff and jazz too)
Check out gabriella montero, she does this in concerts (an audience member will sing a melody and she will improvise a piece in a style of their choice)
Ear is very important but the theory knowledge is important too. If I'm hearing a minor 7th chord it makes it much easier to identify because I know what a minor 7th chord is and what it sounds like right away. If I didn't it would be harder to figure out. If it's a minor major 7 chord I can tell what it is right away because I know what it is and what it sounds like. If I hear a hirajoshi scale or a phrygian dominant scale I know what they are right away because I know exactly what they are and what they sound like and how they are constructed etc. If I hear a 2 5 1 chord progression I know what it is right away because I know exactly what they are and how they are constructed etc. I can tell in a second if I hear a perfect 5th or major 6th because I know what they are etc. If I hear a less common chord progression or interval it is still easier for me to identify because I am so familiar with the more common ones and can figure it out from there. I teach music and I do this every single day and I absolutely use my theory knowledge as well as my ear.
Fantastic explanation. From a rock guy perspective, it's like if you never heard Dirty Water before and there you are on stage but you have played the hell out of Chuck Berry or Eddy Cochran- you kind of get where it's going. Just find the rhythm. Suspiciously specific, yes.
The way I do it is just a mix of intuition developed over years and years of playing music + theory (in case intuition fails) to logically know where chords are supposed to go
Excellent!!!!
Thank you!!!!!!
im so grateful i can do this easily
I love your videos, because my ear has always been far more developed than my music theory knowledge, so although I could pick music up quickly and sense direction and help with choices, I haven’t had good ways to communicate some of it, even in my own head.
This kind of activity is one of my favorite instrument playing pass times - just scroll through songs I haven’t tried or don’t know and figure them out by ear - all kinds of genres to encourage new ideas.
As long as I can remember, I’ve been a heavy music listener, and have had a knack for picking things up by ear (to whatever extent I can with a couple listens). However, the good and bad is that my ear developed well beyond my music reading and theory, so I sometimes feel impatient trying to learn things intricately through music sheets… I just want to do it by ear and focus on the intent, style, and emotion directing the music rather than the details.
Cheers!
I think my ear was natural. As a kid I could do this. I never developed. It was always there. I discovered it when I started piano lessons. I learned to cheat and not learn to read notes. God given. I wish I had continued lessons because I hated them. Now I wish I had the skill. I haven’t had a piano for 30 years but have access to one occasionally
I loved this, it really opened my eyes to how my brain works when I'm doing music
I don't read music...ad lib all the time "playing by ear" however I have musician friends who have played for 40 years...but without music they are lost. Exposure & experience does nothing for them. That said there is a unique gift to playing by ear.
hi. i am a player by ear. i can also play songs that i listen too as logn as i memorize the song or music i can play them. I dont know how to read notes too and i just base on chords and even my chords have their own version (my fingers dont coordiante with the standard chord pattern). whenever i hear a new song sometimes i can predict what chord is next maybe because its a very common set of chords. there are usual time if someone played a familiar song and they start into a familiar chord, like G or C or D, i can identify the set of chords for that whole song.
Its kinda like how I, as a singer, am usually singing the second chorus in a pop song like I've known it for weeks during my very listen. Melody is easy and the words have already come up once and verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure is the lyrical form of predictable.
I can suggest you to listen Fazıl Say Who is a Turkish Pianist. And he is a Genious. Just like this videos caption, he can play songs after just once listen. He also dont use any sheets, in concerts, he plays them just using his intelligent :)
Great explanation. Well done.
This guy is extremely good at this stuff!
I was expecting the secret of decoding every songs harmony. This song you picked is a very simple one. It’s basically the harmony of every song you can hear in radio. A commercial easy song by Bieber.
Showing this to my student! thanks
Years ago, I taught 4 Taylor swift songs to a single student in a single lesson and they were ALL this progression. (vi-IV-I-V) and they all sounded totally different. Also notice: this is just the "axis" progression, (I-V-vi-IV) but starting halfway through!
Great channel man!
While years upon years of experience can develop an year, is a talent out of the question? I for one was able to play back simple tunes at 3 years old on my 8 key toy xylophone, and now I can play much more complex tunes, of course after many years of exposure.
1:56
Dude. That's it!
The song as an language. And the language, as a reality.
That's how you learn music and, very likely, a ton of things.
If you can sing it first try, you can play it first try. Most people only have experience with their voices.
Yes, assuming you know which keys or strings make which sounds and you can physically play them in the required way. With a guitar, there are some chords my small fingers just can't reach, and I have to look through alternate voicings and pray there's something I can use, which generally entails losing out on the lower strings. My B and F are sad, pale things compared to my E, D, A, G, and C. (Maybe I need a child's guitar lol 😭)
Yeah, I totally agree with the premise that it's mostly having a trained or experienced ear that allows someone to learn a song after only listening to it once or a few times.
But having a few music theory tools in the tool box sure makes it easier. Knowing that this is a i - bVI - III - VII progression doesn't really do much, but if you're able to identify intervals - That's pure gold for picking up a song within a short amount of time.
This song, however, is a really simplistic one harmonically, as is most "pop" music. Four chords and a few more sprinkled in during the buildup to the chorus, which is more of the same four chords. No 7ths. The VII chord does have an add11 sound, which is pretty cool - much like Like a boy by Charlie Puth, not that that comparison works in any other context.
Also, your piano needs a slight tuning, I think. Or am I the only one who spends more time tuning my guitar than actually playing it? Would probably make a cool video to tune it using true temperament, which is a kind of compromise between 12TET and just intonation. Maybe you've seen electric guitars with those squiggly frets? Pretty sure Misha Mansoor has one. Would be cool to find out whether 6-9 chords work in that tuning, cus it REALLY doesn't in just intonation. Or just really spicy dominant chords like in one of your latest videos.
Gonna stop rambling now.
I don't know how but during when I started playing the trumpet at 7-8 yrs old, I can imitate notes in an instant without sheet music.
Also, If my peers asked me what note this is without looking, I can imitate it instantly
Maybe it's because of exposure to music I guess.
This is cool, really informative! Thank you!