August 11, 2025 • 25 mins
🎧 Ep. 20: Ear Training - How To Hear Chord Progressions Using Bass Lines
Are you ready to improve your ear training and take your understanding of music theory to the next level? In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the essential skill of hearing chord progressions by identifying bass lines. Whether you’re a music student, aspiring musician, or passionate music theory enthusiast, this episode gives you practical strategies to train your ears to recognize intervals, root movements, and the harmonic function of chords based on bass note patterns.
Discover how recognizing scale degrees, diatonic functions, and cadences can unlock your ability to play by ear, compose music, and transcribe songs faster and more accurately. We also break down common chord progressions and show how to isolate the bass line to predict the harmonic structure. This is Part 1 of a multi-part series designed to build your ear from the ground up!
Don’t miss out—subscribe and follow for the next episode in this ear training series.
🎵 Master your ears. Master your music. 🎵
Linear Music Theory Learning For Everyone!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
What is up, my fellow music theory enthusiasts?
Welcome back to The HarmoniousBlacksmith, a music theory
exploration.
It is a podcast all about musictheory and the inner workings of
music.
Thanks again for joining me.
I do appreciate it.
That opening guitar track that Iplayed for you today is a piece
(01:07):
called Lagrima, which means asingle tear in Spanish.
Written by the great Spanishguitar composer Francisco
Tarrega.
What a beautiful storied piece.
And this piece has stood thetest of time, even though it was
written in the late 1800s.
And it really is a beautifulguitar piece.
(01:29):
And ladies and gentlemen, todayyou have stumbled upon a
SPEAKER_02 (01:33):
very
SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
special episode.
UNKNOWN (01:38):
Episode.
SPEAKER_01 (01:43):
It's a bit of a celebration today to get to
number 20, just so you know.
And today's episode will be allabout how to hear chord
progressions using ear trainingskills.
If you are new to the podcast,welcome, and I really hope that
you dig what we do and stickaround.
(02:04):
For those of y'all who have beensticking around, thank you so
much for your support.
Please do take a look in thedescription of the podcast.
There is a support the showlink.
Three bucks, five bucks, sevenbucks a month money that you
wouldn't even notice can go along way to help me continue to
create awesome content for you.
(02:25):
So I do appreciate you checkingthat out and supporting the
show.
Thank you very much.
And as always, I am your host,Kevin Patrick Fleming.
Aha! Thank you for joining mefor the special episode number
20.
Let's have some fun.
(02:45):
So last episode, we wrapped up atwo-part series on...
bass lines, which is really fun.
So if you haven't heard thoseyet, I do suggest going back and
checking them out.
We learned about just bass linesand bass range and the function
of bass in music and how basslines get so cool and creative.
It was a lot of fun.
(03:07):
But that led me to this episodeon ear training and hearing
chord progressions because thosetwo things are so directly
related.
When it comes to hearing a chordprogression In other words,
you're listening to a music andyou just want to be able to
understand how the chords areprogressing in a key or a chord
(03:28):
progression or just a song youreally like and want to learn to
play.
The answer is almost always inthe bass line.
And we are going to tie all ofthat together in this episode to
help you understand what you'relistening to.
So without further ado, let's goahead and review a very
(03:48):
important term.
What is ear training?
Ear training is the study andpractice in which musicians
learn various skills to detectand identify pitches, intervals,
melodies, harmonies, and chordprogressions solely by hearing.
(04:11):
So we are retraining our mind tohear things in a different way.
It's what we must do in order toget sharp at this skill that we
call ear training, which is amust if you're serious about
understanding music.
And when we talk about eartraining, there is one concept
and only one concept that startsit all off.
(04:35):
And it's called the interval.
So recall that an interval isjust the distance between two
pitches and the related soundthat comes with that distance.
So an example of an intervalwould be like a perfect fifth,
which sounds like this.
(05:02):
Or together it would sound likethis.
Also known as a power chord inguitar circles.
So who out there remembersexactly how many intervals there
are in our system?
Anybody?
Well, Kevin, there are clearly
SPEAKER_00 (05:24):
26 intervals for every letter of the
SPEAKER_01 (05:29):
alphabet.
No, no, that's not even close,man.
Anybody else?
Well, Kevin, there's got to beseven of those intervals, one
for every single note in thescale.
Ooh, that was actually a betterguess, but also ultimately
(05:49):
incorrect.
The answer is 12.
There are 12 intervals in oneoctave in our Western Harmony
system.
as there are also 12 half stepsin an octave.
Now, I'm going to review a fewof them, but I'll remind you I
broke down all 12 intervals inepisode 9 when I introduced ear
(06:14):
training and intervals.
Please do go back to that if youneed to and you want to brush up
on your sounds.
But for the purposes of learninghow to hear chord progressions,
the two most important intervalsyou need in the beginning are a
perfect fourth and a perfectfifth.
A perfect fourth sounds likethis.
(06:37):
And now I get to the part whereyou again need to associate
something familiar with thesound in order to recall it.
So in this case, I'm a classicalguitarist and I've played a ton
of weddings in my lifetime.
So I recognize here comes thebride when I do a perfect
fourth.
(07:02):
And when I hear a perfectfifth...
I hear the Top Gun theme songthat dates me.
But of course, remember, youwant to find the sounds that
relate to what you know.
So you want to take thosesounds, make sure you have a
(07:23):
relationship on what that soundsounds like to you.
So you can recall it just likeit is in a file folder in a
filing cabinet.
Hmm, where's that perfect for?
So let me find that thing.
Oh, there it is.
Here comes the bride.
And in your head, you can hearthe beginning of here comes the
bride.
That connects you to theinterval.
(07:43):
Look, Kevin, what in the worlddoes this have to do with
hearing chord progressions?
Yes, yes, that is the questionyou should be asking.
And the answer is they aredirectly connected.
Like I was talking about before,you can hear chord changes,
chord progressions, simply byhearing the bass movement or the
(08:07):
bass line.
All right, so let's get intosome audio examples.
So I'm going to start you offwith the good old-fashioned
1-4-5 progression in major, thenumber one chord progression in
the history of Western music,right?
We're going to do it in the keyof G, which is going to sound
like this.
G major is the I chord.
(08:32):
C major is IV.
And D major is five.
We're gonna make it a dominantseven for the purposes of a
stronger chord progression.
And then that returns us back toone.
Again, that chord progression isone, four, five, seven, and back
(08:55):
to one.
And you can clearly hear thatwe're in the key of G when we
return to the G chord.
And now we are going toimplement the most common and
perfectly logical bass line thatgoes with that 1-4-5
progression.
Now, you probably already knowwhat it is.
(09:16):
If we're on the I chord G, yourroot note is a G.
That's easy enough.
Well, what do you think it'sgoing to be on C?
It's C.
And of course, when we go to V,which is D7, it's going to be D.
And then we're back to G.
(09:37):
So if you're the bass player inthe group, or this might be your
left hand on your piano, forexample, it would sound like
this.
So that's what it sounds like.
And functionally, it would go...
five one okay so now we have aone four five progression and we
(10:04):
have a root note bass line sonow it's time to play a bit of
that ear training game we weretalking about all right let's go
ahead and just take the firstchord movement in this
progression G major is 1.
And C major is 4.
We're just going to start there.
So that may sound familiar in alot of songs, for example.
(10:34):
It probably reminds you of a tonof stuff.
And that's good.
But how can we tell that this isa 1 to 4 progression?
Well, again, we're going to thebass line.
So the bass line is a G.
to a C.
And that is, of course, aperfect fourth.
Recall my filing cabinet for theperfect fourth.
(10:57):
I use Here Comes the Bride.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (11:05):
We all know that.
That's a pretty low key for it,but you can still hear the tune.
So when I hear...
I hear a one chord to a fourchord, okay?
Now I'm going to play the chordsfor you in a way where you can
hear the bass note more than therest of the chord.
(11:30):
I'm doing it intentionally withmy thumb.
Now, do you hear the bass notes?
You should hear...
Here comes the bride.
That, again, is a perfectfourth, right?
Now, let's go ahead andestablish what it would sound
like to go from a I chord to a Vchord.
(11:50):
So, again, that's going to be aI chord as a G.
And the V chord we're playing isa V7, which is a D7.
Okay?
But now, I'm going to do thesame thing I did before and
bring out the bass note.
It's going to go from I, V, I.
Now, remember, my soundassociation was the Top Gun
(12:12):
theme song.
UNKNOWN (12:13):
Okay?
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
So, and yours can be anything you want it to be, as
long as it works consistentlyfor that interval.
This is the one where I hear topgun.
So if I bring the bass line outmore.
One, five, one, five, one.
(12:40):
So notice I'm playing the chord,but I'm emphasizing the bass
line.
Then when I'm singing the bassline, I'm pointing out to you
what I hear when I hear chordmovement.
It is always that low note.
Granted, you're going to have amillion questions about, well,
what if the chord is invertedand you don't have the root note
in the bottom?
What if it's a key change?
(13:00):
What if it doesn't start on theone chord?
There are a lot of questionsthat come out of this, and it'll
probably prompt me to makeanother episode about this after
this for the more advancedconcept but stay with me on the
basics here and see if you canapply them to many things.
Okay, so now let's connect ourear training skills, what we
talked about earlier withperfect fourth and perfect
(13:22):
fifth, and let's connect that tohearing core progression.
Is anybody out there ready fortheir first little ear training
test today?
Anybody out there ready?
Kevin, I am always ready foryour tests.
(13:43):
Yeah, yeah, I know you are.
Anybody else?
Kevin, I hope this is not toohard, man.
UNKNOWN (13:49):
Come on.
SPEAKER_01 (13:51):
All right, I won't make it too hard.
It's going to be fun.
All right, let's dive in.
So here's what you're trying totell me.
Is this interval a perfectfourth or is it a perfect fifth?
Are you ready?
Here we go.
I'll play it one more time.
(14:18):
Have we figured it out yet?
SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
Well, Kevin, that sounds like a perfect fourth to
me.
Here comes the...
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (14:26):
I'm sorry.
That's not correct.
Well, Kevin, that is clearly aperfect fifth interval.
You are correct, sir.
That is a perfect fifthinterval.
I was going from G to D and backto G.
So when I play a one to fiveprogression, those are going to
(14:53):
be the notes at the bottom, thebass notes at the bottom of the
chord that you need to belistening to so that you know
that it's a one to fiveprogression.
So It's going to sound likethis.
So don't forget whatever youraudio association was for a
(15:14):
perfect fifth.
Were you able to access that inyour mind?
That's going to be the importantkey.
Now let's go to question numbertwo.
Listen to this interval, and I'mgoing to switch the key up to be
a little bit tricky.
But the intervals should soundexactly the same.
Do you hear a perfect fourth ora perfect fifth when I play
(15:36):
this?
One more time.
Anybody?
SPEAKER_00 (15:48):
Well, Kevin, that is clearly a perfect fifth
SPEAKER_01 (15:55):
again.
I just told you last time.
Oh, you're incorrect this time.
Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00 (16:04):
Yeah, Kevin, it sounded like a perfect fifth to
me.
SPEAKER_01 (16:08):
Oh, I'm sorry.
Both of you are incorrect.
It's actually a perfect fourth.
Again, if you're listening outthere, were you able to pull
from your mind's filing cabinet?
And here comes the bride.
Now, what would it sound like ifI would have gone up a perfect
(16:30):
fifth from that C?
So there's the fifth sound, andnow back to the fourth sound.
All right, let's go ahead andinitiate ear training test
(16:53):
number two for the day.
Now this time I'm going tocombine some things a little
bit.
So I'm going to play either aone to four or a one to a five,
but this time I'm going to playthe entire chord and emphasize
the bass note.
So you're going to hear thechord moving to the next chord
(17:13):
with an emphasis in the bassnote.
Y'all ready?
Let's do it.
Again, is this a one to a fouror is it a one to a five?
SPEAKER_00 (17:33):
That sounds like
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
a
SPEAKER_00 (17:34):
one to five
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
to me.
Oh, that's not correct.
Anybody else want to try?
Well, Kevin, that's clearly aone chord to five.
A four chord.
That is correct.
That was a one, two, a four.
Was everybody listening for thebass note?
(17:55):
So the bass note was...
Again, my association.
Here comes the bride.
So the perfect fourth is there.
And then when you put itunderneath the chord
progression...
All right, very good on thatone.
(18:15):
Let's do one more.
Ooh, ooh, I heard that one,Kevin.
That's a perfect fifth.
I heard it.
You got it.
All right, y'all are alreadygetting better at it.
(18:35):
This is awesome.
Nice job, y'all.
Way to go on that round.
But now it is time for the superduper bonus round.
(18:57):
That's right, I'm combiningthings for the final test.
And what do you win if you getthese right?
You win...
Invaluable Music TheoryKnowledge! That's right, you win
(19:18):
Invaluable Music TheoryKnowledge! All right, here we
go.
So I'm going to give you acombination of things this time.
Okay, so listen up.
Here we go.
One more time.
(19:53):
Can anybody get it for the win?
Well,
SPEAKER_00 (19:59):
Kevin, this is elementary, my friend.
The first one was a one chord toa four chord.
Then the second part was a onechord to a five chord for
SPEAKER_01 (20:15):
the
SPEAKER_00 (20:16):
win.
SPEAKER_01 (20:17):
Oh, that is incorrect, sir.
Nice try, and thanks forplaying.
Is there anybody else out therethat can get it?
Kevin, I'm not 100% sure, but Ithink the first one was a 1 to a
5, and then the second one was a1 to a 4.
(20:38):
Oh, you got it! Yeah! Way to go!You win all the music theory
knowledge in the world! Okay,maybe not in the world, but you
just learned a lot about basslines and how to connect them to
hearing core progressions inmusic.
(21:00):
What a fun experience.
and enriching exercise.
So to give a quick sum up to allof this, I would focus in at the
beginning on these few intervalsI just talked about.
The perfect fourth and theperfect fifth.
Now there are a bunch of otherintervals and as we know there
are other chord progression.
Taking on all of it at once isgoing to be frustrating and
(21:24):
difficult and tedious.
Mastering small bits of it oneat a time is going to be way
easier, way more rewarding, andway more motivating in the end.
So now let me give you some waysto continue this study before my
next episode comes out, whichwill continue all of this.
(21:46):
So for example, now what youwant to do is just go through
every chord in a major key fromthe one chord to whatever,
either two, three, four, five,six, or seven, right?
Because we have seven triads andseven main chord groups in a
diatonic major key or a diatonicminor key.
(22:07):
And so in this case, again, ifI'm in G major, we have G major,
A minor, B minor, C major, Dmajor, E minor, F sharp
diminished, and back to G.
So to give you an example, let'ssay I go from the I chord to a
(22:32):
II chord.
Then how would you set yourselfup to get used to that, right?
First of all, bass line, right?
Starts on a G.
Goes to the A.
Anybody out there remember whatinterval that is?
(22:55):
That is a major second.
Because the first pitch in a Gmajor scale...
And the second pitch in the Gmajor scale are an interval of a
major second.
So when you're building yourchord, that is the root
movement.
(23:18):
Now, what if we go from a Ichord to a III chord?
Right?
So now your bass interval is...
And that is a major third.
So again, you're listening forthat when you do the
progression.
So I urge you to continue thisexercise for more chord
(23:48):
progressions before I get intomy next episode, which I will go
through more of this.
But for now, it's time for abreak.
Today we learned the basics onhearing a chord progression
(24:10):
based on baselines andintervals.
We reviewed the intervals,perfect fourth and a perfect
fifth so that we can use themfor our ear training.
We took a one, four, fiveprogression.
(24:30):
We separated the baseline.
and the chords so that you couldhear the bass line moving and
hear the intervals.
Then of course we focused onaudio examples as any good
musician should and we testedour ear and our knowledge.
(24:53):
Coming up on episode 21, we willcontinue this ear training
exercise, but we will take itfurther to more extended chord
progressions as we continue tolearn more and more about the
building blocks of music.
Thanks again, everybody, forjoining me on the Harmonious
(25:16):
Blacksmith.
Until the next episode, I willlook forward to...
continuing this music theoryexploration with all of you.
Thanks again for joining meagain.
Until next time, gang, have abeautiful music-filled week.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
What is up, my fellow music theory enthusiasts?
Welcome back to The HarmoniousBlacksmith, a music theory
exploration.
It is a podcast all about musictheory and the inner workings of
music.
Thanks again for joining me.
I do appreciate it.
That opening guitar track that Iplayed for you today is a piece
(01:07):
called Lagrima, which means asingle tear in Spanish.
Written by the great Spanishguitar composer Francisco
Tarrega.
What a beautiful storied piece.
And this piece has stood thetest of time, even though it was
written in the late 1800s.
And it really is a beautifulguitar piece.
(01:29):
And ladies and gentlemen, todayyou have stumbled upon a
SPEAKER_02 (01:33):
very
SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
special episode.
UNKNOWN (01:38):
Episode.
SPEAKER_01 (01:43):
It's a bit of a celebration today to get to
number 20, just so you know.
And today's episode will be allabout how to hear chord
progressions using ear trainingskills.
If you are new to the podcast,welcome, and I really hope that
you dig what we do and stickaround.
(02:04):
For those of y'all who have beensticking around, thank you so
much for your support.
Please do take a look in thedescription of the podcast.
There is a support the showlink.
Three bucks, five bucks, sevenbucks a month money that you
wouldn't even notice can go along way to help me continue to
create awesome content for you.
(02:25):
So I do appreciate you checkingthat out and supporting the
show.
Thank you very much.
And as always, I am your host,Kevin Patrick Fleming.
Aha! Thank you for joining mefor the special episode number
20.
Let's have some fun.
(02:45):
So last episode, we wrapped up atwo-part series on...
bass lines, which is really fun.
So if you haven't heard thoseyet, I do suggest going back and
checking them out.
We learned about just bass linesand bass range and the function
of bass in music and how basslines get so cool and creative.
It was a lot of fun.
(03:07):
But that led me to this episodeon ear training and hearing
chord progressions because thosetwo things are so directly
related.
When it comes to hearing a chordprogression In other words,
you're listening to a music andyou just want to be able to
understand how the chords areprogressing in a key or a chord
(03:28):
progression or just a song youreally like and want to learn to
play.
The answer is almost always inthe bass line.
And we are going to tie all ofthat together in this episode to
help you understand what you'relistening to.
So without further ado, let's goahead and review a very
(03:48):
important term.
What is ear training?
Ear training is the study andpractice in which musicians
learn various skills to detectand identify pitches, intervals,
melodies, harmonies, and chordprogressions solely by hearing.
(04:11):
So we are retraining our mind tohear things in a different way.
It's what we must do in order toget sharp at this skill that we
call ear training, which is amust if you're serious about
understanding music.
And when we talk about eartraining, there is one concept
and only one concept that startsit all off.
(04:35):
And it's called the interval.
So recall that an interval isjust the distance between two
pitches and the related soundthat comes with that distance.
So an example of an intervalwould be like a perfect fifth,
which sounds like this.
(05:02):
Or together it would sound likethis.
Also known as a power chord inguitar circles.
So who out there remembersexactly how many intervals there
are in our system?
Anybody?
Well, Kevin, there are clearly
SPEAKER_00 (05:24):
26 intervals for every letter of the
SPEAKER_01 (05:29):
alphabet.
No, no, that's not even close,man.
Anybody else?
Well, Kevin, there's got to beseven of those intervals, one
for every single note in thescale.
Ooh, that was actually a betterguess, but also ultimately
(05:49):
incorrect.
The answer is 12.
There are 12 intervals in oneoctave in our Western Harmony
system.
as there are also 12 half stepsin an octave.
Now, I'm going to review a fewof them, but I'll remind you I
broke down all 12 intervals inepisode 9 when I introduced ear
(06:14):
training and intervals.
Please do go back to that if youneed to and you want to brush up
on your sounds.
But for the purposes of learninghow to hear chord progressions,
the two most important intervalsyou need in the beginning are a
perfect fourth and a perfectfifth.
A perfect fourth sounds likethis.
(06:37):
And now I get to the part whereyou again need to associate
something familiar with thesound in order to recall it.
So in this case, I'm a classicalguitarist and I've played a ton
of weddings in my lifetime.
So I recognize here comes thebride when I do a perfect
fourth.
(07:02):
And when I hear a perfectfifth...
I hear the Top Gun theme songthat dates me.
But of course, remember, youwant to find the sounds that
relate to what you know.
So you want to take thosesounds, make sure you have a
(07:23):
relationship on what that soundsounds like to you.
So you can recall it just likeit is in a file folder in a
filing cabinet.
Hmm, where's that perfect for?
So let me find that thing.
Oh, there it is.
Here comes the bride.
And in your head, you can hearthe beginning of here comes the
bride.
That connects you to theinterval.
(07:43):
Look, Kevin, what in the worlddoes this have to do with
hearing chord progressions?
Yes, yes, that is the questionyou should be asking.
And the answer is they aredirectly connected.
Like I was talking about before,you can hear chord changes,
chord progressions, simply byhearing the bass movement or the
(08:07):
bass line.
All right, so let's get intosome audio examples.
So I'm going to start you offwith the good old-fashioned
1-4-5 progression in major, thenumber one chord progression in
the history of Western music,right?
We're going to do it in the keyof G, which is going to sound
like this.
G major is the I chord.
(08:32):
C major is IV.
And D major is five.
We're gonna make it a dominantseven for the purposes of a
stronger chord progression.
And then that returns us back toone.
Again, that chord progression isone, four, five, seven, and back
(08:55):
to one.
And you can clearly hear thatwe're in the key of G when we
return to the G chord.
And now we are going toimplement the most common and
perfectly logical bass line thatgoes with that 1-4-5
progression.
Now, you probably already knowwhat it is.
(09:16):
If we're on the I chord G, yourroot note is a G.
That's easy enough.
Well, what do you think it'sgoing to be on C?
It's C.
And of course, when we go to V,which is D7, it's going to be D.
And then we're back to G.
(09:37):
So if you're the bass player inthe group, or this might be your
left hand on your piano, forexample, it would sound like
this.
So that's what it sounds like.
And functionally, it would go...
five one okay so now we have aone four five progression and we
(10:04):
have a root note bass line sonow it's time to play a bit of
that ear training game we weretalking about all right let's go
ahead and just take the firstchord movement in this
progression G major is 1.
And C major is 4.
We're just going to start there.
So that may sound familiar in alot of songs, for example.
(10:34):
It probably reminds you of a tonof stuff.
And that's good.
But how can we tell that this isa 1 to 4 progression?
Well, again, we're going to thebass line.
So the bass line is a G.
to a C.
And that is, of course, aperfect fourth.
Recall my filing cabinet for theperfect fourth.
(10:57):
I use Here Comes the Bride.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (11:05):
We all know that.
That's a pretty low key for it,but you can still hear the tune.
So when I hear...
I hear a one chord to a fourchord, okay?
Now I'm going to play the chordsfor you in a way where you can
hear the bass note more than therest of the chord.
(11:30):
I'm doing it intentionally withmy thumb.
Now, do you hear the bass notes?
You should hear...
Here comes the bride.
That, again, is a perfectfourth, right?
Now, let's go ahead andestablish what it would sound
like to go from a I chord to a Vchord.
(11:50):
So, again, that's going to be aI chord as a G.
And the V chord we're playing isa V7, which is a D7.
Okay?
But now, I'm going to do thesame thing I did before and
bring out the bass note.
It's going to go from I, V, I.
Now, remember, my soundassociation was the Top Gun
(12:12):
theme song.
UNKNOWN (12:13):
Okay?
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
So, and yours can be anything you want it to be, as
long as it works consistentlyfor that interval.
This is the one where I hear topgun.
So if I bring the bass line outmore.
One, five, one, five, one.
(12:40):
So notice I'm playing the chord,but I'm emphasizing the bass
line.
Then when I'm singing the bassline, I'm pointing out to you
what I hear when I hear chordmovement.
It is always that low note.
Granted, you're going to have amillion questions about, well,
what if the chord is invertedand you don't have the root note
in the bottom?
What if it's a key change?
(13:00):
What if it doesn't start on theone chord?
There are a lot of questionsthat come out of this, and it'll
probably prompt me to makeanother episode about this after
this for the more advancedconcept but stay with me on the
basics here and see if you canapply them to many things.
Okay, so now let's connect ourear training skills, what we
talked about earlier withperfect fourth and perfect
(13:22):
fifth, and let's connect that tohearing core progression.
Is anybody out there ready fortheir first little ear training
test today?
Anybody out there ready?
Kevin, I am always ready foryour tests.
(13:43):
Yeah, yeah, I know you are.
Anybody else?
Kevin, I hope this is not toohard, man.
UNKNOWN (13:49):
Come on.
SPEAKER_01 (13:51):
All right, I won't make it too hard.
It's going to be fun.
All right, let's dive in.
So here's what you're trying totell me.
Is this interval a perfectfourth or is it a perfect fifth?
Are you ready?
Here we go.
I'll play it one more time.
(14:18):
Have we figured it out yet?
SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
Well, Kevin, that sounds like a perfect fourth to
me.
Here comes the...
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (14:26):
I'm sorry.
That's not correct.
Well, Kevin, that is clearly aperfect fifth interval.
You are correct, sir.
That is a perfect fifthinterval.
I was going from G to D and backto G.
So when I play a one to fiveprogression, those are going to
(14:53):
be the notes at the bottom, thebass notes at the bottom of the
chord that you need to belistening to so that you know
that it's a one to fiveprogression.
So It's going to sound likethis.
So don't forget whatever youraudio association was for a
(15:14):
perfect fifth.
Were you able to access that inyour mind?
That's going to be the importantkey.
Now let's go to question numbertwo.
Listen to this interval, and I'mgoing to switch the key up to be
a little bit tricky.
But the intervals should soundexactly the same.
Do you hear a perfect fourth ora perfect fifth when I play
(15:36):
this?
One more time.
Anybody?
SPEAKER_00 (15:48):
Well, Kevin, that is clearly a perfect fifth
SPEAKER_01 (15:55):
again.
I just told you last time.
Oh, you're incorrect this time.
Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00 (16:04):
Yeah, Kevin, it sounded like a perfect fifth to
me.
SPEAKER_01 (16:08):
Oh, I'm sorry.
Both of you are incorrect.
It's actually a perfect fourth.
Again, if you're listening outthere, were you able to pull
from your mind's filing cabinet?
And here comes the bride.
Now, what would it sound like ifI would have gone up a perfect
(16:30):
fifth from that C?
So there's the fifth sound, andnow back to the fourth sound.
All right, let's go ahead andinitiate ear training test
(16:53):
number two for the day.
Now this time I'm going tocombine some things a little
bit.
So I'm going to play either aone to four or a one to a five,
but this time I'm going to playthe entire chord and emphasize
the bass note.
So you're going to hear thechord moving to the next chord
(17:13):
with an emphasis in the bassnote.
Y'all ready?
Let's do it.
Again, is this a one to a fouror is it a one to a five?
SPEAKER_00 (17:33):
That sounds like
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
a
SPEAKER_00 (17:34):
one to five
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
to me.
Oh, that's not correct.
Anybody else want to try?
Well, Kevin, that's clearly aone chord to five.
A four chord.
That is correct.
That was a one, two, a four.
Was everybody listening for thebass note?
(17:55):
So the bass note was...
Again, my association.
Here comes the bride.
So the perfect fourth is there.
And then when you put itunderneath the chord
progression...
All right, very good on thatone.
(18:15):
Let's do one more.
Ooh, ooh, I heard that one,Kevin.
That's a perfect fifth.
I heard it.
You got it.
All right, y'all are alreadygetting better at it.
(18:35):
This is awesome.
Nice job, y'all.
Way to go on that round.
But now it is time for the superduper bonus round.
(18:57):
That's right, I'm combiningthings for the final test.
And what do you win if you getthese right?
You win...
Invaluable Music TheoryKnowledge! That's right, you win
(19:18):
Invaluable Music TheoryKnowledge! All right, here we
go.
So I'm going to give you acombination of things this time.
Okay, so listen up.
Here we go.
One more time.
(19:53):
Can anybody get it for the win?
Well,
SPEAKER_00 (19:59):
Kevin, this is elementary, my friend.
The first one was a one chord toa four chord.
Then the second part was a onechord to a five chord for
SPEAKER_01 (20:15):
the
SPEAKER_00 (20:16):
win.
SPEAKER_01 (20:17):
Oh, that is incorrect, sir.
Nice try, and thanks forplaying.
Is there anybody else out therethat can get it?
Kevin, I'm not 100% sure, but Ithink the first one was a 1 to a
5, and then the second one was a1 to a 4.
(20:38):
Oh, you got it! Yeah! Way to go!You win all the music theory
knowledge in the world! Okay,maybe not in the world, but you
just learned a lot about basslines and how to connect them to
hearing core progressions inmusic.
(21:00):
What a fun experience.
and enriching exercise.
So to give a quick sum up to allof this, I would focus in at the
beginning on these few intervalsI just talked about.
The perfect fourth and theperfect fifth.
Now there are a bunch of otherintervals and as we know there
are other chord progression.
Taking on all of it at once isgoing to be frustrating and
(21:24):
difficult and tedious.
Mastering small bits of it oneat a time is going to be way
easier, way more rewarding, andway more motivating in the end.
So now let me give you some waysto continue this study before my
next episode comes out, whichwill continue all of this.
(21:46):
So for example, now what youwant to do is just go through
every chord in a major key fromthe one chord to whatever,
either two, three, four, five,six, or seven, right?
Because we have seven triads andseven main chord groups in a
diatonic major key or a diatonicminor key.
(22:07):
And so in this case, again, ifI'm in G major, we have G major,
A minor, B minor, C major, Dmajor, E minor, F sharp
diminished, and back to G.
So to give you an example, let'ssay I go from the I chord to a
(22:32):
II chord.
Then how would you set yourselfup to get used to that, right?
First of all, bass line, right?
Starts on a G.
Goes to the A.
Anybody out there remember whatinterval that is?
(22:55):
That is a major second.
Because the first pitch in a Gmajor scale...
And the second pitch in the Gmajor scale are an interval of a
major second.
So when you're building yourchord, that is the root
movement.
(23:18):
Now, what if we go from a Ichord to a III chord?
Right?
So now your bass interval is...
And that is a major third.
So again, you're listening forthat when you do the
progression.
So I urge you to continue thisexercise for more chord
(23:48):
progressions before I get intomy next episode, which I will go
through more of this.
But for now, it's time for abreak.
Today we learned the basics onhearing a chord progression
(24:10):
based on baselines andintervals.
We reviewed the intervals,perfect fourth and a perfect
fifth so that we can use themfor our ear training.
We took a one, four, fiveprogression.
(24:30):
We separated the baseline.
and the chords so that you couldhear the bass line moving and
hear the intervals.
Then of course we focused onaudio examples as any good
musician should and we testedour ear and our knowledge.
(24:53):
Coming up on episode 21, we willcontinue this ear training
exercise, but we will take itfurther to more extended chord
progressions as we continue tolearn more and more about the
building blocks of music.
Thanks again, everybody, forjoining me on the Harmonious
(25:16):
Blacksmith.
Until the next episode, I willlook forward to...
continuing this music theoryexploration with all of you.
Thanks again for joining meagain.
Until next time, gang, have abeautiful music-filled week.
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