August 21, 2025 • 28 mins
🎧 Episode 21 : Ear Training - How To Hear Chord Progressions Using Bass Lines (Part 2)
In this powerful continuation of our bass line breakdown series, we dive even deeper into the essential skill of hearing chord progressions by analyzing bass movement. Whether you're a musician, music student, or music theory enthusiast, this episode is packed with practical insights to sharpen your ear training and harmonic awareness.
Learn how to identify diatonic and non-diatonic bass patterns, decode functional harmony, and recognize chord movement in real musical contexts. We also explore how bass lines provide harmonic clues that can unlock a deeper understanding of tonal structure across genres—especially in classical, jazz, pop, and gospel music.
If you're passionate about music theory, ear training, and improving your musical intuition, this episode is a must-listen. Perfect for self-taught musicians, formal music students, and anyone who wants to internalize harmony through bass line analysis.
🎼 Take your musicianship to the next level by learning how bass lines can guide your understanding of chords, voice leading, and harmonic function.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
So
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
Welcome back to The Harmonious Blacksmith, a music
theory exploration.
This is a podcast where we areon a journey of music theory
knowledge right now and westarted all the way back with a
single note in episode one andwe've been building and building
(00:55):
and building until we got totoday's topic.
I hope everybody's doing okayout there.
I hope you are excited to learnsome music theory and music
knowledge with me today today isepisode number 21 and it's all
about how to hear chordprogression using bass lines and
this is part two of a two-partseries and i as always am your
(01:20):
host kevin patrick fleming heysounds like we're feeling good
today sounds like we're ready torock let's get it Please take a
moment to look in thedescription of this episode
where it says support the show.
Only$3,$5, or$7 a month can go along way towards continuing to
(01:46):
make incredible content for you.
So thank you for checking thatout and supporting the show.
I appreciate it.
So again, several previousepisodes have led up to this
episode.
We were talking about baselines.
We defined what a baseline is,what base range is, what the
function of a bass line is, andthen that led up to the previous
(02:09):
episode which was how to hearchord progressions using bass
lines.
A bit of an ear trainingexercise.
So what we learned is that thereason we're listening for the
bass line is because that iswhere the answers are for
hearing chord movement.
And now we are connecting thatidea to the idea of ear
(02:29):
training, being able to hearcertain sounds when you need to,
being able to pull them out ofthe file folders in your brain,
using that all-important conceptthat we must know and love in
theory, intervals.
And so we started off with thegrand chord progression as we
(02:51):
know it, the 1-4-5.
And that bass line sounded likethis.
And again, we broke it down intointervals so that we could hear
going from a I chord to a IVchord, which is a lot of notes.
(03:16):
We're breaking it down to thebass note that sounds like this.
Which is, of course, an intervalof a perfect fourth.
And in my case, in my filefolder, in my mind, here comes
the bride, comes to mind.
(03:37):
And then the last one is to gofrom a one to a five also.
The idea that you're going fromthis note to this note.
And instead of giving you myexample from last time, I want
you to think about a perfectfifth and what is in your file
folder in your brain for thesound.
(03:57):
So that when you hear this, itcould be there, it could be
higher.
That's another way to play afifth.
Now here's another one.
So no matter high or low, it isthe same interval with a same
remembered sound.
(04:18):
That is one of the best waysthat interval sounds help us to
understand how to hear andorganize music.
(04:48):
Now, did anybody recognize thatguitar track I recorded at the
beginning of this episode?
UNKNOWN (04:59):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
I'm sure a lot of you did because that was
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.
And of course that was just thefinger style guitar part of it
without anything else in thesong.
But the reason I picked that onetoday is because it has such a
cool bass line and we're goingto break that song down and we
(05:24):
are going to use our eartraining skills, our knowledge
of intervals to understand howto hear the bass line and how to
connect it to the chordprogression so that ultimately
we can hear chord progressions.
Okay, and without further ado,let's get into the beginning of
Landslide for today's session.
(05:45):
All right, so the intro is justgoing to rotate four chords over
and over again, and it soundslike this.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
SPEAKER_00 (06:03):
Now those chords are being broken into arpeggios
right there, but if you were toextract them and just play the
chords by themselves so that wecan hear the chord movement, I'm
gonna help you out a little onthis one by bringing out the
bass line with my thumbintentionally.
So listen for that.
(06:23):
It would sound like this.
And now I'm going to go even onestep further and play just the
baseline of the chordprogression for you.
And that would sound like this.
(06:44):
All right, let me back up andstart with the basic music
theory here so that nobody getslost.
Let's start with thefoundational stuff.
So first of all, this song is inthe key of G major.
(07:09):
Okay, so there's my tonic chord,my root chord.
And just think about in G major,from previous sessions and just
your knowledge in general, whatare all the chords we expect to
find in the key of G?
Let's go through them again.
Remember, We have three majorsand three minors and one
diminished.
It's always nicely balanced.
(07:29):
G is one, C is four, D is five.
All right, now we have threeminor chords, right?
And they are always gonna be inmajor.
Do you remember?
they are always going to be thetwo chord, the three chord, and
the six chord.
So if you recall from breakingdown a key, which I have an
(07:50):
entire episode on if you want togo back and check that out, when
we broke down a key, in major,one, four, and five are major,
two, three, and six are minor,and seven is diminished.
So in the key of G, your twowill be A minor, your three will
be B minor, And your six will beE minor.
(08:14):
Let's go through them in alinear fashion now.
One is G.
Two is A minor.
Three is B minor.
Four is C.
Five is D.
Six is E minor.
And in case you're wondering,the diminished seven is an F
(08:35):
sharp diminished.
And then we're back to G.
UNKNOWN (08:39):
you
SPEAKER_00 (08:41):
All right, now that our key is established, let me
go back to the landslideexample.
Now, here's our chords at thebeginning of landslide.
We have a C.
Yes, actually, I want to pausefor a second and mention this.
This is an important thing.
Generally speaking, when we'retalking about keys, when we're
talking about songs,90-something percent of the
(09:02):
time, you can listen to thefirst chord and the last chord
of a song, and that's going tobe the key of the song.
If you've never thought about itlike that, that's true.
I'll repeat it again.
90 90-something percent of thetime, listen to the first chord
and the last chord, and that isthe key of your song.
But that is not always true.
And this is a great example.
This song originally starts witha fade-in, but it starts on the
(09:27):
IV chord.
And a lot of you are going to beasking, well, how do you know
that's the IV chord and not theroot?
I will get there.
I promise.
But trust me, this is the IVchord.
And then our next chord is a Gslash B, which of course is a I
chord, but it is inverted.
And we will talk about that in amoment.
(09:49):
Then our third chord is an Aminor, which again is the II
chord.
And then it jumps right back tothe I chord again in first
inversion, which is a G over aB.
And again, I'm going to talkmore about inversions in a
moment, but remember they dothat in this case.
to create a cool bass line thatreally connects and walks
(10:11):
through the chords and connectsthem.
So quick reminder, rememberwe're just trying to hear chord
progressions.
In other words, if you aredriving down the road and a new
song comes on and you're like,oh, I love that song, and you
want to go home and learn itreally quick.
I do this all the time, by theway.
You want to be able to hear whatthey're doing in the chord
movement.
(10:32):
And it takes time and it takespractice, but this is the way to
do it.
So if you just heard that introI just described in chord
progression form, let's say likea regular old folk strum pattern
on a guitar, it would sound likethis.
(11:01):
Test yourself.
Could you hear the chordmovement?
It's okay if you couldn't.
I mean, I couldn't hear it atone point.
I had to work really hard andbend my ear and use these
techniques that we're talkingabout to get there.
So if you could hear the chordmovement, more power to you.
So now you know we're in the keyof G.
(11:21):
And again, just to hear thescale that goes with that.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
SPEAKER_00 (11:33):
I do that because it's good to remind yourself
what key you're in by getting itin your ear, hearing the tonic
chord, hearing the scale, andthen getting the sound in your
ear before you go through allthis.
But I digress back to landslide.
All right.
So now that we know that thebeginning is a four chord to a
(11:53):
one chord to a two chord, aminor two chord to Back to the I
chord again.
Let's figure out how we can hearthat.
But first I need to introduce anew concept, which is called
(12:14):
descending intervals.
A descending interval is thedistance between two pitches and
the sound it makes when we gofrom a higher pitch to a lower
pitch.
So as opposed to the ascendinginterval, which is the distance
between two pitches and thesound it produces when we go
(12:36):
from a lower note to a highernote.
So let me give you audioexamples of that.
Remember that an ascendinginterval will be from a low note
to a higher note, a lower noteto a higher note.
So a descending interval isgoing to be the opposite.
It's going to go from a highernote to a lower note.
(13:01):
And we play one more descendinginterval, higher note to a lower
note.
So this was necessary to learnbecause now our ear training
that we've been going throughneeds to go to the descending
level.
Why?
Because our bass line starts ona C, which is on the four chord.
(13:23):
So that's our first bass note inthe song.
It is the root note of the fourchord C major.
But when we go to the I chord,instead of getting the root note
G, which is what we expect tohear, we actually get the third
of that I chord, which is B.
(13:48):
So again, that's still a Ichord.
It's just that this time, whenwe play the I chord, it's not
the...
it's not the tonic note or rootnote of the chord you hear it is
the it's the third of the chordthat you hear and just for
(14:12):
posterity's sake you could flipthe chord again and have the
fifth of the chord on the bottomso i could have this note So
that's the five.
So remember triads.
One, three, five, three, one.
There's your triad for your Gmajor.
(14:33):
All three of those notes can beused and are options for your
baseline.
That's what makes it so cool.
That's what makes it so amazingand creative.
You can mix and match melodiesand baselines and be really
creative by flipping chords,inverting them, adding sevenths
and ninths and all kinds ofcolors to them.
(14:55):
Alright, so follow me here.
The IV chord has a bass note ofC.
Then we go to a bass note of aB, only a half step down, even
though we're going to a I chordthere.
And then the B goes to an A forthe A minor chord.
And then we go back to B for theI chord.
(15:18):
So our bass line is literallyjust going C, B, A,
UNKNOWN (15:25):
B.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
And isn't that really simple?
And that's another thing aboutmusic and music theory.
I think people overcomplicate ita lot, but it really is the
simple things that go a longway.
And a simple connected bassline, melodic sounding bass line
like this is really, really nicesounding to our ears, first of
all.
(15:55):
But going back to what we'retalking about for this
particular episode, descendinginterval, right?
That's the first thing we'rehearing.
We want to be able to hear thatbass note for that C chord, but
how do we know what note we'regoing to next?
It's the descending interval.
We're going from this note to alow note.
(16:17):
That is a descending intervalthat we call a descending minor
second.
And again, it sounds like this.
UNKNOWN (16:31):
So
SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
Y'all remember the ear training game, right?
So what you're doing is takethat sound, that descending
minor second, and think of asong that that might sound like.
Now I'm going to leave you toyour imagination on that one.
I'm not teaching a full-blowninterval episode today.
(16:57):
so now here's the intro oflandslide with the bass line and
the chords kind of separated sonow we connect it to the next
section so if my intro goes fourone Six.
(17:22):
Eventually, as they're goingthrough the song, the next
transition chord that takes usto the next section sounds like
this.
Ooh, interesting.
So what is that?
You may not have recognized itright away.
The bass note is this, whichmakes it a little deceiving
(17:46):
because it's actually a 5-7chord.
UNKNOWN (17:49):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (17:50):
Now, I know this is getting a little more difficult
and advanced.
OK, you're not supposed to knowall this stuff yet.
So I want to interject and saythat I'm giving you a little
glimpse into a little bit moreof an advanced way of thinking
with this.
So it's OK if you're like, oh,my God, I'm not following this
and I'm a little bit behind.
Don't worry about it.
You're really not.
And you can always go back andlisten to the episode again.
(18:11):
So, connecting my bass line C toB to A.
Now it drops down to F sharp,which again is part of a V chord
and really a V7 chord.
Remember the dominant 7 chord?
But it's inverted, right?
(18:32):
We don't have a root note Dwhere you can hear this for our
dominant seven.
So it makes it a little trickierbecause it's the third of the
chord we're hearing now.
It makes it a little moredifficult.
But that bass line, the reasonthey picked this one is because
(18:53):
it leads to...
Ah, you know what that is?
What does that sound like?
Tonic! Yes, that is the tonicchord of our key.
So we're back at rest.
So the previous chord again goeslike this.
So the dominant seventh chordhas a lot of musical tension,
(19:16):
which snaps back to the tonicchord.
But your bass line is justgoing...
Which is just a minor secondinterval.
And if you remember from myepisode, that reminds me of
Jaws.
Whatever it reminds you of,that's what you should connect
into.
And now to recap our full bassline so far, it goes like this.
(19:41):
So First of all, can you tellwhich one is tonic there?
Can you hear when we are at homebase and are at rest in our key?
It's when we go to that secondhalf that you can tell where it
(20:05):
goes like this.
Ah, once I get to that last notethere, that's when I hear and
feel like I'm at home base andin the key.
And it turns out that is theroot note of the chord G, which
is our tonic.
So I'm just hoping that you hearthat kind of thing.
(20:25):
I was talking earlier about howthe song starts on a four chord.
How do you know it's a fourchord and not a one chord?
It really is a matter of So inthe case of this song, you just
hear all the musical tension andthe chords working together to
lead towards G.
And of course, the other thingis, in the key of C major...
(20:50):
We have no sharps and flats,right?
So once we get an F sharp in thebass line, then we would not be
in the key of C major.
Like that would be your cleargiveaway that the first chord in
the song is actually not thekey.
That part that ended like this.
That takes us into the choruspart of this song.
(21:15):
So now what it's going to do,the chord progression is going
to go like this in the chorus ofLandslide by Fleetwood Mac.
It's going to be a I chord.
Then it's going to be a V7chord.
Then it's going to be a VI chordin G, which is E minor.
Does that twice.
(21:37):
Then it goes back to the fourchord.
Back to the one chord.
Then the two chord, the minortwo, A minor.
And then the cycle continues.
It goes right back to that fiveseven chord again.
That takes you right back totonic.
So now I'm on G, which is one.
(21:58):
I'm on D seven, which is fiveseven.
E minor is six.
Then we're back to C on 4.
Then we're on 1, which is G.
And then we're back to A minor,which is 2.
(22:18):
And then we're back to 1 again.
And that is all the music of thewhole song.
You just heard all the chordprogressions now.
In that chorus that I justplayed for you, let's hear the
bass line.
It sounds like this.
UNKNOWN (22:36):
This.
do do
SPEAKER_00 (23:06):
Okay, so we talked about the interval way of doing
it, but I do want to give youone other way that you can think
about this and figure it out.
It would require having yourinstrument with you.
So whatever instrument you play,it doesn't matter.
Again, I play like eight ofthem, but guitar is my main one.
But whatever instrument youplay, just play the scale of the
(23:27):
key...
And then go through the scaledegrees.
Remember scale degrees?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1.
And when you go through the bassline that we just did, basically
what you do is you go, whichnote am I hearing?
If I'm hearing a 1, it'sprobably a 1 chord.
(23:50):
If I'm hearing a 4, it'sprobably a 4 chord.
If I'm hearing a five, it'sprobably a five chord.
So whichever scale degree you'rehearing will help you.
Now, this is not an exactscience, because let me point
out one thing here.
When our bass line starts with aC, yes, that does clue us into
the four chord.
Or scale degree four in thescale.
(24:12):
One, two, three, four.
Right?
So that clues us in.
But when I go to the next note,which is B, that's scale degree
three, right?
So if that's scale degree three,what chord do you expect?
A three chord, maybe?
That's right.
That's where you should go firstin your mind.
So when I play that three chord,it sounds like this.
(24:36):
And that's clearly a minorchord.
You don't even have to know it'sa B minor chord.
Just listen to the tonality.
It was in minor, but the chordwe actually get sounds like
this.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
So
SPEAKER_00 (24:50):
B bass note with B minor.
B bass note with the tonic Gmajor.
Mmm, same bass note, verydifferent context.
When you hear it with the minorchord, you can tell it's a minor
(25:10):
chord.
This is, again, how your earneeds to continue to get tuned
in to all this stuff.
When I hear this...
Can you hear that that's a majorchord?
So things like that will helpconnect your ear.
The idea of interval sounds,understanding what you're
hearing when you're hearing it,the idea of function within a
(25:33):
key.
Once you figure out what's homebase, you can use your theory
knowledge, your scale degrees inyour key, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
1.
Whatever bass note you'rehearing within those scale
degrees, you can try to play thecorresponding chord that goes
with it, and that works most ofthe time except for what we just
talked about which wasinversions.
(25:56):
where you have a middle note ofthe chord in the chord, and it
gets a little tricky.
I'm gonna come back to thisconcept because it's super cool,
but I just wanted to give you aglimpse into it about how to
hear bass lines, how to useintervals, how to use your
theory skills to put all of ittogether to be able to hear how
(26:18):
the chords are moving within akey.
But now it's time for breakdown.
Today we finished a two-partseries on how to hear chord
progressions using bass lines.
(26:41):
We learned the new concept ofthe descending interval, which
is the sound going from a highernote to a lower note.
We rehashed inversions andtalked about how bass lines are
created using inversions forsmoothness and connectivity.
(27:05):
We rehashed the idea of a keyand scale degrees so that you
could go through and use yourscale degrees by playing your
scale on your instrument andmatching them up.
And we, of course, did all ofthis in the context of a hit
song from back in the day calledLandslide by Fleetwood Mac.
(27:32):
Thanks again for tuning in,everyone.
I do appreciate support.
I hope you learned something andenjoyed yourself.
And until the next episode, Iwill be waiting to...
Continue this music theoryexploration with all of you.
(27:53):
Until next time, gang, have abeautiful music-filled week.
Take care, everybody.
So
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
Welcome back to The Harmonious Blacksmith, a music
theory exploration.
This is a podcast where we areon a journey of music theory
knowledge right now and westarted all the way back with a
single note in episode one andwe've been building and building
(00:55):
and building until we got totoday's topic.
I hope everybody's doing okayout there.
I hope you are excited to learnsome music theory and music
knowledge with me today today isepisode number 21 and it's all
about how to hear chordprogression using bass lines and
this is part two of a two-partseries and i as always am your
(01:20):
host kevin patrick fleming heysounds like we're feeling good
today sounds like we're ready torock let's get it Please take a
moment to look in thedescription of this episode
where it says support the show.
Only$3,$5, or$7 a month can go along way towards continuing to
(01:46):
make incredible content for you.
So thank you for checking thatout and supporting the show.
I appreciate it.
So again, several previousepisodes have led up to this
episode.
We were talking about baselines.
We defined what a baseline is,what base range is, what the
function of a bass line is, andthen that led up to the previous
(02:09):
episode which was how to hearchord progressions using bass
lines.
A bit of an ear trainingexercise.
So what we learned is that thereason we're listening for the
bass line is because that iswhere the answers are for
hearing chord movement.
And now we are connecting thatidea to the idea of ear
(02:29):
training, being able to hearcertain sounds when you need to,
being able to pull them out ofthe file folders in your brain,
using that all-important conceptthat we must know and love in
theory, intervals.
And so we started off with thegrand chord progression as we
(02:51):
know it, the 1-4-5.
And that bass line sounded likethis.
And again, we broke it down intointervals so that we could hear
going from a I chord to a IVchord, which is a lot of notes.
(03:16):
We're breaking it down to thebass note that sounds like this.
Which is, of course, an intervalof a perfect fourth.
And in my case, in my filefolder, in my mind, here comes
the bride, comes to mind.
(03:37):
And then the last one is to gofrom a one to a five also.
The idea that you're going fromthis note to this note.
And instead of giving you myexample from last time, I want
you to think about a perfectfifth and what is in your file
folder in your brain for thesound.
(03:57):
So that when you hear this, itcould be there, it could be
higher.
That's another way to play afifth.
Now here's another one.
So no matter high or low, it isthe same interval with a same
remembered sound.
(04:18):
That is one of the best waysthat interval sounds help us to
understand how to hear andorganize music.
(04:48):
Now, did anybody recognize thatguitar track I recorded at the
beginning of this episode?
UNKNOWN (04:59):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
I'm sure a lot of you did because that was
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.
And of course that was just thefinger style guitar part of it
without anything else in thesong.
But the reason I picked that onetoday is because it has such a
cool bass line and we're goingto break that song down and we
(05:24):
are going to use our eartraining skills, our knowledge
of intervals to understand howto hear the bass line and how to
connect it to the chordprogression so that ultimately
we can hear chord progressions.
Okay, and without further ado,let's get into the beginning of
Landslide for today's session.
(05:45):
All right, so the intro is justgoing to rotate four chords over
and over again, and it soundslike this.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
SPEAKER_00 (06:03):
Now those chords are being broken into arpeggios
right there, but if you were toextract them and just play the
chords by themselves so that wecan hear the chord movement, I'm
gonna help you out a little onthis one by bringing out the
bass line with my thumbintentionally.
So listen for that.
(06:23):
It would sound like this.
And now I'm going to go even onestep further and play just the
baseline of the chordprogression for you.
And that would sound like this.
(06:44):
All right, let me back up andstart with the basic music
theory here so that nobody getslost.
Let's start with thefoundational stuff.
So first of all, this song is inthe key of G major.
(07:09):
Okay, so there's my tonic chord,my root chord.
And just think about in G major,from previous sessions and just
your knowledge in general, whatare all the chords we expect to
find in the key of G?
Let's go through them again.
Remember, We have three majorsand three minors and one
diminished.
It's always nicely balanced.
(07:29):
G is one, C is four, D is five.
All right, now we have threeminor chords, right?
And they are always gonna be inmajor.
Do you remember?
they are always going to be thetwo chord, the three chord, and
the six chord.
So if you recall from breakingdown a key, which I have an
(07:50):
entire episode on if you want togo back and check that out, when
we broke down a key, in major,one, four, and five are major,
two, three, and six are minor,and seven is diminished.
So in the key of G, your twowill be A minor, your three will
be B minor, And your six will beE minor.
(08:14):
Let's go through them in alinear fashion now.
One is G.
Two is A minor.
Three is B minor.
Four is C.
Five is D.
Six is E minor.
And in case you're wondering,the diminished seven is an F
(08:35):
sharp diminished.
And then we're back to G.
UNKNOWN (08:39):
you
SPEAKER_00 (08:41):
All right, now that our key is established, let me
go back to the landslideexample.
Now, here's our chords at thebeginning of landslide.
We have a C.
Yes, actually, I want to pausefor a second and mention this.
This is an important thing.
Generally speaking, when we'retalking about keys, when we're
talking about songs,90-something percent of the
(09:02):
time, you can listen to thefirst chord and the last chord
of a song, and that's going tobe the key of the song.
If you've never thought about itlike that, that's true.
I'll repeat it again.
90 90-something percent of thetime, listen to the first chord
and the last chord, and that isthe key of your song.
But that is not always true.
And this is a great example.
This song originally starts witha fade-in, but it starts on the
(09:27):
IV chord.
And a lot of you are going to beasking, well, how do you know
that's the IV chord and not theroot?
I will get there.
I promise.
But trust me, this is the IVchord.
And then our next chord is a Gslash B, which of course is a I
chord, but it is inverted.
And we will talk about that in amoment.
(09:49):
Then our third chord is an Aminor, which again is the II
chord.
And then it jumps right back tothe I chord again in first
inversion, which is a G over aB.
And again, I'm going to talkmore about inversions in a
moment, but remember they dothat in this case.
to create a cool bass line thatreally connects and walks
(10:11):
through the chords and connectsthem.
So quick reminder, rememberwe're just trying to hear chord
progressions.
In other words, if you aredriving down the road and a new
song comes on and you're like,oh, I love that song, and you
want to go home and learn itreally quick.
I do this all the time, by theway.
You want to be able to hear whatthey're doing in the chord
movement.
(10:32):
And it takes time and it takespractice, but this is the way to
do it.
So if you just heard that introI just described in chord
progression form, let's say likea regular old folk strum pattern
on a guitar, it would sound likethis.
(11:01):
Test yourself.
Could you hear the chordmovement?
It's okay if you couldn't.
I mean, I couldn't hear it atone point.
I had to work really hard andbend my ear and use these
techniques that we're talkingabout to get there.
So if you could hear the chordmovement, more power to you.
So now you know we're in the keyof G.
(11:21):
And again, just to hear thescale that goes with that.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
(00:00):
.
SPEAKER_00 (11:33):
I do that because it's good to remind yourself
what key you're in by getting itin your ear, hearing the tonic
chord, hearing the scale, andthen getting the sound in your
ear before you go through allthis.
But I digress back to landslide.
All right.
So now that we know that thebeginning is a four chord to a
(11:53):
one chord to a two chord, aminor two chord to Back to the I
chord again.
Let's figure out how we can hearthat.
But first I need to introduce anew concept, which is called
(12:14):
descending intervals.
A descending interval is thedistance between two pitches and
the sound it makes when we gofrom a higher pitch to a lower
pitch.
So as opposed to the ascendinginterval, which is the distance
between two pitches and thesound it produces when we go
(12:36):
from a lower note to a highernote.
So let me give you audioexamples of that.
Remember that an ascendinginterval will be from a low note
to a higher note, a lower noteto a higher note.
So a descending interval isgoing to be the opposite.
It's going to go from a highernote to a lower note.
(13:01):
And we play one more descendinginterval, higher note to a lower
note.
So this was necessary to learnbecause now our ear training
that we've been going throughneeds to go to the descending
level.
Why?
Because our bass line starts ona C, which is on the four chord.
(13:23):
So that's our first bass note inthe song.
It is the root note of the fourchord C major.
But when we go to the I chord,instead of getting the root note
G, which is what we expect tohear, we actually get the third
of that I chord, which is B.
(13:48):
So again, that's still a Ichord.
It's just that this time, whenwe play the I chord, it's not
the...
it's not the tonic note or rootnote of the chord you hear it is
the it's the third of the chordthat you hear and just for
(14:12):
posterity's sake you could flipthe chord again and have the
fifth of the chord on the bottomso i could have this note So
that's the five.
So remember triads.
One, three, five, three, one.
There's your triad for your Gmajor.
(14:33):
All three of those notes can beused and are options for your
baseline.
That's what makes it so cool.
That's what makes it so amazingand creative.
You can mix and match melodiesand baselines and be really
creative by flipping chords,inverting them, adding sevenths
and ninths and all kinds ofcolors to them.
(14:55):
Alright, so follow me here.
The IV chord has a bass note ofC.
Then we go to a bass note of aB, only a half step down, even
though we're going to a I chordthere.
And then the B goes to an A forthe A minor chord.
And then we go back to B for theI chord.
(15:18):
So our bass line is literallyjust going C, B, A,
UNKNOWN (15:25):
B.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
And isn't that really simple?
And that's another thing aboutmusic and music theory.
I think people overcomplicate ita lot, but it really is the
simple things that go a longway.
And a simple connected bassline, melodic sounding bass line
like this is really, really nicesounding to our ears, first of
all.
(15:55):
But going back to what we'retalking about for this
particular episode, descendinginterval, right?
That's the first thing we'rehearing.
We want to be able to hear thatbass note for that C chord, but
how do we know what note we'regoing to next?
It's the descending interval.
We're going from this note to alow note.
(16:17):
That is a descending intervalthat we call a descending minor
second.
And again, it sounds like this.
UNKNOWN (16:31):
So
SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
Y'all remember the ear training game, right?
So what you're doing is takethat sound, that descending
minor second, and think of asong that that might sound like.
Now I'm going to leave you toyour imagination on that one.
I'm not teaching a full-blowninterval episode today.
(16:57):
so now here's the intro oflandslide with the bass line and
the chords kind of separated sonow we connect it to the next
section so if my intro goes fourone Six.
(17:22):
Eventually, as they're goingthrough the song, the next
transition chord that takes usto the next section sounds like
this.
Ooh, interesting.
So what is that?
You may not have recognized itright away.
The bass note is this, whichmakes it a little deceiving
(17:46):
because it's actually a 5-7chord.
UNKNOWN (17:49):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (17:50):
Now, I know this is getting a little more difficult
and advanced.
OK, you're not supposed to knowall this stuff yet.
So I want to interject and saythat I'm giving you a little
glimpse into a little bit moreof an advanced way of thinking
with this.
So it's OK if you're like, oh,my God, I'm not following this
and I'm a little bit behind.
Don't worry about it.
You're really not.
And you can always go back andlisten to the episode again.
(18:11):
So, connecting my bass line C toB to A.
Now it drops down to F sharp,which again is part of a V chord
and really a V7 chord.
Remember the dominant 7 chord?
But it's inverted, right?
(18:32):
We don't have a root note Dwhere you can hear this for our
dominant seven.
So it makes it a little trickierbecause it's the third of the
chord we're hearing now.
It makes it a little moredifficult.
But that bass line, the reasonthey picked this one is because
(18:53):
it leads to...
Ah, you know what that is?
What does that sound like?
Tonic! Yes, that is the tonicchord of our key.
So we're back at rest.
So the previous chord again goeslike this.
So the dominant seventh chordhas a lot of musical tension,
(19:16):
which snaps back to the tonicchord.
But your bass line is justgoing...
Which is just a minor secondinterval.
And if you remember from myepisode, that reminds me of
Jaws.
Whatever it reminds you of,that's what you should connect
into.
And now to recap our full bassline so far, it goes like this.
(19:41):
So First of all, can you tellwhich one is tonic there?
Can you hear when we are at homebase and are at rest in our key?
It's when we go to that secondhalf that you can tell where it
(20:05):
goes like this.
Ah, once I get to that last notethere, that's when I hear and
feel like I'm at home base andin the key.
And it turns out that is theroot note of the chord G, which
is our tonic.
So I'm just hoping that you hearthat kind of thing.
(20:25):
I was talking earlier about howthe song starts on a four chord.
How do you know it's a fourchord and not a one chord?
It really is a matter of So inthe case of this song, you just
hear all the musical tension andthe chords working together to
lead towards G.
And of course, the other thingis, in the key of C major...
(20:50):
We have no sharps and flats,right?
So once we get an F sharp in thebass line, then we would not be
in the key of C major.
Like that would be your cleargiveaway that the first chord in
the song is actually not thekey.
That part that ended like this.
That takes us into the choruspart of this song.
(21:15):
So now what it's going to do,the chord progression is going
to go like this in the chorus ofLandslide by Fleetwood Mac.
It's going to be a I chord.
Then it's going to be a V7chord.
Then it's going to be a VI chordin G, which is E minor.
Does that twice.
(21:37):
Then it goes back to the fourchord.
Back to the one chord.
Then the two chord, the minortwo, A minor.
And then the cycle continues.
It goes right back to that fiveseven chord again.
That takes you right back totonic.
So now I'm on G, which is one.
(21:58):
I'm on D seven, which is fiveseven.
E minor is six.
Then we're back to C on 4.
Then we're on 1, which is G.
And then we're back to A minor,which is 2.
(22:18):
And then we're back to 1 again.
And that is all the music of thewhole song.
You just heard all the chordprogressions now.
In that chorus that I justplayed for you, let's hear the
bass line.
It sounds like this.
UNKNOWN (22:36):
This.
do do
SPEAKER_00 (23:06):
Okay, so we talked about the interval way of doing
it, but I do want to give youone other way that you can think
about this and figure it out.
It would require having yourinstrument with you.
So whatever instrument you play,it doesn't matter.
Again, I play like eight ofthem, but guitar is my main one.
But whatever instrument youplay, just play the scale of the
(23:27):
key...
And then go through the scaledegrees.
Remember scale degrees?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1.
And when you go through the bassline that we just did, basically
what you do is you go, whichnote am I hearing?
If I'm hearing a 1, it'sprobably a 1 chord.
(23:50):
If I'm hearing a 4, it'sprobably a 4 chord.
If I'm hearing a five, it'sprobably a five chord.
So whichever scale degree you'rehearing will help you.
Now, this is not an exactscience, because let me point
out one thing here.
When our bass line starts with aC, yes, that does clue us into
the four chord.
Or scale degree four in thescale.
(24:12):
One, two, three, four.
Right?
So that clues us in.
But when I go to the next note,which is B, that's scale degree
three, right?
So if that's scale degree three,what chord do you expect?
A three chord, maybe?
That's right.
That's where you should go firstin your mind.
So when I play that three chord,it sounds like this.
(24:36):
And that's clearly a minorchord.
You don't even have to know it'sa B minor chord.
Just listen to the tonality.
It was in minor, but the chordwe actually get sounds like
this.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
So
SPEAKER_00 (24:50):
B bass note with B minor.
B bass note with the tonic Gmajor.
Mmm, same bass note, verydifferent context.
When you hear it with the minorchord, you can tell it's a minor
(25:10):
chord.
This is, again, how your earneeds to continue to get tuned
in to all this stuff.
When I hear this...
Can you hear that that's a majorchord?
So things like that will helpconnect your ear.
The idea of interval sounds,understanding what you're
hearing when you're hearing it,the idea of function within a
(25:33):
key.
Once you figure out what's homebase, you can use your theory
knowledge, your scale degrees inyour key, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
1.
Whatever bass note you'rehearing within those scale
degrees, you can try to play thecorresponding chord that goes
with it, and that works most ofthe time except for what we just
talked about which wasinversions.
(25:56):
where you have a middle note ofthe chord in the chord, and it
gets a little tricky.
I'm gonna come back to thisconcept because it's super cool,
but I just wanted to give you aglimpse into it about how to
hear bass lines, how to useintervals, how to use your
theory skills to put all of ittogether to be able to hear how
(26:18):
the chords are moving within akey.
But now it's time for breakdown.
Today we finished a two-partseries on how to hear chord
progressions using bass lines.
(26:41):
We learned the new concept ofthe descending interval, which
is the sound going from a highernote to a lower note.
We rehashed inversions andtalked about how bass lines are
created using inversions forsmoothness and connectivity.
(27:05):
We rehashed the idea of a keyand scale degrees so that you
could go through and use yourscale degrees by playing your
scale on your instrument andmatching them up.
And we, of course, did all ofthis in the context of a hit
song from back in the day calledLandslide by Fleetwood Mac.
(27:32):
Thanks again for tuning in,everyone.
I do appreciate support.
I hope you learned something andenjoyed yourself.
And until the next episode, Iwill be waiting to...
Continue this music theoryexploration with all of you.
(27:53):
Until next time, gang, have abeautiful music-filled week.
Take care, everybody.
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