Chords for How to Play a Song by Ear on Guitar

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[F] Hi, this is Lisa McCormick, and in this mini lesson, I'm going to show you how you can
begin to learn how to play songs by ear on the guitar.
What do I mean by playing songs
by ear?
That means I have the song in my head, I know the song, but I do not have the written
music for it.
I don't have the chords.
So I'm going to try to figure out how to play
it on my own.
In order to begin to figure out how to play a song by ear, [N] we're going
to need to do two things, a little bit of counting and a little bit of trial and error.
Let's start with the counting.
Have you ever heard people talking about the one, the four,
and the five when referring to music theory or chord theory?
The one, the four, and the
five are the major chords in any particular major key.
Let me show you what that means.
If for instance I was going to play a song, a basic simple song in the key of [C] C, [Cm] the C
chord would be chord number one. _ _ _
_ _ Then what I would do is [N] count to six, one, two, three,
four, five, six, and fill in with C in position number one, basically alphabetically starting
at C.
So C, D, E, F, G, and A, one through six. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Next I'm going to count to the fifth
and I'm going to pull out number one, number four, and number five.
Remember one, four,
five?
These are three chords that are going to go really nicely together.
So in [C] C, my
one chord is C, [F] my four chord is F, five [G] chord is G. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ [G] _ [C] _ And you can hear how those really go
together in kind of an intuitively great way.
Okay, so there's the counting part, number
one, number four, and number five coming from an alphabetical list starting with whatever
chord corresponds to what key you want to play in.
Now for the trial and error part.
So let's say for the sake of argument we want to learn how to figure out how to play the
song Happy Birthday because you showed up to a friend's party and someone said, hey
you know how to play guitar?
Play Happy Birthday.
And you say I don't have the music.
Well you
don't need the music.
Here's what we're going to do.
So let's start the song on the one
chord, on the C.
I'm going to play the C chord until it no longer really works with
what I'm singing.
So here we go.
Happy Birthday to you.
It doesn't work on the word you.
So
that means it's time to change chords.
So chances are the other chord that I need to
go to is one of the other choices, the four or the five, in this case F or G.
Let's try
F.
Happy Birthday [F] to you.
[C] No.
Let's try G.
Happy Birthday [G] to you.
There it is.
That works.
[B] So let's stay with the G until it no longer works and then try to [C] figure out by trial
and error what to put in there.
Line two.
[G] Happy Birthday to you.
Can't stay on G for
the word you.
I need to go someplace else.
I'll try going back to C.
Happy Birthday [C] to
you.
That [G] works.
Let's try line three.
Stay with the C until it no longer [C] works.
Then
try one of my other two options.
Happy Birthday dear so and so.
Doesn't work on the so and
so part.
So what do you want to try?
How about F?
Happy Birthday [F] dear so and so.
Happy Birthday
to you.
Yeah, I [G] like that.
Let's stay with the F until it no longer [F] works.
Happy Birthday.
Right [D#] there.
Don't like it.
So on birthday we are on F.
What are our other choices?
C
or G.
Let's go back to C.
[C] Happy Birthday to.
Don't like it on to.
[G] Maybe G.
To.
And since
we're in the key of C, I said we're most likely to end the song on C [F#m] because that's going
to sound [C] like resolution.
You.
So we have.
Happy Birthday [G] to you.
Happy Birthday [C] to you.
Happy [F] Birthday dear so and so.
[C] Happy [G] Birthday [C] to you.
In other words, one, [G] one, one, five,
five, five, [C] five, one.
One, one, [F] one, [C] four.
One, [G] one, [C] five, one.
[N] So there you go.
A little
bit of counting, a little bit of trial and error and you have figured out how to play
a simple basic song in a major key.
Now as you might imagine, this is really powerful
information because it really underlies the sensibilities that guitar players use when
they are playing by ear, when they are jamming and improvising with other musicians, when
they are transposing songs from one key to another, or when they're trying to figure
off songs from a CD, or when they're writing their own songs.
These are the sensibilities,
that counting system.
The little snippet of information I gave you today is [G] the very tip
of a spectacular little iceberg.
Really important and powerful information for guitar players.
If you're interested in learning more, I have a mini course in basic chord theory for guitar.
I'll put the information in the text section that goes with this video.
Have fun.
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