Mocking Chord Progressions from existing songs

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Raydio

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*I asked a similar ques. like this but the search function is currently disabled*

I am trying to learn the chord progression for this song called Confessions Part II by Usher and Differences by Ginuwine. The problem is that I only know little about chords and theory. I know how the chords sound in my head but the problem is figuring out which ones they played on the keyboard. I have a Piano Chord Chart that shows all the major, minor, seventh, aug, and dim. chords for all notes.

It is extremely time consuming and easy to forget if I just sit and try EVERY one of those listed chords. Can someone please explain a few shortcuts to use when encountering this task?
 
dunno if this is any help, but I'm a guitar player, so if I wanna learn a piano part, I figure it out on guitar and then transfer the notes over to the keys on a piano.

do you have a "first" instrument you could do this with? dunno, just a suggestion.

could you not just listen to the song and hit each key until you find the root note of the chord? maybe I'm just being daft - sorry I'm not much help today.
 
Can you pick out the key of a song if you hear it? By finding the key the song is played in, you can figure out the mode of the key easily enough. It's in your best interest to learn the different modes and scales. Each mode will have different chords that go along with it. There are only 7 modes for each key signature, so picking the correct one will take a bit of practice, but it gets easier the more you do it. A book on theory will help, but be advised, some of them can be pretty intense. Get yourself one of those gig bag books for guitarists or piano, whichever you prefer. They tend to cut right to the meat (give you scales for each mode and which chords to play) and leave out the confusing theory part.
Hope this helps...
 
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Another thing you might try is typing in the name of the song on google with the words "tabs" or "chords", e.g. "Confessions Part II tab". Someone may have already figured it out and posted in on a tablature site. One caveat, however, it's only as accurate as the person posting it. It will be close to the original, though, in my experience.
 
what i do when trying to learn something on keyboard (i dont know chords/theory/etc) is just initially find the root note of the chord im looking for, then find the 5th. 2 note chords all the way for me, until i learn properly anyhow. seems to work nicely for me too. even just playing the root note, then trying all the other notes within 8 notes up from it can help me get a chord quite easily.
 
brummygit said:
what i do when trying to learn something on keyboard (i dont know chords/theory/etc) is just initially find the root note of the chord im looking for, then find the 5th. 2 note chords all the way for me, until i learn properly anyhow. seems to work nicely for me too. even just playing the root note, then trying all the other notes within 8 notes up from it can help me get a chord quite easily.
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My main problem is that I always find the root note but finding the extra 2 or 3 notes to form the chord is difficult. Sometimes Im lucky and I find the 5th and when I play them together they sound decent. Any way to shortcut this?
 
Without a basic understanding of modes and what chords fall within a key signature it is very hard to pick out songs by ear. If you can only figure out a root note and maybe the 5th you will have a hard time indeed (unless you're playing 3 chord songs ie: I - IV -V)

If you know the root chord, there is a good chance that the major 4th or 5th are in the chord progression, the minor 2nd and minor 6th are also fairly common.

However - relavant major & minor chords can cause confusion and there can be any number of 6th, 7th, 9th etc. added to chords or used as passing chords

On a keyboard - using a simple formula of root + 4 half steps (3rd) + 3 half steps (5th) = major chord & root + 3 half steps (minor 3rd) + 4 half steps (5th) = minor chord

Good luck - we all have to learn some theory at some point (or be doomed to being rather limited musician)
 
Without a basic understanding of modes and what chords fall within a key signature it is very hard to pick out songs by ear. If you can only figure out a root note and maybe the 5th you will have a hard time indeed (unless you're playing 3 chord songs ie: I - IV -V)

If you know the root chord, there is a good chance that the major 4th or 5th are in the chord progression, the minor 2nd and minor 6th are also fairly common.

However - relavant major & minor chords can cause confusion and there can be any number of 6th, 7th, 9th etc. added to chords or used as passing chords

On a keyboard - using a simple formula of root + 4 half steps (3rd) + 3 half steps (5th) = major chord & root + 3 half steps (minor 3rd) + 4 half steps (5th) = minor chord

Good luck - we all have to learn some theory at some point (or be doomed to being rather limited musicians)
 
Raydio said:
My main problem is that I always find the root note but finding the extra 2 or 3 notes to form the chord is difficult. Sometimes Im lucky and I find the 5th and when I play them together they sound decent. Any way to shortcut this?
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In most of your natural (major) chords on the keyboard, the root, 3rd and 5th form the whole chord. So to play a C, you play the C root, E and G. They are all two keys apart on the white keys. The only chords that are different are the E and A chords because they include sharps as part of the chord form. You can get free lessons on piano chords all over the internet. Try that out.
 
brummygit, "2 note chords" are not chords. chords have at least 3 notes.

rokket,
D E A and B all have black keys in their major forms,
these: (F#) (G#) (C#) (D# & F#) respectively.


Raydio, are you sure you're finding the root? A lot of people get confused and hear the 5th as the root. Common mistake. The only way to get better at this is practice. Your ears need to get trained. You should play as many songs as you can on the piano, even if it's just chord progressions; find the chords in a book or online and learn them.
The best tool to find progressions if you don't know theory is to learn the chord shapes. Chords will always have the same finger pattern on the keyboard, though it might look slightly different because of the black keys. The amount of notes between each chord not stays the same (see mikeh's post). You need to do some learning, everyone does; there's no shortcut. Don't worry about modes yet. For your song you just need to find the chords. hope this was useful.
 
NationalSandwic said:
brummygit, "2 note chords" are not chords. chords have at least 3 notes.
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These are considered "power chords" and a lot of producers (example: Neptunes) use them all the time to assist in making hits. The only thing I dont like about power chords is that if you keep using them over and over again they start to sound off or something. The info you gave was very very very useful. I hope that I am actually finding the root and not the 5th, lol. I will definitely take your advice. Thank you! Keep it coming guys.
 
2 notes only imply a chord. power chords are very specific, but should have 3 notes: root, fifth and another root. generally, the bassline follows the progression, and gives the third note we need. the extra note lets us know what the chord is.

if you just have a root and a fifth, eg. a C and a G, you are only implying C major or minor, but you can turn that into Aminor7, Gsus4, Fsus2, any form of C, by adding just one other note. and more complicated chords beyond those, which one is unlikely to use, i guess.

really, it's a silly point. just wish people wouldn't be so adamant about stuff they're not sure of.
 
Raydio said:
My main problem is that I always find the root note but finding the extra 2 or 3 notes to form the chord is difficult. Sometimes Im lucky and I find the 5th and when I play them together they sound decent. Any way to shortcut this?
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nope. not my way there aint lol i just stick it out and hope for the best
 
NationalSandwic said:
rokket,
D E A and B all have black keys in their major forms,
these: (F#) (G#) (C#) (D# & F#) respectively.
Click to expand...
OOOPS! I wasn't paying attention to what I was typing. Sorry for the goof. I was half asleep and half not awake.... :o
 
NationalSandwic said:
brummygit, "2 note chords" are not chords. chords have at least 3 notes.
Click to expand...

very true, but dunno what else to call em. chord implications? power chords? hmmm.
 
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Those are the tones created by the pedal of the old church organ, I was being silly.
 
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no, it's not a pedal point. just call them fifths.

learn to work out the third note, and you can call em chords. and you can say you learned something :)
 
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