We’ve looked at several different things that can give you a quick boost in your theory knowledge in the last several posts: chords, chord suffixes, relative minor chords, chord progressions, key signatures and seventh chords. Now let’s put it all together and apply it.

Many people can use their ear to learn songs but have no idea what the structure is behind what they’re learning. They hear it and they can play it. Many people can look at music to learn songs and understand theory, but have a hard time learning something by ear. We want to develop our skills to be able to use both, and the two ways of learning really go hand in hand.

Every melody, hook, riff or whatever else makes up a song is really as simple as taking the notes of a chord and working with it to create the sound that is desired. Take for example, “Yankee Doodle.” The first four notes of the melody are directly related to the I chord. It starts out by using the root note twice on “Yan-kee.” Then, the goal of the end of the phrase is to get to the third note of the scale on the syllable of “-dle”. Instead of creating boring melody and playing the third note of the scale twice on “Doodle” the composer added what’s called a passing tone on the second note of the scale. The passing tone is used to pass through to the next note, creating interest. The melody basically stays within the I chord with one exception, the passing tone on the second note of the scale.

With this knowledge at your disposal, it is very simple to listen, apply theory, then learn. Here are some simple steps to do this:

1. Figure out what key you’re in. Do this either by listening and experimenting on your instrument while you listen or find out what key the song is in. Don’t find the music, though, as we’re trying to learn by ear at this point!
2. Warm up on the basic chords of the key (I, IV, V, iv). Break them apart and create your own little fills and melodies. You might find that these turn out to be the same as in the song you’re trying to learn!
3. Listen to the melody, hook or riff in the song (listen to very small chunks at a time). Take a short chunk of music, figure out the notes it is using by trial and error on your instrument, then figure out what chord these notes are basing themselves around. If you have familarized yourself with the basic chords, these melodies should come very easily as they are most often composed by breaking up basic chords and adding some passing tones.
4. Repeat, repeat, repeat. This could be very frustrating at first, but believe me, if you practice it enough, it will pay off. I remember when I was younger and my brother could sit down and figure out a song just by listening to it. I was amazed and wondered how in the world he could do that. Now, after many, many practice hours and a good amount of music theory knowledge later, I can do it just as easily.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Have fun!

Ha, how fitting that this post happens to be the 7th tip.

Okay, I was typing this post and realized that this is one of those posts that is probably impossible to explain with just words. As I don’t want to thouroughly confuse everyone, the best way to learn about seventh chords online is to visit our handy dandy musictheory.net site, specifically this lesson. Before you visit that particular lesson, though, familiarize yourself with basic intervals and basic triads.

So now that you’ve learned from a much better source than me on this one, let’s take a look at what you might use these various 7th chords for:

• V7 or dominant 7 chord: Very helpful for changing keys, playing in place of the vii dim* (in C, the vii dim* is made up of B-D-F, the V7 in C is made up of G-B-D-F; add one note on the bottom and you have a completely different sounding chord that can be used for the same thing!)
• min7: A great chord to use as a substition for the IV (four) chord, particularly the ii7 chord. As with the V7, the ii7 and the IV share notes (in C, the IV is F-A-C, the ii7 is D-F-A-C). This is particularly helpful when you’re writing music and you can’t move yourself out of using I-IV-V and vi.
• maj7, half dim* 7, fully dim* 7: All of these chords are used extensively in jazz music. If you’d like to learn to be a better jazz player or you want to give your playing a bit of a jazzy flavor, learn how to use these.

There are way more ways to use 7th chords, but that really would require me to teach a theory class to you! Next time: how to use theory plus your ear to learn songs.

*dim stands for diminished. Check out the lessons on specific intervals at musictheory.net for more information on dimished intervals. By the way, I have no partnership with that website…it’s just the best online website for music theory that I’ve come across and wanted to pass the word along 🙂

What happens to you when your worship leader says something like, “Just play something nice while the pastor is praying” or “when I’m introducing this song, vamp something from the song until we’re ready to go?” Do you freak out and think, “How do I play something nice with no music…and what in the world is vamping??? Help!!”

There is a way to play something nice without even planning ahead of time, and no, vamping does not have anything to do with older Anne Rice novels.

What is Vamping?

Earlier we looked at building the basic chords in any key, the I (one), IV (four), V (five) and iv (six) chords. With these chords placed in your musical tool belt, you can create “something nice” on the spot without any music. You do this by vamping a progression of a combination of those four chords.

Vamping means to play something over and over again. Vamping can be used to extend an intro or an outro to a song. It can be used to let someone solo on an instrument or create a space of instrumental music in the middle of a song that the worship leader can use to continue to lead with speaking during the song.

Creating Chord Progressions

So how do you create a chord progression that you can vamp with? Here are some ways:

• Find the built-in chord progressions. Is there an intro to the song? Figure out the measures of the intro and play it over and over again. Memorize that progression and the next time you’re in the key you can use those chords.
• Play I, IV, V, I over and over. It’s a little bit boring and predictable, but it will do the job until you’re used to something different.
• Understand the natural progression of chords. As obvious as it should be, we miss the fact that scales have a definite pattern to them that include each note’s chord: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1. So learn to play the scale progression of I, ii, iii, IV, V, iv, V7 (we substitute this chord instead of the vii..more on that in a future post), I.
• Listen, look, learn. Listen for progressions in recordings that you have of a certain song. Look for progressions as you play songs. Learn those progressions and use them the next time you’re asked to vamp.
• Learn progressions in different keys. Once you’ve learned the intro to a song in G, transpose that same progression to Bb, then C, then A, etc.

Changing Time Signatures

Be careful that you are following the time signature as well while you vamp. It’s a little bit tricky to get into a song if you’ve been vamping in 4/4 time and the song is in 3/4 time! Trust me, I know from experience on that one! So be careful if you’ve just played a 4/4 song and you’re asked to vamp the intro to a 3/4 song. Take a breath, count in your head and make sure you’re going to be playing in 3 instead of 4!

What are some good chord progressions you’ve used for vamping music?