Topic: Chord display? (I feel really dumb for asking...)

[Rich Z]

Yeah, OK, laugh if you want to.  I am not the best in the world trying to figure out what chord progression is being used in a song, and although I can usually figure it out, it takes a really long time, and even then, I'm not absolutely sure, especially when complex chords are being used.  I can see while playing on the Genos, that it will tell me what chord I am playing, but gee, I already pretty much know most of them unless it is something that uses 4 fingers or more and not duplicating a note already played by another finger. I mean, is it an A minor seventh chord or C major sixth chord?

I like to just noodle around with the styles, and sometimes I would like to just continue with the progression being played by the intro rather than just picking one out at random and breaking continuity.  But I usually only have about a minute, at best, to figure out the chords, when I have to start that intro all over again.  Wears on me sometimes.  So is there a way to get the Genos to display the chords being played during the intros and endings?

And while I am at it, how about doing the same when playing the MIDI songs? I took a look at the SCORE display, but I just could not figure out how to get it to display what I wanted to see. There are a lot of options, but none of them seemed to be able to just show me the chords being played, just (from what I am guessing) the individual tracks' notes being played.

Yeah, I know many of you can pick out the chords like it is written on the back of your hands, but sorry, not me. It is a gift that I just haven't received.

[Rick D.]

Rich,

Try this app. https://tonaly.app/

It is very helpful to figure out chord progressions as well as tell you what chords you can play for each key you're playing in. It is for IOS, I am not sure if they have one for Android.

Rick D.

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi Rich,

No one on this forum will laugh at you. If Oscar Peterson or Ray Charles were alive and reading your post, they certainly would not, so none of us would have the right to do so .

Even if the Genos could display the chords in the Intros, Endings, Fills, and other sources, there is no guarantee the chords would be accurate. I too have used the chord display on the Home page. I find it barely 60 percent accurate. I'm not sure why but perhaps it has to make a decision based on the root key. Your description of whether it's an Am7 or C6 is most apt because Am is the relative minor to the key of C. Often, there are a million ways to name a chord. So, depending on what inversion you play, the Genos may actually give you the wrong chord name for the key you're in, even though the chord sounds right. I wouldn't put too much faith in that tool. So much of chord and melody recognition comes from ear training. My teacher told me that I'm one of the best ear trained musicians he's ever known. I can tell (most of the time) what the chord or interval is just by hearing it. This is something I developed at an early age. You can develop this as well. It just takes time.

Here are some ideas:

• The Intros and Endings are designed to give you a simple (Intro I), medium complexity (Intro II), or full complexity (Intro III) beginning to a song. Playing through these is probably not needed but I do understand your desire to play along with them because they act as sort of a backing track. If you have one particular style you really enjoy playing to, please post it's name and some of us can write you a chord chart, I'm sure.
• Why not record a simple passage on the Genos and practice along with it. Doing it this way, you can play back a portion of the sequence without having to start all over again.

Isn't music easy and fun?!

[pjd]

Hi Rich --

Folks have the same conundrum when using the so-called DJ styles. (The chord progressions are cooked into the DJ styles just like intros and endings).

A notation program or a DAW with score editing will display the notes. One doesn't even need to record the intro or ending into a MIDI file because a style file is already a MIDI file! Just change the file name extension to .MID and read it into the program. Some notation programs will even figure out the chords from the notes.

If you don't have a notation program (or whatever), maybe someone can suggest a free one? I've had success with MuseScore in the past, but no recent experience.

Hope this helps -- pj

[Rich Z]

Thanks for the suggestions.  Heck, I can sort of figure it out with enough time and effort put into it.  In my band playing days in a top 40 band, I used to have to buy the records and just sit listening to them over and over to figure out the keyboard parts.  That was back in the phonograph record days, so you can imagine what a pain that was.

I guess what I am looking for is an easy way to figure out the chords in the intros without having to just sit and trial and error it, and then have to keep a notebook to record what I finally figured out for each style of interest. And than a year from now remember where the heck I put that notebook.  My memory is nowhere near as good as it used to be, which is why I tend to prefer just improvising with chord progressions rather than figuring out and playing commercial song covers.  So I was hoping there was a way to use the Genos as a crutch whenever possible. 

I am actually better at figuring out chord progressions than I used to be, but not as good at remembering as I used to be, so it kind of balances out, but not in a really good way.    Improvising with the chord selections within a key actually has helped me quite a bit to be able to recognize the relationships between chords. Something I didn't have a clue about in my younger, self-taught (sort of) days.  But yeah, this is something that needs to be learned, I guess.  I just wish I could remember today what I learned yesterday.

[mikf]

In so called “playing by ear” hearing the next chord coming,  and recognizing it, is only one part of the equation, And may not be that important.. Most of the ability to play the correct chords in real time is driven by learned knowledge of the most common chord progressions. A relatively small number of progressions covers a huge percentage of popular songs. Get to know them and not only will it become instinctive, but the departures from these common progressions start to be easy to recognize. Think in the chord numbering systems which are key independent rather than chord names and will become easier to recognize common patterns.
Mike

[Lee Batchelor]

Excellent point, Mike !!

A young child learns to read by sounding out each word. As he or she gets better at it, they read words in groups rather than one word at a time. The same thing happens in music chords.

One very common progression in Blues or Jazz is the 6, 2, 5, turn around. In the key of C, you would play A, D minor, and G7...or nice variations of those chords. Another common progression is from 50s and 60s Rock and Roll songs. It's 1, 6 minor, 4, 5. In C, it would be C, A minor, F, and G.

The numbering system to which Mike refers, is called the Nashville Chord System, which is basically what I used in my two examples. This system dates back to the 16th century.

[Graham UK]

Record INTRO and save as midi file.
FREE PSRUTI 8.12 will display chords of any midi file.

[mikf]

Lee, interestingly I never heard it referred to as the Nashville system until I came to the USA. It has been around for hundreds of years and the beauty of it is that not only is it key independent, but you can communicate chord changes on the fly in a noisy band by sticking up that number of fingers. We used to do this all the time my early days playing in bands, long before anyone called it the Nashville system.
I think the story of the evolution of the name is that back in the late 50s one of the arrangers in the Nashville studios, wrote it down for others who were not familiar with it and then someone refined the written method by using Roman numerals and capital vs lower case letters to denote chord types as well as just a number for scale degree. And so it became known as the Nashville System although musicians all over the world had been using it for a long time before this.
Mike

[Lee Batchelor]

Agreed, Mike. I never knew it as the Nashville System either. It was taught to me about 12 years ago by a pro guitarist. I too have raised the numbered fingers to fellow players who are unsure of the changes in a new song request. Fellow players have done the same for me. Very handy!