3 Simple Steps to Learn Any Tune on the Spot

[00:00:00]I see it all the time, at all my camps, at all my workshops, at jam sessions there or anywhere actually, where people will choose to not play a tune because they simply don't know yet how to learn a tune on the spot. I've even seen some people go to the extreme of just following the rhythm but muting the chords to at least feel like they're participating. And that's I guess still better than just doing nothing and just bailing out like a lot of other people do. But there is a simple way, or I should say relatively simple way, relatively simple system that if you do learn, it will allow you to learn any tune or at least a significant portion of any tune in the shortest amount of time possible. And I'm dying to let you know because it's really simple and everyone should really know and learn this system because it'll not only allow you to learn tunes a lot faster, but it will it will make you also a much better musician all around. And it's three simple steps.

[00:00:58]Three simple steps. Now, the first thing I want you to remember and think of is that every song has essentially a baseline or a sequence of lowest notes of each chord that we can identify as the baseline.

[00:01:12]And what you want to start doing is identifying that baseline as if it were a melody. It is actually a melody, but just like any other tune has a singing part or a melody, it also has a baseline or a sequence of lowest notes of each chord that also forms in its own way a melody.

[00:01:33]And you'll understand this better as we keep going throughout the video. But so the very first step to identify a song on the spot is to be able to identify the lowest note or the fundamental or the root of the chord being played. As an example, let's just take a song we all know or at least we probably all heard of if you're already into the gypsy jazz scene, which which All of Me, right? Now, >> [music] >> when a chord is being played, whether it's being just strummed or whether it's being >> [music] >> you should be able to hear a lowest note or a fundamental or a root, right? So, if I play this chord, >> [music] >> even though I'm playing the G on the bass, >> [music] >> but when I play the entire chord, I should hear the da or C, >> [music] >> right? So, that is step number one.

[00:02:38]Every time a chord is being played or strummed, you want to be able to sing the lowest note and make an assumption of what that chord might be. In the case of all of me, you might already know it, it's C, but even if you didn't know it and this chord is being played, Now, let's keep going on the tune, right?

[00:02:59]>> [music] [singing] >> Same thing. Even though I'm playing an E7 chord, my lowest note that I'm playing is going to be a B.

[00:03:12]But if I play the whole chord, I should still hear >> [music and singing] >> that it's a E.

[00:03:21]So, >> [music] >> and so on and so forth.

[00:03:29]>> [music] [singing] >> In this case of A, the lowest note is also the root and is also the fundamental. So, >> [music] [singing] >> now I'm playing D minor and D minor, although I have the A in the bass, >> [music] >> I can hear that the root or the fundamental is D.

[00:03:52]>> [music] >> Now, even if I cannot name those notes per se, if I don't know that it's C to E to A to D, I should still be able to develop a good enough ear to hear that fundamental note, right? So, >> [music] [music] [singing] [music] [singing] >> So, I'm just going to stop there with the A section, but as you can see, the first step is to identify that lowest note, or if it's not the lowest note, the fundamental or the root note of that chord.

[00:04:41]And you can make assumptions while you're playing. But, remember in a jam session, you not only have your ears, but you also have your eyes. So, you also want to make best use of your eyes and see what everyone else is playing to identify the lowest note, the root, or the fundamental. And that is step one. All right. Now, step number two is to make an assumption on the nature of the chord.

[00:05:04]Right? So, you're hearing a fundamental note, you're hearing a lowest note, and you're making an assumption on what that chord is. If you hear this, Okay, I made that assumption. It's a C.

[00:05:16]In my opinion, that's a C, right?

[00:05:18]Okay, at this point, I have three basic options. You can't really escape this.

[00:05:24]Essentially, a chord can be major in nature, minor in nature, or dominant.

[00:05:32]Of course, there are other chords, but essentially, at its core, every chord will fall under the umbrella of either major, minor, or dominant.

[00:05:43]So, if you're playing a tune and you To that lowest note, the next step is to try. And if you're not sure, play along either a major chord, a minor chord, or a dominant. And pick the one that you think suits best. Right? So, in the case of this C, >> [music] >> it's going to be a major, right? It could be, I mean, it's definitely not a minor.

[00:06:07]>> [music] >> That would just clash, right? So, you have to go by exclusion. Where there could be some confusions is between dominant and major. But again, you can hear it after a while, right? So, major >> [singing and music] >> If I were to You could, but essentially, there's that difference between the major major scale with a with a regular seven or if it's a dominant >> [music] >> then you have a flat seven. So, >> [music] >> I'm going to sing the same root, but the nature of the chord is going to be different. But the best thing you can do is make assumptions as you go. Try a major chord, try a minor chord, or try a dominant chord, and essentially make an assumption on what you think sounds best. That's it. That's all you have to do for step number two. Is it a major chord? Is it a dominant chord? Or is it a minor chord?

[00:07:09]That's it.

[00:07:10]Okay. So, let's assume that you've identified all the bass notes. And you've also identified the nature of each chord, right? So, major dominant >> [music] >> dominant minor >> [music] >> back to dominant minor >> [music] >> dominant minor, same root, [singing and music] dominant.

[00:07:41]Right? Now, the very last step, step number three, is going to be categorize the structure of the song. The worst thing you can do is think of songs as sequence of individual chords.

[00:07:54]Sometimes, if you do it that way, you might have 30, 40 chords to remember.

[00:07:59]That's madness. The much simpler way is to identify the structure. So, let's take All of Me, for example, right? You have two sections that actually start the same exact way. Both of them start with C, [music] go to E, seven, go to A7, >> [music] >> go to D minor, then back to E7, A minor, D7, [music] and then two five, and back to C.

[00:08:26]The second section, in other words, the B section, starts again the same way.

[00:08:30]>> [music] >> C, E, A, D minor. This point, we go into something called the Kristoff, which means I go to the fourth of the song, so the fourth of C is F, >> [music] >> which goes to then F minor, and then goes back to one, C, and then six, >> [music] >> and then two, five, one. So, again, I'm not thinking individual chords, I'm thinking Roman numerals, in other words, intervals, and I'm thinking structure of the tune. So, in the case of All of Me, I'll have an A section and a B section. And the A section and the B section will be pretty much identical, except for a fork, where on the B section, I'll head over to a Kristoff, which means I head over to the fourth of the key. That becomes minor, and then it's one, six, two five, and then a last turnaround. So, I don't have to remember X amount of chords, I have to recognize a pattern of sequence of chords, and see whether it fits on a structure versus another, and how that repeats. And that will simplify your life tremendously so that you don't have to memorize tens of chords at a time, but you just think in terms of structure. And you'll notice that a lot of songs have similar structures. I mean, I talked about a Kristoff earlier.

[00:09:51]You're going to find that structure of Kristoff in hundreds of tunes. You know, you have blues, you have the rhythm change, you have just sequence of harmonies that will repeat themselves throughout many, many different tunes.

[00:10:02]And so that's it, guys. Three basic steps.

[00:10:06]Identify the lowest note or root or fundamental note of a chord and sing it as if it were a melody. The next step is make assumptions on the nature of the chord and try them out. Major, minor, or dominant. Those are essentially your only three options. Major, minor, dominant.

[00:10:22]Lastly, identify the structure of the tune. In other words, the sequence of the structures of the tune rather than the individual chords.

[00:10:33]That's it. Now, that being said, if you're new to this, you might not be able to catch the entire song at first.

[00:10:40]You might be able to grasp certain sections of it and still not figure out others, but that's still a step towards improvement. That's still better than just strumming the rhythm without even trying to find the chords or even worse, not even playing the tune at all, bailing out. Always start with hearing the lowest note or seeing it.

[00:10:59]Figure out what chord is it, nature, major, minor, dominant, and then figure out the structure of the tune.

[00:11:05]That's all you have to do. Get into the habit of that and you will improve not only as a musician, but you'll learn songs on the spot like the pros do. Now, as you get better with this, like I said earlier, you'll start identifying baselines as melodies. You know, for example, >> [music] >> Ah ah ah ah ah ah >> [singing and music] [music] [singing] [music and singing] >> etc. So, this is to give you a small example of where you can go with imagining the baseline as a melody, but I guess that's a bit more advanced. If you have never done this before, stick to what I just said earlier at the beginning of the video. Lowest note, individual lowest note, nature of chord, structure of the tune. All right, I truly hope this video helps out and remember to subscribe if you like this video, share it. I post videos like these every week so that hopefully I can be of some help to your musical journey.

[00:12:14]I hope you enjoy your summer and I'll see you soon on another video here on YouTube.

[00:12:18]Peace.