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Tune Your Ear to Hear the Changes

by Dan Berkowitz

Recently, I was discussing basic music theory with a concert violinist friend who teaches several young students. He went on about the value of learning scales and key signatures, and the concepts that make them work. I explained to him that as a bassist playing blues and jazz (among other genres), I thought that tuning my ear to hear chord movement was much more important.

What I mean by "chord movement" is the way a song flows from one chord to the next - not specific chord names, but their numbers in terms of scale degrees. Like going from a I chord to a IV chord, such as from C to F. Add to that a feel for the "flavors" of chords (major, minor, diminished, etc.) and you'll be able to sit in at a jam and really hang on, especially with a song you've never played before. I don't mean that you actually start playing chords on your bass, but that you guide your note selection within those chords. Here's an example.

A friend of mine plays blues and folk from the 1920s and 1930s. Every couple of months he'll call me up to join him for a gig. He plays acoustic guitar, dobro, harp on a rack, and, of course, sings. Several years ago I learned most of his songs, but we've rehearsed maybe twice in the past couple of years. To make things more challenging, when we gig, he'll often just start off a song without telling me the name of the tune, the key, or even giving me a basic idea of how the changes will go.

Because it's just the two of us doing acoustic music, I'll usually wait for a bar or two to get going while I find the key (quietly!). Then I'll hang on as best as I can - learning to hear chord movement has made all the difference in my survival. Here are some of the common chord movements that I've come to recognize:

• From the I to the IV chord…used in lots of musical styles. Blues, for example, often uses a "quick IV" where the tune has a IV chord in the second bar, rather than just four bars of the I. If you're playing a G blues, a quick IV style would play a bar of G, then a bar of C, and back to the G chord for two bars. The usual blues form will then go to the IV chord for a couple of bars at this point, whether it's a quick IV tune or not.
• From the I to the V chord…also very common. Songs don't want to stay on the V for very long…your ear will really want to get back to the I, or at least head back that direction via the IV. Again, using a blues progression as an example (blues songs use the I - IV - V chords) the V chord would be the peak of a verse and also reappear as the "point" of the turnaround.
• The diminished chord is an odd one but it adds a sense of urgent movement. A guitar player can repeat a diminished chord by just moving sliding the same fingering four frets at a time up the neck. By itself, this sounds melodramatic…a bit corny. But used appropriately, the diminished chord adds drama and movement to something like an 8-bar blues. The diminished chord usually comes after the IV chord in this type of song, such as after an F chord if you're playing in C. An easy way to emphasize the diminished chord on bass is to play a sharp IV note - like an F# -- after the F or IV chord.
• A way to make blues sound a bit jazzier is to use a II - V movement instead of just playing the V. This combination really wants to lead back to the I again. For example, in a Bb blues, you could play over a C chord to a G chord, rather than just the G chord.
• Going one step jazzier yet, you might run across a song that uses part of "Rhythm Changes," moving from I - VI - II - V - I. It's also a handy group of chords to practice just to firm up your familiarity with the fingerboard.
• One that comes up less often is a I - III chordal movement. Some old blues and rags use this chord combination. The III leads nicely toward the IV in a way that helps the song move along. Sometimes the III leads toward a II - IV - I chord combination instead. A tune in G might go from the G to a B, and then to either to the C or perhaps into an A/D combination.
• Finally, it's helpful if your ear learns to hear movement from the I to the relative minor, such as from a C chord to an A minor or from a G chord to an E minor. You hear this kind of chord movement in pop ballads from the 1950s and 1960s, for example.

There are many more chord combinations, of course, but I hope the basic idea gets across. Regardless of the kind of music you play, there are some common ways that songs get from chord to chord. Your role as a bass player is to anchor the sound, laying down the foundation for the song's changes and helping guide the band from chord to chord through the notes you choose to get from place to place.

When you can tune your ear to recognize those common chord movements, you'll become stronger and more confident in doing your job, even when you're playing tunes that are new and unfamiliar.