Hearing Chord Changes

Hearing chord changes is a skill that improves with experience, obviously. The first step is to listen for WHEN the chord changes. Play a YouTube video of a bluegrass song you know, but don’t watch…just listen. See if you can hear when the chord changes. Then watch it to confirm you have that down. Repeat that exercise with a song that you don’t know.

You can do this same exercise with the JAM Songbook; find a tune you know and hum it to yourself, then check the book to see if you correctly identified when the chord changes.

Most chord changes come after 4 or 8 beats. Sometimes there will be a quick change after 2 beats, like in the first line of “Don’t This Road Look Rough and Rocky” or the last line of many songs. 

Once you are adept at hearing when the chord changes, the next step is to anticipate WHAT chord will be next. You can use the same YouTube video or JAM Songbook exercise. Here are some tips to help you:

  1. The next-to-last chord change of a song is almost always a 5 chord. Most last lines are 1-5-1, or sometimes 4-5-1.
  2. In a song where the verse and chorus are different, the chorus often starts on the 4 chord.
  3. If you are on the 1 chord, and you hear the bass starting to “walk”, then the next chord is likely to be a 4 chord. 
  4. If you are on the 5 chord, and you hear the bass starting to “walk”, then the next chord is likely to be a 1 chord.
  5. If you are playing a 2 chord, then the next chord is almost always a 5 chord. 
  6. If you are on the 1 chord, and you hear someone play the 7th note (ex: you are in the key of G, playing the G chord, and you hear someone playing a G7 chord), then the next chord is almost always a 4 chord.
  7. If you aren’t sure which comes, just pick one of the other 2 typical chords. If you are wrong, not a big deal! You’ll get it next time. It’s more important to play in rhythm than to play the right chord!
  8. As you continue to learn to identify what chord is coming next, you always watch the guitar billboard. During Wayward Strings classes and workshops, we try to be more-than-usually obvious with chord changes.

Here are some standard chord progressions:

Group A: 1-4-5-1
Blue Ridge Cabin Home, Man Of Constant Sorrow, Footprints in the Snow
Group B: 1-4-1-5-1
Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Mountain Dew, In The Pines
Group C: 1-5-1-4-1-5-1
Banks Of The Ohio, New River Train, Take This Hammer
Group D: 1-4-1-4-1-5-1
You Are My Sunshine, East Virginia Blues, Lonesome Road Blues