domhatch wrote:
wait. um. hold on a sec. you okes mean we're actually supposed to play these things? moreover, we're supposed to understand what we're playing?
sheesh.
was it warren who started this thread? dude, thanks a bunch (seriously), looks like i need to brush up on my chord theory
Not guilty! 8)
I'm still a noob at this stuff myself, so when someone asks questions like this it's a chance to test my own understanding. I don't, for example, have an eidetic copy of the circle of fifths in my head, so I need to actually use it to understand these ideas. Also, the more you do it, the easier it becomes: the keyboardist I used to play with could transpose plenty of songs into other keys as he played, or at most required a minute or two to think about it. It was impressive, but I don't personally aspire to that sort of level, I just want to understand what's going on and work it out in my own time if needed.
@Norman
In terms of learning about progressions and chord theory in general, I've found it helpful to just read as much as possible and cross-reference from different sources. I've found many inconsistencies in the ways in which some parts of music theory are presented, and that can be very frustrating. The trick for me is to get some different perspectives so that I can understand it in my own way.
One place I think is useful to start is this:
http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/. There are other sites, of course, I just like the way that one is written. To understand chord progressions means spending some time understanding how the major and minor scales are used to create chords. It's really not that much work, like a few evenings' worth, and you get a tremendous amount of insight into chords and progressions.
Other useful stuff can be found on the site Jyscalus posted the other day:
http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/freebies.html. I really like the Jazz Theory book, although it requires a bit of grounding in music theory basics and a basic grasp of music notation (also easy to pick up).
I have Ralph Denyer's guitar handbook which also covers all this stuff, and even many of the WikiPedia articles are pretty informative. Read as much as you can, but also sit and apply it: think about each note you're playing when you play it. Try and work out progressions for popular songs, and then move onto fancier stuff involving substitutions and key changes.
Also, it helps most if you actually sit and play the chords. Right now, I'm sitting at the office so I'm really just looking purely at the chords themselves and trying to take an educated guess or two. However, if I could actually sit and play the song, or listen to it, it's often much clearer which key the song is in, or if a key change takes place etc.
