Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
I've shown this technique to some others in the past while teaching guitar. Some people can't do this - like learning a foreign language, there are some that can't get their voice to take on the natural accent spoken by native speakers. I have a theory that this inability to mimic also ties in with ear-training capability. But I have nothing to go on with that theory, but I have noticed that people that can pull off speaking foreign languages with natural accents also make pretty good ear-training capable musicians.


Language teachers have identified this also, good musicians "have an ear for languages". I've read somewhere many moons ago (paraphrased) that a spoken language can be compared to music. (As a matter of fact, our spoken letters are just a collection of frequencies -- just like a chord.)

The mathamtician in you might be better in the grammar of a foreign language, the musician in you is probably better in sounding the foreign language.

Joe, as you have asked eons ago about the different modes, this one is almost as simple or hard. Just as was said, pick a song that you know. Find a chord progression that is fairly "complicated" and make it easier and more complicated again and listen to the different sounds.

Then play the same chords on a different position of the fretboard, meaning you have a different shape and a different order of the notes in that chord. Sometimes the inversion makes the sound on the recording.

(Side note: I have a transcription book with several rockabilly songs. Stray Cat Strut is in there. The Cm chord is written to be played on the third fret. Brian Setzer definitely plays the Cm as a barré chord on the eighth fret. One can hear the "high-C" clearly ringing which would not be posible if he played the "G" on the third fret of the first string. And knowing a little about the band Stray Cats, there was no other instrument in the band that could have played that note.)

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