Simple thing. Take theory lessons. No shortcuts to the kind of learning you want to do. To do this you really need some theory so you know what a 4th and a 5th are.

There are truly no shortcuts in music. You can watch mechanics build engines your whole life but if you don't know a piston from a pushrod, you can't build one. You can apply that logic to any field you like. Cooking, ice skating, creative writing.... You can watch Bobby Flay cook all you want but if you don't know cooking basics like mise en place, blanch and parboil, you can't cook. You can't learn to skate by watching people skate if you don't know about edges and flats. You couldn't do heart surgery if you don't know auricle, ventricle and aorta.

I have watched person after person in my life try to sneak into the music circus by crawling under the tent. Buy a ticket. The metaphor being "put in the work". Take lessons to learn basic theory. 1-4-5 is a nickname. The terms are root (or tonic), subdominant and dominant. WHY they are called that is what will help you.

Here's lesson one.

Every major scale is created with moves of whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. Every note on that scale has a name.

Tonic
Supertonic
Mediant
Subdominant
Dominant
Submediant
Leading note
Tonic

Do you need to know that to strum chords around the campfire? Nope. Do you need that to follow along in a session where the leader holds up 4 fingers to signify a change to the 4th note on the scale, the subdominant chord? Yep.

If you are in E, and you see a "4", you know that is an A (from your theory of scales) but is it a Ab, an A, or an A#? You know from knowing scale structure that the 4th note on a major scale is a while, whole, half, whole step from the root, which makes it A natural. Not sharped, not flatted. That's what "natural" means.

Now that glosses over the fact that if you don't know what half and whole steps are, it's deer in the headlights time.

Go to your local community college and take a music 101 class. In that 9 weeks you will learn scales, chord structures and the circle of 5ths. That will take you a LONG way.

But once again, there are no shortcuts, and none of us can learn or practice for you. If you want it, put in the time and effort. April will mark 63 years since I started lessons, and THIS stuff is what I learned first, at 2 months less than age 5. If a kid under 5 can learn it, you can too.

Do you want it?

Last edited by eddie1261; 01/21/19 03:22 PM.