Originally Posted By: JoanneCooper

Joe, an easy way to start playing by ear is to just start out playing major key songs with the tonic all the way through the song. Then the second time you may want to put in the four or five chords when the tonic does sound great. There are not many major key songs that you cannot just play all the way through with just variations in sequence I, IV and V. Once you have got that down you will start hearing where the minors are used in the song. Then you can worry about the 7ths..etc..


But if the player who knows ZERO about theory reads that, you know what the questions are?

Tonic? Like gin and tonic?

The four or five chords? What is that?

What is that I, IV, V thing?

You are talking about people who don't know C from F from L, M, N or P here. They don't know what key they are in to know what the 4 of that scale is. And of they don't know notes of a scale, what does "the 4" mean to them?

I don't even really know what he meant by the topic of the post. "with really simple chords in 1 or 2 keys". Does he mean 1 or 2 CHORDS in the song? I mean, a song is in "a" key. Not one or 2 keys. So does this means songs that only have 1 or 2 chords?

This is the "songs" vs "music" again.