Recognizing chords in standard music notation

I've been working on reading music and can make my way thru the melody of a piece pretty well, at least in first position. I do, however, struggle with recognizing chords in standard notation. Maybe I don't struggle all that much because most of the music I'm looking at has either the chord names or the diagrams above the notation so it's easy enough to get by. So, as I continue with this should I eventually be able to recognize the chords on the notation? Is it an advantageous thing to be able to do?

The whole reentrant thing is a little complicated, but I think I can get used to that. I think.

Thanks.

So, as I continue with this should I eventually be able to recognize the chords on the notation? Is it an advantageous thing to be able to do?

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If you do it often enough it'll become familiar by default ... in the meantime, do what a lot of the rest of us do and pencil in as many reminders and references as you need to be able to play the piece to your satisfaction

The chord symbols are usually sufficient, but sometimes a particular arrangement may make use of extended chords in the actual notation, but not show it in the symbol above the staff. For example, the chord in the notation (or with melody note) may be Fmaj7, but the symbol will just say F.

Most of the time this is not a big deal, but if you are trying to work out your own chord-melody arrangement, it helps to know when these extended chords are present or implied by the melody. It can also help make a chord only arrangement a bit richer.

Thanks, kypfer. I guess that it's important to recognize the chord as a whole. Piecing it together note-by-note is kind of head-ache inducing.

And thanks, DougF, too.

kypfer said:

If you do it often enough it'll become familiar by default ... in the meantime, do what a lot of the rest of us do and pencil in as many reminders and references as you need to be able to play the piece to your satisfaction

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I have gone so far as to use crayons to color in chords A=Red B=Blue C=Orange ... G=Green (I think Red Apple, B is for blue, C is for carrot (a stretch)) t makes the process of remembering what the chords look like go a little faster.

Nice idea Brian.

I just looked at some of the web based chord reference sites to see if any showed the chords' representations in musical notation. None that I saw did. Still, it would be a handy reference. Does anyone know of a resource for this? I guess I could make my own but I'm not sure I can draw 5 straight lines.

Here is a site that has some great stuff on Chords. It's a great reference as well for anyone studying music theory. http://www.musictheory.net/lessons

pluck said:

should I eventually be able to recognize the chords on the notation?

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You'll eventually know them by sight. What helped me get there was to recognize the intervals first (major vs. minor 3rd, etc.). I would suggest working on recognizing all the intervals first, then learning what intervals are contained in what chord types - then the chords themselves will just sort of 'appear' to you.

Yes, if I can recognize triads, 7ths, and 6ths in their different inversions and know which note is the tonic then that would get me most of the way there. Minors and Majors would be a bit harder to see, that would require more familiarity with the different keys, no?

pluck said:

Yes, if I can recognize triads, 7ths, and 6ths in their different inversions and know which note is the tonic then that would get me most of the way there. Minors and Majors would be a bit harder to see, that would require more familiarity with the different keys, no?

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Not really. Standard notation is oriented around the diatonic scale pattern, and if you know which degree of the scale serves as the root of the chord (which, if nothing else, you can figure out by counting lines and spaces from a tonic of the key), you know what type of natural chord to expect: in a major key, the natural I, IV and V triads are major, II, III and VI are minor, and the VII triad is diminished (functioning as a rootless V7). Accidentals will show you when the chord is altered from typical expectations and in which direction, and they seldom appear in chords natural to the key except when restoring a pitch altered previously in the measure. Consequently, standard notation makes it far easier to decipher and name chords than tablature does.

In major and minor triads, you have only third and fifth intervals (inverted, these are sixth and fourth intervals, respectively), making it easy to spot the root: look for the fifth (bottom note is the root) or fourth (top note is the root). If you have two notes a 7th or 2nd apart (the inversion of the 7th), you probably have a 7th chord (root at the bottom or top, respectively). Alternatively, you might have a 6th chord (2nd/7th interval between the 5th and 6th components of the chord). 2nds really stand out, because one of the noteheads has to be moved to the opposite side of the stem. The key to spotting 7ths is that they both lie on a line or both lie on a space, with two other lines/spaces in between. If you have no 3rds or 6ths, it's probably a sus4 or sus2 chord. Few chords fall outside of these common, easily identified patterns.

Admittedly 9ths, 13ths and 6/9 chords do, and can be tricky to decipher, particularly when rootless, and sometimes the same set of notes can be interpreted in multiple ways, so you have to look at progressions (or fuller arrangements) to figure out what the root is and what type of chord is built upon it. For instance, some 7th, 6th and rootless 9th chords all share the same set of written pitches (and uke chord shapes), but make differing harmonic "sense" in a given context.

pluck said:

I guess I could make my own but I'm not sure I can draw 5 straight lines.

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You can download blank "manuscript paper" forms for dual standard notation/tablature. Then you could just create custom crib sheets aligned like many tab arrangements are. But as I wrote above, this shouldn't be necessary, since chords are pretty identifiable straight from standard notation.

Thanks, ukulele. I can now see that applying a bit of theory to the chords on the staff is much more satisfying than trying to individually place each note on the fretboard. By knowing what to look for, finding the tonic note is pretty easy. Maybe for the time being I will just forget that 6th notes even exist and read all 6ths as their relative 7ths. Someday the distinction will probably be easier to grasp but it's out of reach for me now.

I am speaking from a guitar standpoint but I bought the William Leavitt Book one for guitar and they get into having you play chords from notation pretty early. What I told myself it was like reading words on a page. If you stop to look at each letter you'll never get through the passage. If you are in a certain key then the groupings are going to be chords in that key anyway. This helped me a little bit anyway.

The starting points for picking chords out of standard music notation are the key signature, and the triads. One clue is that the 5th of the triad is rarely on the bottom of the chord. Once you name the notes, then mentally shuffle them into a triad pattern that fits, you probably have your chord identified by the lowest, or root note of that triad. I don't mean the lowest note you see on the music, I mean the lowest (root) note of your "mental" triad. In what I would call standard harmony tunes like hymns, country music, ballads, folk songs, etc. you shouldn't get thrown off by a missing note, usually a missing 5th. If you do get "thrown off" you'll start considering chords that would be unusual, or exotic in that setting. Just don't do that. Now in jazz, or other music that utilizes a lot of extended chords, that rule doesn't apply. There, you need to remain conscious of your key signature and have some knowledge of typical chord progressions. Then when considering extended chords with missing notes you should be able to make sensible identifications of the chords within the context of the piece.