You’ve probably heard of “3-chord songs” before. These songs tend to be catchy and popular and only feature a few select chords – usually the same ones repeating themselves over and over.

Have you seen these books in music shops: “How to play 3 chord guitar” or “1000 songs with 3 chords”? It might sound like exaggeration but there really are a huge number of songs which rely on just 3 chords. You might be surprised just how much variety is possible despite this simple musical basis.

The good news? These songs are great for beginner musicians and are also the perfect tool to train your ears and learn how to recognize certain chords. Ear training exercises are great, of course, but nothing beats the capacity of recognizing chords in actual pieces and songs you hear.

Popular 3-chord songs

Let’s start by looking at some of the most well-known 3 chord songs:

• Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
• Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
• Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
• Shook me All Night Long (AC/DC)
• All Shook Up (Elvis Presley)
• Love is a Rose (Neil Young)
• Donna (Richie Valens)
• Amazing Grace (Daniel Thomas)

You can also explore The Beatles’ early releases, though some of these push the 3-chord concept a little bit further by adding a few extra chords.

As you can see, Click to read the rest…

Your teenage daughter can rattle off the lyrics to her 320 favorite tunes on her iPod but doesn’t remember you asking her to babysit her younger brother on Saturday night. Your high school senior can improv the sweetest guitar riff complexities by ear on the spot, yet blanks out during the chemistry lecture at school.

What is it about music that imprints a solid memory in adults and teens? Are there ways to use music to improve communication and high school performance? How important is listening? Can music improve parent and teen communication? How important is ear training for young musicians and teens?

Music and Teen Identity

What is your teen thinking?

Every parent attempts to answer this question. Try paying attention to your teen’s latest playlist. Listening to music has become a large part of identity in Click to read the rest…

If you want to really understand what’s going on in songs you hear, there are few more effective training methods than transcription.

Taking the time to transcribe a song, working out the pitches and rhythms played by each instrument and how they all fit together is a truly powerful way to move your musical expertise and aural skills forward.

Transcribing a song by ear can seem like an overwhelming process at first though! Most guitarists do not approach it systematically. Often, people pick a random riff or lick in the song and just try to learn that first. Generally, taking a more structured approach makes the whole process much easier.

Here are 7 important tips and tricks to help you transcribe:

1. Tools

Good news: There really isn’t that much you need to transcribe a song, apart from your ears!

The CD containing the song is usually the best choice to transcribe from. Music file formats (like MP3s) can sacrifice audio quality to make the file size smaller, so if you use a file make sure it’s a high quality version – or you may be making your job harder than it needs to be!

All you really need is a media player that lets you jump to any part of the song you want. There are also specialist song transcription programs which can be a better choice. Most of the tools are not really necessary unless you are transcribing a song with 10+ simultaneous tracks, but other features (like being able to bookmark parts of the track) can be quite convenient and speed the transcription process along.

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