Solving The Puzzle
This is the third and final part in our series of articles on figuring out songs by ear. Let’s put all the pieces together and and take out the guesswork.
There are two important things to focus upon: the melody and the bass. Fortunately (and unfortunately as well, but that’s yet another column) most rock/pop/metal/country bassists are incredibly unimaginative and you can count on them to be hanging onto the root note and fifth of any chord, often to the point of strangling it to death. Part of this is due to the status quo; the bass is more perceived as an augmentation to the bass drum instead of a voice in its own right. If you don’t believe me, listen to any car speaker blaring down the street. You don’t actually hear the bass as much as feel it. Loudness is prized over melodic ability. (Note to all bassists and would-be bassists: this is not meant to disparaging, it’s simply a fact. Two of the best musicians I know are great bassists and they will acknowledge this. And, like many such things, we do have the power to change it.)
With the note from the melody and the note from the bass, you (might) have two thirds of the opening chord (it may be the same note). That’s not a bad start. If the melody or the bass line isn’t too complicated, I try to follow it on the guitar. This usually gives me an idea of which notes are being used which in turn will more than likely tell me what key the song is in. Another “trick,” if you will, I tend to use is what I call the “find the E”" method. This involves playing an E major chord (or minor if I think it’s in a minor key) up and down the fret board until I find the place where the majority of the song seems to be taking place. Now, obviously, I don’t use the E but rather the E shape with a first finger barre, like this:
In this particular case, both the bass note and the “E” centered on the Ab (or G#, if you prefer). For now, I am going to assume that the song is in Ab Major. This may or may not be true, but the point is that there are a lot of Ab major chords in the song, so if it’s not in Ab major, then Ab is at least a primary chord in the scale. So I make out an Ab chord chart and this is what I see:
After I recover from my mild stroke, I decide that there’s no bloody way I’m going to play this in this key. Sorry. So, now that I’ve found the key it’s in, I have to find a key in which to play it. This one’s a no-brainer, put a capo on the first fret and play it in G, which looks like this:
That’s much better. Noodling around the fret board with my capo on, I find that I must be in the correct key because the G major scale is indeed working. The only sharp or flat I’m using with regularity is the F# (and remember, I’m playing as if I’m in G. The reality is that I’m playing in Ab or G#) and I know from reading Jimmy Hudson’s Key Changes that one sharp means G.
To avoid further confusion with keys, I’m going to mark the top of my sheet “Capo on 1st fret.” This basically serves to remind me to do this if I want to play along with the tape. But as far as I’m concerned, the song is officially in the key of G and I am leaving Ab far behind.
Okay, on to the introduction. Another useful “tool” I should point out is the ability to hear how certain songs sound similar to each other. The introduction of Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby, to me, anyway, sounds a bit like Bertha by the Grateful Dead. Now I already know Bertha, so I’m going to do a little experimenting. Bertha flits between the G and C (or I and IV, if you will). I notice that playing G for two beats, then C for two and G for two works but then the C doesn’t work. Okay. If I listen to the bass again or simply go with the odds, I try a D and it works. Always remember that the I, IV and V will usually be the main chords of any given key. Try them first. You will see that a lot of what we do is going to be guesswork, our job is to make it educated guesswork. And guess what? We’ve got the intro (which also serves as the fill between the lines!) down already:
G - C - / G - D - / G - C - / G - - - / (repeat)
The first line in the verse obviously starts out with G for two measures and then switches for one measure, switches again for another measure and then ends up back at G, repeating the intro riff. The two switches are definitely major chords, so it’s a fairly safe bet that they will be the IV and V. I try them out in that order and find that, indeed, it works. So here’s the first line:
The second line, as we’ve already noted, is the same as the first one:
The third line starts out on a minor chord. Listening to the bass line, I hear it go up a third from the G. So I try out B minor and find that I’m still on a roll. The bass goes up yet another note for the next chord so I use C. My next instinct is to continue up to D before going back to G, but after listening to it three more times, I realize I’ve fooled myself. The melody goes up but the bass and the chord stay put. Okay, then, here’s the third line:
Finally, the fourth line sounds to me like a reverse of the first two, so I try out V, IV, I and decide that yes, this works out fine:
