How Do You Visualize Chords

[jhatpro]

Letters or numbers?
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.” Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle

[HERMOKIWI]

In terms of improvisation I don't visualize them at all. Improvisation is about pitches and relative pitches, the name of the chord doesn't matter. Your pitches and relative pitches either go with the chord (whatever it is) or they don't. The more thinking you have to do the worse off you are. Your goal is to make this instinctive based on what you hear. As quickly as things go by you really don't have time to analyze chords as you're playing an improvisational solo. I try to know the basic key of the chart and let my analysis go at that. You can hear the rest. The challenge is to respond accurately to what you hear.
_________________
HERMOKIWI

[djpearlman]

The letters and numbers of chords are useful when learning a tune or sight reading, but I don't "visualize" them once I understand the tune, I just hear them. Knowing what the chords "are" in terms of letters and numbers is the starting point, not the end point of improvisation, in my experience. - dan
_________________
Dan Pearlman
Santa Fe, NM

- Monette Cornette
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NafoVeXrsRm-fOhKaIpnA

[TrumpetMD]

[veery715]

I like to take tunes I am working on to the piano. That's where the chord symbols in things like the Real Books come in handy. When I later play them on the trumpet I can remember the visual layout of a particular chord on the keyboard. But when performing improvisation my ear is what is doing the work and not any knowledge of what the chords are, either their key or number. I don't "see" anything except maybe lyrics.
_________________
veery715
Hear me sing!: https://youtu.be/vtJ14MV64WY
Playing trumpet - the healthy way to blow your brains out.

[Halflip]

Rather than think of the chords in the context of the key of the overall song, I translate sets of chords within the song into II-V-I or II-bII-I cadences in other keys, and then think in terms of the key transitions behind these 'false' cadences. It is much easier to ad lib melodic constructions using this approach (at least I find it so).

This was one of the most useful 'secrets' I learned in the jazz theory and improvisation classes at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.

[boog]

Hmmm, some interesting replies to this query.

I think you may perhaps have to do both, depending on context. When I play guitar, I mostly think of I, IV, V, etc. relative to the fretboard, and not so much as individual stacked notes such as C, E, G, Bb, etc., as I do when playing a wind instrument.

It has been amazing during my career how many otherwise competent musicians I have known that could not "spell" a chord (telling the names of the notes out loud) from bottom to top, and their inversions without writing them out.

Likewise, many fine players I have known were not fluent in the sense of being able to play all 12 major scales by ear (without reading them off of a staff), and being able to convert those scales in their mind's eye and on their instrument into modal scales, all the forms of minor scales, whole-tone scales, etc.

BUT, many of these players were fine improvisors, sight readers, studio players, and competent section players....

In my case, my ability to "spell" chords out loud from my mind, to navigate the fingerings of scales, and other things musical was perhaps developed further (than innate ability) by arranging for marching bands and other ensembles, including choirs, and the act of writing the notes down on a piece of staff paper manually, and later using a mouse and keyboard.

Transcribing horn parts off of pop recordings as a youngster helped my abilities in this regard, also. I guess this helped me to "visualize" chords and sequences of notes, I dunno..

I have known fine keyboard players that could improvise, comp, etc. without a great deal of knowledge of the note names and "stacking"...in other words, they played "by ear", whatever that means...

So, "visualizing" a chord, scale, or whatever could be a different thing for almost everybody. One of the fascinating things about talent (however that is defined).

Ya know, this would make a fine Doctoral Dissertation...I have worn myself out just thinking about it...think I am going to bed now...

Whew!

Regards, Dave

[McH]

"The key of D is daffodil yellow, B major is maroon and B flat is blue" -- Marion McPartland

[solo soprano]

Do keys really have their own moods?
Eb major, The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God. D minor is the saddest of all keys.

Greeks believed this and the thought continued in the medieval period. It was called "Rationalism" - Pythagorean Theory based on harmonics. Unfortunately, Pythagoras and his students realized that irrational numbers actually do exist and they burned down their library on a secluded island and walked into the sea drowning themselves.

Key and mode descripitions from Marc-Antoine Charpentier's "Regles de Composition ca. 1682

Key Descriptive comments

C major - gay and warlike
C minor - obscure and sad
D major - joyous snd sad
D minor - serious and pious
Eb major- cruel and hard
E major - quarrelson and boisterous
E minor - effeminate, amorous, plaintive
F major - furious and quick-tempered subjects
F minor - obscure and plaintive
G major - serious and magnificent
G minor - serious and magnificent
A major - joyful and plaintive
A minor -tender and plaintive
B major -harsh and plaintive
B minor -solitary and melancholic
Bb major- magnificent and joyful
Bb minor -obscure and terrible
---------------------------------------------
I hate the key of e minor.
It gives me the e-b-g-b's.
_________________
Bill Knevitt, who taught me the seven basic physical elements and the ten principles of physical trumpet playing and how to develop them.
https://qpress.ca/product-category/trumpet/?filter_publisher=la-torre-music

[PH]

Keyboard!
_________________
Bach trumpet artist-clinician
Clinical Professor of Jazz Trumpet, University of Illinois
Professor Emeritus of Jazz Studies, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
Faculty Jamey Aebersold Jazz Workshops 1976-2019
JazzRetreats.com

[mm55]

[mm55]

I usually think of notation on a staff. I try to follow the root-motion pretty solidly; and typically don't bother visualizing the rest of the chord (I use my ears for that). But sometimes I'll be visualizing notation of a line, such as a guide-tone line, instead of the roots.

I'm not sure if I can accurately describe how and why, but thinking of root motion or harmonic lines makes it easier for me to think "into the future" by a few extra bars. It assists me in thinking where the phrase should be going.
_________________
'75 Bach Strad 180ML/37
'79 King Silver Flair
'07 Flip Oakes Wild Thing
'42 Selmer US
'90 Yamaha YTR6450S(C)
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'10 Carol CPT-300LR pkt
'89 Yamaha YCR2330S crnt
'13 CarolBrass CFL-6200-GSS-BG flg

[jhatpro]

Here's a good about the subject. It's available from various sources including Amazon and libraries.

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo3697073.html
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.” Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle

[beagle]

[mm55]

[beagle]

[chuck in ny]