Tips for leaning chord tones?

When I'm using the Piano Roll, I tend to just look at the relative positions of the notes and forget about what key I'm working in. A chord or phrase in PRV looks the same regardless of key.
 

Kev999
When I'm using the Piano Roll, I tend to just look at the relative positions of the notes and forget about what key I'm working in. A chord or phrase in PRV looks the same regardless of key.
 

 
Yeah I realize that, but the PRV isn't everything, I mean I'd quite like to be able to construct chords on a stave without having to count each interval or without constantly referring back to my mental image of the guitar fretboard. I'm already at the stage where I'm composing parts in the PRV by ear and I have absolutely no idea what chords I'm writing. Not that there's anything wrong with that because ultimately the ear should be the final judge of everything, but theory also plays a part in composition as well.

The furthest I ever got with this was when I was learning the big-band comping style on guitar. I learned these 3 note chord fingerings on the low E, D and G strings. For each chord, I learned every inversion. They're great sounding fingerings. I'd go through the cycle of fourths, playing all 3 (or 4) inversions of each chord. Major, minor, maj7, min7, 6th, min6th etc. I started to learn the notes of all the major chords in every key, so that I knew the bass note in each inversion. But once I'd learned the major chords I guess I kind of got overwhelmed with the whole rote learning thing and gave up. I guess what I'm looking for is some kind of system which helps you learn this stuff. 
 
 

timidi
" what a b13 in the key of Eb is,"
 
Um, er, ........ What??
 
So, in Eb talk, you got B, Eb, Gb, A, Ab
Figurin that in the key of Eb is well, um maybe an Eb b5#5sus. Maybe. um. idunno..

A b13 is the same as an augmented 5th (talking intervals here, not chords). So in Eb that would be B. I had to picture a guitar fretboard to figure it out.

I think the circle of fifths is pretty easy to memorize if you incorporate it into all of your technique exercises - for example, when practicing scales go through the cycle over and over. And yes, memorizing the number of sharps and flats in each key is relatively easy. Trouble is, even if you know your key signatures, you're still going to be counting intervals. I would just love the kind of intimate familiarity with chord and scale tones to hear "major 6th from G#" and instantly think "F" without having to work it out. I would love to pop into a horn player's mind for a few minutes to get an idea of what they're thinking when they're soloing over some changes. 
 
I'm OK with sight reading, I took it up about 12 years ago and can sight read my way through Bach fugues with multiple parts now. I'm convinced that's because I played the recorder at school when I was 7 or 8. Even though I'd long forgotten the notes on the stave since then, they must have been stashed away in the back of my mind somewhere. One thing I cannot imagine ever being able to do however is reading treble and bass staves at the same time like piano players. But then again I remember not being able to imagine how anyone could fingerpick separate bass & melody parts together on guitar, yet now I can play ragtime standing on my head and I have little trouble with those Bach fugues that often have 3 or 4 things going on at once. 
 
I also cannot imagine reading Chinese....

Well... I posted in the wrong thread and think I totally missed the damned point of it in the first place.
 
Today... today sucks.
 
Today can bite a furry one.

1st don't to daunted, 2nd pick a place to start.  For instance start learning the formulas of chords 1-3-5 is a major chord.  Start imagining how this might look on a Stave.  As some have suggested circle of 5ths.  The way I learnt my key signatures was play my favourite songs off a piece of sheet music and look at the key signature.  After a while it became 2nd nature.  A tip about key signatures, in most cases not all the leading note or beginning note of the piece tends to be the key, you then just have to work out if its major or minor.  There a number of apps too.
 
Just remember this a language you are learning and it will take time, I'm still wonky after 28 years, I've been told that I got to chapter 25 of the theory book and threw it away after that.  It does indeed become a little superfluous after a certain point, even limiting.  But def take a practical route when learning, sheet music and a music theory book.
 
Cheers  

timidi

sharke

timidi
" what a b13 in the key of Eb is,"

Um, er, ........ What??

So, in Eb talk, you got B, Eb, Gb, A, Ab
Figurin that in the key of Eb is well, um maybe an Eb b5#5sus. Maybe. um. idunno..

A b13 is the same as an augmented 5th (talking intervals here, not chords). So in Eb that would be B. I had to picture a guitar fretboard to figure it out.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about then.
A B13 would never be an interval. It is a chord. I know you just said that but I just think you're thinking about it all in a strange kind of way maybe. As far as scales go, a B13 would be a dominant in the key of E. An 13 chord in the key of Eb would be Bb13. 
saying "I'd like to know in an instant what a b13 in the key of Eb is" is, to me, a mind warping conundrum.
 
As I said, I think I don't understand what you're trying to understand.
 

I think he meant "flat 13" (b13) and not B13.  It confused me at first, too.

vanblah

timidi

sharke

timidi
" what a b13 in the key of Eb is,"

Um, er, ........ What??

So, in Eb talk, you got B, Eb, Gb, A, Ab
Figurin that in the key of Eb is well, um maybe an Eb b5#5sus. Maybe. um. idunno..

A b13 is the same as an augmented 5th (talking intervals here, not chords). So in Eb that would be B. I had to picture a guitar fretboard to figure it out.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about then.
A B13 would never be an interval. It is a chord. I know you just said that but I just think you're thinking about it all in a strange kind of way maybe. As far as scales go, a B13 would be a dominant in the key of E. An 13 chord in the key of Eb would be Bb13. 
saying "I'd like to know in an instant what a b13 in the key of Eb is" is, to me, a mind warping conundrum.
 
As I said, I think I don't understand what you're trying to understand.
 

I think he meant "flat 13" (b13) and not B13.  It confused me at first, too.

Yeah I though it was understood that a lower case 'b' means 'flat' and not the note name. 

You are referring to the enharmonic note names but there is a difference. The #5 of middle C say is the G# (Ab) in that same octave above middle C.
 
What you are forgetting is the b13 is the G# (Ab) in the octave above the octave middle C is in. It is a higher note than the #5 you are talking about. Same note but different octave. Jazz voicings refer to these notes eg 9th , 11th 13th etc..They are wanting you to use those extensions in the same octave.
 
But no reason you have to either. A 9th sits well as a second and some of these notes sound better in a lower octave instead. It just depends on what sounds better. You might a natural fifth for example (G) and putting a #5 right next to it may not sound so good. (G and G# together, some may see this as a clash!) But a G natural in a lower octave and a G# in a higher octave can work and sound quite fine in fact.
 
Same as singing a bluesy b3 in a higher ocatve while the Maj 3rd is in the dominant chord in a lower octave. All works and sits OK!!

rebel007
Hi Sharke, the best way I've found to learn all keys is to pick a tune with the chords you want to learn and play it in every key. You'll soon start to "see" the notes in the particular chords you are playing and after a while those note names will stick. Knowing your note names is not particularly needed to play the chords, I think "intervals" is a more valuable skill, however knowing your note names can sometimes be an easier way to communicate your chords and ideas to other musicians.

I have no trouble playing chords, in fact I can read a jazz chord sheet and construct the chords anywhere on the neck in any key, without having to learn chord shapes by heart, simply by virtue of the fact that I know where all the intervals are located in relation to any root. This goes for any kind of freaky altered chords you can think of. What I'm trying to do is get away from thinking in terms of the guitar neck I'm so familiar with and thinking purely in terms of notes. The urge hit me quite hard when I was watching Eli Krantzberg's Jazz theory course on Groove3 and he was going through chord voicings on the stave. I realized that I was quite lost, whereas Eli was reeling off those notes and spellings without thinking about it. Having this kind of facility with chord tones in terms of note names has got to come in handy when you're arranging music on a stave, which is something I'd really love to get into (again, thanks to Eli's orchestration course on Groove3 ). 

Thanks. I guess what I'm looking for is a structured method for learning those note names in every key. I know that I could theoretically sit down and learn them one by one parrot fashion, but my brain sucks at that. I'd like to know how, say, a horn player gets to know their chord tones in every key inside and out. Would it be a good idea, for example, to start with the major triads and learn those in every key? Then do the same with the minors and move onto the sevenths? One problem I foresee with this is that once I've learned the major third interval in every key, my brain will be tempted to just count one step down every time I want to think of a minor interval. It's that extra step that bothers me, although I know some people will say "this is exactly what I do." 

It's kind of weird, I spent many years learning scales and arpeggios. Many classically trained musicians yearn for the day they can forget all that theory, throw away the music and play by ear. Yet I understand the need to learn note names, as they become a language you can use to communicate your songs and structures to other musicians. Keep at it, it's a good skill to have.

You are probably right, in that the complete beginner may find it easier, but I think that probably comes from the fact that they are 8 or so years old and have no preconceived ideas and just take what their teaches give them as gospel. They also have no other distractions, that those of us in later years have, and can concentrate entirely on what they are learning.
Don't let this discourage you though, I really do believe that once you make a start you will find it easier than what you might at first think.

For memorizing anything, I tend to use this...
http://mnemosyne-proj.org/
 
It's an open source project that lets you build your own flashcards. Then as you go through your cards you click different numbers to indicate how well you knew the answer and that controls how quickly the card will cycle back.
 
You can organize the cards into groups and then activate only certain groups. So for example, you could group by tone count - 2 tones - 3 tones - etc. or by Key.
 
You can store all card as front to back - back to front or just front to back. In other words, you could have Amaj7 on the front and A, C#, E, Ab on the back. You could have it also show you these tones on the first, and you have to say Amaj7.
 
If you click through the cards every day, you'll be amazed that the information slowly begins to stick.
 
You can also export your cards to your phone and practice on the go.