Guys, thanks for trying to help.  Really.

Usually, I am a very good self-teacher/self-learner.  But in this instance, I am admitting ignorance.  And this time I am not qualified to teach myself.

As I said, I've been listening to music for decades.  Spent thousands on my music education over the years.  I have keyboards, violins, horns, drums, and guitars galore, and can even play some of them!    I know my scales and key signatures and I "get" the circle of fifths/fourths.  I can read treble clef and bass cleff.  I even know what alto clef is and that a trumpet is a Bb instrument.  I have scale books if I need to fall back on them to figure out the modes.  I can write something with a I, III, V progression, but I have to pretty much just throw a dart to decide where to begin.  The last one started on A, so what the hell, this time I'll start on E. 

Go ahead, laugh.  I freely acknowledge that I have no idea what I'm doing. 

I have all those scale books, Hannon exercise books, and even chord books for guitar and keys, plus apps on my Droid that can show me all the inversions of any three or four-fingered piano chord.  It's never a problem to find a chord or make up a progression.

But I don't REALLY KNOW IT well enough to be a competent listener; a listener who can actually SAY what he's hearing; and maybe even name some of the notes or the root key.  I want to go to the next level and this is one time that I don't know how to teach myself.  I've spent way too much money on teachers already.  There must be a better way.

I have no reference point.  I can hear a Beatles song or an Alexander Courage composition or a Candy Dulfer jazz piece, but unless I am reading the notes or chords from a sheet or fakebook, I have NO IDEA what chords are being played.  An orchestra could be playing, and I have no reference point for picking out the root or telling you what the violas are doing.

Oh sure, I can recognize a 12-bar blues riff, and I can even tell you when I'm hearing that.  I might be able to identify a harmonic minor scale or a pentatonic scale.  I can hear major and minor.  And when something is sounding jazzy, I know there might be 6ths, 7ths, or 9ths in there.  Luckily I can usually sense when something is out of tune, which helps a little bit when playing violin or trombone.

But I repeat my earlier post:  I can't tell if it began in C or in Bb or F unless I can play the song over and over and over again while I hunt and peck on an instrument.  I can find what sounds "good" and I can even play improv along with it.  But damn...Root?  Key?  Forget it, I have no way to reconcile what my ears hear with the notes I find on a keyboard with the actual key signature or chord progression.

The guessing game is getting old and lame.  Been there, done this:

Me:  "Sounds like the key of D because F's and C's sound better sharped and pretty much everything else sounds better natural."

Teacher:  "Nope, that's actually in the key of G.  You just heard a modulation where a C was sharped."

Usually I'm not even that close.  I pick Bb, and it turns out to be A minor, which looks like the key of C on a sheet.

This is where I continually get stuck in the mud, just spinning my wheels.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

When I'm struggling to sort out a particularly difficult chord progression that goes a little beyond I-IV-V I have had luck using the free demo version of Jammer.  It has every chord possible available in a menu.  You just pop them into a measure.  You can sound out the chords by touching them with your cursor and then drop them into the piece when you find the one that's "right".  No fancy inversions like you might be trying to work out on the guitar, but the piano version will still get you in the ball park.  Then you can run the sequence through and see if it flows correctly.  The demo version of the software won't allow you to save your work but you can capture a screen shot and paste it somewhere else.
 
I read once that John Lennon was plunking away on his acoustic guitar one day trying to figure out something that Bob Dylan had played on a record.  He tried several times to get the chord fingerings just like the song on the record.  Finally he set his guitar down and mumbled "bloody tunesmiths...."

Often trial and error is a good approach.  Also if it's a difficult piece it helps to get more people involved.  I recall a few occasions with 3 of us working on analysing chord sequences: me with a guitar, another guy sitting at a piano and a third guy operating a cassette player.  We listened to each phrase, or sometimes to each chord, repeatedly while playing along until it sounded correct.  Steely Dan songs can be tough to work out!

Assuming you're still trying to identify a single chord, one pretty good method is to start with identifying the bass pitch. After you're certain about that note, start picking out the other notes, whatever they may be and wherever they may be. After you've figured that out you'll have a good picture of the chord structure. From there, apply basic music theory and you'll be able to name the chord.

Identifying key centers can be more difficult because in some music, like jazz, film score, or any Romantic/post-Romantic symphonic music, they can move around a lot or not exist at all. Again, start with the bass notes and how they move (context is very important). Next figure out the chord structures above those bass notes and then you'll have all the necessary information to begin your analysis.

Ear training and analysis can be learned, but the only way to learn is by doing a lot of it. It's like an athlete developing muscles. You have to develop your critical listening skills. One of the many benefits of that is that you'll learn a ton about other people's music and you'll become a better mixer/producer because you'll be hearing a lot more (or "further into the mix").

I hear you, Positively Charged; actually, I'd venture to say most of us are like you for detecting anything outside the triad (magic) chords of the major keys.  I'm sorely limited with complex songs and would love chord help in these, too ... to jam away with by ear (without site reading madness)

BiaB (Band-in-a-Box) also has ear training stuff, which I don't have patience for ... but others might.

There may be certain key/chord detection tools, IIRC, also in IPhone Apps, and such ... else they recognize singular notes.

Hello everybody and thank you for the replies. 

Philip, I can't find any such apps in the Droid market place, and that really was my desire.  Such an app might really help me with the learning process more than anything else has thus far.  Because if I hear a song playing that I like (for example in the car or maybe even playing on my Droid), I could just hit a button and see which predominant-sounding chord was playing.

And maybe I could watch when it changes.  "Oh, he went from G-maj to some sort of inverted E-min...what is that a I to a minor VI with G on the bottom?  I like that in this song's context!" 

Then I could go to a keyboard and continue the learning process by playing around with that sound.  Not unlike a child playing with blocks or Legos. 

Anything to break this down to the basic elements so that I can begin a more effective musical education than I've had thus far.  I hear what all you guys are saying, but I'm at the point where I need to break up my own status quo and try something different.  Mabye an app would be a great tool for me.  Eventually, I would hope to rely on the app less and less as my recognition grew.

Anyway, thanks again.

yes, Melodyne's chord recognition for instruments is really amazing.. buy that application, it's way too cheap for what it does.

+1 DeZeA, albeit Melodyne requires clip replication (in RAM at least) before it can be visualized in the Melodyne Browser and/or exported to MIDI chords.

Yeh Positively Charged,

If you can find a portable chord recognition device for a cell-phone or keychain, etc., please advise, as I'd love something invaluable like that, too.  Imagine, instant chord recognition, without fuss!  I suppose the technology is pending and the Melodyne folk may be the ones best able to create it ... since they alone, IIRC, have triad note recognition from audio samples.

(BiaB only recognizes MIDI inputs as chords, not (analogue) recorded inputs.)

In Sum:

I hope I'm wrong:

Melodyne only, IIRC: abstracts single notes/tones that comprise the chords, etc. (it may give the key, I don't know).  You'd need your bulky 14" HP Envy Laptop to chug around, whose internal laptop-microphone(s) are sophisticated enough for a Sonar project, else ... a 32-bit version of Melodyne for 32-bit SoundForge (using the MME internal soundcard) to procure a proper waveform.

Note: I have never tried Melodyne with SoundForge as I'm strictly win7/64bit.  Hence, I'd prefer not to try to get Melodyne to work with Soundforge 32-bit.

So the following solutions might work:

1) TBH: I'd personally stick with Sonar 64-bit if using Melodyne ... despite the crashes --haha!  But, you/I would require a chord chart, if you're as inept as I am, as I only 'recognize' 5-10 chords based on the notes.

2) Again, +1 on Ear training ... there are portable chord recognition devices you/I can google for those.

3) A friend, band-buddy, may help.

4) Patient Trial and Error with you're instrument and knowledge to narrow down "that chord"

5) A song score sheet with the key written on it.

As a guy who has done a lot of playing by ear on the bandstand, i can safely say it's a skill that really takes tiome and experience. Melodic intervals come first:
 
Two drills:
1) As you listen to a song, put it in C  (Bb for you bandos), find the key center, and chase the notes around - any song, any time. Practice finding the key ,and then the notes.
 
2) With a friend (doesn't matter what instrument) agree on a scale stand not facing each other, and you play a note on the scale for him to hear, he plays it, and then plays a note back to you for you to find, then you pass a new note back to him, etc. A great drill, and a great way to be secure in scales. 
 
If you can find tonic, and hear intervals, the chords will fill in, but not in two weeks. I had a student come to me  and said he REALLY wanted to learn sax, even if it took a month.

You know this thread is 4 years old, right? Just askin.