I am a newcomer to Art of Memory and a working musician.
I want to construct a system for memorizing chord progressions for songs. I’d like to be able to store these in long term memory, and add more and more progressions over time.
I’m thinking of creating a mind palace for this. Do you think this would be a good method? Any recommendations or ideas?
I’d like to be able to store the progressions as relative degrees of the major scale. If I could encode the chord quality that would be even better.
So C Am Dm G7 becomes 1 6m 2m 57.
Am I being overly ambitious here? Any ideas, critiques and criticisms welcome.
I didn’t know figured bass notation existed until I just looked it up! That would be a good way to reduce chord quality to a number or numbers as well. I guess I just need a good system for visualizing numerals, and a good system for storing sequences of said numerals. Interesting, thanks for your input.
It’s an interesting subject. I have thought about similar ideas.
One approach would be to find some good way to chunk pairs of chord progressions.
If we disregard minor/major and 7:th or other colourings, we would have
7^2 chord progressions and for three chord progressions we have 7^3 = 343.
Many of these will not occur but in any case, I would go with memorizing more than one chord as one image…
For example Dm-G7-C would be encoded as 251 which would correspond to one unique image…
Why bother memorizing chord progressions for each individual song? You can easily and extemporaneously reconstruct the chord progressions on the fly by using the following four steps (combined with your personal memory/familiarity with each song):
The last root note of the basic chord (not inverted chords) of a song is almost always the same note (+1 or more octaves below) as the final note of the song/melody (or final note of the opening stanza/verse).
When the melody progresses upward or downward chromatically, the root note of the basic chord is often 3 note intervals below (+1 octave) the melodic notes played on the main down beat (or sometimes immediately after the main down beat if the down beat melodic note is just a passing note).
Otherwise, the root note of the basic chord is either 1, 3, or 5 note intervals BELOW the melodic notes played on the main down beats (or immediately after the main down beat). Try playing some traditional Christmas carols on piano in the key of C to easily observe and confirm this simple correspondence between melodic and root notes.
Form the chords by playing he root note with left hand pinky, and hold left hand in a claw like position to play/roll up notes at 5, 8, and 10 note intervals above the root note.
Use these four steps to identify the chords to play with any given song melody by simply and literally watching for the melodic notes played on the right hand on the main down beats - a process I’ve come to call “playing by sight” as opposed to “playing be ear”. To “play by ear” using these five steps (minus playing the melody with the right hand), identify the melodic notes as you sing the melody out loud or in your head using the solfege (do-re-me) method.
I had a look at chords and how they are constructed a few years ago. Turns out very little memorization is required as at their core is a fundamental idea about hand shapes and neck positions.
Its detailed here using the ukulele https://ukulelethoughts.blogspot.com/ as an example (only 4 strings)
@MMScotofGlasgow started me thinking of memorizing chord progressions by mnemonics and this topic came up. I wondered if any new musician members out there had a system based on Major system conversions with the addition of modifiers much like @chrizthewiz noticed.
I didn’t see anyone that had a system that worked at least on the Piano Forum. I will be trying a few systems to see if I like them and would love to hear if someone has come up with any personal system. It’s tricky because you have the chord distance away from the tonic as well as the occasional added note and minor and augmented to worry about.
The approach that would come to my mind would be this:
(Roman numeral, Quality, Extension) : Following the steps
Scale degree is roman numeral in the major
Quality is a vowel
Extension is the number of halfsteps of the interval respecting octave equivalence. The only exception is that 7 is a M7 (So you omit P5)
I,II,III,… = t,n,m,…
maj,min,dim,aug,sus = a,e,i,o,u
m2,M2,m3,…,P5,m6,M6,m7,M7 = t,n,m,…,-,f,b,s,k
That said there are also a lot of musical memory cues hidden in the tension release characteristics of the degrees, your emotional response to the intervals etc. (which is probably more desirable in the long run)
@Donnerstagnachmittag, I like the vowel approach with the Major version of the scale degree.
But I think our languages are a little different for 3. Either that or I’m rusty on chord notation. We might have to spell it out to be clear…
Key of C.
CEG = C = Ta?
CEGBflat = C7 = Ta?
CEGB = CM7 = Ta?
CEflatGBflat = Cm7 = Te?
Help me fill in the question marks and confirm we’re going the same direction here.
To be clear on 3, I used interval names for encoding not chord notation. So remaining in the key of C a C7 is the one chord in major with a minor seventh on top
CEGBflat = C7 = TaS
CEGB = Cmaj7 = TaK
CEflatGBflat = Cm7 = TeS
more examples Cm add11 = TeL , Csus4 = TuL , C6 = TaP, Cb5 = TaJ
For chords without extensions I would drop the last consonant, so C = Ta , C+ = To … I’m not sure if I’m happy with that.
I guess if it feels unnatural that way one could take the major-system numbers for 3. as well and indicate if your using the major or minor version of the extension by using long or short vowels in 2, so Cmaj7 = TaaK and C7= TaK
What is your approach for 7ths and extensions and chords without extensions?
Maybe its easier and more actionable to just use a two digit major system approach of the form (Roman numeral, Quality) instead and have an additional list of extensions that you can optionally attatch to the major system images:
Something like :
I,II,III… = 1,2,3…
0 = sus (s as in sus)
1 = aug/+ (t as in +)
2 = min7/m7
3 = min/m (m as in m)
4 = maj/ (r as in Dur or 4 halfsteps for a major third)
5 = 5/power chord (l as in major)
6 = half-dim7/ ø
7 = dom7/7 (k as in major)
8 = dim/°
9 = maj7/Δ (p as in pyramid)
The optional list for extensions could be based on the emotional response to the interval or song associations like a piece of poop for a b9 or a ship for a 13 (as in my bonnie lies over the ocean) etc.
I (a while back) developed a system using THESE letters in the same way as the old Major System.
D is one, R is two etc…
So 1357 (a tonic major Seventh chord) could be:
D-M-S-T
Eg Dame Sate or Damson Tea
683 (A sub mediant triad) could be
L-D-M
For example Lido Man (n is a filler)
I did a little work on it. But didn’t pursue it beyond a couple of months as (quite frankly) it is an idiotic idea for real musicians to think in this way. Musicians think in sounds, in intervals and especially voices and this Musical Major System is of no use to fluent musicians who can read music.
However it might be worth thinking about it you add:
Melody above (encoded as above)
Harmonic Rhythm below
For example a route through streets at each Street turn a change in chord (harmony) and above that the melody encoded.
I personally now use a chunking reduction method for (party piece) memorising of a tune… I think in phrases, the pitches and order of both the bass and melody I can encode using a PAOS system related to the Grand Staff and associated position on the instruments I play. But this is just a party trick,. It’s not useful at all for really learning a set of songs or sonatas or Hymns with multiple voices. That type of Memorising is still WAY BEYOND any system developed for numbers or cards… No wonder it’s not included in Mind Sports …
