Playing by Ear
Ear Training
Music Styles / Genres and How to Play Them on Ukulele. Development of the active and passive capability to relate to music aurally.
Page Updated:
11 November 2025
Introduction
An introduction to the skills and tools needed to determine the chords of a song or chord progression by ear. Chord probability, chord species, active and passive chord quality, harmonic rhythm, root movement
Ear Training
Development of the active and passive capability to relate to music aurally. This includes the ability to recognize melodic and harmonic intervals, chords, chords progressions, rhythm, melody and harmony.
Where Do Chords Come From?
Nothing magical here. Chords come from the notes of a scale. For simple progressions the most common scale that chords come from are the major scales.
Most basic chords, triads and even more complex 4-part contemporary chords, a.k.a "jazz" chords, are built using intervals of a third. This is accomplished by taking every other note of a scale and playing them together or almost together. This every other note is an interval of a third to its previous note. An interval of a third can be a major third or a minor third. It's the mixing of these major and minor thirds that gives a chord its type and sound quality.
A chord contains two parts: Its letter name — one of the seven letters of the musical alphabet: A B C D E F or G. And, its type or species information, such as major, minor, diminished, augmented, seventh, maj7, m7, etc.
The Major Scale
Called the "learning scale" for a reason. The major scale is a great scale for learning how music and chords work. It’s a core scale from which a majority of your core, essential scales can be derived. There are 15 major scales.
Key Signatures - C Major and A Minor
In music, it is important to learn and recognize the key signature for C Major and A Minor. These two keys have corresponding major and natural minor scales, along with basic ukulele chords that can be used with each scale. The key of C Major, also known as the learning key, is particularly easy to memorize and start using.
Basic Open Position `Ukulele Chord Chart
A core set of basic ukulele chords that ALL Ukulele players should know in the five common keys of C, G, D, A and E. With the possible seventh chords for the same common keys. The chart is organized in common keys and covers basic chords in these keys.
Core Chords - Building a Solid Foundation of Contemporary Chords
"Core Chords" are a concept that I typically apply to 4-part chords and your more contemporary modern chords. This where a solid foundation of a core set of chords really help in learning the massive amount of chords that are required for play contemporary music or jazz on ukulele or guitar. Not such a task on ukulele with on one four string set of strings to build your 4-part chords vs. the theoretically possible 15 sets available for guitar.
Building a Solid Jazz Chord Foundation for `Ukulele
Commonly called "Jazz Chords", these more sophisticated, contemporary chord voicings find their way into a wide variety of music forms and styles. This lesson is the first on the series that builds your core foundation for these chords.
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