Song Analysis Method

IFR Song Analysis
1

I’ve been taking part in the popMatics Sunday reChordIt. After 5 songs, some I liked at the start but others have grown on me, this week’s song is not doing anything for me, so I’m taking the week to reflect on my method for analysing.

The folks at popMatics produce a pdf as a starting point, with suggestions of things to think about, plus the lyrics and possible chords. But the idea is to listen many times, try to guess the key/tonal centre, bpm, scale, instruments, put in time stamps.

This has been great to work with, switching from listening for pleasure and listening to analyse I think has really help develop my ear. It’s fitting in well with some other stuff I’m working on (Ear Training for Creativity mainly).

One thing I’m finding challenging, but is really useful, is listening for the bass-line. Depending on the instruments, of course a strong bass part helps, and piano can be useful, acoustic guitar can be tricky to pull out bass notes.

I’d be interested to hear how others approach this, and if you find song analysis a useful part of your practice.

2

I just signed up last week, but what with everything else I have on I’s not had time to do any more that see what the songe are. I’d love to have time to dig into last week’s song. :slight_smile:

I’m sure it would be, and hope that in time it will become to be…

Actually I probably am doing some - after all it’s a big part of the IFR Jazz Study Group activity, however that’s a more structured, guided, analysis than the more self directed (but with some hints) reCHORDit exercise (and largely different genre too).