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Have you ever had the experience of never having heard a song before, and the first time you hear it, you know exactly what the next note is going to be? Turns out there is an answer for that phenomenon found in neuroscience. It's a standing joke among worship leaders that virtually every contemporary worship song ever written can be played with the same 5 or 6 chords. For example: in the key of A, the A, D, E, C#m, Bm, and F#m chords are enough chords to play almost all of them.....not even using all 6 most of the time.


Bobby McFarrin demonstrates the human brain's capacity for musical prediction in this video. Cool stuff.

http://youtu.be/ne6tB2KiZuk

The Annoyed Man wrote:Cool stuff.

Thanks for the post!

EXCELLENT!

Great post TAM,

When I was young and playing in the school band I didn't get the relationship of chord progressions, I was just learning where my finger's went to make notes on a clarinet. After my wife bought me a guitar when I was almost 40, I started teaching myself how to play, and I was amazed that although I had forgotten everything I did learn as far as reading music, my ear would actually know what came next. (although my old hands took longer to train) But it's true that most songs we play in the praise band, no matter how complicated they sound, are simply a few chords with accompanying melody by the lead guitar, and a repetitive bass run that I usually just work out myself. But it is true, that your brain instinctively picks up the progression.