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Steve Nixon (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/author/stevenixonmusic/)

5 Jazz Ear Training Tips For Hearing The

Extensions Of A Chord
Chord extensions, tensions, alterations, color
tones, whatever you want to call them, I am
always interested!

I can’t write enough about this subject because it’s

so important for learning jazz piano.

As pianists we have the ability to create so much

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color, style and sophistication just be manipulating even just one note of a
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standard chord voicing.

Like great painters, who know just how much royal blue to add to their
paintings, great pianist knows how to stylize their harmony by adding  
beautiful tensions (colors) to their chords.

Understanding how tensions work and function and ultimately hearing

them is what can take your playing and sound to the next level. Want To Be A Better Jazz
Musician?
How do the greats take a plain old vanilla D7 chord and make it sound so
deep and rich? How did Bill Evans make his two hands sound like a 40 piece Get Free Jazz Piano Lessons
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evans-jazz-chords-lesson/)
Name

These masters have such control over their harmony and they know just how
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to paint with these beautiful color tones and the results are magic I tell ya!
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So, how can we get control of these beautiful chords? Well, one of the first Select....

keys starts with unlocking your musical ear.

My Ear Training Story

Just a brief backstory about me. I started classical
piano lessons at the age of 8 years old.
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I had a great teacher, but he never introduced me
to understanding harmony or even more
importantly, how to hear to what I was playing.

Like most young piano students, I was taught just

to read notes off a page.

I developed tone, coordination, rhythm and other

musical attributes but by the age of 12 I got bored
and left the piano to play drums.

After I started to write songs in my late teens I

quickly realized that I needed and wanted to know more about music and
composition.

I was honest enough with myself to admit that I needed to get back to the
piano and really develop my musicianship.

Despite my early piano lessons I realized that I didn’t know nearly enough (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/jazzmastersmethod/)
about music theory, harmony or even ear training.
I knew if I wanted to be keep improving my songwriting I had to learn
more about harmony.
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So, at 22 years old I enrolled into Berklee as a

songwriting major (where I met Steve Nixon,
Pentatonic Scale Piano Made
owner of freejazzlessons.com). Easy
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To say that I was initially overwhelmed at
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Berklee would be an understatement!
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I never grew up listening to jazz, other than maybe playing “Kind Of Blue” in Your Time Tips
the background because I liked the sound of it and I thought it was cool to (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/piano-
listen to Miles. (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/5-jazz-albums/) practice-collection/)

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I always thought Jazz was this far out complicated music that I would never
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understand. (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/how-
to-play-blues-piano-
I grew up listening mainly to pop radio and my parents never cared for jazz
resources/)
themselves. I was never exposed to it.
Beautiful Blues Piano Chords
When I got to Berklee I remember being asked how to play a Db7#11 chord (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/blues-
and feeling very ashamed because I couldn’t.  More importantly, I didn’t piano-chords-tutorial/)
know what a #11 even sounded like! Blues Piano Tutorial: How To
Play Big Blues Licks
There I was at an age where I should have already graduated from college
(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/blues-
surrounded by kids who were already world-class jazz players and I am there piano-tutorial/)
struggling on hearing chords. UGH!
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Yes, I could read, I could write songs, I had strong rhythm, and I could get (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/blues-
around the keyboard well on a technical level. But at that time I COULD NOT piano-licks/)
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I knew right then and there nothing was more important than developing my (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/how-
ears. I wanted to hear so deeply that I would never have to listen to something to-play-blues-piano-
more than twice to have a fighting chance to play it back. turnarounds/)

Forget the sheet music, this was personal! I was determined! I had a lot
of work to do! Thus began my journey.

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Inspiration From Jamey Aebersold Class Blues Piano Secrets

I heard Jamey Abersold once talk about being

able to really hear music and how having great
ears is not reserved for a small elite class of
musical geniuses.

Rather, it can be attained by most people with

the proper amount of practice.

Like if an old friend called you after many years of

not speaking, you would instantly recall the tone
of his or her voice. You never forget their “sound”
so to speak.

The same concept can be applied to music. If you can recognize a friend’s
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voice you can recognize the sounds of chords too!
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We all posses the same ability when it comes to sounds and musical
tones… It just starts with actively attaching our mind’s ear to everything
we hear.  

Hearing Jamey Aebersold say this gave me confidence that if I practiced

the right exercises I could learn to train my ear too! “Best Way to Learn Jazz Piano”

Since that time I’ve made huge progress in my ear training and aural skills.
With inspiration and some great ear training exercises
(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/play-by-ear/) it has made all the difference!
What Ear Training Exercises Did You Do?
Here are some of the techniques that I have been using for years and still use
to this day to deepen my hearing of chords with tensions. They’ve made a
huge difference in my music.

While the same amount of time could easily be spent on melodic ear
training, I will focus on harmonic ear training in this article.

I will also focus mainly on Dominant 7 chords since there are so many cool
ways you can alter them to change their sound.
(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/how-to-play-extensions-on-dominant- (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/premium)
seventh-chords/)  #9, b9 ,#11, 13 etc.…
Click the image above to get access
Please keep in mind that these same exercises can be applied to any type of
chord though.

There are limitless ways of attaining this, but I found that for me, these
methods really helped me hear a lot more!

Lets get started training our ears!

1.) Isolate The Tension/Tensions

Here’s the first exercise you can do.

Start by playing a very basic dominant chord in your left hand

(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/jazz-piano-chords-rootless-voicing/).

From there you can start adding basic tensions in the right hand one at a
time. Play this over and over. Play repetitively at a slow quarter note tempo
and try to get used to their sound.

This can be a sterile exercise, and not very musical, but it’s like the bicep curl
at the gym. The growth will happen with every repetitive rep.

Remember, you are just playing these to hear what

they sound like for your ear, not to sound like a
pianist.

I would recommend you start with the Dom 9 chord

first. Next, you can practice hearing the Dom b9 chord.
Then move on to the Dom #9 chord, then #11, and so
on.

Really be able to hear what these tones sound like deep

within your musical ear. They should start to sound like a familiar voice.

If it takes you more than 30 sec to hear each one, then do not move
ahead and continue burning the sound into your minds ear.

Caution: Do not move ahead to something more challenging out of

frustration. Just be where you are and stick with it!

Add more when you are ready to take it on.

Work your way up to all available tensions on the Dominant chord, where all
alterations are present. This is not easy but the rewards are amazing!

I still have to slow things down and isolate certain chords

when listening to the greats from time to time.

When Oscar Peterson is burning at 240bpm it can be a

struggle to hear what he is doing. It’s frustrating, I know!
Remember, this is a life long practice!

(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/wp-
Part 2 Of This Ear Training Exercise content/uploads/2015/06/steve.jpg)
Steve Nixon is the proud owner of
 The 2nd addition to this exercise it to play these voicing’s in all 12 keys with Freejazzlessons.com. He is a world
tensions into a sequencer. touring jazz and blues keyboard
player and educator. Steve is the
Record them at a slow tempo, in all 12 keys! (Great author of Premium Jazz Lessons Elite

transposition training here too). Membership

(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/premium)

Loop this recording for 2min and bounce as an (A comprehensive all-in-one online
jazz piano course.)He is also the
mp3.
author of the The Jazz Masters
Method DVD
Label the MP3 Dom7#5 chord (for example) and
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listen to these on repeat away from the keyboard when you are driving, (A study of 9 legendary jazz piano
players).
walking around, or even when asleep.
If you are a blues piano fan you can
This is a great technique to burn the sounds into your soul. also check out his popular Learn
Blues Piano DVD Course

2.) Understand How Chords Function! (http://stevenixonmusic.net/learn-

blues-dvd) .
Understanding that chords work relative to each other, and how they function
in relation to each other is one of the greatest ways to help when trying to
hear what’s going on harmonically.

So you can play a B minor 11. This is great! But where is it coming from or how  
does it function? How does it relate to the overall chord progression when
you hear it or play it?

Try to “macro- hear” when listening. (2-5 of the 4 chord… to a 2-5 of a 6

chord with its related 2 chord for example.)

Try to observe and listen for common motions in harmony. Chord

progressions like 2-5-1 (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/how-to-play-spread-
voicings-on-piano-great-jazz-piano-chords/), 1-4-5, jazz blues chord
progressions (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/jazz-blues-chord-progression/),
common jazz turnarounds (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/jazz-turn-around-
lick-lesson/), etc.

Also, remember the more you alter your dominant chords the more the
chord wants to function as a 5 chord.

Links
This altered 5 chord will want to resolve to the 1 chord. (The Dom7#11 is the
(http://www.freejazzlessons.com/links/)
exception to this rule.)
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I found that having this theoretical understanding can help a lot when I am (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/privacy-
policy/)
stuck on what a pianist is playing and I can’t seem to hear it out.

Use theory to your advantage, it’s an added edge in training your ear!

(If you want to learn more about altered harmony check out Steve’s lesson on
the altered scale (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/the-altered-scale/).)

(You can also learn more about altered dominant chords by checking out this
dominant jazz piano chord lesson (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/jazz-piano-
chords-dominant/))

3.) Think Melodically And Sing

No, you don’t have to sound like Frank
Sinatra to utilize this technique! If you are
like me and do not sing too well, it’s ok!

I am just really talking about matching

pitch of the tension to further burn the
sound of it in your musical being.

I didn’t implement this technique till much later, but honestly I wish I did
sooner.
In taking exercise #1 above a bit further, try to match the tension with your
voice out loud when playing it. This can really help to further cement your
hearing of the tone.

Play just the third and seventh of your dominant chord in your left hand (this
is a tritone by the way).

Sing the tension over your tritone. Try to sing or match the pitch while hearing
how the tension wants to function. Like a #9 followed by a b9 followed the
root over a C7 chord for example.

Sing the Eb to Db to C root. Tensions have tendencies, whether they want to

resolve up or down. Where do they want to move to? Hear and sing these
tendencies.

This helps to think of harmony in a melodic way. Also, many times on a lead
sheet when you see a tension on a chord it’s often the melody!

This can really help you understand how to hear these color tones when you
sing them out loud.  Learn the melody!

4.) Hearing Through Patterns

Try to hear the patterns in music. Chord progressions are usually built on
sequences, many of which we have heard time and time again.

1 6 2 5 1, 2 5 1 6 (http://www.freejazzlessons.com/i-vi-ii-v-i-chord-progression-
jazz-chords/), 1 4 5, etc are such common progressions, but when we start out
it can still sound like dozens of chords in a row.

Go back to that macro thinking we discussed earlier in the article.

Try hearing 2 5’s as a harmonic sequence not just individual chords.

After identifying which sequence is being used then you can go back and
dissect each chord and listen to what the player is doing over the 2chord, then
5 chord etc.

Is he/she playing a 2minor7b5? A 2minor11, a Dom7th b9 #11?

Listen for the bigger chunks, and not just chord by chord. This makes hearing
less daunting. Never forget your theory when in a jam!

5.) Active Listening

Once you get bit but the “listening bug” there
is no turning back. I suggest that you always
actively listen no matter where you are.

Try to hear the harmonic movement of a TV

commercial when you are lounging around
on the couch. You do not have to be in front
of the piano.

Try to transcribe the chords of the pop song that you hear being played over
the speakers as you are buying your groceries.

Come up with fun ways that challenge you to hear anything and everything at
all times. Take your favorite songs and do not use the sheet music but rather
find out what they are playing simply by ear.

This technique also helps to ensure that you won’t forget what you played.
Reading music does not intrinsically help you remember anything.

When you break a piece down to its elements by ear you end up owning
it and it becomes engraved in your musical being.

Final Ear Training Thoughts For The Day

There is so much that can be written on this subject of ear training . Like I said
before it’s truly a lifetime study. It does take time, but I know the results
are guaranteed when you put forth this type of effort.

I am still using these techniques daily and as soon as I get cocky I put on
something that makes me feel like a beginner again.

It’s ok, start where you are and deepen your ears each day and you will be
amazed what you can start to hear!  Best of luck, and happy listening!

———-

TH IS WA S A GUE ST P OS T WR IT T EN BY B RE T T EP ST E IN. BRE T T IS A L OS A N GEL E S

BA SE D P IA NIS T, S ONG WR IT E R A N D M USI C  P R ODU CE R . BR ET T ST UD IE D IN

BOS TO N A T T HE B ER KL E E COL L E GE OF M U SIC WH E RE H E MA J OR ED IN

CON TE M PO RA R Y W RI TIN G A ND P RO DUC TI ON. HIS SO NGS AN D P RO DU CT ION S

HA V E B EE N FE A T UR ED ON M AN Y T V SHO W S A ND F EA T UR E FI L MS, A S W EL L A S

PE RF O RM ED BY N A TI ONA L R E COR DIN G A R TIS TS . BR ET T GIG S W IT H MA NY JA ZZ

BA NDS A RO UND T HE SO UT H ER N CA L IF OR NIA A R EA   AN D M A INT A INS A SM A L L

PR IV AT E P IA NO T EA CH IN G P RA CT IC E.

FO R MO RE ON BR E TT Y O U C A N C HE CK OU T HIS W IKIP ED IA P AG E:  

HT TP : //E N. M . W IKIP ED IA .O RG /W IKI/ BR E TT _ EP ST E IN (H T TP : // E N. M .W IK IPE DI A. O RG/ W IKI/ BR ET T _E P ST E IN) 

OR CON NEC T W IT H H I M O N F ACE BO O K.  FAC E BO O K. CO M / BR ET TE PS TE I N

(H T TP :// F A C EB OO K . CO M / BRE TT EP ST EI N )

SIN G ING P HO T O A BO V E C O UR T ESY O F  DA V I DMAR TY N H UNT O N F LI C KR .

———————-

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7 Comments Steve Nixon's Free Jazz Lessons 

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Join the discussion…

caro
− ⚑
3 years ago
Thank you for such useful and thoughtful tips - I'm gonna work through them all!
1△ ▽ Reply

david
− ⚑
3 years ago
Powerful article!!....and just last week I was asking my instructor how do you hear
and just know the chords in a song?? well here it is!
0△ ▽ Reply

Tony
− ⚑
3 years ago
Hey Steve, I'm really loving the lessons and the articles! Keep up the great work!
Brett, great lesson on ear training!
0△ ▽ Reply

Guest
− ⚑
3 years ago
Thanks guys! Glad you found this article useful! Just remember to do a little each
day, and that will eventually equal a lot! I find that being consistent with ear
training is never a futile exercise and the results come quicker with the more you
do it! Thanks again! BE
0△ ▽ Reply

Curtis
− ⚑
3 years ago
Hey Steve, This is very informative but I have a question a little off topic. What do
you think about Thelonious Monk? I don't think I've seen any analysis about him
from you. Anyway I think he's awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
0△ ▽ Reply

micrope
− ⚑
3 years ago
you are great....thnks...
0△ ▽ Reply

wilbur smith
− ⚑
3 years ago
Steve,this is great information that I can use immediately,thanks!
0△ ▽ Reply

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