Remembering the changes.

[Jesse Pearson]

I was thinking what else I do to force myself to try and remember chord progressions. I guess if you really want to get good at memorizing the chords (and this takes work and a lot of repetition), all you have to do is start thinking about and writing out the different Key Centers within a progression, the Chord Function of the chords within the key centers, as well as outlining the chord progression key center chords with Roman numerals which can help you to recognize commonly played chord groups whether it's jazz, country, Blues, Hawaiian etc. These topics are all found on a number of good music sites al over the web. You can also teach yourself how to write out Nashville Charts to your chord progressions to make it easier to memorize. It's a lot more work, but it's the better way to be a more professional musician in the long run. Chord function in it's most basic form is about the 1, 4 and 5 chords and their substitutions found in a key center. You can have only one key center in a simple song or many keys centers in a more complicated jazz song for instance. Can you get by without doing all of this extra work, of course. But you need Big Ears and solid finger pattern memory that you get through a lot of repetition. But as I know from personal experience, your screwed for a moment if you space out. Just saying...Good luck