If you don’t know the chords, your playing won’t really make sense.

Here are 3 practical ways you can work on this.

Bassline style chord tones. Play through the form using just chord tones, 4 notes to a bar. This helps you hear the harmony clearly and find small movements between chords. It also drills the sequence into your head while you’re still improvising. Start slow

2. Double stops. Work out simple two note voicings for each chord. Start with roots and thirds or 5ths, but don’t worry about the root being the lowest note. You’ll start to find shapes using thirds, 6ths and 5ths that sit really well on the violin. Comp through the changes and try to do it without charts.

3. Piano or guitar. If you play a bit of piano or guitar, use them to learn the chords. Even basic voicings help. These instruments are built for harmony, and it’s no coincidence that pianists and guitarists almost always know the chords. As violinists we need to aim for the same level of understanding.

I’ve also covered the first two approaches in the 10 Tunes You Should Know course in the classroom, with written exercises for each of the tunes if you want something more structured to work through.

If you’re working on this, let me know which of these you’ve tried (or are going to try this week).

Also interested to hear how you currently approach learning chords, what’s been working for you?

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