The Major Chords (cont)
To analyze the I – V – I change further, I picked “My Home’s Across The Blue Ridge Mountains” by the Bluegrass Album Band (3.9MB -- MP3 file). I have also included a Flash 6 version of "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains". Right-Click (PC) or Control Click (Mac) on the image when it comes up, and select "play" to start the sound. Select "Rewind" then "Play" to hear the song again. Select "Loop" to play the song repeatedly.

My method of analyzing a tune is to write down as I am listening to the song the changes in either Roman numerals (my preference) or Arabic numerals, noting one chord per measure. If several chords change in a measure I enclose the chords with parentheses. I add all the repeat indications. I further divide a song into sections if it is in a Verse – Chorus format, as are most Bluegrass songs. I will also indicate intros, turnarounds (which we will discuss much later) and endings should they occur. To the side I write down the order things happen in the song. When I’m finished I have a compact arrangement of the tune on paper that I can then memorize or keep for future reference. Usually I am able to jot this information down in one or two passes through the song – even if the tune moves at a pretty speedy clip.
Here is how I interpreted “My Home’s Across The Blue Ridge Mountains”:

Analysis
How did I know when the chords changed? Since this tune is either I or V, anytime the melodic feel of the tune changed I had to be the other chord. I also listened to the bass to give me a hint of when the chords change. The bass usually plays a “1-5” bass pattern on each chord, meaning the first note he plays is the note that names the chord, and then the fifth note of the chord. Remember our discussion of how chords are created? This song is in the key of “G”, so the bass would play a “G” note on beat one of the measure, and a “D” note on the third beat of the measure. It just so happens that when the chord changes to “D” the bass player switches the arrangement of notes to “D” on the first beat and “A” on the third beat. Hearing this difference in tones clued me when the band was playing a V chord. Here is a sample of the bass line (four bars of I and two bars of V with an ending note -- MIDI file):

But the critically important thing is to try to get a feel for that musical pull back to the I chord that you get when the band is playing a V chord.