Q: I have such a hard time hearing what's going on in a chord with 5 notes. When you were first learning songs you liked did you run into this problem too? Is there any advice you can give besides keep on trying?
A: if you can't hear what's going on, then, i'm wondering how you even know it has 5 notes. it seems like if you can hear all 5 notes, then you can hear all 5 notes. but anyway, ..... for the first 500 songs or so (depending on how complex they are) it might be a lot of just brute force trying to pick out the notes, and then writing down the chord symbols the best way you can interpret it. but after about 5000 songs then you'll be at a place when you can easily just feel what's going on without even necessary 'hearing' all the notes. like you could be in a crowded retail store for example, and you can easily tell what chords are used in the song playing over the ceiling. even predict what goes next, etc.