What? Why the hell would he want to do that??? I’ll tell you! There are practically two ways to learn to play the guitar. Get lessons and start playing. When you receive lessons, you are told what to do in small chunks that make learning easier. All existing guitar learning systems use this model. The snippets may be less noticeable, but they all involve mastering some element and then moving on to the next element until you become a pro. This method works quite well and you can achieve a lot by doing it, so I’m not criticizing it at all.
However, when you start playing, you are deciding to use a technique known as “playing by ear”. This involves getting a guitar and listening to the songs you want to play and just learning them by trying to copy the notes until you get it. This is by far the hardest way to do it, but the rewards are immense. The best way to really learn to play the guitar is to use it to make the sounds you want to make! Before you get overwhelmed and think I’m crazy, don’t worry, I’ll give you some tips below on how to make the “hard” road a little easier. Many, many guitarists learned by playing by ear, but the truth is that most will use a combination of techniques to master the guitar. This is what I recommend.
So how do you go about doing this? First put a good method in place. Find out what kind of lessons you can afford and work around your schedule. It would be amazing if we all had the time and money to get a private tutor. One-on-one teaching from someone who knows what they’re doing and can show you what to do is almost impossible to beat, so if you can do it, definitely do it. Now, for the rest of us, you’ll have to find a lesson system. Find one that will work well for you. Online or in a book or maybe at a local community college are good options. You don’t really care about the lessons as much as you’re willing to! The best guitar lessons are the ones you actually do! Now go make them! Well after you finish reading this article anyway.
Next, work on a regiment of playing by ear that works for you. Even doing a daily “find the note” drill to nursery tunes can help you improve your skills. Again, the best way to play by ear is what you will actually do.
some methods
I’ll call the first method find the note because it sounds like child’s play and that’s the best way to do it. You know the songs; They have been instilled in you since you were a child! Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, Mary had a Little Lamb, etc, etc, anything you can easily hum. Well do that or find the song online and start singing or playing it. As it repeats, place your finger on a fret and play a note each time you hear the first note of the song. Is it the same note? No, try the next fret. If you can tell if the note is higher or lower, move in the right direction. If not don’t stress it, that skill will come to you as you learn, just know for now that higher up the fingerboard and neck is a higher note and the reverse is lower. Once you have the first note, search for the next one keeping in mind that the next note will most likely be within the first 12 frets.
The following method is similar but uses some cool technology so that you can do it more easily with “real” songs. Go online and get a slowdown tool. Roni Music makes one for $50 called the Amazing Slow Downer. He can use his own or find a different one, it doesn’t matter, as long as you slow down your music file without changing the pitch. The critical part is that it doesn’t change the tone. It doesn’t help if it’s slower if you’re learning the wrong notes! Again, you’ll be using the find-the-key game, but since you can slow the song down so that each note keeps ringing for a long time, you’ll be able to search for the note longer. In fact, many of these tools will even let you loop just one section so he can have it play the first two notes or even a single note for as long as he needs to find it. Technology is great!
So there you have it, some really great tips on learning to play by ear. Now get up from your seat and start rocking!
Rock on!
