How to learn songs on guitar the hard way
That? Why the hell would I want to do that ??? I’ll tell you! There are practically two ways to learn to play the guitar. Take lessons and start playing. When you receive lessons, you are told what to do in bite-sized parts that make learning easier. All guitar learning systems use this model. The snippets may be less noticeable, but they all involve mastering one 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 doing it, so I am not going to miss it at all.
However, when you start to play, 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 them. This is by far the hardest way to do it, but the rewards are immense. The best way to really learn your 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, here are some tips 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 are you going to do this? Start a good method first. Find out what kinds of lessons you can afford and work to your schedule. It would be great if we all had the time and money to get a private tutor. Individualized teaching from someone who knows what they are doing and can show you what you need to do is practically 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 works well for you. Online or in a book or maybe at a local community college are all good options. It doesn’t really matter what lessons but who is willing to give them! The best guitar lessons are the ones you actually do! Now do them! Well, after you finish reading this article anyway.
Next, start working on an ear playing regiment that works for you. Even doing a daily “find the note” exercise with children’s tunes can help you improve your skills. Again, the best way to play by ear is what you will actually do.
Some methods
The first method I’ll call finds the note because it sounds like child’s play and that’s the best way to do it. You know the songs; You have been instilled 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 it or find the song online and start singing or playing it. While repeating, 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 freight. If you can tell if the grade is higher or lower, move in the right direction. If not, don’t stress it out, that skill will come to you as you learn, just know for now that higher up the fretboard and neck there is a higher note and the inverse is lower. Once you have the first note, look for the next one keeping in mind that the next note is very, very likely to be within the first 12 frets.
The following method is similar but employs some cool technology so that you can do this more easily with “real” songs. Go online and get a slowdown tool. Roni Music makes one for $ 50 called Amazing Slow Downer. You can use theirs 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 game to find the pitch, but since you can slow down the song so that each note stays playing for a long time, you’ll be able to search for the note longer. In fact, many of these tools will even let you go through just one section so that you can have it repeat the first couple of notes or maybe even a single note for as long as it takes to find it. Technology is great!
There you have it, some really good tips on how to learn to play by ear. Now get up and start rocking!
Keep rocking!