ear training

A few years ago figuring out songs by ear was the primary way of learning guitar. Let’s see how you can develop your musical ear through transcribing songs.

Someone who can successfully transcribe fast melodies is someone who uses everything he knows about music to make educated guesses at what he’s hearing. In other words, the more theory you know – especially theory related to the genre of the music you’re transcribing – the better.

Guitar Noise is pleased to welcome Josh Urban as a contributing writer our website. Josh’s first piece examines what many musicians refer to as the most important skill one can develop – listening. And, like almost everything about the guitar, listening has many different aspects and each must be practiced in order to become a better musician.

Great thoughts and some practical exercises in ear training from Chris in Tokyo. Rather than worry about perfect pitch, Chris teaches us about relative pitch, which many of us either already have or can develop with some time and practice.

Let’s take a look at the plethora of learning aids and tools available to help you with ear training. It’s amazing what is freely available out there.

This is the third and final part in our series of articles on figuring out songs by ear. Let’s put all the pieces together and and take out the guesswork.

The second of three parts, this lesson looks at songs by Smashing Pumpkins, The Eagles and Talking Heads to explore the conventions of song structure.

How do you figure a song out by ear? This is the first of three lessons on how to figure out songs without guitar tab.