So I started learning this Freddie King song by ear last night, and its my first to learn in that way. I am mainly trying to listen to a few notes and then sing them and then try to find it on guitar. Am I going at this right??? So far i've only got the first 9 notes after 2 hours.
I know it doesn't seem like much but in trying to find the notes I think I've already gotten better and added a lot of ideas to my playing. Well thanks for reading and if you have advice please feel free to share it with me. Thanks a lot everyone.
im pretty new at guitar so i might be the wrong person to listen to, but you asked am i doing this right? well i guess you are because thats what playing by ear is all about, listening to a few notes, and then jamming it out. anyway i found this awesome guitar program its called guitar pro and you can get pro tabs and listen at your pace and play along it helped me out a whole lot, maybe it will help you out if you ever decide that you dont want to play it by ear...hope i helped, good luck
as you said you are learning other things too.
so it is working.
I play along with CDs alot when learning. I'll repeat a phrase over and over to nail it.
Cant You Hear Me Knocking took many days.
now it is second nature.
one problem I experience : when searching for that first note, if I hit the wrong one I get off track really fast. alomost to the point of screwing the idea.
but with work it get back on track.
So I started learning this Freddie King song by ear last night, and its my first to learn in that way. I am mainly trying to listen to a few notes and then sing them and then try to find it on guitar. Am I going at this right??? So far i've only got the first 9 notes after 2 hours.
That's the best possible way to improve your ear.
As far as the 9 notes after 2 hours - I bet you never forget those 9 notes after this. ;)
I know it doesn't seem like much but in trying to find the notes I think I've already gotten better and added a lot of ideas to my playing. Well thanks for reading and if you have advice please feel free to share it with me. Thanks a lot everyone.
Sometimes I've noticed, in the 'mistakes' we 'hear' other things, and then the inventive thing starts up. Taking stuff off recordings - even with mistakes - is never time lost.
And, like just about everything else with the guitar, you'll find yourself getting better with practice. Before you know it you'll be spending very little time figuring things out because you'll simply know the sound of the progressions. Once you have the right key it will be next to nothing to figure the rest.
Keep up the good work!
Peace
David is right. When you first start learning by ear it is tough going. I used to spend hours just trying to figure out how to play a little nuance in a solo. But the longer you do it, the easier it gets. You start to recognize certain licks and techniques the second you hear them. Now, I almost know what a player is doing by just listening.
Just stay at it, it is great ear training. :wink:
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
figure out what key it is in, and jam over it for a long while until you at least know where he's going and can pick off the occasional lick, then go back to what you're doing.
If you have great problems, try some interval ear-training. http://www.musictheory.net has a bunch of em, you can play em online or download them for free. If you do that ten minutes a day you'll be much better in picking out notes of a solo in a month or so. You just need to get a conscious knowledge of interval distances.
Sometimes having a program that will slow down the music without changing the pitch can help make things go smoother, but it sounds like you're doing fine. As has been mentioned, figuring out a song by ear can take a while at first, but the more you do it, the easier it'll get and you'll be able to figure things out in no time. It's a fantastic thing to do, and I've seen my playing improve a lot by doing this. Keep at it.
