Can you work out songs, licks by ear ?

[EuroAussie]

So here's a little test, start on the third string on the 5th fret, and try to play Happy Birthday notes.

 

Can you get it straight away or just in a couple of goes ?

 

Well, personally I failed miserably, finally got it right on around the 20th go around.

 

So, along with fingerpicking technique my other main areas of focus will be ear training and transcribing.

 

It feels like now is the right time to make the move from technical proficiency to know the fretboard and know where to hit the notes. It might stating the obvious but that seems to be where the real magic lies, being able to improvise and create rather than simply play other people songs.

 

I started the transcribing course on justinguitar.com and after only a few days Im already getting some good results. Seems my ear basically gets it but needs now focus and training.

 

So how's your ear, can you hear a song and work out the chords straight away? And what about licks and lead line, come to you pretty easy or do you run for the TAB transcrption ?

[zombywoof]

Maybe because when I was starting out about the only way to learn a song was to listen to the record I can pick up a tune by ear pretty easily. I used to sit there for hours dropping the needle on the same spot on a record over and over again trying to figure out what was going on.

 

First I just figure out the basic chords and then pick out the melody usually staying around the nut. After that a picking pattern, fills, turn arounds, chord substitutions and all just seems to come naturally.

 

But I tell you, back in the early 1970s I had a girlfriend who I swear could listen to a Blind Blake piece and within an hour being playing it note for note. Give her a second hour and she had a totally original arrangement going. This lady was so good, I gave her my 1930s Gibson L-00.

[MissouriPicker]

Happy Birthday is an easy one for me, because I've played it often, for myself...lol.....I can play a lot of songs "by ear" after I've gone over them 2-3 times. For me, I made myself learn the notes on the fretboard. It was pure agony at first, because I wanted to play music, not memorize note locations. Fortunately, there's a set number of notes in each key. Once I knew where all the Cs were at, for example,, it was easy to find the Ds, Es, and so on. Works the same for every key. I use the major scale a lot, so "whole step, whole step, half step, whole, whole,whole, half" is the ladder I use to move around the neck of the guitar. Amazingly, I finally understood that no matter what key I'm in, it works. Just start with the root note and follow the pattern back -and-forth-sideways-up-down. If you get lost, go back to the root note. I think hearing the notes became easier for me as I got into the groove of using the major scale. Whatever talent I have for being able to pick-out melodies of a song is obviously enhanced by the fact that the music I'm drawn to is typically 3-4-5 chords. Plus, many are songs I've known, enjoyed since the 1960's. Even the new songs I write are similar in structure. I'm not an upper-tier guitar picker by any stretch of the imagination, but what I do seems to work well for the story-songs that I enjoy performing.

 

I can read music, but I'd rather use the transcription if it's available. I can glance at the transcription and get a good idea of what I want to do. I'm too lazy to spend the time I need on reading notes and I suspect that has hurt me musically.

 

As far as fingerpicking goes, I don't know where I learned all the technique I've developed. I learned a lot of fingerpicking patterns and runs from books and watching people, but the things I do now are a cluster-whatever of all those things. I do 2-3 arpeggio notes and then half-a-strum and then a banjo roll, etc. It's all mixed together now. There's no set pattern. I'll record a song on video and when I watch it I'm thinking "where the hell did I get that?" Sometimes I'll strum with my index finger and pick notes with it at the same time. I think that came from me not wanting to strum or play single notes with a pick. Now, since I joined our church band I've made myself get better with a pick...lol...and I like it. I've even gone to a heavy pick when I play my J60. The sound is overwhelming...lol...a monster of a guitar.........A lot of this is simply things we learn to do as times passes. We don't even know we're doing it, because it's become natural (second nature) to us. I just kind of let my fingers go. Each finger seems to know where it's at on the strings and I kind of automatically get the next note I want. Again, it's not magic or a great level of skill as displayed by Chet Atkins and many others. It's just my fingers knowing where they are on the strings......I'm sure a lot of this has to begin with understanding what fingerpicking is. Then, you reach a point of knowing where your fingers are and you just let them go. It used to confuse me to read about some people using their thumb and two fingers and others using three fingers to fingerpick and someone would Travis pick with two and someone else with three, and then use your middle finger for that string and your ring for that one, etc....... Then, I learned that Peter Yarrow (PP&M) simply used his thumb and index finger to fingerpick everything. After that I think I just figured "the hell with it" and I began doing what by then was natural: you and your fingers knowing where they were and just letting them go..............Anyways, I'm rambling. But learning the notes on the fretboard is so DAMN important. You are "right on the mark" with that. Sometimes, learning the fretboard seems unnecessary for what you're doing at the time, but learning it will add a great deal more to your natural ability. Go for it. It adds to the fun.

[JuanCarlosVejar]

if I can't find the chords for a song I'll try and figure them out and put alot of hours into doing it .

the one song I'm most proud of is Family by the Rolling Stones . love that song and I really like to play it on my 200 .

 

 

 

 

 

 

JC

[RichG]

Chords are easy for me. Melody, not so much. Sometimes I stumble on it while finger picking the chords. I tell people I play by eye. If I can see somebody do it, it usually helps a lot.

 

Rich

[Mojorule]

I almost only ever play by ear. I had a lot of guitar lessons and a decent amount of formal music training at school, so I can read and even sight-read, but I always was crap at the latter and am never sure whether I've played a piece right unless I know what it sounds like first. On the guitar even reading a piece you know the sound of is a long drawn-out process because of the number of permutations for many given combinations of notes (not a problem facing pianists, say). Of course that's why they developed tab, but I find that hard to read too (never quite see the time values of notes as clearly as in standard notation). I'm patient in developing physical guitar techniques, but I like to make music in doing so, and I'm impatient with learning new tunes. So tab is generally a last resort when the ear gives out. Stave notation strictly for classical stuff or maybe single-line. I don't really care if my version isn't note perfect, though. I do use chord boxes for rhythm work. I could never have learned all the jazz progressions I needed for gigs quickly enough by ear. So many trad jazz progressions are so similar - unless you know the songs really well, it's good to have a guide.

[RusRob]

I have a pretty good ear and can pick up songs rather quickly. Can't read music and I don't know scales although I know I should learn but at 60 years old I don't think I ever will.

 

I can come up with my own licks pretty easy and about half the time I spend just playing what sounds good to me. But I can't write a song because I can't put all these little licks together. I guess that is where music theory and knowing scales would come in handy.

 

I have played in a few bands back in the 60's and 70's and I was usually the one to figure out songs from listening to the record. A couple of passes and I could have the basic song down. But I am finding it harder to do as I get older... I have been trying to figure out Leon Redbone's version of Ain't Misbehavin for a couple of weeks now and still don't have it down... He tunes his guitar down 2 notes and then plays his chords up 2 notes without a capo so he gets a very unusual sound.

[ParlourMan]

I can usually work out the chords fairly quickly, unless its something unusual and it might take a few goes to iron out the kinks.

 

Fingerpicking, not so much, as they're a bit busier especially where the pattern is quite complex I need to muck about with it to get patterns into muscle memory. Lots of repetition involved.

[flatbaroque]

I've become lazier and lazier in this regard. If I can't find a tab / clip I tend to move on to something else. Not very determined I know.

I used to do it all the time....pre internet.I also remember going into music stores and and looking up song books to find chords to memorise as I couldn't afford to buy books.

I guess I use my "ear" when I write stuff...translating some melody in my head into chords / notes.

[Mojorule]

I've become lazier and lazier in this regard. If I can't find a tab / clip I tend to move on to something else. Not very determined I know.

I used to do it all the time....pre internet.I also remember going into music stores and and looking up song books to find chords to memorise as I couldn't afford to buy books.

I guess I use my "ear" when I write stuff...translating some melody in my head into chords / notes.

 

See, I play by ear because I'm too lazy to bother with books.

[flatbaroque]

Mojo...great to see you back from your sabbatical!!..........hope the wardens treated you well and the prison food was ok.

[J200_2013]

Maybe because when I was starting out about the only way to learn a song was to listen to the record I can pick up a tune by ear pretty easily. I used to sit there for hours dropping the needle on the same spot on a record over and over again trying to figure out what was going on.

 

First I just figure out the basic chords and then pick out the melody usually staying around the nut. After that a picking pattern, fills, turn arounds, chord substitutions and all just seems to come naturally.

 

But I tell you, back in the early 1970s I had a girlfriend who I swear could listen to a Blind Blake piece and within an hour being playing it note for note. Give her a second hour and she had a totally original arrangement going. This lady was so good, I gave her my 1930s Gibson L-00.

 

The real secret was to be able to drop the needle right on the song without the nickel sliding off the needle arm and scratching the record. It was a talent. Only real sissies had enough scratch to buy new needles. True clods would wind up for a lack of skill scotch taping the buffalo nickel in place. It was considered a clumsy expedient unworthy of any skilled muscian, and it had the power to destroy your pretensions outright. Them were the days....

[BluesKing777]

Some good suggestions here...thanks.

 

Without working out some basic tunes, we don't have anything substantial - just lots of notes flying around.

 

One of the books on slide I had years back had a similar exercise where you played a tune like happy birthday, and other basic well known songs, on ONE string with the slide, firstly very straight and then gradually adding more vibrato and other slide effects to make the tune come alive like the human voice. It really helped me, I thought. Then we added the other six strings one at a time and..........

 

 

The same applies to the Happy B exercise above - make it come alive with different slides along the frets and various speeds of vibrato, after you have the right notes of course.

 

I had the wavy turntable when I had records - didn't know you could fix them or change a needle until somebody said: "Why don't you get a new needle for that d**** thing!" Huh?????

 

I loved going to lessons - I would go again except it gets a bit peculiar when you get older and need specific lessons and I don't miss the last guy's weird habits and bad breath. After 7 or 8 months of me not missing a lesson (weekly), he still didn't remember who I was. Guess I was a real standout talent.

 

I have a roomful of music books and a lot of them are absolute rubbish - I would heave them but there is always something hidden in the books for another time perhaps, or they wouldn't have normally got through the editing and publishing process and the accountants. I learned to read music, sort of. I love tab, especially if it is accurate but not stupid accurate - the early days of Tab you had to guess what the tune was because you couldn't get the record.

Now with the DVD lessons from places like Stefan Grossman Guitar Workshop, well, the sky is the limit. It is all there, almost like getting a lesson from a teacher - sound, vision, playback slow, tab book etc etc, but the catch is there is no teacher feedback. No smack on the knuckles to correct a dud.

 

I have a new delivery of some SGGW blues lessons and the quality at first run through is great. I particularly like the blues collections of one player for the whole dvd - in the early days we got bits and pieces but now we get their whole recorded history in lesson and tab and lyrics and really, the only thing they don't do is come over make you a coffee.

 

In one way I wish I had these dvds when I was younger, but perhaps I would not have appreciated them so much if I had not spent some time learning by my tin ear with the tinny record player. But this old dog has learned 2 substantial new tricks from the dvd today! I can't believe I am still trying to learn this sh** - need another couple of lifetimes.

 

So I guess what I am trying to say is we need to learn from all directions and methods we can.

 

Anyways, as well as all the other stuff, make a study of your fave famous players' vibrato and expression to add to your list of tricks. Some like BB only need to play ONE note all night.

 

 

BluesKing777.

[Mojorule]

Mojo...great to see you back from your sabbatical!!..........hope the wardens treated you well and the prison food was ok.

 

Thanks Flatters. You're too kind. Actually the trick-cyclists got fed up with me and decided that the Verve were right, so they let me out of the asylum for a bit. Sadly the diet was pills only. It's only a trial run, though. I still have to wear an electronic tag. Its beeping sounds really good through my Fender amp. Of course my guitars are still in the cuckoo's nest. They arrived there just in time for the men in the white coats to let me out again.

[tpbiii]

So you walk up to a bluegrass jam which is short a guitar player and a tenor singer. The fiddle player kicks off a song you have never heard.

 

What is your job?

 

Well first, you are expected to play all the chord correctly -- by hearing the changes from the melody line and the other instruments or perhaps reading the hand positions of the other rhythm instruments.

 

After the fiddle kickoff, the singer sings a verse and a chorus --mostly there you listen for the melody of the chorus and learn the words.

 

Then you play rhythm behind the banjo break and the singer in the next verse. When the chorus comes along you sing the tenor part from memory with perhaps some lip reading the first time

 

Next is your break. At a bare minimum, you just play a slightly embellished melody line -- you can also cheat by playing scales. Basically when it is right, you play melody embellished by scales.

 

You usually get one or two more chances to sing harmony, and a final break -- by then, you should have it.

 

If you think this is not true, then you probably have not played too much bluegrass. It works because there are some underlying rules being followed that sets the context. Here is an article I wrote for Bluegrass Unlimited in the late 1990s that talks about it.

 

It works because it is a limited, well known structure where you know exactly what you are supposed to do. BUT if you can't play a melody on the first try or you can't sing a close harmony on the first try, you need to keep practicing.

 

Of course if you know the song (as you probably will for most of them), it is a lot easier.

 

It is a high wire act without a net, and when it works it is almost a spiritual experience. When it doesn't -- well it is only a jam.

 

Best,

 

-Tom

[Rambler]

Chords are easy for me. Melody, not so much.

Thing about melody, a note can only do one of 3 things. Go up, go down or sit tight. Narrows it down.

[Jerry K]

Think about some music such as Happy Birthday and imagine you are a trumpet player. Work out some cool melody lines in your head. Then work them out on the guitar. Try to work out any musical lines that occur to you - snatches of old songs, etc. The thing is if you have not studied your positional major scales, you won't have any framework upon which to place these melodies so you'll continually be groping around looking for notes or memorizing some odd way. It's impossible to build upon because everything is a one-off. You must learn (and practice for a while at least) some major scale shapes at various positions on the neck. Also very helpful is learn to play the same chord at many positions on the neck. Hint: use the relative minor as a substitute. For example any voicing of Am7 will substitute for C. If you can play the chord in several spots, know a scale shape for each of those spots, you begin to know the patterns on your fingerboard.

[EuroAussie]

Think about some music such as Happy Birthday and imagine you are a trumpet player. Work out some cool melody lines in your head. Then work them out on the guitar. Try to work out any musical lines that occur to you - snatches of old songs, etc. The thing is if you have not studied your positional major scales, you won't have any framework upon which to place these melodies so you'll continually be groping around looking for notes or memorizing some odd way. It's impossible to build upon because everything is a one-off. You must learn (and practice for a while at least) some major scale shapes at various positions on the neck. Also very helpful is learn to play the same chord at many positions on the neck. Hint: use the relative minor as a substitute. For example any voicing of Am7 will substitute for C. If you can play the chord in several spots, know a scale shape for each of those spots, you begin to know the patterns on your fingerboard.

 

Good advice there Jerry, and totally agree. I really need to finally sit down and memorise the major scale and along with the minor and major pentatonic positions. And also learn to better hear intervals.

 

Lot of good advice and tips here folks, keep em' coming !

[Del Nilppeznaf]

So you walk up to a bluegrass jam which is short a guitar player and a tenor singer. The fiddle player kicks off a song you have never heard.

 

What is your job?

 

Well first, you are expected to play all the chord correctly -- by hearing the changes from the melody line and the other instruments or perhaps reading the hand positions of the other rhythm instruments.

 

 

-Tom

 

Enjoyed this post and your article Tom.

 

I am not a Bluegrass player but I used to sit in on a Jam..in a local pub in town..that called it self a Bluegrass night..it was nothing of the sort..but i would not know 70% of the songs being played..i would play back up on most of them as the structure is quite easy to follow... then i would throw in some blues and everyone had a good time.

 

i would not attempt to join a session of the likes you mention in your article... theses are true musicians who know the genre inside out..and also know their instruments inside out.

 

for me though, that exact structure you talk about..and can be a little snooty maybe ;) if you don't stick to it...is too confining for me.... i like to be able to go places unexpected..throw a spanner in the works and see where it goes,,haha

 

of course you have to keep some sort of structure though.

 

What you mention is the same in many genres.. Sessions...not Jams...

 

traditional Irish ... Celtic/ French.. Blues ( which i find to be a lot more free ) and of course Jazz

 

To sit in on any of these sessions..where true musicians are playing..you need to know what your doing and know your instrument...as you say ..you may not even know the song..but if you know what is happening with the structure you can follow.

 

how good you follow and embellish and then lead..comes down to how good a player you are..

 

lets pick indeed

[Mojorule]

Think about some music such as Happy Birthday and imagine you are a trumpet player. Work out some cool melody lines in your head. Then work them out on the guitar. Try to work out any musical lines that occur to you - snatches of old songs, etc. The thing is if you have not studied your positional major scales, you won't have any framework upon which to place these melodies so you'll continually be groping around looking for notes or memorizing some odd way. It's impossible to build upon because everything is a one-off. You must learn (and practice for a while at least) some major scale shapes at various positions on the neck. Also very helpful is learn to play the same chord at many positions on the neck. Hint: use the relative minor as a substitute. For example any voicing of Am7 will substitute for C. If you can play the chord in several spots, know a scale shape for each of those spots, you begin to know the patterns on your fingerboard.

 

With you there, Jerry. Sounds like how I handled the occasional solos I took when playing in a jazz band - scales, relative minors, melodies and riffs based on different chord shapes. That said, the clarinettist who led the band quite constructively pointed out that my playing was very bluesy and would benefit from a more chromatic approach. I knew my major and minor scales as well as my pentatonics, but was more used to improvising off the latter, and just practising the former up and down. Later, with more practice (in those days we never actually rehearsed, just went busking the day before a gig), it eventually expanded my lead playing a lot. But I'd add that eventually you get to know the fingerboard really well that way, and actually to remember what the named notes are at any given spot. And you get to know the chord sequences of more songs better, or to the point where you can second-guess new ones quicker. So you have a sense of which frets on which strings will work at any given point in the solo. Once you're thinking like that everything is a one-off again, but you can still build on it - you can work on chromatic runs linking target notes in different ways and different places. I'm still not any good at jazz, but I can pull off a chromatic run sometimes. And that's something different from using major, minor or pentatonic scales, or even chord theory. Chromatic scales are useful too!