Guitar Ear Training

As a guitarist and musician, the most important thing you can do is work to dtrain your ears and learn to play guitar by ear. After all, music is an aural exercise, not a visual one. It's all very well being able to read music, but if you don't have 'good ears, then you aren't really a musician. Playing guitar by ear is the ultimate aim of all guitarists.

The best way to do this is by learning to 'hear' common chord progressions and applying them to ALL keys.

This is not as hard as it sounds and can be learned quite quickly. But it does take a while for you to learn to 'hear' these progressions.

Thing is, to start of with the simple chord progressions first.

There are several things you can that will help you learn to play guitar by ear:

1. Listen to what you are playing. Live it and breathe it.
2. Memorize the music (and lyrics) as soon as possible and get your eyes off the page. (Learning the lyrics too helps you "know" where you are in a tune. Harder to get lost.)
3. Force yourself to try and learn off records by ear. (You can buy software that slows music down so it's easier to hear.)
4. Sing everything you play. Always sing everything you practice.
5. Practice a line or melody in ALL keys.

Singing what you play, (melodies and solos) is the most powerful tool you can use to develop the ability to play guitar by ear. You can learn songs, licks, riffs and solos- just by listening to them! For example: you may have heard a cool guitar riff on the radio at work. You'll be able to learn it and memorize it on the spot. Then when you get home and grab your guitar you'll then be able to play it by ear almost instantly. Do you think you'd benefit from being able to do that? Sure you would.

"To Play Guitar Melodies By Ear You Need To
Sing Everything You Play"

What jazz guitarists say about this ear-training technique..

Like most things, once you quickly master the technique, you no longer need to think about it on a conscious, focused level anymore-it just becomes automatic. It's like programming a computer (your brain) so the work is done automatically. "It's how you program the computer that is important. You have to watch out for GIGO-Garbage In Garbage Out."

Here's some comments from a few Jazz guitar players from the alt.music.makers.guitar.jazz newsgroup.

"Any good player is capable of reproducing an intermediate level melody on his instrument after hearing it only once or twice. Any good player is capable of singing all or part of that melody, relatively in tune. Whether or not he has a nice sounding voice is besides the point. There may be some great players out there who can't do this- but they are few and far between.

Great players can reproduce, in like fashion, more complex melodies.

The obvious way to develop your ears to be able to do these types of things is by lifting lots of melodies from recordings.

The above type of melodic mirroring also involves an element of memory. You have to be able to remember longer and longer phrases of music.

A less obvious way to develop your ears is to sing the stuff that you are practicing. Singing arpeggios is especially good ear training. Singing your lines as you improvise forces you to hear what you are playing on a much deeper level than if you are just wiggling your fingers around the fretboard and listening passively. This type of melodic mirroring does not involve memory of long phrases so much.

Guitar players get hung up on fancy looking fingerboard patterns and very often can not hear the lack of musical sound coming off of their instrument. When you sing you have to "hear". There is no way, for most of us, to sing without hearing. A novice who can not sing a note back
that he hears someone else playing, and sings some other note, has not learned how to hear yet. A novice who can not sing back a note that he himself is playing has even more work to do.

Once you can sing what you play there is no need to continue doing it. But it can really help to tap back into the "zone", after you've fallen out of it, by singing a few lines.

These two types of melodic mirroring also that reflect two aspects of improvising melody. Sometimes we play lines that we hear in our head, just like we're singing a familiar song. The vast majority of these types of lines are things we've already worked out before or licks that we've heard other people play that are part of the jazz canon. But there is another type of improvising, where you're more in the moment, and you don't know what something will sound like until the instant just before you actually play it. Singing what you practice, especially when you are practicing something new that you've never played before, can really help develop this abillity to hear what the note you are about to play will sound like just before you play it."
Joey Goldstein
http://www.joeygoldstein.com

"I think singing unison with your lines is one of the best development tools there is. And, you can use it in playing situations (if your voice is halfway decent) to very positive effect. The ear training aspects should be obvious, but what is equally valuable is how this effects phrasing. Your basic need to [take] breath informs your lines with a horn-like sense of space and inflection that can be a dramatic improvement from the somewhat flatline guitarist approach to endless strings of 8th or 16th notes. I use it as often as I can."
MK

"Another advantage to singing: I can drive and sing a lot more safely than I can drive and play guitar. Also, my brain listens more critically to what I sing than what it hears my guitar play."
MG

"Burning chops do not define a good jazz musician. Great improvised melodies do. Great melodies often have the hallmark of singablity. Singing what you play and playing what you sing are the surest paths towards devloping this ablility. If you can't sing and play a decent melody at a medium tempo you will have little chance of being able to play a decent melody at a burning tempo."
JG

"I've been trying to do more singing of lines as I play them, or sometimes just singing a line without playing it just to make sure I can really hear it. It's easy to fall into a habit of dealing with the mechanics of execution on the guitar, but actually hearing what you play seems to be a another step up in the process."
MR

"While you're at it, learn to sing some tunes. Knowing the words and melody to a song will dramatically increase your intimate knowledge of a tune (and if you're good enough, there are tons of opportunities for gigs). Singing is still the best and most basic instrument we possess."
--

"Lately I've tried this: learn a line, play it a few times, then play it again while singing along. I've noticed that when I sing along I pick with more confidence, and play with more dynamics. "If you can sing it you can play it." So many times have I seen advanced players and teachers advise this. I just hardly ever remember to do it! Busy watching my fingers or listening to the guitar I just forget!"
J

"If you're a natural with a photographic aural memory, it probably won't do a damned thing for your ears, but it'll sure help your phrasing.

For the rest of us, it's probably the most powerful tool I've ever encountered. It's also a great way to deal with stage fright and kick a band that ain't groovin' into gear a little. It's killer for the time too.

Anyways, for non-genius musicians like myself, I can't think of anything better than singing along with your lines. It works miracles for me, though YMMV.
KS

Check out my ear training program software page