Play by ear. How to

sjl

How to learn playing by ear?
Any advice?
Any method avalaible?

Thanks

dennis

transcribe as much as you can... make mistakes , learn from them, until you get it right and repeat...it's a very long process, but it's the best one...

it's like learning how to walk, u fall down, u get up, u try again, etc...

sjl

Sure there are no shortcuts for this.

Thanks Dennis.

Passacaglia

dennis wrote:

transcribe as much as you can... make mistakes , learn from them, until you get it right and repeat...it's a very long process, but it's the best one...

it's like learning how to walk, u fall down, u get up, u try again, etc...

Dennis, it's been really interesting to me to go back over and think on some of the things you've taught over the years. I mentioned elsewhere that during a webcam lesson with Adrian Holovaty, he mentioned a cool little tome, The Talent Code, which in its outlook mirrors so much of what you say, as a working philosophy - stuff one has to scratch for actively engages the mind (and ear, and hand), and it's the habit of working little mistakes, adjusting them to a desired outcome, over and over, that really teaches skill, literally wires the mind. Couldn't be a truer thing that the tunes I remember are the ones I watched and listened to, and nothing else...while grabbing TABs may get me into playing a tune more quickly..it also goes out of body and mind much more quickly.

I spent yesterday's practice re-doing Hono 1 of your site (as I do everyday); also transcribed A part of Stephane's Bistro Fada. Just this one phrase, over and over, slowly, until all the details - slides, hammer ons, pull offs, etc., were in place. Once I have this down so that I'm no longer thinking of it, next Part, and so on.

That, and Tchavolo's J'Attendrai, off of Alors?...Voila!

This is a first for me - have never done any kind of lead playing, my whole life (not saying much, since I hadn't picked up a guitar in 35 years). But it's a private thrill, truthfully. I knew your approach, and grew discouraged, because my ears and hands felt like such obtuse stones, in "stealing" sound. But the feel is getting easier....so, thanks.

Jon

The best thing I ever did for my ears - which aren't at all great, but much improved - was to start learning a whole lot of tunes, memorising them and transposing them into lots of different keys. This was initially done intellectually ("so that chord is the fourth of that, or a minor third up from that" etc), but increasingly became something i could do more and more aurally. It helped my recognition of chord progressions, but also of melodies and intervals. I think memory is vastly underrated as a musical skill, and when asked how he developed his truly amazing aural skills at a workshop here in Australia, Andreas Oberg said that the first thing was that he had a very good memory.

Jon