Difficulty with playing by ear?

[ironhorse777]

I can pick up single notes quite easily by ear now however, when the guitarist plays a chord which I have never heard of, I am lost. How to learn what exactly the guitarist plays just by listening to the records? it is my goal to be able to play all the music I like by ear. Any suggestions?
I am haunted by this everyday. I wanna be able to hear everything and play everything but sometimes the guitar parts may not be audible in the mix or the guitarist does some fancy stuff which I cannot comprehend. Oh god this is killing me!

[JonPR]

Relax! Chords are always difficult.

I use various strategies to identify chords - sometimes just one will do, sometimes a combination is necessary:

1. Listen for bass note. That's usually the root. Then try either a major or minor chord with that root.
No?
Next most likely - in rock music - is an inversion (3rd or 5th on bottom).
Eg, if E is the bass note, and it doesn't sound like E or Em, try A/E, Am/E, C/E, C#m/E.
Still not quite right? Try a 7th: E7 or Emaj7 first; then 7th versions of the other chords above.
Also consider sus4s, add9s and sus2s.
(In jazz, Edim7 or Em7b5 are distinct possibilities, but these are very rare in rock.)

2. Theory. Given the key of the song, what are the likely chords? (This can narrow down the above choices a lot.)
Does this chord sound "in" or "out", alongside the other chords? Common or uncommon? (If out or uncommon, then at least I know what it isn't...)

3. Listening experience. Much the same as theory knowledge, this helps identify chord progressions: common ways chords are strung together. I.e., if I identify the first chord in a sequence, if the next change sounds familiar then I can be pretty sure what that chord is before I even check it.
Again, familiarity plays a part - is that a common-sounding change, or an unusual one? Both sounds point in useful directions.
(However, it's still important to "listen without prejudice" - sometimes listening habits can make you think you hear something that's not there, or miss something that is there.)

4. Trial and error, using single notes against the chord. Sometimes a melody will help - most of the notes in the melody at that point (sometimes all of them) are likely to be in the chord. Considering each of those notes together with the bass is usually a good guide, at least for the basic chord (triad or 7th).

Naturally, when working by ear, it helps to be able to play the chord (in the track) repeatedly, which is where software can help. Most slowdowners will let you loop short sections of a track. Some will also let you raise the octave, which makes the bass a lot clearer.
I recommend Transcribe - http://www.seventhstring.com/ - but there are others. (Transcribe also offers you its guesses for chord names if you select the chord - it's usually pretty good, but with difficult chords it often gives up.)

Of course, even when you can be fairly sure of all the notes in the chord, you still might not know the shape the player used! Did he use a capo? Or was he in an alternative tuning?? (that's where it gets really difficult, if you don't know.)
And if it's a guitar chord specifically you're after, you also need to watch out for other instruments. The chord you hear on a track will be a combination of all the instruments playing it. Obviously they're all playing the same chord - or parts of the same chord anyway - but can you separate out what the guitar is doing? (and do you actually need to?)

[BFD]

Horse-

A) your quest is a noble one, and

B) the post by JonPR is a virtual master class in figuring stuff out by ear; you should copy it and paste it somewhere safe or print it out. He covers about everything I've ever learned or tried in 40+ years of picking and he was extremely thorough and generous in detailing it in his post.

I'm also a Transcribe! user. If you're not using fully featured slow-down software like this you should definitely start immediately. Some people are naturals at this skill, but not most. The majority of us have to work at it. The more you do it the better you get, as with most things. Best of luck!

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by BFD

B) the post by JonPR is a virtual master class in figuring stuff out by ear; you should copy it and paste it somewhere safe or print it out. He covers about everything I've ever learned or tried in 40+ years of picking and he was extremely thorough and generous in detailing it in his post.

Thanks. 50+ years of picking in my case...

[rick-slo]

If the guitar part is not clear in the recording (poor recording, bunch of effects and reverb, other instruments) you have my sympathy for trying to pick it out by ear note for note. Some theoretical knowledge or just knowing the common progressions and patterns can help.

If it is not readily obvious what is being played:

1. Figure out the tuning (that can take some time in and of itself sometimes) by listening for the lowest note played in the piece, what notes sound like open strings, and then work on chord shapes and fingerings to see if the tuning makes sense.

2. Get familiar with the melody lines.

3. The low note and high notes in a chord are easiest to identify. Get those and then work on the inner notes.

4. Get the correct timing.

5. Practice on a measure or two before moving to the next measure or two. You want to get up to a reasonable speed, or nearly so, to hear if you are playing it correctly.

6. A three minute piece will have repeats of material, often with little or no variation. There may be only thirty seconds of new stuff to figure out.

7. Chords may change but the picking pattern and rhythm often persists.

8. If it is a keeper in your repetoire you may want to tab it out.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by ironhorse777

…How to learn what exactly the guitarist plays just by listening to the records? it is my goal to be able to play all the music I like by ear. Any suggestions?

Hi h777…
I majored in music in college, and there were numerous classes which focused on ear training, which boils down to hearing a pitch (or series of them) and matching/duplicating it/them with your voice or another instrument.

There is nothing magic, nor mysterious in what you want to do. It's a skill which can be developed, and it grows better/easier with use.

Back-in-the-day-of-turntables it was tougher and I scratched up a lot of records lifting-and-dropping-needles/phono arms to repeat passages to hear pitches and dig them out.

I also hit the pause button frequently on cassette tapes, and CDs, DVDs and now DVRs (and iTunes).

Thankfully in this digital age, there are apps which will allow one to loop a passage and one could specify a very short passage (like a single chord) and loop it till you locate notes on the neck. Some programs/apps even allow you to slow the song down and keep the key original.

I transcribe frequently, and have for over 35 years. I have developed the ability to identify and remember notes long enough to work them out…sometimes in more than one place on the neck. I bring my guitar to the computer station, and work from here.

These days, I'll go to YouTube and locate a particular artist's live recording of their song and lift fingerings. Sometimes the artist is playing it in a different key than I, so that requires lifting it and transposing it.

Lots of ways to skin this cat - none of them instant. It all boils down to hearing pitches, then remembering them long enough to transfer them to either your voice or instrument.

[Hotspur]

Originally Posted by ironhorse777

I can pick up single notes quite easily by ear now however, when the guitarist plays a chord which I have never heard of, I am lost. How to learn what exactly the guitarist plays just by listening to the records? it is my goal to be able to play all the music I like by ear. Any suggestions?

First of all, I co-sign everything John wrote.

The first thing is to just keep practicing. Practice picking up melodies by ear. The better you get at this, the easier chords will get. And practice listening for chords with simple songs.

You want to learn to hear functionally - that is to say, relative to a key center. That is to say, I'm listening to a song, and if it has a V-I, I can usually hear that.

The V-I move is usually the easiest for most people to pick up. A V just sounds a certain way, and you learn to recognize that. So even if you're lost overall, you're like, "Oh, okay, that's a V." You figure out what key you're in, and bam, you've got another reference point.

How do you learn to hear functionally? That's trickier. The first is what I said, before: transcribing melodies, in context. The functional ear trainer, a free download from miles.be, helped me, too - it focuses on single notes, but the principle are the same.

I also found the book "Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles" by Pedler to be super useful. It's a theory book, yes, but it introduces you to ideas in context. e.g., there's a whole chapter on V-I, which sounds absurd until you realize, working your way through that chapter, that all of a sudden you have that sound in your head. Then he does the same thing with IVs, vis, IIs, etc ...

For a while, when I was working my way through that book, every time I wondered if something was a V I'd mentally go back to the ah-ah-ah part of the Beatles' "twist and shout" (technically a V7-I) - that was a reference I already had in my head, but now I knew what it meant.

Inversions and stuff make this much more complicated (and still totally screw me up, to be fair), but remember that Rome wasn't built in a day. You start with the basic functional relationships, and then slowly start expanding the palette with new sounds.

[rick-slo]

I usually just go by ear and assume nothing theory wise.

[rrgguitarman]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

I usually just go by ear and assume nothing theory wise.

+1
Play it by ear first.

[scuzbucket]

I always listen to acoustic performances over album versions when working stuff out. When the guitar is lost in the mix some things can be quite tricky to hear.

It's always interesting to go back and listen to the album version once you've deciphered the stripped down version.

It's like putting your glasses back on.