How Do You Learn to Play a Song
 

How do you learn to play a song. I am old and consider myself as advanced mediocre. I used to learn how to play a song by buying a book by the band to learn the basic chords, then I would play the record over and over until I could play something that sounded decent.

Today, you can go on-line and get the chords with tab. Then you can go to youtube and see someone playing the song and figure it out. If you are really good and like the song, you might be able to learn it by just listening to it and playing it until you figure it out.

Just wondering. How do you all learn to play a new song these days.

I basically still do the same. I'm playing fingerstyle, but I will hear a tune I like, get a pdf or GuitarPro file of the tab/notation and then download the You Tube of it (or an mp3) and load it into Transcribe! software which can slow it down, add or subtract a capo position, loop, etc and then go at it over and over again, usually first in small sections, then I expand it as I learn the tune.

And I'm old too :)

I find the tab and download it into my SongSheet program, then a youtube lesson, then the original song. If the key is not correct for me to sing, SongSheet let's me change it. After that, it's all about practice.

By ear if I have the time, lead sheet and a few quick listens if I don't.

Depends - learn some tunes strictly by ear (especially decades back), others by listening and some sort of video or notation, others I compose myself.

I strongly prefer to have the music (and a chance to hear someone else's interpretation adds to it). Lacking that, I listen to CDs or performers until I have it in my mind. Almost never touch Utube.

When I started in the 70's that's what I did too. I bought songbooks by my favorite artists (Dylan, Neil Young, Dead, Eagles). I'd listened to the songs so much I could hear them in my mind's ear. That's how I knew where the chord changes shown in the book belonged.


IMO another version of the songbooks I used to buy. They work the same way.


This can be very helpful by seeing as well as hearing someone play a song rather than converting tab/notation/chord diagrams to fretboard positions. Just like the old days when you asked someone "show me how you play that...."


This is learning/playing by ear. I developed it by hours and hours of practice and listening over the years. You first develop the ability to hear the entire song in your head (your "mind's ear" again - aka "audiation"). You combine this with an intimate knowledge of the fretboard. Finally add the experience of hearing and playing all the common progressions and intervals hundreds of times. This results in the ability to reproduce what I hear (or remember) directly on the guitar.


By far I use the last method described - by ear - the most. I figure out the song and then usually transpose it to a key that suits my vocal range. Sometimes I'll get a song from sheet music. One of the benefits of a classical music education is the ability to sight read notation pretty well. I also play with others several times a week, and sometimes we show each other new songs (like the YouTube example).

I learned pretty much the way the OP described. Today I listen to the song and play what I hear. Most pop songs are formulaic and are pretty easy. The ones that aren’t add a little interest to the process.

I'm working on improving my reading. I will read the sheet music and "build" the song in GarageBand with the software piano. Copy and paste repeated measures.

You can change the tempo, key and play along with it very slowly and then build up your speed. I've done this for mandolin and guitar flat picking. It's a little harder for fingerpicking when reading more than one note.

Easy. I play it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over . . . .

All of the above!

In fact, I mainly use software to help do it all by ear. I've been transcribing records by ear ever since the 1960s, whenever I couldn't find songbooks or sheet music. And I also I found very early on that even the best books never contained the whole song, and some even had mistakes.
I used a 2-speed tape deck to start with, right up to the 1990s when I found software that was not only a whole lot more versatile and less clunky, but extremely cheap too. https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/screenshots.html

Now, there are AI apps that will separate out vocals even from mono tracks, and partially separate other instruments too, as well as slow things down.

A lot of these apps will tell you what the chords are (or try), but I never trust them without checking by ear myself - just as I'm sure you would when learning from those books!

I still sometimes refer to online chord charts or youtube lessons when available, but only to get me started, to get in the right ball-park.

Of course, it depends on how much of the detail you want. I happen to like getting all the details I can, even if I then ignore some of them and play it my way. :)

Yes, exactly! :)

Play it until you get it right. Then play it some more until you can't get it wrong.

If it’s a song I know, I’ll get the correct chords online somewhere, then sing it the way I want to. If it’s a song I don’t know, I’d have to listen to someone else do it first, then work up my own version

This. If I am learning the song for my own enjoyment I always learn by ear. If for a show or performance or such, there is usually a clock involved somehow so I just do what needs be to "get the music done."