May 15, 2019 by Klaus Crow
Photo by David Goehring
Learning to play guitar gets easier these days with the many YouTubes and Tabs available everywhere around the internet.
The downside of this phenomenon is that people who are learning to play guitar these days can get lazy if they just copy whatever is being taught on the net.
It’s still very important to listen with your own ears and learn to transcribe songs without tutorial videos or tablature books.
Transcribing songs will teach you how guitar playing works from the inside out. I can tell you, it taught me more than I could have ever learned from tutorial videos.
I am not saying you need to stop watching YouTube guitar tutorials….No Way! YouTube is a great tool, but just don’t forget to listen and transcribe songs on your own. A must for every serious guitar student!
Listening is the key to everything:
Give Music a Chance.
Listen to as much different kinds of music styles as possible. Explore Pop music, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Folk, Country, Fusion, Latin, Metal, Flamenco and Classical sounds to expand your horizon and become a more creative musician.
If you don’t like a song or an album at first, put it on a second time.
Now this time listen differently: Notice the profound lyrics, the authenticity of the vocals, the cool beat/drums, the funky and grooving bass line, the subtle arrangements, the melodic solos and beautiful guitar rhythms. Listen to all the effort that has been put into the music. Listen to the things you like instead of what you don’t like.
The more you really really listen, the more you will love the song and understand what the artist is trying to bring across.
An openminded musician is a better musician.
Chord Recognition
Learn to recognize chords and chord changes in a song. Notice how each chord sounds differently and has it’s own unique character. Try to memorize each individual sound. Listen how different chords relate to each other. Understanding music theory will also help you with this.
What does major and minor sound like? What does a Dominant or a Maj7 chord sound like. Can you recognize the difference between a Sus2 or Sus4. An intermediate or advanced guitar player can try to recognize Maj9, 13, Maj13, Augmented and Diminished chords.
The more you practice this, the easier it gets. Transcribing chords and try recognizing them on a regular basis will train you ears. It will really enhance your progress in many ways.
Rhythm and Time
Listen and learn to count the time signature of a song. Figure out what kind of rhythm the guitar player is strumming and copy what you hear. It’s okay if you don’t play the exact rhythm pattern right away as long as you keep time while playing. Listen carefully, analyze what you hear and go with your gut feeling.
The more rhythm patterns you learn from your guitar teacher, fellow guitar players and YouTube, the easier it gets to figure it out a rhythm pattern on your own.
Listen to Teachers
A good guitar teacher will give you the right short cuts to make good progress. Listen carefully to inside tips and tricks that will open up your playing. Ask any questions, you think, that will help you further.
A teacher can save you a lot of time sharing you valuable information you would need years to figure out on your own.
Soul Searching
Listen to the creativity within you. Whenever you feel the urge to create… Create!
Play what you need to play, even if it doesn’t make sense at first. Go with the flow. Make room for the ideas that circle around in your head. Let your fingers lead you and put it down on paper and record it.
Listen in solitude
When there is solitude and silence there is room for your creative mind to breath. Go for a walk to the beach or the park when it’s quiet. First take a moment to contemplate. Then take a moment to listen.
This is where things will fall into place, where one idea comes rolling in after another. Open your mind for what is out there. Inspiration comes from solitude.
Listen, learn and create!
βTo listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.β – Igor Stravinsky
If you liked the post please share it on Stumbleupon. I appreciate it.
Ken says
This is an excellent article that covers many good points many may easily overlook. I really found this info useful and educational.
Klaus Crow says
Hi Ken,
There are a lot of (self-taught) guitar players right now because of the internet which is a good thing, I think. But I do want to point out that there are things that indeed can be overlooked because of this. Once you know the rules you can break the rules, not the other way around. :-)
Thanks,
Klaus Crow
Cat S says
Once again, Klaus, you have shared wisdom that is valuable to any musician, not just guitarists. This is why I subscribe to your newsletter, even though I’m a cellist and (electric)bass player.
Listening cannot be emphasized too much. Listening to every kind of music, listening to the sounds of nature, or to the sounds of vehicles and machines, to the sounds of people can all help educate the ear. What makes a child’s laugh sound happy or a train whistle mournful? What are the rhythms of the urban environment.
A teacher I had once said she spent the time waiting for a traffic light to change watching the rhythms of the different turn signals, searching for the “one,” the moment when all the different beats came together. Music is everywhere.
Thanks.
Klaus Crow says
Hi Cat,
Thanks for subscribing.
Great to hear that musicians from every corner are reading Guitarhabits. I feel blessed.
You’re right music is really everywhere!
Kind regards,
Klaus Crow
Rustee says
Stumbled this myself. Sound advice (pun!). Regarding the listening to chord types, I might also suggest certain ear training programs, like gnu solfege. It’s a great free program that will test you on different interval and chord types, among other things.
Klaus Crow says
Hi Rustee,
“Earmaster 5” seems like a really nice program too. I’m going to check it out soon. It’s not for free, but the reviews are really good.
Klaus
Ignited We Stand says
You have got to train your ear or have a natural ability in order to be a great guitarist. Much like a singer a trained ear is key.
michael says
i dream of having perfect pitch more than anything, but sadly im afflicted with tone deafness, ive played for nearly 25yrs, and i mean ive put the hard work in. i learnt to read music from various library books, when one book left me with questions, i sought the answers from other library books, and as from the 2nd year of my learning up until this day i can still easily kill 6 hours of spare time by losing myself in playing. but my hearing hasnt improved to any degree, i still struggle to tune up a guitar as i cannot tell when the two notes sound the same, i can tell when its not in tune tho. i worked out the reason, as in like you say, im not listening properly. an artist once said to a student who couldnt draw very good, everybody can draw, you are just not looking properly…. great site, glad i also stumbled upon it
pewe says
Perfect pitch IMO is over estimated. Yes, it is helpful if you have to tune a guitar without any tools or to detect the key of the song also, but it won’t help you, to become a great guitar player.
That’s because the right pitch is the basic and therefore just the start of the whole thing. If you know that yellow-orange is the colour of the sun, will it make you a great painter? How much of the guitar gods do/did have a pefect pitch (less then 2%!). Even if millions of people share the same language and use nearly the same words, the speaking of every single person is unique, so is the playing of a guitar.
Use a tuner and concentrate on your very own style by improving the technique, the phrasing, rythm, expression, vibrato, bending and all such things, that will make up your guitar personality. Over time your ears will become better and better.
Don’t envy people with perfect pitch, first it’s a gift by birth and second it is NOT the automatic gate to musical creativity!
Klaus Crow says
Hi Pewe,
Beautifully said.
I second that, however ear training will definitely improve your guitar playing.
Thanks for sharing.
Klaus
Alex says
Hi, this is really great article. I am playing for an year now. Till soon I didn’t have always access to internet, utube, etc. Since I have net I got really confused what to learn and focus on cause there is so much to learn.
I was also searching the web for some kind of community where you can contact and eventually play with other guitarist living near your region/area. Anyway, I couldn’t find something really helpful.
Klaus Crow says
Hi Alex,
Maybe Facebook is a good platform to find guitar players in your area.
Check out “the beginners path to learning guitar” to learn where to go next.
Best regards,
Klaus Crow