Learn to play by ear using chord tones (Part two)
Here’s part two of Brad’s article on playing melodies and improvising by ear using the notes of a song’s chords. It’s part of our series on learning to play by ear. You should start with part one if you haven’t already read it! Welcome...
Learn to play by ear using chord tones (Part one)
This week in our playing-by-ear series guitar teacher Brad Mavin shares a process he uses for learning to play songs by ear on guitar. A fun exercise that I like to do with students is to play along with a popular four chord song. Identify the key and make music using...
Learning to play by ear was the answer when flaming fingers left me cold
Continuing our playing-by-ear series, we’re very pleased to welcome the first of our “home team”, Easy Ear Training author Nick Long, to share his experiences learning to play by ear. I decided I wanted an electric guitar aged 14 after seeing a video...
4 Steps to Playing By Ear (Natalie Wickham)
One of the most effective ways to improve as a musician is to learn from multiple teachers, exploring different approaches and hearing from a variety of perspectives. So to continue our series on playing by ear, we decided to invite some teachers and musicians to...
Top Online Courses for Playing By Ear
Want better musical ears? Get the latest methods, information and techniques for training your musical ear with these top online ear training courses.
Top Tech Tools for Playing By Ear
Want better ears for music? You should use the latest modern ear training tools so you get better much faster. Learn what they are and start using them today.
What can you already play by ear? Let’s talk Melody.
Now that we’ve looked at what playing by ear is and how to learn to play by ear it’s time for us to stop and really work out where we each stand now in the journey to playing by ear. We’ll go on to look at some great ways to speed up the journey, but...
Ear Training Site Profile: JazzAdvice.com
Continuing in our series of ear training site profiles… Intro Jazzadvice.com is, unsurprisingly, a blog full of jazz advice. You probably didn’t need this article to tell you that, but the internet’s full of jazz ‘advice’ and you can waste a lot of...
Applying Solfa to Real Music
Solfa comes alive when you apply it to hearing real music. Soon you will see how quickly you will be able to play by ear and transcribe what you’re hearing.
How long does it take to play a song by ear?
How long it takes a musician to be able to play a song by ear will vary. Some musicians would answer “it depends how good a musician you are” or “it depends if you’re gifted”. These answers are unhelpful and inaccurate. Although many...How do you play a song by ear?
You can learn to play songs by ear without needing a teacher or expensive materials. You don’t need the sheet music and you don’t need any special musical “gift” either. The basic process is to choose a song, and try to work it out piece by...
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