Learn to Play Guitar by Ear

Picking up any new song by ear can be both extremely frustrating and wonderfully satisfying. The most frustrating part of learning any new song by ear is the amount of time you have to put in listening to the same song repeatedly. In most instances by the time you have figured out the song you are no longer interested in playing it, this has happened to me a number of times. In the past I would play a song that I really loved repeatedly until I was ready to throw my guitar out of the window, and give up in frustration.

A number of guitarists have a difficult time when it comes to learning a song by ear. The problem is speed, if you can’t hear what is being played how can you expect to learn how to play it? Even some of the most advanced guitarists have difficulty when it comes to learning a song by ear that is play at its normal speed.

Many guitar riffs and solos are played so fast and contain such difficult manoeuvres that it makes it almost impossible to learn them by ear. For example take a guitar solo that is played by Steve Vai, Jimmy Page, Eric Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, or Yngwie Malmsteen, in order to plainly hear and comprehend precisely what is being played by them is daunting task.

Wouldn't it make learning how to play the guitar so much simpler if you could only slow down the music? If you could slow down the music you would be able to hear each musical phrase note-for-note and have the time to duplicate these notes precisely as they are played.

Luckily, due to all of the advancements made in technology there is now software available that will slow down any piece of music for you!

Once you have the software you simply load any song that you want to learn into it, and play it back at any speed you want, without changing the pitch. With this type of software you can hear the precise notes, and even how they were played: using slides, hammer-ons, bends, pull-offs and so on. You have to be able to hear precisely what is going on in order to master demanding guitar riffs and solos. Without some kind of software for slowing down music it is almost impossible to learn to play the guitar by ear.

There are a couple of different types of software on the market, and I have tried them all. Some are good and some are just bad. The one that I use and recommend can be found by clicking on the following link:

 Riff Master Pro

Slow Down Any Guitar Solos, Guitar Riffs, And Music, this one is very reasonably priced, and it not only slows down music, but very importantly it does it without changing the pitch. Another great feature is that you can change the key that song is played in, for instance if you wanted to learn a song by Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan both of whom tune down their guitar a half step all you have to do is change the key of the song thus avoiding having to change the tuning on your guitar.



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