The key to learning music well is to use your ears. Many people never grasp the essential technique of learning songs by ear, but I believe that it is one of the most important skills that you can develop as a musician. But it is hard. People like me that learnt before the internet had to either be shown a song by a friend or work it out by ear. And every single guitarist that I have ever met that I have thought to be good, had transcribed many many many songs. Transcribing is working out songs using your ears and then writing it down.

But it is hard to just jump in the deep end and just work songs out, not know what the possible chords are or how they might play it. So I am solving that problem for you in this course by playing some chords from a set palette (choice) so that you only have a restricted number of chords that it could be. This will help you realise that you can do and I hope that by the end of the course you will be able to work out many songs on your own.

It does take practice, in fact more than I can do here, so you will need to do some on your own. You can either try and replicate the lessons that I present here by recording yourself and waiting a few days and then guessing the answers, or you can get a friend to play chord and sequences for you and you guess them. I prefer the friend or "jam buddy" method because it is more fun working with another person.

I am developing a more comprehensive course that will be available on CD, but it probably won't be around until late 2009 because I am too busy just now working on my record. Sorry! But there is enough here for you to get the idea and get your ears working.

Now it is time to get your ears working

Don't forget that music is about sound and listening so this part of your guitar study will help you a lot more than you will realise initially.

REMEMBER to stop the track right after the chord you are trying to identify because...

The Last Thing You Hear, Stays In Your Ear!

Take it slow and don't expect results too quickly, it will take some time develop your listening skills.

Introduction

In this introduction I explain what we'll be doing in these exercises. Time to switch your ears on. I will explain what to do in Single Sound Recognition (SSR).

Single Sound Recognition (SSR)

OK, now we are ready to work out some chords! So here we go - remember to pause after you hear the chord and try and figure out what chord I play. This training is really beneficial so please don't skip over it!

Chord Palette: E, A, D

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Chord Progression Recognition (CPR)

In this exercise you will hear some chord progressions that you have to figure out by ear. The "trick" is to pause on each chord and try and figure it out before continuing. At this stage I will be playing each chord for a full bar - 4 strums - on each. You only have 3 chords to choose from so you should find this ok...

Chord Palette: E, A, D

 

1. |__________|__________|__________|__________|
2. |__________|__________|__________|__________|
3. |__________|__________|__________|__________|

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only look at the answers if you really have to! Find them here.

HELP!!!!

If you need to ask a question about this lesson - there is a topic set up specifically to help you with this lesson. To help you find it easily you can click the following link and it will take you right the topic. You'll be able to see questions that other people had and ask your own questions! Hopefully one of the very helpful members of our community will be there to help you soon, I do go there and answer stuff too - but there are just too many questions for me to answer alone! So click this link to get help with this lesson!

Justin's Beginner Guitar Method DVD

Could this be the most comprehensive and complete beginners course ever made? I'd like to think so and now you can have it at home on the big screen on this super cool 4 DVD set. Over 8 hours of quality instruction to help you learn guitar quickly and easily, and enjoy your guitar journey! Included are all the videos from the whole Beginners Guitar Method as well as all the mp3 files for the JUSTIN Method, exclusive bloopers, and one minute changes coaching session and the taster lessons from other DVD's and a Jam Blues track. Details here or click the image