Ear Fusion Guitar Lessons - How To Play By Ear

Tips and pointers

            In order to play really good, you must learn not only to play fast, but also with a wide variety of timings, string bends, vibrato, slides, mutes and other effects discussed throughout this book. This is important, but what’s even more important is that what you’re playing sounds good to you when you listen to it. So don’t get caught up in the technical aspects of playing. It’s very important that you approach guitar playing from a very relaxed and general viewpoint as well as a physically challenging and articulate art. Listen to what you are playing and ask yourself, “Does that sound good?” Your timing and clarity are very important. It is critical that, when you practice, you focus on clear sound and timing rather than speed. Also, developing an inner clock takes a lot of practice. You’ll find that tapping your foot to the rhythm makes it much easier to keep good timing. This is very important.  

            In the beginning, you may find that many riffs are difficult to play correctly. When you encounter a difficult strum, riff or other technique, the best thing you can do is hum and imitate the rhythm several times slowly until you clearly internalize the beat/note to your body. Try to simulate the beats of the drums with your tongue and roof of your mouth and do this several times between trying to play it on the guitar. This internalization makes your ability to strum out complex riffs a lot better. The frets are the metal ridges on the fret board. Make sure that when you place you fingertips on the guitars fret board, you press down on the strings firmly just behind the fret. This way your notes will always sound clear and unmistakable.

            You may decide to use a pick or plectrum, or you may want to fingerpick. Depending on what style of guitar or what song you want to play, you may want to learn how to pick and strum both ways. A good way for you to improve your picking skills and accuracy is to pluck each string individually at a steady beat with either a pick or thumb and fingers. Count slowly enough at first...”1-2-3-4” giving each beat the same amount of time, remain steady and pluck the string at the same tempo that you are counting or tapping your foot. If you are having a hard time plucking steadily to the beat, you may want to slow down to a pace you can pluck smoothly, accurately and clearly. Do this exercise repeatedly on different strings until you are comfortable and then increase the tempo just enough so that you can still pick and pluck with the proper timing. This exercise will develop incredible finger strength and dexterity if done on a consistent basis.

 If you are a beginner, these exercises will seem rather awkward or tedious at times. It’s hard to explain the level of growth a person can feel in their music appreciation and abilities to hear and play better between each practice session. Just look at it like this, the less you know now…the more there is to learn. Just like a lot of other skills, you need to develop a routine so that you are regularly playing your guitar or any music you want regularly and consistently. When you first begin, your “guitar playing muscles” are not developed, because as a group of muscles working together, they have never actually played guitar, at least not regularly. Just commit to 15-20 minutes per day at first and within a week or two at most, you will no doubt see a breakthrough in your ability. Of course, if you’re really motivated, you’ll probably practice for a bit longer than just 15 or 20 minutes at a time.

Next - Lesson #3 - Matching A Tone By Ear