Hi I’m back to the course after being away from it for a while. I’ve attempted to come back to it a few times, but life has gotten in the way, and at other times I’ve ended up using apps and other practice methods instead.
I do remember a decent number of chords, and my strumming is slowly improving. I can play some strumming patterns reasonably well, although combining the strumming with chord changes is still hit or miss.
One thing I’ve consistently struggled with in the course is figuring out songs by ear. Recognizing the chords themselves can be difficult, but what I find even harder is figuring out exactly when the chord changes and how long each chord lasts. Sometimes I can eventually identify the chords, but I still can’t put everything together without looking the song up somewhere.
I also find myself getting distracted by everything else in the recording—the vocal melody, bass, drums, intro lines, etc.—when I’m trying to listen specifically for the guitar/chords.
I understand that developing your ear takes time and that these are useful skills to learn. My concern is more practical: with limited practice time, I sometimes don’t want to spend an entire session repeatedly listening to one song trying to work out the chords and their timing. In the past, that frustration has sometimes led me to move on to something else altogether.
Has anyone else struggled with this? Is there a good way to practice this skill progressively without getting stuck trying to completely figure out every song by ear? For example, is it okay to spend a certain amount of time trying, then look up the chords and use that to check what you were hearing?
Developing your ear and learning to transcribe songs is absolutely great, but trying to learn those skills doesn’t mean you can’t play any song anymore just by looking at a chord sheet. Separate learning to transcribe from learning to play the guitar, e.g. practice each in different sessions. Learn some new skills on your guitar, learn some new songs that let you practice new skills. Learn some songs by transcribing them, some others by looking up the chords - that’s just fine.
And above all: keep it fun. If you’re still struggling with transcribing (which is totally normal), only playing songs that you have transcribed will get frustrating. So cut yourself some slack and sometimes just play for the fun of it.
I agree with all of the advice that you got from @LadyOfTheCastle . Playing by ear is a good skill but not a requirement for enjoying playing the guitar and certainly not in the beginning grade levels. I am in grade 4 and still play from chord charts all the time. Also I think that playing by ear is a skill that takes years to master, so you should enjoy playing the guitar from chord charts as you develop that skill.
Based on what you said in the quote above it sounds like you still need to work on combining the chord changes with the strumming rhythm. There is a lot to learn in grades 1 and 2 that will eventually help with ear training as you practice playing all the songs. Eventually in grade 3, Justin has a carefully designed progressive set off lessons on transcibing songs by ear.
P.S. a good first step to develop ear training is to learn to play a few songs with just A, D and E chords using Justin’s Song Lessons and then playing from a song book or chord chart. Then try to listen to the melody of the song (usually the vocal melody) and see if you can hear where to make the chord changes. I do that when I write out my own chord chsrts with lyrics, but it takes a lot of practice.
When I started transcribing I spent 5 minutes a day on it…every day…for two years.
I think consistency is the key thing, do some transcribing every day. Pick easy songs - I started with the Green Day back catalogue, not because I liked Green Day, but because (most of) their songs are straightforward - not a lot of complex stuff going on and fairly easy to hear the changes.
Some days I really got in to it and transcribed for an hour, but I made sure it was at least 5 minutes. Some days I’d get nothing in those 5 minutes, but I turned up and listened and tried.
I’m still not great at transcribing, but I am heaps better than I was and can work most basic things out given time. I still transcribe most days, something will turn up that sounds interesting and I’ll work it out.
oh and learning some basic music theory will help you make educated guesses.
Hi I truly appreciate all the replies. I know that transcribing and learning to play by ear is a skill that will develop over time. I guess I was moreso talking about when justin suggests songs in the first grade and there is a spotify list as a beginner its kind of hard to know how to play those songs. I have used his play along videos and looked up other stuff but in general it seems that while the beginner songs are technically easy that are also advanced for someone learning to hear musically. So when there is a song and he says listen and give it a go it feels a bit advanced for me even though when everything is spelled out for me I can do it fine
When I’m learning a song, playing with the recording is a goal and part of the process, but it’s far from an early part of that process.
The first thing I do is sit down with the chords. Can I make each individual chord that’s part of the song? If not, then that’s something I need to work on.
The next thing I look at are the changes. Are the changes between chords something I’m familiar with? Or are there new changes in there? If there are new changes or changes I’ve used before but have not in awhile so I could use improvement, then I spend some time on the changes. With the changes, starting slow and slowly building tempo is the way to go. As I get comfortable with the changes, I will often add metronome practice to the chord progression to I can ensure I’m making progress towards my target.
These first two steps might take awhile.
If the rhythm is something different, then I also might need specific practice on that. This can begin in parallel with the above two. Start with muted strums. Like with chord changes, start slowly. I will also add metronome practice both to ensure I’m reaching my target tempo, but also to ensure that I’m holding a consistent tempo.
Once I have a comfort level holding a consistent tempo with the strumming and also making chord changes at that target tempo, I will start to blend the strumming with the chord changes. I will sometimes push the tempo a little bit faster than my target for the song. But I will start attempting to play with the recording some time before that to gauge progress and identify spots where I might need to target additional practice.
I usually play with the recording for awhile, even after I’m comfortable with it. Because it’s fun. But once I get there, a next goal is to be able to play the song without the recording. Holding the tempo consistent on your own is a skill worth developing (a metronome or drum track can be helpful here). Another goal to include here is singing along with your playing. This one takes me a good bit of work and I have to have the guitar part of the song pretty much on autopilot before I can add singing.
How long this process takes varies. For some songs I can get to playing with the recording in a couple hours. For others, maybe months. For those, it’s important not to dwell too hard on them and burn yourself out with frustration. That can be really hard sometimes. Putting those down for awhile and doing other things (while still developing skills you’ll apply later) is helpful.
Just an important addition to some already good advice here.
Be sure you are very familiar with chords in a key.
There are only 6 really (diminished rarely used).
Once you get the key, 95% of songs will be made up of those other 5 chords. It will also make it easier to work out the occasional non-diatonic chords in a song.
And the more you do it, the more you’ll see repeating patterns
It’s good you want to start training your ear - IMO it’s one of the best things you can do for yourself as a musician and it’s never too early to start. I wish I’d started much earlier than I did. You’ve had some good advice above and as others have said Justin has some good content on it. I think generally following Justin’s course as he’s curated it is a good thing to do, so my suggestions are for things you can do when you don’t have a guitar handy.
You can do this one anytime you are listening to music and have a bit of time available to concentrate on it. You may find that listening for the different instruments in a band helps. I think of this in a similar way to vision. E.g. focus on something close (e.g. a computer screen) then focus on something further away ( e.g. the house opposite). Do the same with your hearing and bring say the kick drum into focus, then let it go and bring the snare in, listen to the snare for a while then let it go and bring the lead guitar into focus, then bass, then rhythm guitar, keys, backing vocals etc (the order isn’t important, nor do you have to do all of them in the same session - it’s the concept I’m trying to explain).
Something else you may find useful is to listen to a song where the intro is guitar only. That will help you focus on the guitar (it’s the only thing happening in the intro) and then stay focussed on it into the 1st verse. Some examples are:
Kiss Me - Sixpence non the Richer
Save Me San Francisco - Train
Wonderwall - Oasis
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
Good Riddance (Time of your life) - Green Day. (This one is picking notes rather than playing rhythm guitar)
Maybe once you’ve done that you could try with guitar and vocal together before the rest of the band come in. Try to keep the focus on the guitar rather than letting the vocal distract you. Some suggestions are:
Speaking from my own experience here, but this is something I have exceptional difficulty with. My mind just cannot filter sounds if it’s too chaotic - I hear it all. All the time. This is something I’ve dealt with all my life. There’s a point where no amount of effort or practice will help - I just shut down. Earplugs are essential for me just to be able to focus on the band instead of all the echoes, crowd noise, etc at a show.
What I’ve noticed is that if the soundscape is too complex, I actually need to watch the person I want to focus on. There are limits to it even then. For me, what has worked best in this general concept is to watch solo performers or small bands in very small venues where I can watch the players closely enough that I can see how their movements translate to the sounds I hear. I still can’t really filter out the other stuff, but if I’m watching the motions I might be able to match them up with something that I am hearing but can’t necessarily identify. Videos online often aren’t good enough for this outside of a few moments where everything comes together (audio quality, zoom, focus, camera motion, etc).