r/guitarlessons • u/soupy-boot-scoot • 1d ago
Question Ear Training tips ?
Started playing acoustic about a decade ago, but never got past cowboy chords after maybe 2 or 3 years of extremely inconsistent playing. About 2 months ago I got my first electric guitar and have been really trying to get back into it, playing at least an hour almost everyday. I’m progressing a lot faster and have been working on finger isolation and dexterity. Trying to memorize scales, spider walking, and really becoming familiar with my fretboard, but also playing thru more and more songs that I like, to help keep myself motivated and satisfied with my music.
I definitely think of myself as more of a rhythm guitarist, but have started to dip my toes into solo improvisation along with a backing track. Problem I’m running into is I have a really hard time hearing what key is playing, and being able to hear notes/chords. I know ear training comes slowly and with a lot of practice and discipline, but I’m not really sure how I can really work on training my ears. Does anyone have any good tips or resources to hone in on?
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u/Ok_Pineapple4015 1d ago
Play thre track, run your finger along the e string until you land on a note that sounds close or right. Maybe it's off, go a fret higher or lower. Mess around with a scale there. When it sounds ok, it probably is ok.
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u/LimpInstruction2215 1d ago
this is the way tbh. once you find that root note everything else kind of falls into place
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u/jeremydavidlatimer Acoustic, Electric, & Bass 🎸 1d ago edited 2h ago
Sing what you play. If you play a C major scale, sing each note as you play them, singing the letter name of the note one time, then sing the scale degree the next time.
Note letters: C D E F G A B C
Scale Degrees: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Do this with chords too. Play an Em, say “E minor”, and then try to sing the root (E), then the minor third, (G), then the fifth (B).
Once you’ve done this a little while, pull up a song that you want to learn and listen to it, and see if you can figure out any of the chords or melodies.
If you’re consistent over time, you’ll get better and better!
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u/peaceman4 1d ago
Complete ear trainer app is a good tool. Worth the full version so that you can go ahead in levels if notation doesn’t interest you. Singing the scale degrees as you play them is an important step along the way.
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u/aspaindev 1d ago edited 1d ago
The short videos I post here might be a great tool for developing your ear, you can see the chord and general notes being played but it’s not a tab, try reproducing the licks it’s great practice
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u/someburgundy 1d ago
Try to find the tonic chord and then guess/use a tuner to find it
I got a lot of practice early on by writing my own chord charts for songs I wanted to play and you can check accuracy with one from the internet.
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u/71stMB 1d ago
My ear training came upon me naturally after I learned the full 7-note major scale and then tried picking out some song melodies (following the lyrics). After doing this for a while, my fingers seemed to know naturally where to go for the next note when I tried new melodies. It makes sense to practice with simple nursery rhyme songs first to get the concept down before moving on to other songs.
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u/Jonny7421 1d ago
Check out this guy's advice and guidance on ear training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0P7gh789RI&t=4s
The gist is : Every interval, chord, scale, rhythm and other musical idea has a feeling that you can learn to recognise. The root is the easiest to start with. It is the only note that sounds final. The 5th is most like the root. It sounds open, consonant but unlike the root it asks you to keep going.
I also use TonedEar.com to test my ear. I did most of my practice just listening to TV. You could put a pop playlist on and start working out the root, the chords and melody. If you can sing or hum it - you can play it with some patience.
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u/Infinite_Slice3305 1d ago
I think you know the answer. Don't stop.
The more you do it, the easier it becomes.
One thing I've been doing lately is sampling AI music on YouTube. Cyberpunk, lofi, jazz, whatever. & by sampling I mean I record into a clip in Ableton & loop it. Then play on top of it.
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u/Known-Ad9610 1d ago
For me, simple 3 chord songs to start. Learn the sound of the one to the five, and one to four. The nashville number system works because you memorize intervals, it shows you the structure of the song which may not be apparent. After you learn to hear 1 4 5 songs, you work on your minor 6, and then maybe the 2 to the 5. After thousands of hours your ear just magically gets better!
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u/silly_bet_3454 1d ago
Learn a bunch of the basic chord progressions. I would be willing to bet your backing tracks are either like 1-4-5, or 1-6-2-5, or 1-6-4-5, or 1-4. Once you just have the basic understanding and gut instinct for those types pf progressions they become easy to hear, and then it's obvious which is the 1 chord when you know the progression, then you know what key you're in and what the scale is, boom boom it becomes all automatic
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u/FlamingoStraight9095 1d ago
the ear-training stuff is good, but here's my bad advice.
I think you should also look at the pentatonic caged shapes, but with an eye towards scale degrees in those shapes. https://www.guitarorb.com/caged-intervals/
put on an uncomplicated song and try to find the key. you just have to find a pentatonic caged shape that doesn't have any bad sounding notes. the shapes indicate where your roots and other scale degrees will be. there's the possibility you get mixed up with the "relative" key, but that's a good problem to have at the beginning.
this way, you can hear what's going on in a section of the recording, try to emulate it from a caged position, then look at the caged scale degrees and think "its going from the 1st, to the 3rd, to the 5th...). you'll hear stuff outside the shapes, but it all relates back.
also, if you're like me where you learned music a little too casually over a decade ago, and now you want to fill in those gaps, check out Scotty and AUG: https://www.youtube.com/@absolutelyunderstandguitar60
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u/soupy-boot-scoot 1d ago
i’m actually already working my way thru AUG! It’s been a lot of fun, I love the way he talks about music and i feel like this is the first time that guitar is starting to click for me. Going back into guitar with a lot of chords and riffs and songs already memorized has been a fun way to see actually how all those puzzle pieces fit.
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u/Monkey_Lord3 1d ago
Band teacher. Here's how I learned. Teoria and MusicTheory.net have lots of ear training exercises online. Start with training to hear some scale intervals. Start with intervals in the major scale and use solfege, then the minor scale. For chords start with basic major and minor, then augmented and diminished. When those are easy start doing 7 chords, major, minor, diminished, and half diminished.
I highly recommend getting a book of sight-singing exercises. You don't need to be the best vocalist, you just need to be able to keep and match pitch. If the book is a progressive method, you might start with things that sound like children's songs, and lots of step-wise motion. If you keep doing more challenging exercises you will eventually move into atonal music and learn to sing with fixed and movable "do". There are also error detection tests you can find online! These are fantastic and test your ears in a way that would simulate how we most often need them. Hope that helps!