Make Your Ears Awesome: Kick-Starter (Free Lessons)

How does figuring out a song by ear even work?

It’s similar to singing or humming a song you’ve heard on the radio. You hear a melody, you remember it, you sing or hum it. Of course, instead of singing or humming, we’ll use our guitar to reproduce the melody.

Here’s the exact step-by-step plan:

1. Put away your guitar and listen to the melody

Really, don’t touch that thing! Now listen to the melody a few times to get a rough idea of what it sounds like. Check if you can hum it along with the recording.

2. Listen and remember the very first note

Listen closely to the first note of the melody and ‘record’ it in your brain. It can be easier to focus on that first note, by pausing the recording right after it is played. Check if you’ve ‘recorded’ the note by humming it.

3. Hum the note and find it on the fretboard

As you’re humming the note, play a note on the fretboard. Is the note you’re humming higher? Lower? Adjust until you find the right note. In this course, I’ll give you a few options for where the note can be, so simply play each one and listen to which one sounds like what you’re humming

That’s it! Once you’ve found the note simply hit the right button and move on to the next note. After a while, you might find you don’t need to always hum the note. That’s completely fine of course. But when in doubt: hum that note!