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Catching Up II...

    Playing by ear is the most popular way of learning Guitar - Either you can't read tablature that well of you are intimidated by theory enough to where you don't want to learn theory. The bass guitarist usually play the root note of The chord that the Guitarist is playing. You must realize that when a band plays a song - they stay in one Key usually, The best way to learn by ear is to first listen to the song as much as you can - A song must be in your head before you can play it - This goes for Happy Birthday or Purple haze - The fact is that it can take you a month or more to pick up a song, and some songs you just will never learn to play or you'll be sick of it by the time you have it in your head.

    The best way is to learn what chords go with what Keys - Another thing is to write down the Chord patterns as you figure them out. The bass note of a chord (Root Note) is the easiest Note to hear amongst all of the noise of a song. That ONE note will be either a Major Chord or a Minor Chord.

    If you find One Major Chord - Then you have found One minor chord, and vise versa as well. Each Minor and Major Chord has a Mate- ANY Minor chord has a Major Chord that goes with it and ANY Major Chord has a minor chord.

    Lets say that you find a "G Major" chord - The minor chord that ALWAYS goes with G Major is "E Minor" so if you find a G major then you know that an E minor chord is in that song too - OR if you find an "E minor" then you know that song will have a G Major in it as well.

    Just about EVERY chord of a song can be determined by using just the Biggest string on your guitar. Just fish around on the Big E string until you find a Note that you hear in the song. Now play a major chord there and a minor chord there - you will be able to tell if that chord is in the song or not. You can even just keep playing that chord until it you hear that chord again - most Songs use only 3 - 10 chords for a song , Songs use the same chord changes over and over, so when you learn the first verse - you've learned most of the song because it will play that same pattern over and over.

    The best thing to know about learning by ear is that your slow progress is normal - and it may take you several hours to learn a verse, Learning by ear is just what it says - by ear. Listening to the song 100 times or more is acceptable - and if you listen to a song 100 times, you'll either be sick of the song and not want to play it anymore or you will start hearing the song. But nothing will compare if you learn theory - I know that if I hear a G Major chord, that there are three choices as to the Key that it is in - and when the Key is determined, then you know what 28 chords are possible for that song. Of those 28 chords - Three are Major and Three are minor, usually a song is made up of just major and minor chords.

other helpful Ideas:

(1) Keep the volume mix between the radio or tape player pretty much even - If your playing too loud then you won't hear what the band is playing, and if your guitar is too low then you wont hear if you play the right chords or notes.

(2) Play it again and again and again and again and again and again.....

(3) Listen to the song - If your listening to the song and you start thinking about your girlfriend or your car then you are not listening to the song. Total concentration is needed when you are "Listening" to a song - Playing guitar has alot to do with listening.

(4) hum along with the song in your head - Its good to hum along with everything that you play or are listening too - You don't have to even hum it loud, Just in your head.

(5) Make sure your guitar is in tune to the song that you are learning, There are more than a few ways to tune your guitar but Standard tuning is by far the most popular, If you hear a Flat (b) or Sharp (#) chord then that song is probably tuned down a Half-Step. Its almost impossible to learn a song if they are tuned in standard and your tuned down a half-step (Or forbid if they are using an open tuning)

(6) Learn the basic Chords and how to move them around - There are only about ten chords that you really need to know, with those ten chords you can just about play anything.   

(7) Practice one song for at least an hour at a time  - trying to learn a song and not playing it but for five minutes is not good if you want to learn the song - Its hard work learning a song but once you have 10-12 songs that you can play then you will be excited about playing guitar and you will start seeing that songs use the same scales and chords over and over. 

(8) Learn the song you want to play by heart - Just singing along does not qualify - you should be able to write out the words of the song without listening to it! Try IT - If you can't write out the words to the song you want to learn, then you don't know it well enough to play it well.

(9) Listen to the Song without letting your mind wander - If you find your self thinking about eggs or swimming in pudding while you're listening, then Start Over! CONCENTRATION IS A MUST.

     Other than all that, it just takes time and a desire to learn  - If you are learning to impress people, you will eventually give up. If you really want to learn to play well then you will realize that there is no great secret to learning, the secret is time, patience and practice practice practice.