Listening advice

[LocustXReign]

Ok old timers (and I say that in the most affectionate manner I can),

Any tips on dissecting songs by ear? I've always thought I had a pretty solid ear, but if anyone has a tried and true formula or procedure for figuring out guitar parts in full (I want the proper chords! True to the original song!), please fill me in.

I find I either over complicate chord shapes, or over simplify them; especially on blues based classic rock stuff (IE Humble Pie, the Faces)

Any help is greatly appreciated!

-DB

[epluribus]

It can be tough till you get to know the genre. You mention elaborate chord shapes--easy to overdo it till you see the veteran players and find out if they do it with power chords, simple triads, partial barres, etc. Back in the day you acquired such things either by jamming or by seeing guys play live, and then you could see the scale postions and chord shapes to kind of point you in the right direction.

But till you got to know the tricks of the trade, (for example the partial barres/fills common to southern gospel and funk) you had to sit down and really listen to what was being played and what your version sounded like. (Stairway to Heaven is utterly notorious for betraying lazy ear players.) A very tedious way to do it, but absolutely lights-out ear training. I can't recommend the technique enough, even if you supplement your work with tabs. Also does wonders for your fluency in creating tone and voicings with your hands, not to mention all the nuances of each instrument.

Live acts are harder to find these days, but YouTube is an incredible resource. Even a blurry image will tell you where a guy is on the neck, how big the chords are, etc. You can also see if he's playing three-finger box patterns, alt-picking, soloing away from the changes, playing fills within the chords--stuff like that.

But once you learn the general style, say southern gospel, you'll start picking up other southern gospel tunes in a heartbeat. A remarkable part of it is just learning the moves. Of course it sure doesn't hurt to overlay the physical technique with solid theory once you put it all together--literacy is a wonderful thing.

--Ray

...and then of course after you master the "right way," then you'll merrily toss all that knowledge out the window and find an even cooler new way to do it. :BEER

[shane88]

often name players say the trans they see are nothing like what they played + near enough is good enough as far as i'm concerned + i can't play stairway anyway

but live vids are a cool tool even if the player isn't playin the same thing as on the record :roll and changes are mostly generic anyhoo

[Tone_Terrific]

As a vast generalization, try to play the riff in the simplest way possible. Many times I have been surprised by how easy it is to play something the right way in terms of position, tuning, etc.
OTOH, when you think something else is going on that you are not catching, it's almost always true, too. EX.: Sweet Home Ala is much more than a 3 chord song.

[shihanderek]

When it comes to pop/rock, imo the bass is the key. Generally bass players in those genres are playing roots or 5ths. Pretty easy to figure out chords from there and then hearing what chord type can pretty easily be done by knowing how to harmonize a major scale (I=major, ii= minor, iii=minor, etc). Since most pop/rock tunes stay diatonic, or within the same key, you may get an oddball chord or two, but for the most part they stick to formula.

Even bands like Steely Dan or the Police are pretty diatonic, they just use different voicings, chord qualities and less common progressions to get their unique sounds. Good luck

[nnick]

In addition to the above posts, listen to the songs with headphones. You can usually hear whats going on a bit easier.

[loudboy]

As a vast generalization, try to play the riff in the simplest way possible. Many times I have been surprised by how easy it is to play something the right way in terms of position, tuning, etc.


That's the truth.

Make sure you've got the correct tuning, also.

Examples: Jealous Again, by the Black Crowes. Open G, simple as can be. Impossible in standard tuning.

She Talks To Angels - Open E, can't play it standard.

Brown Sugar - Open G, you can play it in standard, but it'll never sound right.

[kludge]

Brown Sugar - Open G, you can play it in standard, but it'll never sound right.

"Five strings, three notes, two fingers, and one asshole" - Keith Richards

[stevel]

Ok old timers (and I say that in the most affectionate manner I can),

Any tips on dissecting songs by ear? I've always thought I had a pretty solid ear, but if anyone has a tried and true formula or procedure for figuring out guitar parts in full (I want the proper chords! True to the original song!), please fill me in.

I find I either over complicate chord shapes, or over simplify them; especially on blues based classic rock stuff (IE Humble Pie, the Faces)

Any help is greatly appreciated!

-DB

1. Cheat! By that I mean, go ahead and try to use your ear to figure it out, but then go back and check yourself against TAB or other source so you can see where you went wrong.

2. Use TAB, etc. to learn songs. Even though you're not using your ear at the time, you will hear things you haven't noticed before when playing things "right" (and usually I go "Oh, so that's how he did it!").

3. Download (and buy if you like) Transcribe! You can select just a single chord and loop it, slow it down, EQ it to get rid of other instruments and so on so you can figure out all of the components of a chord. Again, it's a little like "cheating" but you're using your ear, just at a slower pace. As time goes on, you'll find it get easier to do things "at speed".

4. Work on your ear-training. This has helped me amazingly. It cuts down the amount of trial and error and process of elimination time.

5. Try listening to things on different sound systems. The stereo in my wife's car and my car are totally different and I hear totally different things in each! Sometimes I'll be like "I never noticed that note before" and it turns out to be some guitar note that makes some otherwise odd riff into an "oh, that's what he's doing" moment again.

6. Also, try to recognize different guitar timbres and isolate them. After 20 or so years, I just yesterday noticed what the guitar is actually doing in "Low Rider" by war. There IS a guitar part that's not going what the bass part is doing in that song, and most people never notice it.

7. Also, avoid trying to figure out songs with 2 guitarists who play in "mesh" style. The Rolling Stones are notorious for this. A lot of times, it's hard to distinguish what Keith and Ron (or Brian) are doing because they tend to play very distinct parts, that "meld" into a single part. Aerosmith is another band who has this issue to me (and not all of the songs of either artist necessarily). HOWEVER, if you're lucky, a lot of times one guitar will be on the left side, and the other on the right, so you can isolate one more easily by panning. Whihc brings up:

8. Don't forget panning! Sometimes a guitar part is on one side or the other, and you can pan your audio playback device to eliminate the information you don't want.

9. Videos! I don't know how many times I couldn't figure something out and then I saw a video (live footage for example) and was like "oh, so that's what he's doing!". You just have to watch out - obvously "Video" videos don't necessarily show real footage of playing, and live videos can have different improvisations, but in most cases, a picture is worth a thousand listenings.

10. Try live versions of the recordings if you can find them. Sometimes, a poorly mixed guitar in the studio version is much more obvious in a live clip, and that can help you out.

10's a nice round number. I'll stop there.

Happy Transcribing,

Steve