How do you go about learning a tune by ear?

[Carlos Polidura]

I sing it.

[Fred Treece]

Singing the song ruins it for me, because my voice goes hopelessly flat. What IS that note between C and C#, anyway?

One more thing I do is try to find the bass note that sounds like it might be the key note in the song. If I can find that, learning the chord progression is much easier because usually the song will center around that chord. And the melody can be found in the chord triads, especially the key chord. If that is “fiddling around with scales and pockets”, then I am guilty as charged.

[J D Sauser]

As the thread title says, I'm wondering how different people go about learning a tune from a recording.

I've learned Aloha Oe Blues from Stacy Phillips' transcription, but that is just the first half of the recording. The second half is similar and I have mostly worked it out on the fly. And then there is Sol Hoopii's version - particularly his solo the second time through! Such tasteful playing! I haven't gotten much of that at all yet.

Do folks just slow the tune down and learn section by section? Do you transcribe as you go? Are there other techniques in missing?

Thanks!

I think I need to elaborate and clarify some on what I posted earlier:

It seems that from the birth of the 20th Century “everybody” wants to “play by ear”, but increasingly, NOBODY seems to find it worth while anymore to LISTEN.

Learning to make music by ear starts AWAY from the instrument. Becoming conscious of the tune, able to hum or “scat” sing it, becoming very aware of the “directions” the melody takes (up or down). When you can sing it, you've LEARNED the tune, line or solo.
Showers, laying in bed watching the ceiling, driving and traveling are good moments to do that.

Then, finding the progression would seem a good further step.
Evidently, one would have to have the ability to “lay out” a progression in any key on the fretboard to take advantage of that knowledge.

Everything else, like jumping right at the axe and try to “fiddle” around scales or pockets is NOT playing by ear.

In parallel, one should have a good understanding of chords ON the instrument and having practiced enough to recognice at least SOME sound and patterns once they are heard, analized and concious.

… JD.

I wrote this on my phone and tried to keep it "short".

What's evidently missing is, HOW do I put that to use on the instrument, once I have learned to scat, hum or sing a tune, line or solo?

Maurice Anderson would first have his students "ORGANIZE THAT NECK", as he called it.
Maurice Anderson from whom I took some eye-opening lessons, was (like Jerry Byrd too) a VERY conscious improvisor, maybe a contrast to people like Buddy Emmons who could not seem to recall "what they were thinking".
Maurice could EXPLAIN anything he played and WHY it fell into place where he played it.

To understand that, we need to go back to "hearing" and "feelings".
Let's take the example of Blues, which is arguably the foundation to modern American Music which has opened the field of improvisation.
When we hear people like BB King play the Blues, we "hear" some repeating "emotions". We may think "it's just Blues scale" (BS! it's much more than that) or "feel blue notes" or "see" or perceive colors.

While Bebop educator Barry Harris would theorize that music's "what was first, the egg or the hen?, whether chords or the scale and that it was scales... I understand his argument as a pianist and somebody who taught wind musicians too.

BUT, the steel guitar, unless one tries a tuning like JB's "Diatonic", is a CHORD based instrument.
Even Paul Franklin who in his early career was said to be scale and modes player, in his current online course seems to suggest that really he had come to grips that the chordal approach to understanding and navigating THIS instrument seems more "natural".

Modern Chords will use "cocktails" of notes out of most if not all 12 semitones available.

SO..., to apply what we've learned to sing on the steel, we ought to learn to hear what the steel is "saying". We need to learn some positions on our instrument within 12 frets (an octave), 3 or 4, fairly evenly laid out where we can find chord tones line up (minor or Major triads + some tension notes, like a 6th, b7th, M7th or 9th) we can work off.
Then, EXPLORE CONSCIOUSLY.

I like to use "BB-King"-style Blues, because I like it and I "feel" it.
It's generally not too fast either and full of repeating patterns I seem to identify (learn in my head) fairly easily.
Here's a typical sound of Blues that goes like this:

Chord degrees: high 1, b7-slide down to 6th, 5, 4, M3, 5.

In C the notes would be: High C, Bb-to-A, G, F, E, G.

On a tuning like A6th, C6th or E13th (E add 6th) you HAVE the degrees: 1, M3, 5, and 6 and a high 1. The added slur from the b7th to 6th you execute with the bar. Same with the walk down from 4 to M3.

This line, can be turned around in MANY, MANY ways... but what protrudes is the b7-6th slurr which says "BLUES" aloud.
Instrument "EAR"-training is to IDENTIFY this "sound", this "feel" and associate them to degrees. Because when we go to other chords, DEGREES will ALWAYS say the same, while the note names will constantly change.

In other words... learning to "PLAY BY EAR", unless it came to us "naturally" and most likely at a very young age, is a process of conscious association. Exploration and association. Once we associate it all, and only then, may we go an forgit'abouit it all and "just" play.


WHERE to find these positions to play from besides the obvious one?

Assuming any Major 6th tuning one has to understand the following:
- it has a relative minor starting that the 6th degree. In C6th that would be Am7th. IF you go up 3 frets, you have the original chord now as minor7th.
Instead of a 6th you now have the b7 and if you need a M3 you need to raise the m3rd a half step (1 fret)... which is Blues is a VERY typical "blue"-note movement.
- another 7 frets from there (NO, NOT fret numbers, fret DISTANCES! So you learn it ONCE for ALL 12 chords!), which is 2 frets below the octave, you have what Jeff Newman called "The 2-Below-Positions) with the degrees:
b7, 9th, 4 (which can be lowered with the bar nicely (as in the line played above to M3 with a nudge of the bar), 5 and b7

there is a 4th position 4 frets above the 2nd and thus 3 frets below the "2-Below", but I would leave that for exploration later on. It's easier to understand when one has like a PSG C6th with an F (which will function as the root to that position. But for the mean time, for a "simple" 6th-tuning like most non-pedal players have on their 6, 7 and 8 string guitar, above are the easiest to associate positions to start exploring from.

The next step, once this map is hammered in, is to "see it" move up a 4th underneath which ever position one is playing, and once moving to that chord up a 4th to "see" that map unfold or roll out to the left and right of the current playing position. Once one has that under command, one is well ahead of most who still have to buy more and more tab.

I hope to be able to find the time to lay this out in video some day, but meanwhile I hope it gives the direction I got from Maurice, whom I miss dearly.


... J-D.

[Fred Treece]

JD,
Everything you are laying out in your posts involves what has been mentioned as “learning the instrument”. To me, this is equally important as “learning music (theory)”, and being able to listen to music critically or analytically, all of which directly feed into “learning a song by ear”.

You can certainly try to learn a song by ear without any of that knowledge. I am sure you either are or have known someone who has a natural talent for it. For most people it won’t amount to much of anything beyond noodling around on one or two strings until you just happen to land on the right sequence of notes - no matter what instrument you are noodling around on.

All the diatonic notes in a given key are on the I, IV, and V positions of C6 (or any major 6 tuning). I would start a student with songs that stay in the same key and have no non-diatonic notes. Forget about nuance and expression at first. Do the science, then do the art.

[David Matzenik]

While I have noted that some members disparage the use of TABs, in the beginning I found them useful in getting to know some tunes quickly. However, they became very useful when I began transcribing and making my own Tabs. This is a process of learning phrases by ear and writing it down within an established chord progression. Such analysis forces the scribe to ask "why" and "how" does this fit the chord. In the process, I got to know my tuning fairly well, and learned some basic theory. Of course there will be complications like establishing the original tuning, but there are ways to work around those pesky details.

I have to add that I find the disparaging of written music since the 1960s, to be fatuous. Prior to that date, every place of public gathering had a piano, and the stool was often a box full of sheet music. Many people had the abilty to play from music and people would gather around a sing popular favourites. They were the sheet music market and they knew how to have fun. But now we have generations who think they are all going to be musical geniuses by not learning to read. Well, good luck to them, but we are not all gifted.

[Fred Treece]

Couldn’t agree with you more, David. All the ways of learning music have value. Oddly enough, after I learned how to read music, I grew able to hear it in more detail and playing by ear improved noticeably. It also added to the mounting pile of disappointing evidence that I was not a born genius.

[Bryce Van Parys]

When I was studying Classical Double Bass as a major in college, I would use bow am open drone string and practice my interval shifts in the dark. To this day, I find I listen much more carefully and play way better in tune with my eyes closed. I think there is a distinctly different neuro-pathway from the ears to the music from the eyes. I also find that if I read a chart, it stays on the page, whereas if I learn it by ear I "own" the song

So, while it may not be easy to do a drone string on a steel like you can on a bowed instrument, the concept is the same. Perhaps set up a backing track with a drone chord or note, and practice your tuning and chord movement with your eyes closed. Or better yet, in a dark room. You'll find yourself listening much better and playing better in tune as a result. Buddy Emmons talked about playing with his eyes closed, as did Jaco Pastorius on fretless bass guitar, not coincidentally

[David DeLoach]

I have found an indirect benefit of playing scale and arpeggio exercises is that your brain begins to associate - visually - a string/fret on the fingerboard with a sound/note.

As I learn a new tuning on lap steel, the more time I spend figuring out where the major and pentatonic scales are as well as the basic arpeggios, I find myself "knowing" where to go on a fret/string for the particular note I'm hearing in my head.