Can You Play By Ear?

Rigsby

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

I have known people who refuse to use tabs and only play by ear but they don't always get it 100% .It would annoy me not knowing exactly the right chord and/or riff.

You wont always get it 100% correct with tabs either. Lots of tabs on the net are put there by ordinary "joe soaps" and not the original artist.

Red Sleeping Beauty

I know. I've even seen horrible mistakes in "official" books. What I'm saying is I use both methods

cautioner

I used nothing but tabs when I started (2~3 years ago); lately, however, sometimes I find I'm just messing about and I'll suddenly think "Hey, that sounds like..." and if I'm lucky I'll accidentally figure out a song So yes, sometimes I can sit down and figure out a song on my own, and it's immensely satisfying too. More often I'll need to resort to terrible tabs online.

stevejazzx

in my later years playing jazz i find that I sould've been doing it a lot more..there's a great app for the iphone called karajan which is kind of an ear exam training thing, very helpful and a good test..try getting 100% right!

in jazz you simply have to have to have a good ear and also an ear that's ready for different sounds ready to process them and understand. try playing a whole tone scale over anything, that spacey progressive sound is very challenging..think of alan holdsworth or something like that

interesting that people still think that the minor melodic scale sounds 'wrong' yet it's fundamental in the jazz sound..listen to pat martino in particualr, he 'minorises' everything!

it's hard to believe how good/accurate some musicians ears can get
when metheny improvising it is awesome the sounds he hears over the chords he blows me away..he can translate that immediately onto the fretboard..john coltrane is another step further along, playing outside takes a really special understanding..when improvising they say that a great jazz musician can process multiple chord (trans)positions every second!

Fingers Mcginty

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

I know. I've even seen horrible mistakes in "official" books. What I'm saying is I use both methods

+1 on that....Picked up the official SRV 82 and 85 Montreaux concerts on tab.....lots of mistakes on the leads. Slowing it down with software is what i do these days with the cover band suff

Piste

Because it's really hard to get free piano sheet music for popular modern songs I usually have to rely on my ears. It can be annoying as often the bass of the piano is drowned out by bass guitar. Guitarists have it easy, you can get tabs for everything

Red Sleeping Beauty

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

+1 on that....Picked up the official SRV 82 and 85 Montreaux concerts on tab.....lots of mistakes on the leads. Slowing it down with software is what i do these days with the cover band suff

Slowing the song down on a computer like ?
Interesting, good one. I think you can buy some kind of "trainers" that play CDs but can slow it down.

freshcream

I use tabs for really boring songs or songs that I don't like (cover versions for the band) but if I like a song, I learn by ear and it generally doesen't take long and stays with me for a long time where as a tune learned from tab can be gone outta my head in less than a month.

Although I do check tabs sometimes mostly for reassurance after I have learned the song.

I don't think we would have as many guitarists out there if it weren't for tab though, my son and all his mates play guitar seems like everybody does these days.(not well though)

A Primal Nut

I find it impossible to play by ear - I've tried learning stuff, even basic chord progressions but I always get it wrong. Then again, I can't sing either. Probably tone deaf or something.

DeadSkin

I find it very difficult to play by ear. I try, but then laziness takes over if I'm being honest.
I must say though, without tab I would have never picked up the guitar.
Tab is an excellent tool that can be used for starting off. When I started off, I just wanted to play a few recognisable riffs and tab was the way.