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Archive for the ‘guitar ear training’ Category

Learning guitar solos by ear  is hard work.  I remember many years ago, a friend of mine managed to secure a copy of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar solo to Smoke On the  Water slowed down to half space.  Suddenly we could hear how clean his runs were and how many notes he was actually playing.

I still love playing that solo note for note because it was the first real guitar solo that I ever  learned and the great thing was that it taught me so much about phrasing, light and shade and what notes not to play.  And I have to say that without being able to listen to the guitar solo at half pace I would never have attempted to study it the way I did.

Fast forward a quarter of a century or so and learning guitar solos is still a challenging and time consuming process – but technology has zoomed way past whatever reel to reel tape system my friend accessed to get that solo slowed down.

A great piece of software on the market is the recently updated Riffmaster Pro.

Riffmaster Pro saves hours of time and frustration by instantly enabling you to

• Slow down music to a pace you can play Without changing the pitch
• slow down Mp3, slow down Wav,wma,Mp4 , Ogg Vorbis and AFF files directly from your computer
• play any Riff or phrase over and over
• Zoom right into the wave allowing  You to find the exact phrase you want to work on(down to the note)
•  Save your own user settings
• Slow down an entire song so you can play along at your pace.
• Change the key of a music file for convenience
• Rip audio directly off a cd and save as mp3 or wav.
• Save a slowed down loop for training purposes
• Transcribe music of any song (tab or transcribe what you hear)

The benefits of Riffmaster Pro are simply awesome.

• You can master ANY Guitar solo faster than ever before
• You can master Any Guitar Riff faster ever before
• You can master the Chords To Any Song faster than ever before
• You can build and maintain Amazing speed of Any solo or riff
• You can master difficult phrasing like never before
• You can master any guitar solo, lick or riff Note for Note.
• You can learn the lyrics to Any song quickly
• You will discover the Magic of “Playing By Ear”
• You will learn any song Fast
• You can transcribe music of any song FAST

Riffmaster Pro is the Perfect Speed & Ear Training tool for all musicians  -from raw beginners to advanced.  I have bought this for myself – simply as a teaching tool to help me quickly teach students their favorite riffs, solos and tunes.

This is the shortcut to playing good quality guitar solos – slow down guitar solos learn them and increase the speed to full tempo as you master the solo.

I highly recommend Riffmasterpro

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Beginners learning guitar should ideally focus on getting the basics right.
Learning the Guitar in many respects can be likened to building a house.  You must lay true foundations so that you can build your guitar technique and your playing ability consistently.
Beginner guitar player’s must concentrate on the basics – learning to hold the guitar properly – thumb positioning for the left hand willl vary greatly depending on what type of guitar and style that you want to play.  Classical guitar players especially MUST pay attention to this, while Rock players would do well to realize that their left hand thumb will be required to hold notes down occassionally.
The names and sounds of the notes that you learn are especially important – be sure to invest in a tuner so that you play in tune all the time.  You are learning music, not gymnastics – you must learn to recognize what each note and chord sounds like.
Make sure that you learn how to replace a string.
Really concentrate on holding down chords properly and train your right hand to “automatically” strum in various feels and times.
But above all, make sure that it is fun, when you enjoy what you do, you will learn more quickly.

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Watching great musicians jam is one of the most magical experiences that the ordinary mortal can have the pleasure of witnessing.  They seem to be able to follow each other through key changes, mood and tempo swings almost as if they’re reading each other’s mind.

The truth is that they’re not magical – gifted definitely, but in the large part the gift is a learned skill.  It’s the ability to recognise the tone and pitch of the note instantly with ears trained to do it.

So how do you learn to recognise pitch?

The first step is to make suer that you always play in tune – not just with yourself – AT CONCERT PITCH!

This may mean investing in a guitar tuner.  Take it from me it’s the best investment you will ever make.  

Once you’ve got your tuner, make sure that when you tune up make sure that you can hear those six notes as you tune them – you want to know what those six notes sound like.  It’s the first building block to successful ear training.

From there it’s a step by step process of recognising how different notes and chords sound.  Its a gradual process and the key is to concentrate on what you’re doing, by concentrate  I mean really listen to the chords and notes that you play.  I’ve even gone to the step of recording chord progressions  and playing them in the car over and over again, with a voice over saying “G chord” and playing several bars then Cm chord and playing several bars – its probably not as entertaining as your current music selection but it helps you learn to hear and that’s one of the key ingredients to really being able to play the guitar.

A great short cut to training your ears is this very affordable ear training power course only recently release, the course will help you train those ears to recognize melodies, chords and progressions and play them on your guitar right after hearing them. And it significantly reduces the amount of time necessary to figure out solos and songs.

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Technorati Tags: ear training for guitar, guitar ear training, guitar perfect pitch, guitar tuning program, guitareartraining

This might sound silly but what do you want to do with the guitar? Think about it – what is it that you want to achieve – do you want to impress your mates because you can play their favorite song note perfect?  Do you want to sit around the campfire and sing Bob Dylan songs, Do you want to play in a hot jazz combo or play red hot guitar like Steve Vai or Steve Morse.  Do you just want to wail away and play the blues?  Maybe you want to be a classical guitar player.  Whatever it is- crystallize it and focus upon it. THEN WRITE IT DOWN IN BIG BOLD LETTERS THAT YOU'RE GOING TO SEE EVERYDAY It might sound corny but it is a psychological trigger that reminds you of what you want to do – it reminds you that you have to practice to reach your goal. So how often should you practice? – regularly and often is a pretty glib answer but it's the truth as I know it, but it's only half the truth. There is no point in practicing what you know – with one exception and I'll get to that in a minute. Set yourself an aim of perfecting what you almost know – concentrate on the things you aren't getting right – they are the pieces you learn from and improve with.  Aim to learn one piece at a time – get it right then move on – as your repertoire goes and your ears and technique improve you will be amazed at how many songs you can pick up instantly. Remember that you are training yourself to become a musician – not a mechanic.  Your ears need to be trained.  It is absolutely vital that you keep your guitar tuned. It's a simple tip but many guitarists starting out look at it as a sport or a mechanical exercise and they don't tune the guitar but boy can they play fast, regrettably in alternating strange keys that musicians can't actually find. This is why you play scales – to train your fingers – sure – but more importantly to train your ears.  If there is one thing you do should do every day it is practice your scales (and preferably arpeggios) for at least fifteen minutes and listen to what your playing.  You have to know what the notes in the scale of G major sound like just as much as knowing where your fingers go.  If you open your ears while you play scales it becomes an interesting exercise – playing them at he speed of light has its place – but that should be your final aim.  Good technique and trained ears are much more important. Allocate time each day to practice and stick to it.  It will even help if your the undisciplined type like myself to set a program like this example

• 20 minutes scales
• 20 minutes arpeggios
• 20 minutes 2- 5-1 progressions
• 30 minutes Van Halen licks
• 30 minutes Chord inversions
• 30 minutes picking technique
• 10 minutes scales
• 10 minutes arpeggios

Yes I know that's nearly three hours but that's reasonable for a serious musician – in fact it's nowhere near enough if you want to reach the top, but its probably long enough to take a break before getting back into another session and of course, your regime may be entirely different – that's up to you – but you need to be disciplined and strong about this.  Remember your goal and go for it.

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When I started playing guitar many years ago I fell for perhaps the silliest trap that I could fall for. For some reason, I thought that if I could master the chord positions and get my left hand to move fast I would have mastered the guitar and be entertaining and amazing my friends in no time flat. As a result, I wasted an inordinate amount of time solely focusing on my left hand technique. Boy, was I dumb. Playing the guitar in many ways can be likened to driving a car.  Your left hand steers the course and the right hand provides the momentum, the brakes and the gear changes.  One is useless without the other . Imagine sitting in your car, with your hands on the steering wheel, with the motor running and no means of putting the car in gear or having the means to move but no steering capacity.  Each element needs the other to make it work properly. So how do you consistently build both techniques? At the risk of sounding boring, I find scales to be the most effective means of improving both hands' technique, while at the same time training my ears to hear the right notes.  Yes, I know that some people say you don't need to play guitar scales, but I'm yet to see a pro who doesn't know theirs backwards, sideways and upside down! You don't need to spend a lot of time each day – maybe 15 – 30 minutes at first, but the idea is to concentrate completely on getting your technique right during those periods.  Start slowly and focus upon the following points

• getting your left hand's fingers to land exactly behind the fret ensuring that each note sounds crisp and clear
• Whatever right hand technique you choose make sure that you are getting it right.  If it's classical rest stroke make sure you alternate your index and median figures on each note – if it's alternate rock picking as favoured by virtuosos like Steve Morse make sure that each note is picked in the opposite direction to the last.  This is easier said then done and requires concentration in the early stages.
• Listen completely to each note as you play it.  Say the note out loud to emphasise the point
• Work with a metronome to get your right hand trained to working in time
• FORGET ABOUT SPEED until you have your basics mastered than gradually build over time.  You cant play fast unless your technique is sound with both hands.  To attempt to play fast before you are ready is like trying to drive while under the influence.  You might fool yourself but you won't fool anybody else

In summary, what you need to do is to view your guitar as an instrument that requires total control  with both hands.  Focusing on basic technique with both hands is the solid foundation for good guitar playing.

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