When I first started getting serious about learning to play guitar two years ago, the thought of being able to hear a song and be able to reproduce it on the guitar without tabs or knowing the chords seemed like an impossibility.
But now it's something actually within reach. I play in a band and my drummer who also plays guitar and has more musical experience than me told me relative pitch is very much the ability to judge distance sonically. The same way that you can tell that a train is approaching closer to you by hearing it.
As I've been playing more and more, I'm starting to have a sense of the fretboard. If I can find the root note, I can sorta figure out the rest. I barely know any theory. I'm basically guessing out each note by judging their intervals between each other and associating them to the number of frets between them. I don't even know the names of the notes I'm playing. Now this may sound like nothing to veteran guitar players but for me, this is like a revelation. The more complex guitar solos, I still need to look up the tabs but the simpler ones, I can pretty much figure out what they are unless they're in weird keys or tunings.
Amazing how things just seem to come together if you keep at it long enough.
Refer to above question
i am currently playing with a kontrol s2 with traktor at home. i am using alot loops and could never stop watching the timelines and build the set more with my visual understanding.
i am workinh as a bartender and we had our xmas-party yesterday and i ended ip djing with our resident. it was so much more fun to do transitions by ear with our cdjs. i felt way more into the tracks and never had the feeling that i need to watch something or mess around with the tracks. just simple transitions with the eq and fader.
if you started out with your controller: do yourself a favour and get your hands on a setup without a laptop 🙏🏻
If possible could someone help me figure out the tabs for the main melody of this song?
Hello. I have some knowledge of music theory, but I'm a beginner at music production so I apologize in advance if this is a dumb question.
I have been watching several different Youtube producers and studio producers and each one has their own approach to creating music in their DAWs. Some lean more on music theory techniques to guide their hand and some(more so Youtube producers) seem to just place notes into the piano roll to form chords without any of the chord structure or respect of key that I'm familiar with. If it sounds good they roll with it.
Is there some knowledge I'm missing on how to form chord progressions in a DAW?( I know about major/minor/maj7/dominant/etc.)
Should my approach to music production lean more on music theory or on what sounds pleasing regardless of technique?
Thanks for the help.
...or is it just me?
So my sight-reading is quite strong, I'm very proud of it. And I've always believed in being a rounded individual but I'm not entirely convinced playing by ear is all that great. With ear playing one could pick up a simple melody and play it but that's about it.
With sheet music I can play all these amazing classics and not be limited by my ears.
What all can you do with playing by ear? Is it even worth the time investment?
Hey,
I'm a beginner, and here goes my question. I've tried beatmatching two tracks with a "monitor" and it worked more or less (can't say fine, but at least understandable). However, I'm just unable to do the same with headphones. I tried setting 70% of CUE and 30% of MASTER - nothing. I just can't understand which track is playing faster, and which is playing slower. Things get even more complex when I start the 2nd track and beats are not matching, but that's another story :)
Anyway - is there any hint on how to properly beatmatch in headphones, because I seem to miss something important that is a show stopper for me.
Thanks in advance for your input!
I've recently bought a keyboard and have only learned my major scales and chords.. I've also learned a few songs from YouTube but I want to be able to listen to something and work it out myself. Any tips or suggestions?
What has your experience been and how has it impacted your playing? Is it worth it to learn stuff by ear even when my long term goal is to play complicated polyphia typed stuff (think G.O.A.T.) that you can't really learn by ear? Or am I doubting how powerful a good ear is? What is the practical cap to what you can learn by ear?
Obligatory this happened last night. On Tuesdays I play soccer in a women's league. We had a game at 9:20pm and the fields are outside. We didn't have a goalie last night so we were taking turns rotating as keepers and it was my turn. We're doing well so I'm not seeing much action. As I'm standing at the top of the box, literally doing absolutely nothing, I feel a bug fly by my ear.
Now the normal reaction is to kind of jerk your head and shoo it away with your hand. I do this but immediately feel little insect legs in my ear canal and start having a complete freak out on the field. Here is where my fuck up begins: I'm trying to dig it out and I can feel my finger catching the end of the bug but I'm so panicked I just pushed that little fucker in even more. Luckily we had just scored so the game is at a halt as we are resetting which is fortunate considering I'm twitching and thrashing about. No one seems to be taking me seriously and one of my teammates says "well if you can't play then give me the goalie jersey and go off the field" which was rude af and doesn't help with my panic so I run off the field to the side.
The bug is fluttering like crazy in my ear and it's hard to explain just how loud it sounds and how uncomfortable it feels. Your ears have very sensitive nerves and this creature is just crawling and flapping its wings all over those nerves. I just keep shaking my head down and screaming am having a hard time calming down. At this point I'm crying I'm so panicked. THERE'S A FUCKING BUG IN MY EAR. The bug finally stops moving as much when I'm able to relax. More fuck-ups: we decide to pour water in it to maybe drown it so it'll fall out. I'm imagining it's a fly or something of the same size. This doesn't work and just creates really bad pressure. A teammate uses a flashlight to look and says that she sees "pieces of a bug" so that it is "for sure dead." So I figure the sounds I'm hearing/feeling is either the wind making the "pieces" inside move or the water is moving inside (you can see where this is going). After much debate we decide that I should go to the ER and let a professional remove it.
A kind friend orders me an Uber to take me to the ER and I finally get to the doctor. She looks in my ear and says that she can't really see much but she'll get some supplies. I'm starting to get extremely pissed off that people don't believe there is really something in there. She starts the removal process with those scissor/tweezers that are be
... keep reading on reddit ➡Then he mutters under his breath "I'd rather use my fingers"
Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be relearning piano after I was forced to as a kid and hated it so much my parents finally gave up. 🤣
In my memory, I played a lot of intermediate classical pieces for maybe 6 years or so? I know the BASIC basics like scales but I’ve lost my grasp on how to sight read. I can’t just read a page and sit down and play it and that’s what I’d like to be able to do. Or maybe it’s more realistic to try to play sheet music I can at least hear on YouTube first.
I’d also LOVE to take my favorite radio songs and be able to play my own version. I’ve gotta be honest that I’ve always kinda hated music theory- but if I have to learn it to be able to play by ear, I’ll do it.
I’ve learned over time that I love to learn through books. Videos just... I don’t know, they just get added to a list of videos that I know I should watch but never sit down and do it. I’ll be self teaching and I’ve heard that makes a difference in which books to look at. Really appreciate any recommendations you all may have! Thank you so much!!
Playing by ear is a really big goal for me. I'd really love to hear a tune and just be able to play along with the chords, solo over it or just create an arrangement so I can play it by myself without an accompaniment.
If you can play by ear, how did you get proficient? Did you just play along with records? Did you do any exercises to help?
I get frustrated playing along with records because sometimes the guitar part is hard to hear or I get stuck on 1 chord that I can't figure out. Any tips you guys have would be really appreciated.
I'm new as a techno DJ (but working on it for a few months) and will have the first gig in a next few weeks. I'm wondering if you prepare tracks (same bpm) before the gig or just adjusting bpm looking on a counter or beatmatching by ear while playing? Maybe it's a stupid question but when I'm looking at some Dj's on Youtube videos, they usually don't touch velocity slider.
So I've been trying to pick up some songs by ear lately, and as it is mostly metal, the guitars are oftentimes very hard to hear making it pretty difficult to figure out what's going on.
My solution?Watching the artists play live, which sometimes help, when the footage is clean and well-shot.But that doesn't happen very often.
So i started watching covers of people playing to kind of figure out where everything is happening on the fretboard, and I started asking myself if that doesn't ruin the whole purpose of playing by ear, like, is this basically seeing tabs with extra steps or I can still reap the benefits of ear training this way?
I'd love to hear your inputs in this.
I’m an experienced musician with a jazz background. I know how to read music and basic theory but have gotten by for many years playing mostly by ear. I had lessons a bit in school but theory wasn’t really emphasized and I never understood how it all connected. I’ve gotten back to playing more as an adult and want to take my playing further by finally learning and internalizing more theory. Problem is— I’m still confused after looking through some old texts of mine and the sidebar of recommendations. It’s like it’s written for an entirely different group of people than how my brain works. Does anyone have any specific theory recommendations for experienced musicians who have relied more on their ears?
