How do you folks learn songs?

[ubetcha]

Whatever works for you. My pinky is about useless, but from constant practice I can make my thumb wrap around & I first learned about it from watching Ritchie Havens, and Jimi Hendrix play ..back in the day. Hey, I'll steal whatever I can use. All of my guitars that I play for any length of time, will get finish wear on the topside of the neck, where my thumb is walking up the frets. Sometimes you'll find a used axe with that wear pattern, and you know that it belonged to a thumbs kinda guy. My old Slingerland Songster is now so worn, that I can feel the fretboard joint when I'm playing...so I rarely play it anymore. I don't want to re-finish it.

[zenday]

Yea ritchie havens wraps that thumb like its nobodys biz

I learned through a combination of Tablature and Listening to CD;s rewinding over and over and over lol

i wish i could read though..

[chazmo]

 Yeah, tablature has really helped me figure out some of the things I've had trouble with lately.  I wonder if I could pick up something complex like a Leo Kottke song for my 12-string...  Doubt it.

[ChuckE99]

I'll never be able to learn complex solos because I don't have the patience to slow them down or read tabs or even practice slowly to bring up my speed, and I don't have the technical dexterity. Yes, I know, that's how to do it. For me, since I understand keys patterns, I figure out where the main key is, then hope all the notes are in there somewhere. I used to have a devil of a time with minor key solos that throw in the major 6th (in theory speak, the dorian scale) since I believed that every minor scale should be aeolean. But now I love that major 6th, along with its minor 7th. So that's where my brain is. My fingers are less sophisticated and I end up making a bunch of noise.

Hey! Want to hear me play a solo? I have some songs posted on my web site and this one is all-solo, in homage to Frank Zappa:

http://www.chucke.com/mp3/Chuck_Evans_chucke.com_s econd_song_on_side_a.mp3

There's another there, called "Spanish Rice" that is as close as I ever came to guitar heaven. It was me on guitar, a friend on fretless bass and an amazing drummer:

http://www.chucke.com/mp3/Chuck_Evans_chucke.com_s panish_rice.mp3

FYI, both of those solos are played on my Ibanez MC400NT.

You can pick through a whole bunch of my original songs at my main MP3 page:

http://www.chucke.com/mp3.asp

The first song on the page (Death Castle) is really crude, and is there just because it is one of the first recordings I ever made (1976), so don't judge the rest by that one. They get better.

-Chuck

[zenday]

nice jams chucke!

[ubetcha]

Chuck, don't underrate yourself. Good sounds. Zenday, take some piano lessons & reading will become easy fast. Reading isn't that big of a deal, playing the guitar anyways. If it sounds right, it is right...whatever the key. I only use my reading ability with ensemble playing, with other stuffy brass & wind players. Even then I cheat. I'm the guy that the music director always used to yell at for free-lancing my part. Ha Ha...

[zenday]

lol!

thanks!

[ChuckE99]

Yeah, I'm fine with my own songs, it's learning other people's stuff where I have trouble. I can pick up the songs very easily, because I know the underlying theory (keys, lead patterns, chord construction) but I never learn it "exactly". I get it to 80% and then figure I'm done. Great if you're doing your own thing, bad if you're in a cover band where everyone wants it "just so". I really envy guys who can work out note-for-note leads. If I knew more of those, I could apply the runs and techniques to my own leads.

-Chuck

[ubetcha]

Chuck, don't you just hate naturals? I have always had to struggle to play the guitar, but some guys are just naturals. Don't fight it. 80% ain't bad, I'm happy with 60%. The rest is slack anyways, and even the greats take some slack.

[ChuckE99]

Nah, I don't hate naturals. My brother was a natural. I was the first kid in our family to take up the electric guitar. My brother decided he liked it, went out and bought a '76 strat (it was 1976 at the time) and in a couple weeks, was playing amazing leads. But I was always the better rhythm player, and I know more about musical theory than he ever learned. You're good at what you're good at, I guess.

[zenday]

I have a friend who is extremly good and he Always hates it when he is called a natural. He get into these long debates about how naturals dont exsist, he says he worked hard to learn and play the way he does.. I didnt join in on the debate that time, but thought to myself all kinds of questions  like "is it in ones nature to gravitate towards the guitar rather a piano" "doesnt it take something natural to want to practice alot" and then i think well i never felt natural about playing the guitar i wanted to be jimmy page and play like him wasnt that my ego? and then i get all confused and drop the whole subject.

But i thin i do believe in the whole "natural" philosophy.

I wonder if i am a natural? what are the symptoms? ingridients?

[ubetcha]

Naturals. They exist in every field of endeavor. I grew up with a couple of guitar naturals, and I have run into others all my life. 9 out of 10 never amount to diddley, because it all came too easy. That's IMO, but I've seen it happen over & over again over the years. It takes more than mere physical ability & fantastic technique to make art that moves people. I believe that everyone is a natural at something, for instance I am a natural tuba player. Hey, at least I'm good at something. It could be worse, it could have been the accordian or the bagpipes.

[macwhisper]

I'm new to this forum so hello everybody. I can almost always learn a song by ear. However, lately I've been getting into some more complicated chord changes. For those I use the net and search out the songs I want. Not always easy since alot of that is miswritten. I'm also using a chord I.D. program along with a program called CHORD WRITER. With that program you can type in the lyrics and create and add your own chord blocks. It's time consuming but when you're done you have something to go back to if you forget a song.

[BCy2k]

Wow - I've never seen this thread before.

Yeah - learning & playing by ear is a huge, important skill for players who aren't into dealing with reading.

So as a former college level guitar instructor here's my free ear training lecture. LOL!

A good way to exercise your ear at first is to just work out portions of (or all of) a songs melody. Learn the melody the singer is singing. They're usually not too fast or complicated, and they make a good starting point for understanding and hearing musical intervals - or distances from note to note. Coping vocal melodies is also the absolute best foundation for becoming a solid lead player too. Way, way more important than learning other players riffs. At least at first.

Then as melodies get easier start going after chords.

For most of us whether we realize it or not, when we hear a stack of notes or a chord, our ear tends to be drawn to either the highest or lowest note of the chord. Don't expect to hear the middle stuff too good at first. Start by trying to hear what's on the bottom of a chord. When we're talking about most of the easier, typical pop & rock stuff, at least half the time or more the bass note will be the root of the chord. Not always, but often it is. The root meaning the note or letter the chord is named after.

So I usually try to get my students to zero in on the bass end of the chord and try to find that note on their fingerboard. Once they've found the bass note I have them try the proverbial 'power chord' built on that bass note  if it's some rockin' thing. If it's not, then I suggest they try a major or minor chord built on the root they've zeroed in on and see if that sounds right. Anyway, lots of trial and error involved when you're starting out on this. It's a brutal repetitive process. But I think it's incredibly important - being able to play by ear and learn stuff by ear is a big deal depending on what your goals as a player are. Especially if you want to have some sense of self sufficiency.

Once this starts to click, try to learn to recognize chord sounds. The 'major' sound, the 'minor' sound, the dominant 7th sound etc. We're talking about a process that requires diligence & consistent effort. It will not happen in a few weeks or even a few months. But each time you learn a new song, or just a part of a new song, that experience accumulates and will make the next one you learn just a wee bit easier. Eventually you'll start hearing things you've heard before, and by then you're on your way.

And by the way - you never stop learning this stuff. There's always something unexpected that comes along and will kick your a** for a while and make you work a little harder until you get through it, and in the end you get a little better at it as a result. Lecture mode off. 

Also about using your thumb to reach over for things like D/F# or whatever - one of my best college instructors did that all the time. Not that he needed to, he just felt like it. He was my jazz instructor. Classical instructors usually loose their minds when they see you do that. I'm all for whatever works. 

BTW - nice tunes Chuck!

[macwhisper]

BCy2k - That is exactly how it works. I never thought of it conciously before but following the melody and building the chords around that makes alot of sense.

I would take this a step further and contend that this applies to both playing and song writing as well. When I first began writing songs I would constantly block because I had the arrogant misperception that everything I wrote had to be completely original. Then one day I learned a couple of verses from a very old song that went.

From a Whiperwil high on a hill they took a blue note
Pushed it through a horn til it was born into a new note

It dawned on me that all I have musically has come from somewhere and someone else and that nothing comes from nothing. In the end none of us write original songs. What we do is reprocess what we have learned and hopefuly add something of value to it.