For most of us, learning an instrument requires an enormous amount of dedication %u2013 understanding fundamental principles and techniques before embarking upon long practices. Practicing long hours will finally reward the student with a working knowledge of the instrument. And, if they are lucky, after many years of hard work they may even become quite a masterful player. The guitar, especially, is held up as one of the more popular instruments to which people dedicate themselves. With images of musical grandeur in their heads they apply themselves night and day to the practice of guitar in the hopes of someday becoming proficient. But there are a rare few of us who can actually learn guitar by ear %u2013 an inherent skill that graces only the lucky among us.
Ultimately, you never know until you try if you can learn guitar by ear. If you are interested in taking up guitar and have a few chosen songs that you would really like to learn to play %u2013 try it out. If you play the song on a CD, those who can play guitar by ear can mimic the notes they hear on their own instruments. For those who have a working knowledge of the guitar %u2013 the ways in which to hold it and the tone that each vibrating chord makes %u2013 the possibility to learn guitar by ear is far more probable. Until you really understand the sounds that each chord is capable of making, it will be difficult to replicate the sounds you hear in your music on the strings of your guitar.
In some cases it is possible to train yourself to learn guitar by ear. Begin by learning the sounds the strings make on your guitar; really process this and hear it in your head as well as your ears. Listen to how the sounds change as you change chords and begin to listen to the music on your CDs with an ear towards those chord changes. You will soon begin to hear chord changes in the songs that you have listened to over and over without ever previously recognizing those chords. It%u2019s amazing how your ear changes once you begin to learn guitar; suddenly you are able to make those necessary correlations between the sound that your guitar makes and the sound that the guitar makes in some of your favorite songs. Pick one part of the song and begin to try it out on your own guitar; keep trying until you are able to replicate the sound. Soon enough you%u2019ll be able to piece the song together; often sounds are just repetition of the same chords.
While playing music adeptly by ear is in inherent skill, you can still learn guitar by ear if you are dedicated and single-minded in your task.