are there any good resources or any insider knowledge here on how you learn to play things by ear?
i've been wanting to learn a few songs for a while but the extent of information about them online is just chords, and that doesn't help me with finger picking patterns at all so i was wondering if you had any good tips on getting started with it because i have no idea where i'd even begin. (i know i can just google "how to learn to play by ear" (and i am doing that as well) but i like to ask here as well because it's nice to hear directly frmo real people)
plus i think playing by ear is a really good skill to have in general so i don't have to rely on tabs and youtube videos to learn songs.
In addition to what people are saying about theory and familiarity with the instrument (very helpful things), I also like using audacity as a practice tool while learning by ear. It's a free audio editing software, and I use it to load up a song I want to learn, highlight the specific part I want to learn, and put that on a loop. This not only attunes your ears to just that portion very quickly, but it also allows you to go note by note, adding on bits each time. Another great thing to do is sing what you're going to play before you play it! We naturally match pitch very well with our voice, so associating your voice with your instrument strengthens the latter's pitch matching. And if you really wanna grind it out, you could do teoria.com ear training exercises. A piano player buddy of mine does 100 intervals a day (using the piano), and his ear is certainly getting better. At the end of the day these are just different exercises and if you keep using your ear every day, you'll get better regardless.
between @Nagarjuna's advice and your teoria.com i think i'm gonna have start learning how to play piano too lol. in all seriousness though i'm gonna download audacity and try that out with a few songs i want to learn. and i won't lie to you i tried out teoria.com and i am atrocious at it. i think i'm gonna have to learn what each key on a piano does first to do the note ear training properly. but the chord ones i can practice with that straight away. when i was trying to tell the difference between major, minor, diminished, and augmented i got 4 right out of 15 lol. gotta start practicing those sounds.
thank you so much for the help :Care-Comrade:
No need to learn to play piano! Just try and match the piano pitch with your guitar! If you're having trouble doing the exercise from a random note, try the "from selected note" option under "interval ear training". And I don't blame you for only getting 4/15 correct, guessing out of four chord qualities (maj, min, dim, aug) can be very difficult for a beginner. When you're setting up the chord exercise I would highly recommend to limit yourself to only two qualities (maj, min), then another two (dim, min), etc. Do all the combinations of just two options and I can guarantee you will get better at distinguishing between all four being an option.