Have you ever turned on your favorite blues recording, started playing along, but then got lost?

It’s frustrating. And, this is super common. In fact, most guitar players can not play through a simple blues without dropping the form. This means playing the wrong chords at the wrong time or getting completely lost.

Years ago when I studied with blues guitar master Kenny Burrell he would always test students with playing a simple blues. He viewed it as a great leveler. It was a quick way to assess how fluent someone is with most American music from the past 100 years.

If this has happened to you, then today I want to share some simple ear training exercises to banish this problem for good.

Now, of course, there’s only so much I can do in one quick video. And, there’s no way I can tell where you are at with your ear. Ear training is a deep topic, and if you practice things out of order, then your results aren’t going to be as solid as following a system.

But...

If you want to learn how to play all your favorite songs without tabs or watching videos online… then you are going to need to develop some basic ear training skills.

Just like playing your instrument, you have to train your fingers to go to the correct strings and make the chords on the beat.

You need to culture your ear to accurately process the sounds you hear in music. You see most untrained ears when they hear music it’s like watching a fuzzy old television. Everything is just blurred and messy. 

But once you start building up your ear from scratch. That’s when you start to develop a crisp and clear picture in your mind of the sounds you are hearing. 

One of the skills you will need to develop is chord quality recognition.

This lets you figure out…

How To Tell If A Chord Is Major Or Minor 

Have you ever been frustrated playing your guitar with a song trying to figure this out? 

Not knowing if you are hearing a major chord, a minor...

Have you ever been frustrated trying to figure out a song by ear?

It’s not easy when you’re banging your head against the wall trying to figure out a certain chord, lick, or melody.

Years ago, I was playing a gig with this brilliant organ player who Downbeat magazine rated “Organist Of The Year” and he was talking to me about transcribing Steely Dan. There was one chord, that he had on loop, and was just banging keys on the piano trying to find it.  

For some guitarists, this seems to come naturally for others they need to focus more on the fundamentals of ear training. 

Below I share with you some tips on guitar started (as a guitarist) and simple steps forward to improve your ear.

1. Simple Pitch Matching Skills:

Start by becoming more tuned to the sounds around you. It could be as simple as hearing a doorbell, or noticing a truck backing up. Try to match the note back. This is the most basic level of ear training called pitch matching, and...

There’s an old joke… 

Mozart’s little sister would walk into the room, go to the piano, and play:

C, D, E, F, G, A, B…

Then walk out.

Mozart would frantically run to the piano and hit the note C to resolve the tension he felt. This was how she would tease him. 

But that’s the power of a good ear.

I believe, it’s one of the most valuable skills a musician can have.

Why?

The answer is simple: music is a hearing art. You’re only as good, as what you can hear. Below I’m going to be talking about the benefits of having a good ear and developing your relative pitch. Relative pitch is simply a discovery of how your own mind interprets sounds.

So let’s get started with the 7 ways ear training makes you a better guitarist, beginning with:

1. Tonic recognition 

Music at any given point has a tonality or a “home” key. This is talked about when musicians say things like, “The song is in the key of...