
Learn to play by ear from beginner to intermediate guitar by gradually adding strings, practicing melodies like Ode to Joy, and developing ear training with step-by-step lessons.
Use the speed feature selection on the video playback controls to change the speed of video playback. If you're uncomfortable with a playback speed of any of the performance videos, take it down to 50% and play along until you're ready to bump it up to 1X. Have fun with it!
Here's the tune book for all the melodies included in this course. Use this tune book as a reference only. You should learn the content of this course be ear. Only refer to the tune book if you are really stuck.
Learning to play by ear takes a long time. It's perfectly normal to have to revise a lesson several times before being able to play along. Take the frustration out of doing a lesson over and over again. Associate fun with repetition and you'll succeed at learning music by ear.
Tune your strings in this video before starting anything.
Practice jingle bells by ear using a simple one-two-three-four rhythm, designed for total beginner to intermediate guitar players.
Learn to play jingle bells on guitar in c major using the first five notes, with thumb technique and quarter and half notes, aligning rhythm to singing.
Practice a simple four-beat row by counting one two three four to establish rhythm and basic technique for the light row exercise in this guitar course.
Develop guitar skills by ear with Ode to Joy, using simple counts one two three four.
Learn to play when the saints go marching in by ear, c major, count in two, recognize whole notes tied to a quarter lasting five beats, and pickups across bars.
Learn to play Aura Lee by ear using simple rhythm counting, starting with one two three four to develop rhythm and ear training.
Learn to play oh come little children by ear using a simple 1-2-1-2 rhythm pattern.
Learn a common folk rhythm in G major: a note followed by two notes, repeated for two beats per bar, with down-strokes on strong beats.
Learn rhythm and ear training through call-and-response counts two three four two three four, inspired by go tell Aunt Rhody and tailored for beginner to intermediate guitar.
Practice go tell aunt rhody in G with the thumb, keeping fingers free for future technique, and work thumb motion on the G string.
Practice counting aloud with a slow tempo as you learn to play by ear, using largo to internalize rhythm and timing.
Learn the largo lesson by playing the G major scale in open position and a melody with a dotted quarter–eighth rhythm, keeping the thumb steady with a subtle wrist turn.
Explore long long ago and the concept of paying for, in the total beginner to intermediate guitar course on learning to play by ear.
Learn to play by ear in G major, using six months of scale basics and a rhythm of quarter notes and two eighths across the song.
Explore playing in G major using the full scale with up-and-down picking in 2/4 time, observing rests for rhythm, and master a G arpeggio motif featured in the song.
Learn to play Yankee Doodle by ear on guitar, advancing from beginner to intermediate skills.
Warm up with a nice slow approach to the Yankee Doodle lesson, counting one two three four as you practice, supporting guitar ear training from beginner to intermediate.
Master the 6/8 rhythm in I saw three ships with two-beat groupings and a triplet, and learn down-stroke emphasis on strong beats while picking on the G and A strings.
Explore playing 'When Johnny comes marching home' by ear, guiding total beginners toward intermediate guitar skills using ear training and practice with this traditional march.
Explore the Austrian hymn by Joseph Haydn and practice rhythm through counting one two three four to enhance your ear-based guitar playing.
Learn to play by ear with the Wayfaring Stranger tune. Count rhythm one two three four one to internalize the melody.
Learn the wayfaring stranger melody in a minor key, with counting rhythms, a whole note tied to a half note, triplets, and two melodic positions.
Learn to play amazing grace by ear with a one-to-one approach, starting with a melody in quarter notes. Add embellishing notes to personalize the traditional melody, listening to many versions.
Learn to play amazing grace by ear in g major using the five-note g pentatonic scale, with vibrato and string choices for expression.
Learn the simple Danny Boy melody in C major, focusing on the G-string and E-string notes, with shifts and counting a full bar before starting on the pickup beat two.
Learn to play an Early American hymn by ear, counting 'one two three four' to guide your guitar practice.
Learn to play an early American hymn in the key of G by ear, using a down-up picking pattern on eighth notes, practicing slowly with counting one two three four.
Learn to play worried man blues on guitar by ear, counting in three four one two three to develop rhythm and ear training.
Learn to play by ear on guitar through the Worried Man Blues lesson, using G-major and A and B chords, pickup notes, and the song's basic rhythm.
Explore ear-based guitar learning through identifying the D dorian scale (same notes as C major), and practice melodies using D minor and C major arpeggios with an eighth-note rhythmic figure.
Learn to play angels we have heard on high by ear on guitar, using listening and counting cues from the caption to shape the melody.
Play angels we have heard on high on guitar, using a beefed up scale in first position across two octaves, with a dotted quarter-eighth-half rhythm and a down-stroke pattern.
Practice the Kumbaya rhythm using a four-beat count (one two three four one two) to reinforce ear-based guitar playing.
Learn to play Kumbaya by ear in C major, using thumb picking and a pickup starting on B, with a bottom-of-chord C arpeggio and a major sixth melody.
Learn to play 'God rest ye merry gentlemen' by ear using beginner to intermediate guitar techniques. Build ear training and melodic accuracy for real-world song learning.
Explore D minor as the relative minor of F major and the related minor scale, then practice a mainly quarter-note rhythm with a pickup on B.
Learn the rhythm of a Czech marching song in C major by counting quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes, practicing with a metronome and selective string stopping.
Learn to play joy to the world by ear and explore why you want to learn this piece.
Explore a trumpet tune by Henry Purcell, counting 1-2-3-4, to practice rhythm and phrasing by ear on the guitar.
Learn to play a trumpet tune on guitar in B-flat, using a B-flat major scale position, fingering on the sixth string, and rhythm patterns with eighth and sixteenth notes.
Are you beginning the guitar? OR.....
Have you been playing the guitar for a while, but feel that you are "stuck"?
Look no further if you not only want to become a guitar player but also a better musician.
In my many years of playing guitar and teaching, I have seen beginning guitar players get led astray because of a lack of foundation. People who pick up the guitar sometimes rush toward playing their favorite song or learning a solo with tabs. Although, there is nothing wrong with this, I have often seen that it can lead to discouragement and/or a poor interpretation of music. People end up playing bits and pieces of melodies and can rarely play any song from beginning to end. Or they have a poor sense of rhythm and this makes it hard to play with others. They become closet guitar players because the music only sound right to them.
Other people learn a bunch of chords to songs and are incapable of playing any melodies.
This course is here to fix all this.
Get you off on the right foot by getting a solid foundation in melody. After a short while, you will start to hear the melody within you as you are playing. Just play along with the videos and don't be afraid of starting videos again from the start.
The lessons are divided by string groups. The first lessons include melodies that can be played using only the first two strings of the guitar! From there, each new section introduces a new string. There are also sections that teach chord strumming, fingerpicking and advanced tuning.
Here's a breakdown course's sections:
The aim of this course is to get you to play by ear with the help of the video lessons. The format is the same throughout the course. First you will see an example of the melody or exercise you are going to learn. The following video is the lesson that teaches you the melody. This way, once you are learning, you will already have the music in you ears. All you have to do is make your fingers interpret what you are hearing. Then, you can go back to the previous video once your music is up to speed.
You see, it is possible to have the same mindset of some of the greatest musicians right from the start. All the greatest musicians have one thing in common; they are playing what they are hearing.
This course will teach you to do exactly that and more! Don't feel that you need tablatures or sheet music in order to play music. Just watch and learn and you will be amazed at what happens in a short period of time.
See you inside!