Ear Training for Guitarists: How to Learn Songs by Ear

Why train your ear?

• You can play songs that have no tab, or fix tabs that are wrong.
• Improvising and soloing become far more musical.
• You hear when you are out of tune or out of time.
• Playing with other musicians becomes much easier.

Step 1: Match single notes

Play a note on the guitar, then sing or hum it. Then do the reverse: hum a random note and find it on the guitar. Start on one string and slide your finger until the guitar matches your voice. This simple exercise connects your ears, voice and fingers — the foundation of everything else.

Step 2: Major vs minor

Play E major, then E minor. Play A, then Am. Play D, then Dm. Most people hear major as bright or happy, minor as darker or sadder. Ask a friend to play one at random (or record yourself and shuffle) and guess. Within a week, most players get this right almost every time.

Step 3: Find the key — the "home" note

Every song has a note that feels like home — where the song wants to resolve. To find it:

1. Play the song and slide one finger up the low E or A string until you find a note that sounds "right" over most of the song — especially at the end.
2. That note is probably the key. Check whether the song feels major or minor.
3. Now you know the likely chords: look up that key in the table in our theory guide. In G major, for example, the common chords are G, C, D and Em.

Step 4: Work out chord progressions

Once you know the key, you have a shortlist of six or seven chords. Now listen to the bass line — the lowest notes — because the bass usually plays the root of each chord.

1. Find each bass note on your guitar's low strings.
2. Decide whether each chord sounds major or minor.
3. Match them to the chords in the key. In C major, a bass note of A with a minor sound means Am.
4. Count how many beats each chord lasts.

Step 5: Learn intervals with songs you know

An interval is the distance between two notes. Linking each interval to a famous melody makes them easy to recognise:

Play each interval on one string using the fret distances above, sing the reference song, and test yourself daily for a few minutes.

Step 6: Work out simple melodies

Start with tunes you know extremely well: children's songs, Christmas songs, TV themes. Find the first note, then ask: does the next note go up or down, and by a little or a lot? Keep to one or two strings at first. It will be slow — that is completely normal.

Step 7: Slow it down

Many music apps and media players let you slow a recording without changing the pitch, and loop a short section. Use this for fast solos and tricky riffs. Work on a few seconds at a time.

A 10-minute ear training routine

Frequently asked questions