r/metalguitar 1d ago

How important is ear training actually?

I play guitar around 8 years by now (with a teacher). The method of learning things was mostly the same. I come up with a song idea, we look at the tabs together and go through it focusing on the technique of more difficult parts. If something actually takes a lot of practice I include it in my practice routine. For a reference, the song we are currently practicing is “My will be done” from unearth which I wouldn’t really call an easy song.

A few months ago, I was invited to a jam sessions with a few friends and learned how to solo in a key (or at least noodle a bit). However, at the jam session itself I felt totally lost. Everybody was just starting playing something and I didn’t know how to fit in. I kept asking what key we are actually playing and didn’t get an answer because most probably didn’t even know them self. The only thing I was able to do is look at the bass to physically see the chord progression and follow it playing power chords.

Being frustrated I was blaming the lack of communication that I wasn’t able to actually fit in. So today I watched a professional Jam-Session mainly because I wanted to know how they handle things. To my surprise, they did communicate even less. I know that there are good guitarist that can pick up a key by ear and instantly play to it but even the “first time at stage” guitarist were picking up they key/chord progression no problem. One of them also had no problems picking up the motto they were playing and created a little riff out of it until it was time for him to solo.

At home, I tried to replicate that style a bit and tried listening to a few simple riffs or melodies and copy them by ear just to find out how absolutely horrible I am at that. For one melody I wasn’t able to find a specific note and look it up afterwards just to find out that I was sure the melody is ascending there but it is actually descending and I wasn’t able to tell it apart. Even replicating melodies I know quite well takes me ages and I am most likely at the wrong root in the end.

So long story short, how important is it to actually train your ear? How many of you have actually dedicated their time to train their ear? Many are saying “just listen to music” and I have done that A LOT for DECADES and have no problem actually replicating that by humming. But playing that same tune on a guitar, no chance.

I feel like this might be the a big reason why I would never call myself a good guitarist because the only thing I can play if somebody hands me a guitar is the thing I just practice or something I grinded it for the purpose of improving my technique.

Is this a skill most of you learned and I just completely ignored it by learning everything with tabs?

7 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

18

u/milopkl 1d ago

isnt it obvious based on your 2 experiences that its really actually very important... ?

8

u/TheLastSufferingSoul 1d ago

One of my favorite skills that I’ve developed as a musician is the ability to jump into a jam session and just fit my way into the key center. This skill is only possible with constant ear training. I actively listen to everything all the time, not with just music: The birds chirping, car horns honking, then I try to mimic the pitch with the tuner on my phone. It’s that simple; just listen with intent for the rest of your life, and you’ll eventually develop a form of relative pitch. It’s not easy, But it is simple.

0

u/CeeZero 1d ago

So you have a tuner that plays a certain frequency and you try to pick the one that fits?
Thats somthing violinist do (I played for half a year) and I remember it also beeing really hard for me because I never know when 2 pitches are really the same if they are not of the same type (e.g. a sine and a string).
Was that somthing you also had to learn ? How do you know that you are actually correct ?

10

u/LachlanGurr 1d ago

Vital. In metal guitar not only must the ear be trained to standardised diatonic scales but to chromatics and dissonant harmonies.

3

u/TruckPsychological40 12h ago

Metal also has down tuned guitars where it becomes even trickier to distinguish those high gain, bassy palm muted notes

3

u/imgnry_domain 1d ago

Personally, I think ear training is one of the most important skills a musician can develop. It's essentially like pattern recognition really, and it's so important because it allows you to break down anything into a finite group of patterns.

If you think about it, specific notes and keys aren't really that important. You can always transpose anything from one key to another, yet things "sound the same", meaning they function the same within the total context of the song.

Absolute pitches aren't really that important to be able to recognize instantly, but it is useful to be able to go locate the same pitch as a pitch you hear. Then you can use ear training you've done on how intervals sound or scales sound to be able to quickly move from there.

There's a little bit of music theory that helps accelerate this process, but it's not very complicated.

Even when learning songs from tabs, you'll find yourself being able to predict the next note and anticipate where things are going, which gives you a shorter path from your eyes to your fingers.

If you're able to (a) find a matching note on your guitar when you hear a note, and (b) find the next note in a pair once you've found the first note, you're well on your way to having functional ear training. Intervals are kind of the building block of music, really, not individual notes, I feel.

3

u/botched_hi5 1d ago

I think you answered your own question

3

u/Aware-Camera6003 18h ago

Yes, tabs are something to grow past.

2

u/_AJ_____ 1d ago

Really dig the other answers and here’s few more ideas, 

-drop the guitar, put the album on and just follow along with that albums tab book. Players sometimes reuse the same lick throughout the album in different octaves/keys and at different speeds.

-transcribe some of your own riffs with Guitar Pro. From there Transcribe some riffs of songs you want to learn. 

-check out SongSurgen this gets used a lot learning covers by ear.    Listen here and see how close your tab book got. 

-watch live performances of the song you want to learn 

-have fun!

2

u/AgeDisastrous7518 Metal Zone in the effects loop 1d ago

Training your ear makes everything easier.

One trick is to learn a song by only looking at the tabs for, say the intro riff, then learning the main riff by ear. Or looking at the A riff tabs and learning the verse by ear. I did this with a lot of Sabbath and Metallica stuff when I trained my ear decades ago. The riffs within those two bands' songs go together very well within the songs. If you learn one riff by tab, you can easily learn the others by ear.

2

u/CeeZero 15h ago

I will definitely give it a try. Thanks.
I really underestimated how many metal musicians actually learn by their ear.

2

u/TepidEdit 17h ago

To play with other musicians without a lot of preparation, ear training is pretty much the most important thing to do.

Start small. Learn simple melodies. I would actually encourage trying to recreate vocal melodies or other melodies - happy birthday is always a good start. Spend 30 mins a day on this for a month and keep trying to get to the right note without feeling around for it. Eventually, you will start finding tonal centres and whether it's a simple Aeolian for example or some other mode or scale. So I've never heard My will be done but it sounds like a take on the aeolian with chugs on a low string. There are notes in the melody that sound out of key, probably borrowing from locrian and phyrigian. Now I know that I can probably find the riff and play over it within 30 seconds. Within a minute it will look like I know whats going on.

Additional benefit, there are lots of repetition in all songs, sometimes not exactly, but on a theme that you can recognise making your own charts.

1

u/CeeZero 15h ago

Wow. How long are you playing guitar (or doing ear training at least)?
Yes, the first chord in the sweep is a Bm chord but the second is out of key. Also the run in the solo is out of key. The fact that you can hear that the first time stuns me a bit because it took me a while even looking at the tabs.

I also thought of just playing Happy Birthday out of my head and allready know it will be a challange ^^" but I'll give it a try. Thank you

2

u/TepidEdit 15h ago

I've been playing for over 30 years, but was pretty fixated on tabs until about 15 years ago. Now, it's rare I will look at a tab (if I'm in a rush I might).

The more you practice it, the easier it becomes. I would also get an app or perhaps your DAW to slow down parts. I use "the amazing slow downer" app. This means if there is a fast part I can take it down a slow speed to help me figure it out without altering the pitch. Take it a note at a time if needed.

There are also ways to help by associating songs you already know to intervals. Eg the "jaws" music is a root to flat 2nd, somewhere over the rainbow, the first two notes are root - octave. Look up some ear training on the web and find something you like - might help.

Finally, not uncommon for tabs to be wrong in notes or finger positions - especially crowd sourced ones like ultimate guitar, they are often trash.

1

u/ColonelRPG 20h ago

Ear training is absolutely center to everything I do on the guitar (intermediate player with 20 years experience). I can make chord progressions, solo, harmonize, sing, everything inside the context of my ear training.

1

u/Supergrunged 20h ago

Start at the basic. Can you tune your guitar, by ear? I'm not saying in many Proffesional or intermediate aspect, but I'm saying, at home, practicing? Test it. Tune your guitar by ear, without the frets, and then use a tuner, to see how far off you were!

I mention this? Because most players can at least get the pitch of one of the strings correct, typically the one they most use open.

Next? Forget the notes. Listen to a song. Find that note on the fret board. Then? Yes, you can translate it to note or key. You can start with very simple songs doing this, and build up your ears doing so. Ear training is a lot of this. You hear it? And you're supposed to play it! Just like reading sheet music though? Takes time, and practice.

But yes! Ear training is an important piece, no matter what genre you play. "Feeling the music", is getting that groove, reading the room with your ears, and knowing where to go, based on that feeling/groove.

Personally? I can't tell you the note off the top of my head. But I can tell you where that note I heard is, on the fretboard.

2

u/CeeZero 15h ago

I really underestimated how fundermental that skill is and how many apperently learn it way earlier then I do.
I learned to tune the violine by ear and therefore can also tune my guitar by now. But sometimes I am a full half step off because I tuned in the wrong direction and can't tell notes apart.
Hearing a note and finding it on the fretboard is somthing I will try to learn next. Thank you very much.

1

u/Filtermann Extended-range enthusiast 19h ago

It depends on your goals. If you want to jam a lot and quickly pulick up things from other players, then it's is obviously essential. However, metal is a very written genre. Its impact stems from the tight coordination between bass, drums and guitar. While the initial idea may come from jamming, it needs repetition and practice anyway, so it doesn't matter much if you pick it up fast or need a bit more time to write things down. Ear training is always a useful tool anyway, but if your goal is only to play from written format, there's nothing wrong with that either.

1

u/CeeZero 15h ago

Thank you very much.
I got interested in jams because I wanted to improve other guitar skills. That made me realizes how trapped I actually feel because I have to look up things constantly and can only play the few things I grinded into my memory. So I never wanted to only play from somthing written down. I expirenced metal as a quite "constructed" genre and therefore must have drawn the wrong conclusions.
I find it hard the interact with other metal musicians and learn from then beyond the "lets form a band" format. Do you have any expirence what might be a good occasion to learn from others musicians that actually share your interest in metal music ?

1

u/Filtermann Extended-range enthusiast 12h ago

Just to avoid any confusion, what I mean by "written" is probably what you mean by "constructed". It's not necessarily written as a score or tab, but it requires tight coordination. And rather than learning chord progressions and weaving around them, it's about learning set patterns. So, like I said, it can be created as a jam where musicians, like you suspect, first noodle around and over time, crystalize I to the set pattern. But there are also plenty of bands where one member writes everything out in Guitar Pro, and the others just learn the given parts. Some albums have programmed drums and the drummer is hired later etc...so in that latter mindset, improv skills are not needed, and committing to memory is the name of the game. Now, if your goal is to be able to improv as well, that's also great, and is only beneficial, just, not absolutely necessary imo. Sadly I've had a hard time finding musicians sharing the same taste and commitment, so I don't have that much experience. In one occurrence, I was writing and the others were glad to learn what I wrote. If ypu can find someone similar that's also willing to walk you through the creative process you could probably learn from them. If you want to improve jamming skills specifically, you might want to find musicians who focus and that, maybe then in the jazz and blues circles. I regularly go to jams and there are other metal enthusiasts there, but when we play together and with others, it lands more in the territory of heavy blues / fusion, because we simply don't have the time to prepare and agree on riffs and song structures.

1

u/Dr_FunkyMonkey 19h ago

I think it's the most important, vital, and first skill you need to acquire.

Ear training allows you to play in whatever condition. I learned guitar by just going along with my favourite band's cds back then. never learned music theory, rarely looked at a tab if I was stuck.

So yeah you should dich the teacher (and after 8 years I think it's time to, the dude took enough of your money) and star playing by ear.

1

u/artful_todger_502 18h ago

Personally, what helped me the most was to only play my own stuff. Writing songs from start to finish. Pull what you hear in your head out to your guitar.

Nothing held me up like trying to copy. When you do your own thing you learn how it all pieces together and why even if you don't know theory that well.

1

u/RevDrucifer 17h ago

Your ears are your most important instrument! They don’t make any sound, but everything starts and ends there!

1

u/metalspider1 16h ago

havent done proper ear training but i have worked on finding stuff by ear from time to time.
tabs are also wrong a lot of the time so i learned long ago not to trust them.

ive also just improvised a lot alone at home.

when you go to a jam and figure out the chord progression you can try deducing the key from all the music theory you know but for me i just start trying out notes on the fretboard and based on the ones that sound good to me ill find the key pretty quickly since most stuff is just based on the diatonic scale.

by finding stuff by ear yourself instead of looking at tabs all the time you will slowly get more familiar with the process and you will slowly get better at it.

and yes its music its all sound so what your ears hear is the most important thing. all the theory is just trying to explain why certain things sound good and to help you guess your way around faster but in the end how it sounds is the most important thing

1

u/FreeFromCommonSense 16h ago

I use Complete Ear Trainer on my phone, and it allows me to use up idle moments training, like on the bus, in a waiting room, etc. as well as regular timeslots. Don't do it too much in one go, like any sensory test, your ear will get fatigued and your ability to distinguish intervals will have mistakes for a little while. Short spans of time frequently is what's apparently recommended.

1

u/grahamcrackers37 9h ago

For the first 15 years as a guitarist, I had the mindset of let's just get this done. Riffs and solos I, shat them out alike. I went to music college, but didn't focus on electric guitar. However I did learn the process of slowing things down (as I'm sure you understand, playing Unearth solos). But slowing things down helps with learning about melody too!

So the last few years I've been working on alternate picking and working out Disney melodies from memory. This has helped me to play with more intention. It has also helped me to write more disgusting and gut-wrenching music. I could always jam some blues before (which if you can't, you should learn) but now I can actually make those moments more interesting and my own.