Play Your Favorite Song on the Guitar
Learn to play a song on the guitar by simply listening, figuring out what chords are played, then play them yourself.
Steps
- Find a song that you like and listen to it. Listen intently for the guitar in particular and try to listen to when the chords go up (higher pitch), and when they go down (lower pitch).
- Pick up your guitar and start the song over from the beginning. When the first guitar chord is played in the song immediately pause the song and try to remember what that chord sounded like. Remember you can also look up the tab and see how it compares to what you've taught yourself
- Use the top (largest diameter "E") string to find the same note that was just played in the song. Play the E string starting on the first fret and gradually move up the fretboard one fret at a time until you hear the note on the guitar that is the same as the first chord in the song. Remember that this won't always work if the song you want to learn starts off with really high notes. if so, watch a youtube video of a live performance get the "ballpark" of where the notes are on the fretboard.
- The fret you stop at will tell you what chord to play. For example, if you stop at the fifth fret, that note on the E string is the A note. Therefore, the chord you would play is A. If you stop at the 3rd fret, that is the G note on the E string, so you would play a G chord.
- Now that you have the first chord, press play on the song. When you hear the second chord, pause the song again. Repeat step 3. Now you have the first 2 chords of the song. Continue in this manner until you have completed the song. Usually (But not always) once you get past the chorus the song repeats itself with a few variations.
- Memorize the chords played in the song by playing them yourself over and over. Listen carefully for slight changes in chords in different areas of the song. Memorize when those chord changes come and you will have the hardest part of the learning portion complete.
- Memorize all chords and what order they are played in, and when you play them together in order, you have just learned your favorite song. If the song has a solo, just find out the key to the song and solo on that scale.
Tips
- Having a chart that shows each individual note on the guitar fretboard for each string is tremendously helpful. This will help you determine what note on the E string you stop at, therefore telling you what root chord to play
- As well as using the top E string to perform these steps, you may also use the next string down (A string) and the function is exactly the same. Repeat the same steps, but the A string would be for higher notes. For example if you're playing a note on the seventh fret of the E string (B note), you may choose to move down to the 2nd fret of the A string (also the B note) and achieve the exact same sound. For the 8th fret on the E string, you would use the third fret on the A string. 9th fret on E is the 4th fret on A, and so on.
- Each chord has variations and aren't necessarily all major chords. This technique is for finding the root chord. Finding the root chord will allow you to investigate further to determine if the chord is a minor or other variation. (If it's an A minor 7th (Am7) you can figure that out easier by knowing that you start with an A chord first, then deriving the variation by listening and trying the different types until you play the same chord you hear in the song).
- Using bar chords rather than open chords makes this technique much easier.
Things You'll Need
- Guitar, (acoustic or electric) depending on what kind of song it is. (For example an acoustic guitar may be used in a country song and an electric may be used in a rock song).
- An amplifier is needed if you choose an electric guitar, as well as instrument cables.
- A guitar pick.
- Compact-Disk (CD) or a Digital-Video-Disk (DVD) with your favorite song on it. A CD and/ or DVD player (You can also look it up on youtube). A remote control is recommended (in order to avoid getting up and down with your guitar in hand every time you pause the song), however a remote is not necessary.
- A fretboard map showing every note on every string is recommended for easy visual reference. This will make it much easier to be able to see what note/chord you're playing.
