Slow down the recording

One thing that’s helped me learn music by ear for many years is slowing down recordings. Some solos or lines are just too fast to learn by ear right away. If that’s the case, slow it down. There’s no shame in learning something slowly.

I’ve done this countless times with heavy metal and rock solos or jazz solos that are quite fast. Especially shreddier guitar players that play fast scalar runs or fast sweep-picked arpeggios.

YouTube has a function where you can change the playback speed without altering the pitch. The program Transcribe! is another option, but I most of the time just use YouTube. The audio quality isn’t always great, but it’s definitely good enough.

The great thing about learn by slowing down recordings is that eventually you’ll be able to hear some phrases at full speed. The more fast lines you learn and the more music you learn by ear the more you’ll be able to hear at faster speeds. You’ll start to recognize the some of the same patterns that you’ve already learned in solos. Especially if you’re learning solos within the same genre of music, there are patterns that you’ll start to recognize as you learn more and more solos.

Take some time to learn a solo slowed down, even if it’s faster than you’re currently able to play it’ll help you recognize the notes within that fast passage and get those sounds into your ears.

ISJ