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Yeah,
Dependency on tabs and notation is the danger when one doesn't start developing
the ear early on. I don't think it's so much an issue of being born with a good
ear as it is an issue of the discipline required to develop a good ear. We live
in a fast food, get it now kinda time. With so many great tab resources, we can
have Pipeline down in a matter of minutes. Why bother taking the time to search
for the notes as we listen to them fly by at 33 & 1/3 when the tab can be called
up on the internet? But there are great advantages to being able to pick up a
song on the fly. Not everything is in tab, or you may not have the tab on hand
at a rehearsal when someone calls out a tune. The kinda guitar player who can
pick it up as they go has more fun, and is more in demand and will likely not
retire their guitar to the closet after a few years.
One suggestion that I haven't seen here on this issue in the past is that it
helps to make major and minor scales second nature. Once you find the key of the
song, most of the melody notes are going to fall in those scales. The scales
give you good guessing places for matching notes with what you hear on the
records. Narrow the guessing process down by first determining the key of the
song, and then narrowing down the melody notes based on the scale for that key.
-Marty
----- Original Message -----
From: mom_surfing
To:
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:11 AM
Subject: [SurfGuitar101] Re: new to surfguitar101
--- In , Richard <errant_jedi@y...> wrote:
>
> --- mom_surfing <intheeye@b...> wrote:
> > what i've found most useful for learning surf
> > instrumentals is figuring out the songs on my own.
>
> That's if you've got the ear for it. So far what's
> limiting me (severely limiting me) is my complete lack
> of ability to learn and play by ear. Mechanically, I
> can play just about anything, but 90% of the things
> I've learned were taught to me or read from tab. Were
> you born with a good ear or did you learn to play by
> ear?
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
