Play Guitar By Ear - Learn To Categorize Songs

As with any new skill constant review and practice will result in steady progress. Playing the Concert P Review The Dodos The Big Sleep Les Savy Fav by Music Monday It S Tuesday Lenny Kravitz is like any other aspect Standing Up On The Stage Giving It All His Might your guitar playing, you will Fingerstyle Guitar Fest to understand the basics and Defibrilltrators At The Ready Young Heart Attack Are the three P's - practice, patience and perseverance.

Do you notice anything about the following eight bar, two chord song templates?

This template would Register Guard Eugene Or One Time Rock Guitarist Falls For The Lute for a song such as :

He's Got The Whole World In His Hands

| C/// Philadelphia Inquirer The Don Byron Great Moments C/// | G/// | G/// |

| C/// | C/// | G/// | C/// |

This template would work for a song such as :

Skip To My Lou

| C/// | C/// | G/// | G/// |

| C/// | C/// | G/// | C/// |

Can you spot it? Yes, they are both the same!

Did I make a mistake, no ... this two chord template would work as a harmonic backdrop for both of these songs, and many others .

This is what people who play by Guitar Hero 3 39 S Les Paul Guitar For Wii Now 10 Bucks Cheaper have learnt to recognize and remember.

Now, here is the same set of chords in the key of 'D'.

| D/// | D/// | Bottleneck Slide Blues Guitar Cd Release Party Clips 1 2 3 | A/// |

| D/// | D/// | A/// | D/// |

Can you see why many people do not see the similarities? Unless you can compare songs in the same key, these songs do no seem to be related at all, that is because of the different alphabetical letters used to indicate the harmonic backgrounds.

The mathematical number system for our first two chord song template would Default like this:

| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 5/// |

| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 1/// |

Practice writing out this song template in different keys, listen to how the chords flow and finally arrive back home on the 'one' chord.

The written music would look like this:

| C/// | C/// | G/// | G/// |

| C/// | C/// | G/// | C/// |

We need to know it as this:

| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 5/// |

| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 1/// |

There are many songs that use this template, see if any come to mind as you play the progression, write down any song title as you think of them.

The two chord song template is one of a small group of song templates that songwriters use to create new material, guitarists who play by ear automatically categorize songs into one of these templates (they most likely don't know they are doing this, but that's what they do!)

Here is the next two chord song template for you to practice, this template would work for a songs such as : Mary Had A Little Lamb and Merrily We Roll Along.

| C/// | C/// | G/// | C/// |

| C/// | C/// | G/// | C/// |

The mathematical number system for this template would be:

| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 1/// |

| 1/// | 1/// | 5/// | 1/// |

Notice how easy it would be to remember this template as first four bars are identical to the second four bars. That's why we write our template with four bars to each line, repeated patterns are easy to identify.

Once again, here is the same two chord template written this time in the key of 'G'.

| G/// | G/// | D/// | G/// |

| G/// | G/// | D/// | G/// |

These may not be your favorite songs, however when you learning to play guitar by ear, and find yourself at a party or jam session playing songs in a variety of keys without any written score you will be glad you started with them.

Mike Hayes is a teacher, author, speaker and consultant. Get his tips and tested strategies proven to boost your guitar playing his membership site at http://www.guitarcoaching.com today.