Play Guitar by Ear

A music education systemapplied to guitar

Tom Benjamin, PhD

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/

Benefits of this method:

1. Play by ear2. Plays with other instruments like recorder, harmonica3. Start with one finger4. Add new fingers and chords at your own pace5. Recognise and play famous songs6. Up and running within the first lesson

Cautions:1. Modern songs are copyright, so you’d have to obtain

these separately 2. We start with famous old songs because they’re easy

and free of copyright3. Midi rather than .mp3 for smaller, quicker download4. Ersatz chord names are approximate, so don’t trust

them for music class assignments

How it works:

1. Adapt the music to the player, rather than vice-versa

2. Play by ear rather than by chord or note names3. Restricted alternatives –ie- “sing any key as long as

it’s D”4. Drone, ersatz or pseudo-chords instead of more

difficult full or bar chords –ie- Cmaj9 instead of C5. Five simple ‘shapes’ and a few major chords –ie-

only about nine items to memorize 6. Familiar chord patterns easy to predict by ear

(blues, TinPan Alley, ballads, folk, rock, R&B .. )7. Learn shapes and sounds to find the chord by ear

rather than trying to memorize chord lists

One-fingerSome folk songs require a mere two chords. If the open guitar sound is allowed to play one of the chords (G or D), moving one finger up & down creates the next chord (either D or E minor). Most of the notes don’t change, hence act as drones as with dulcimer or bagpipe.

These special one-finger guitar chords require the accompanist (either musician or software) to modify the traditional chords slightly so that, for example:

•G is played as A11/G or as G69/E •D is played as D2•E minor is played as Em7

These special chords can have more than one drone sound to the ear so that we may regard the same open chord as either A11/G or D69sus4, depending on how we intend the ear to perceive it as a G or D sound in the context of the song.

Open: ‘easy G chord’(used as Chord A11/G)

D(chord D2 or Dadd9 6th )

Many songs can be played just by lifting this one note on and off. The note changes from G (open) to D (down), switching the chord between A11/G and D2.

Open: ‘easy G chord’(used as Chord A11/G)

D(chord D2 or Dadd9 6th )

As with guitar, moving one finger on a Keyboard switches chords (from note G to A below). Any green keys below can be safely played along with guitar as they correspond to the open strings of standard guitar tuning. This is how these chords look on a piano keyboard or xylophone:

Playing with other instruments

Open: ‘easy D chord’(used as Dsus*)

E minor(Em7 )

2-chord songs can also be played in a minor key. The open chord has a number of sounds and is used here as the D (Dsus*). The finger now takes the Em7 position, so the two chords are now D (Dsus*) and Em (Em7).

*The full name of the open chord as used here is D69sus4

More One-finger Chords

Most people could start with simple 3-finger chords. But the one-finger versions allow us to concentrate on timing, listening to subtle differences in tone, and practice in following a predictable pattern such as blues or ballad.

The chords produce a nice sound as only one string is muffled and the rest are left open. But the training purpose is to make the fret board (left hand) part easy so we can train the ear and the strumming hand.

Finger positions on fretboard

Each of the white spots is a position that creates a one-finger chord.

This is a very easy set of positions to learn.

Finger positions for one-finger chords

Because of the way the standard guitar is tuned they lie along a crooked path.

The pattern is obvious, easy to memorize, and easy to feel on the fretboard without even looking at it.

One-finger pseudo-chords(full names of the chords in parentheses)

A11/G

(G/E)

C(CMaj9)

A7(A7sus2)

Em7 D(D2 )

G(G6/9)

D11 or C69

GGGG | GGGG |GGGG|GGGG CCCC |CCCC GGGG|GGGG DDDD |CCCC | GGGG|GGGG

Music is written in terms of notes and chords as at right.

Instead, to make it easier for you, we write out just the general chord name and how many times you strum that chord in the song, as below:

In words this would be: “strum G chord sixteen times then C eight times, D four times, C four times, and end with eight strums of the G chord.”

StrummingAm7 F#

One-finger blues

To plays the blues pattern only requires the three finger positions at right.

Below is the order in which they are strummed:

GGGG | GGGG |GGGG|GGGG CCCC |CCCC GGGG|GGGG DDDD |CCCC | GGGG|GGGG

GC D

Alternate finger position

The C chord can be played in more than one way. This version gives a higher pitch and is easier to switch between D and C

GGGG | GGGG |GGGG|GGGG CCCC |CCCC GGGG|GGGG DDDD |CCCC | GGGG|GGGG

G CD

One-finger three-chord Blues

The above notes in the following sequence give a variant of the ‘blues progression’ common to pop songs. (Each letter = one strum):

C(CMaj9)

D(D2 )

GGGG | GGGG |GGGG|GGGG CCCC |CCCC GGGG|GGGG DDDD |CCCC | GGGG|GGGG

Click to listen (played twice)

G(G6/9)

Practice the One-finger Blues

The sequence to strum is below:

C(CMaj9)

D(D2 )

GGGG | GGGG |GGGG|GGGG CCCC |CCCC GGGG|GGGG DDDD |CCCC | GGGG|GGGG

To play along with a full instrumental midi version (3 times) click below:

G(G6/9)

One-finger Ballad

Adding a few more chords allows a number of famous tunes and ‘standards’ to be approximated.

C(CMaj9)

D(D2 )

To play along with a midi version of the guitar chords click below:

Em(Em7)

A7( A7sus2)

D11

G(G6/9)

Summary chart to print out

Summary chart with optional chord positions

An example sequence of one-finger chords

The full 1-finger chord system

This six chords at right are the most relevant one-finger chords. The full names of chords in parentheses can be substituted in digital compositions so that other instruments can play along with little dischord.

C(CMaj9)

D(D2 )

Em(Em7)

A7( A7sus2)

D11(also C69)

G(G69)

Db(Dbm9b5)

G(G69)

Gb(Gbm9)

B(Bm11)

Less-commonly used chords

G13(Fmaj9b5)

Bb(Bbmaj7b5)

Summary: One-finger Chords

• These chords produce a nice sound. But their purpose is to make it easy to concentrate on when to change chords.

• In the 3-finger chord sets to follow, the one-finger versions can be substituted at any time if you get lost or want to change chords very quickly in a fast song.

• When you later learn 3-finger and full chords you can substitute them and play the songs used for the one-finger versions. In a musical group a combination of chords done well can give a full and interesting sound.

Songs for One-Finger chords

•Major: G and D•Buffalo Gals•Little Liza Jane•Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me•Skip To My Lou•Grand Texas (Jambalaya)•Polly wolly Doodle •Darling Corey•Banana Boat Song•Hot Time in the Old Town•Long, Long Ago•Get Along Little Dogies

•Down in the Valley•Farmer in the Dell•Go Tell Aunt Rhody•Merrily we Roll Along•Row Row Row your Boat•Tom Dooley•He’s Got the Whole World•Ezekial Saw the Wheel•Old Paint•London Bridge•Jacob’s Ladder

•Minor: D and Em•Shady Grove•What Should we do with the Drunken Sailor•Wade In the Water

•Haul Away•Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho•900 Miles

Below is a practice sample of famous songs that can be played with two chords:

Major: G and D

•Little Liza Jane•Skip To My Lou•Grand Texas (Jambalaya) •Polly wolly Doodle

Minor: D and Em

•Shady Grove•Down in the Valley•Wade In the Water

And these are merely the ones out of copyright. There are many more modern 2-chord songs copyrighted.

To play along with a midi version of some of these songs click on the icons at left :