dyeguitar you can go to tunetranscriber.com, upload an mp3 and change both pitch and tempo to your liking, down to 50% tempo in the free version if I remember correctly. perfect if you want to learn songs in different tunings and don’t want to change guitar/tuning all the time. I’m pretty sure It also lets you mark and loop wherever you want in the song.
I learned by playing to a radio - started at 8 years old. It's tough to learn Stairway to Heaven. -it only came on the radio every 2 weeks. I can play most anything after hearing it once -barring some solos. I can also play songs in my head like a cd player. The entire band and arrangement. It's absolutely the most useful skill you can acquire. It does help you write, because it forces you to study the composition.Jimmy Page, the Beatles, they learned covers. It's like reading a book. You get a glimpse into the mind who created it. Very enlightening.
I've been playing for a few years now and it's amazing how much a slightly different note or chord can make or break the feel of a song. I get exactly what you're saying, about how listening to the song vs. how a tab a tab tells you to play it can sound or feel totally incorrect. It boils down to those little notes or special chords that really add flavor and taste to the song. I prefer to learn guitar by watching a video of the original musician playing, if possible.
I have been using "Transcribe!", which is dedicated to this purpose, for years. You can change pitch and speed separately. Therefore, you don't have to change your tuning for each song which has a different tuning than yours. Also one can adjust the EQ to hear some exact frequency bands. It has a loop option, as well, to practice certain parts of the songs.
Great stuff, Ola! When I’m learning songs for the Sleep lessons I do on my channel I typically study mounds of RUclips footage of the band playing the song live to get the riffs and positions of the riffs as close as possible.
That's how you learn the best, definitely. I'm still doing it the old-school way, with a Cd player, the head against the speaker, play/return/play/return/play and so on......
The video title IMMEDIATELY grabbed my attention- got here as fast as I could- because this skill is something EVERYONE has control over, and doesn’t rely on gear. It’s super important- and Ola’s take on it would be AWESOME!
Picked up the guitar again 5 yrs ago & have learnt everything by ear. It takes more time but is more fun and I find I keep the knowledge better than reading it off some half assed tab.
Damn... you said that you're not able to practice your technique for more than 10 minutes yet you convienced me to practice mine for 14 days! Thank's for another tip!
For simple one string and two string riffs in E standard I can figure them out somewhat easily, but anything tuned lower than D standard is hard to figure out what tuning it's in, as well as how they're playing it. I also need to learn more chords so I can spot them by ear which I'm sure would help a lot. As for tabs being wrong, I compensate for this by playing the riff from the song on my phone, then learning the tab. Usually it's simple stuff wrong in tabs like not including hammer ons/offs, vibrato, or overcomplicating a riff with spread out notes in which case I try to rewrite the riffs myself so the notes are closer together and is easier to play. Even if the tab is correct I do this sometimes because honestly fuck playing a riff that requires me to go from the first fret to the 12th, hit the bottom string in between, then do an annoying chord when I can hit that 12th fret note on a higher string instead then do that chord higher up on the fret board so my fingers dont die.
I mentioned this in another reply, but if you download a copy of "Transcribe" software, it has a feature to allow pitch transpositions and instrument filtering. I found it great for transposing a bass track an octave up to make it easier to learn. Also nice if you don't feel like tuning down while learning a song.
totally agree .....great playing songs....it's more fun than playing scales....after playing so many George Lynch's stuff I myself seem to find each new song of his easier because I kind of know his style....
Yes! Music is art for the ears, so those are the tools you need to develop. Only if I'm short of time or there is some music I want to extract that I don't really care enough for to PLAY CORRECTLY but I like the overall chord progression or some kind of something about itI usually skip the ears and cheat instead, just to get started.
Nitpicky player here: For me it's a mix of playing by ear, watching live performances... and as a *very* last resort, looking up tabs and comparing to what I hear, since tabs can be wayyy off. A couple of things to take in mind when trying to learn any riff by Dime: He was a hard hitter, and most of his palm mutes were heavy. Because of that, the muted strings would sometimes go up a whole semitone. And of course, his tuning. I could write a whole text for his tuning alone. So, taking the above into account, and from what I gather for Heresy in particular (using the methods mentioned above), he's actually playing 0--1-1-0--0--0--1-1-0--0--0--3-3-0--4-4-0--3--0 (of course, fifths) And then for the next riff it's 0--6--0--5--0--3--5--6--0--5--0--3--4--5--0 (again, fifths) and on the last pass 0--6--0--5--0--3--4--6--0--5--0--^3---3--^4 (put ^ there to indicate next string, again all fifths) If you watch his clinic video, you can see that. And if you watch live videos of Heresy, Rex also seems to be playing what I wrote above on the bass.
I mostly learned guitar for the first few years without the internet so I began training my ear early. I used to use a lot of tabs but I found that I somewhat grew out of them. Use them occasionally but prefer to learn song by trial and error. Great video!
Awesome advice Ola. And for those of us who are either too broke, too lazy or too cheap to get Logic or any similar apps, Windows Media Player allows you to slow down songs while retaining proper pitch as well. Rock on you crazy Swede!
Very nice! They had something like this in guitar hero 80cs which helped me understand guitar hero alot better back in the day, will check this out when i finally get a recording program on my computer!
I do this all the time in Reaper. Another tip to build on this is to add an eq on the track and cut the lows and boost the mids to make the guitar stand out a little more.
Brilliant video. I used to unplug speakers on my stereo to ear rhythm and lead. The only problem I had from learning by ear was it made my technique very odd. I did take some lessons for scales and key. So knowing what key a song was in helped bodge my way through some bits. I am pretty competent but I get lazy.. So the 14 day challenge is a way to pick up techniques. I don't want to be a speed merchant.. Just more competent so this will help massively.
This was such an awesome video. Very true how learning by ear can give you that edge when it comes to writing your own songs! Most of the music I come up with will come to me while I’m sitting and learning a new song. The inspiration and emotions are all there and everything just falls into place. Unfortunately, I’m into Periphery right now and I find it extremely difficult to mimic their technique. I’ll try this Logic Pro approach, cutting and looping parts of the songs until I get it right. Thanks Ola! (BELCH!!!!)
Nice video Ola, very useful information for the burgeoning guitarist. I used to play my favorite songs through my stereo system, record that signal with a mic and 4-track cassette recorder that I could then replay at 50% speed. Doing so, I progressed in my playing accuracy as well as in my 'ear' acuity.
Hey Ola and thanks for another awesome video! I don't have a guitar on me right now to try it out myself, but what I'm hearing in the slowed down version is both 2nd and 3rd fret in the same interval. So basically like a half of the part you play 2nd fret only is on the 2nd fret and then the other half moves on the 3rd fret within the same gallop. I wish I could try it out and have a more accurate idea. Who knows, I might be wrong, or right! Not trying to call you out here by any means. Keep up the great content!
That was spot on. A song I have been struggling with the last couple og weeks. Haha. To manage Dime,s “ Texas soul” rhythm style is not easy... I discovered that I’m kinda thinking to mush with tabs, and forget just to play be rhythm feel. Must admit that I’m often go for the tabs though, I think that I’m getting some playing experience, which i feel is paying of, in he sense that I find it easier to listen what going on in songs.
Back in the mids 90's I was using a software called cool edit 96 to loop any riff and slow down and keep the pitch, I still use it but it is called Adobe Audition now. Before that I used cassettes tapes :D PS. I recomend to use headphones to play by ear, and move your guitar to left or right channel so you can hear both more clear.
Ola!! You the man!! Just wanted to say thankyou for all the feared and haunted music!! Ive been rocking exit wounds album on repeat for weeks!!! Don't stop being ola!!!
3:42 “This is just who I am. If you don’t like me, or my burps, see ya.” 👋🏻 This is AWESOME- how it should be. I’m the same way. Sensitive guts. Gotta love yourself like that 👍🏻
I use the amazing slow downer. If I recall correctly you can buy up to three keys at time of purchase so you can have it on multiple devices. If a song ever got too muddy, I would just jack up the pitch to a full octave and play normal against the octave. That clears up any wrong notes quick. It sounds like chipmunks singing, but it gets the job done.
Thanks, really good tip. I have bunch of my own songs that i don't remember how to play and some of them we have practised with my band, but still some of them are lost. Not sure are any of them worth of relearning, but in other hand i think those should be quite ok, when we have learned them as a band. Usually if riff wont stuck with me then usually it is not worthy.
There is a way to use both you can learn the tabs but always make sure to go back to the original recording because you can always tell if you see a cover of a song that the person is just playing what the tab says but, bringing a Certain technique to your playing and really giving it a feel to the song can distinguish I tab reader from a true musician. That’s my take on it anyway
Back in the late 80s early 90s all I had is cassette tapes (which de tune the song as tape stretches), couldn't really slow songs down, I didn't even have a frickin' TUNER! I tuned my guitar with a landline phone - when you pick up the phone, the sound you hear is A (not perfect but hey) and that's how I tuned my Czechoslovakian Jolana guitar :D And FFW to 2018. and what I often hear is musicians bitching about this, that, talk about their "in depth 'knowledge' of crap" (yet they have no clue on the matter) when in fact they have all these new amazing gadgets, the web, online schools, etc. But at the end of the day - I'm thankful for the hardships I had as a kid, because I know I KNOW when I talk about something and not just quoting some guy from the web. @Ola - this video is an AWESOME presentation of how to use your ears, instead of learning some tabs filled with mistakes.
Your method of learning songs by hearing them over and over again is exactly what I and hundreds of musicians did throughout my (their) complete carreer. A handy tip for every grade of musicians, beginners to pros. Btw., the well known VLC Media Player (Freeware) is able to slow down any data format he is able to play. And you can set bookmarks and repeat the marked part, so you are able to repeate a part of a song as long as you like. It was not that easy back in the days when we had vinyl albums, and you had to lift the needle of the record player like hundreds of times to get into a complicated part. And when you were not sure about the song, you coulkd slow down the record, just by slowing down the turntable with your thumb. The music was completely out of tune then (for sure), but you had an idea of how the song was played. And, sure enough, Tipton and Downing didn't play stuff as fast and complicated as Dimebag did in his time. So not only usefull technic evolved, musicians did, too.
I use Reaper to learn songs (it's freeware with a nag screen so it doesn't cost you anything to try). I drop the song on a track and then use the project play rate adjustment and it'll use Elastique to slow it down while keeping the pitch. Then you can put some loop markers to repeat some part if needed, and you can record your instrument on another track and you can immediately hear if you did something wrong since if you do it right, you can't hear your playing since it'll fit perfectly to the original track. If you want, you can easily detect tempo or align it to grid etc. If you play keyboards, you can record MIDI when you learn the song and then you can make transcription out of it at the same time with he notation features... or tabs if you put some more effort into it :D Highly Recommended :)
I tried to learn a song by summoning, so i looked up a tab. The first part sounded as it was supposed to But not the 2nd part. After tweeking a bit i finally got it by myself, and That way i felt way More satisfaction than if i were to learn a song Only by tab
Funny, I asked you this question after the workshop in Moscow, and now I see the video made on this question) I use Transcribe! for this thing, and I totally agree that playing exercises with metronome is kinda boring, its just KILLING you After you made a cover on The River Dragon Has Come, I started to learn a solo from this song (only a solo cause I dont have a 7-string guitar), and after a month I still cant play it properly, all because I started to learn the sweep part with alternate picking just like was written in tabs, and what a freaking relief I felt when I saw that Jeff sweeps in that part...
I learned that intro from watching you do it on FAQ, some weeks back. Gonna have to learn the rest of the song, now. Thanks for everything you do, Ola 🤘
Thanks Ola. I see that you think just like me. Your confidence is coming along great. The album I'm working on should be done soon. I will send you a free copy. I'll be in touch on how to do that behind the scenes. We are in different time zones so probably are not awake at the same times, but I also never sleep so I will let you know when it's done and you can tell me where you want me to send it. Depending on if my drummer wants to travel, maybe we could do some shows together.
Ive been 100 percent the opposite. I've been playing guitar for about 20 years now and only recently have I tried to learn other people's music. I got into guitar because I wanted to write music, so I never ever wanted to play other people's songs, I didn't want to play like other people, and I just wasn't interested in learning songs. This has.. well resulted in me in having hundreds of songs recorded (that noone else will hear for the most part) but.. also resulted in me being terrible at jamming with people because.. I have no idea how other people play guitar and I am just unfamiliar with how to play different styles of music outside of what I hear in my own head. I wish I didn't go down this route because as I teaching my ear now... I am getting noticeably better at recognizing what someone else is playing. It also has helped me learn my own songs as typically I would just forget each song after recording it, now I have the ability to in a short period of time refigure out my songs.
That's also my method - to make an endless and very short loop and then to figure out what's really going on inside such loop. This is also very useful for developing your musical hearing. And Yes‼️ - even so called official tab books are sometimes full of incorrect tabs - what's the solution? Your own ears 😎
Back in the day i used to use my cd player with the a b feature. and I would practice the part until it was perfect. Then i would move on to the next part,but i would start from the beginning till i got to the end. This made me a machine. Every band i was in unfortunately had a drummer that could not play the same song twice,and would stare at me waiting for changes. I agree with you on not looking at tabs and learning by ear for the emotion of the song and how i interpreted how they played it. I also ran into tabs that were completely wrong so i gave up on that shit and learned by ear. By the way...what the hell is up with that lock of hair pointing strait forward...i could not stop staring at it XD.
Did not know about this feature in Logic... thank you so much and I hope to try this out on some Pantera tracks myself that I have struggled with over the years \m/
Good stuff. I prefer learning by ear over other stuff. Heard enough inaccurate tabs or tutorials that I'd rather just learn from the source. And burps are fun.
Dijiste que hablas español, so, cuando inicie sacaba las canciones de oído y ayuda mucho, sin embargo, pierdes días y días que podía haber usado para digitacion. Y no, no había RUclips como ahora y no tenía guitar pro o power tabs. Entonces cuando uno no es un virtuoso eso arruina la paciencia y las ganas, porque empiezas a escuchar cosas diferentes cada vez y nunca estás seguro. O por ejemplo: con grupos como maiden, donde una guitarra toca unas notas y la otra unas diferentes para un mismo riff, eso te sacude la cabeza y quieres llorar. Nota: no tenía, no tengo el equipo que tú usas. Saludos desde México mi querido Ola!
Hey Ola....A biiiig BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRPPPP of approval....I remember sitting with my guitar in front of the stereo and learning the songs of MetallicA's Kill 'em All by running the record in all different speeds I could run the f*¥king record player....great that there are all these cool tools out there.....Thanks for the great videos!!!
I really wish I had this when CFH came out, lol! I tried to play this SO many times, by ear! I did it the way you used to play it, too, but now I see it was wrong all this time, whoa?! Thanks for showing this. 🤘
It’s so true. You waste days training your muscles to play song incorrectly and often - more difficult than they needs to be. With any tab, I’ll slow it down and check the notes are accurate by trial and error to ensure the notes are accurate and/or the note positions are organized more appropriate for my picking style.
VERY intresting topic. I wanted to say that there is a software called "transcribe" wich is totally usefull for this kind of purpose. In my begining as a guitar player (ends of 90s), I did not have any software, any tab, anything... But, on now days, it is more than easy to amateur players to learn how to play any song. I guess they aren´t going to develpe their hearing skills as much as we did, but they´ll be able to get the job done in a shoter time, and more excatly.
Ola, I slow down your burps and learn how to replicate them using this method. I've really begun to notice the results - twice the length of the burp gets twice as much the Wamin! Thanks dude! Great video. =)
A good stand alone program to use for learning songs is called transcribe! by seventhstring.com. It allows you to load the song in the program and fully adjust speed while maintaining pitch just like this, as well as isolate frequency ranges and adjust pitch as needed like if a band is tuned like Machine Head which is 40 cents sharp without butchering the sound and other features. Only $39 and easy to use.
I listen to the song over and over to get the rhythm down and train my ear to which notes are there, then I pick up my guitar and try to play it. I can get the rhythm down, but sometimes I don't hit the right notes. That's when I go to the tabs, only if I can't get it right beforehand. But first, make sure that you listen to the song over and over again until you can accurately hear it in your head.
I usually try and find a few live performance videos of the song I want to learn for the same reason that most tabs I’ll look for are incorrect. Then I’ll change the tempo of the track to get the accurate notes from the recording 🤘🏻
Albsolutly a valuable skill to have, i often use the playback speed feature on youtube to slow down the audio, and video if necessary to see where someones hands are on the neck. But you know sometimes you just need a couple of pointers....
When I'm stuck, I always try phase cancellation to minimize the 'noisy center' (shouts, tom/snare fills etc). Helped a lot with The Haunted and Nasum. Wanna teach us how to play "Godpuppet", "Downward Spiral" or "One Kill Wonder"? I'm curious how close I got ;)
i had the pleasure to be very good brothers with dimey man!hes very special in not just his playing but a unreal person !a true legend !hes with us allways in heart !im on way into my house of worship studio!the blacktooth studio!\m/warmup the tubes :)
Not my best face day... My make-up team was on vacation. Anyway, here's a video showing how I learn songs for instance when I do covers.
Ola Englund
My favorite shirt though! 👍🏻
That’s the one I got
Hola, England!
@@goatsurgeon that shirt rocks!
thanks Ola! \../
You don't need make up, you're already beautiful
Just a heads up for people... VLC media player also has a slow down while keeping pitch feature. I use that to learn fast song parts.
Can it loop some parts?
dyeguitar you can go to tunetranscriber.com, upload an mp3 and change both pitch and tempo to your liking, down to 50% tempo in the free version if I remember correctly. perfect if you want to learn songs in different tunings and don’t want to change guitar/tuning all the time. I’m pretty sure It also lets you mark and loop wherever you want in the song.
Holy crap l, so simple, so effective, so obvious. Thanks for the tip. I really hadn't thought of it
Guys - try the free Aimp3 media player - it has pitch correction, slow/fast, A - B repeat and all you need to play along a song!!
Ive used vlc for years and am still using it. Really great free software
I learned by playing to a radio - started at 8 years old. It's tough to learn Stairway to Heaven. -it only came on the radio every 2 weeks. I can play most anything after hearing it once -barring some solos. I can also play songs in my head like a cd player. The entire band and arrangement. It's absolutely the most useful skill you can acquire. It does help you write, because it forces you to study the composition.Jimmy Page, the Beatles, they learned covers. It's like reading a book. You get a glimpse into the mind who created it. Very enlightening.
I've been playing for a few years now and it's amazing how much a slightly different note or chord can make or break the feel of a song. I get exactly what you're saying, about how listening to the song vs. how a tab a tab tells you to play it can sound or feel totally incorrect. It boils down to those little notes or special chords that really add flavor and taste to the song. I prefer to learn guitar by watching a video of the original musician playing, if possible.
I have been using "Transcribe!", which is dedicated to this purpose, for years. You can change pitch and speed separately. Therefore, you don't have to change your tuning for each song which has a different tuning than yours. Also one can adjust the EQ to hear some exact frequency bands. It has a loop option, as well, to practice certain parts of the songs.
Been using it for years. Great software and amazingly cheap.
Great stuff, Ola! When I’m learning songs for the Sleep lessons I do on my channel I typically study mounds of RUclips footage of the band playing the song live to get the riffs and positions of the riffs as close as possible.
Your channel is amazing thanks s lot,Doom on!
That's how you learn the best, definitely.
I'm still doing it the old-school way, with a Cd player, the head against the speaker, play/return/play/return/play and so on......
I learnt to burp by ear, despite you are a great tutorial!
rofl!!!
@@pablocuello4184 :)
For anyone who doesn't have a DAW, you can use RUclips's play speed as well. You just won't be able to loop easily!
Or the classic VLC!!
Or try Reaper. It has free trial version and reasonable price.
if you're sensible and use magic actions for youtube you can just right click drag the section of video to loop
Same here Ola, learning songs of my favorite bands got me to get better at guitar and I have gotten much better all self taught.
The video title IMMEDIATELY grabbed my attention- got here as fast as I could- because this skill is something EVERYONE has control over, and doesn’t rely on gear. It’s super important- and Ola’s take on it would be AWESOME!
Picked up the guitar again 5 yrs ago & have learnt everything by ear. It takes more time but is more fun and I find I keep the knowledge better than reading it off some half assed tab.
I totally agree, learning any songs or guitar play just by ear is the best music school ever ! really improves your own style and technique
Remember back in the day play> stop> rewind>repeat, :) Excellent belch it genuinely made med happy, :)
Damn... you said that you're not able to practice your technique for more than 10 minutes yet you convienced me to practice mine for 14 days! Thank's for another tip!
Transcribe is perfect program for these kind of situations. It slows down and pitch shifts on multiple ways.
Huge Ola fan here. I love all this information. It's making me a better player. Thank you Ola
Riff station is a great progam to slow down audio files. I would highly recommend it if you don't have a daw
Literally did a video on my question from the last FAQ. Absolute legend!
For simple one string and two string riffs in E standard I can figure them out somewhat easily, but anything tuned lower than D standard is hard to figure out what tuning it's in, as well as how they're playing it. I also need to learn more chords so I can spot them by ear which I'm sure would help a lot. As for tabs being wrong, I compensate for this by playing the riff from the song on my phone, then learning the tab. Usually it's simple stuff wrong in tabs like not including hammer ons/offs, vibrato, or overcomplicating a riff with spread out notes in which case I try to rewrite the riffs myself so the notes are closer together and is easier to play. Even if the tab is correct I do this sometimes because honestly fuck playing a riff that requires me to go from the first fret to the 12th, hit the bottom string in between, then do an annoying chord when I can hit that 12th fret note on a higher string instead then do that chord higher up on the fret board so my fingers dont die.
What, you can't reach that far? It's EZ.
JK man, but I apparently have a big reach even with pretty small hands.
I mentioned this in another reply, but if you download a copy of "Transcribe" software, it has a feature to allow pitch transpositions and instrument filtering. I found it great for transposing a bass track an octave up to make it easier to learn. Also nice if you don't feel like tuning down while learning a song.
totally agree .....great playing songs....it's more fun than playing scales....after playing so many George Lynch's stuff I myself seem to find each new song of his easier
because I kind of know his style....
Yes! Music is art for the ears, so those are the tools you need to develop. Only if I'm short of time or there is some music I want to extract that I don't really care enough for to PLAY CORRECTLY but I like the overall chord progression or some kind of something about itI usually skip the ears and cheat instead, just to get started.
Nitpicky player here: For me it's a mix of playing by ear, watching live performances... and as a *very* last resort, looking up tabs and comparing to what I hear, since tabs can be wayyy off.
A couple of things to take in mind when trying to learn any riff by Dime: He was a hard hitter, and most of his palm mutes were heavy. Because of that, the muted strings would sometimes go up a whole semitone. And of course, his tuning. I could write a whole text for his tuning alone.
So, taking the above into account, and from what I gather for Heresy in particular (using the methods mentioned above), he's actually playing
0--1-1-0--0--0--1-1-0--0--0--3-3-0--4-4-0--3--0 (of course, fifths)
And then for the next riff it's
0--6--0--5--0--3--5--6--0--5--0--3--4--5--0 (again, fifths)
and on the last pass
0--6--0--5--0--3--4--6--0--5--0--^3---3--^4 (put ^ there to indicate next string, again all fifths)
If you watch his clinic video, you can see that. And if you watch live videos of Heresy, Rex also seems to be playing what I wrote above on the bass.
I mostly learned guitar for the first few years without the internet so I began training my ear early. I used to use a lot of tabs but I found that I somewhat grew out of them. Use them occasionally but prefer to learn song by trial and error. Great video!
Awesome advice Ola. And for those of us who are either too broke, too lazy or too cheap to get Logic or any similar apps, Windows Media Player allows you to slow down songs while retaining proper pitch as well. Rock on you crazy Swede!
Sorry if someone else already mentioned this, but it's possible to change tempo while preserving pitch in Reaper. Awesome advice!
It helps too if you know what tuning is used. That avoids wrong playing patterns too.
Very nice! They had something like this in guitar hero 80cs which helped me understand guitar hero alot better back in the day, will check this out when i finally get a recording program on my computer!
I do this all the time in Reaper. Another tip to build on this is to add an eq on the track and cut the lows and boost the mids to make the guitar stand out a little more.
Brilliant video. I used to unplug speakers on my stereo to ear rhythm and lead. The only problem I had from learning by ear was it made my technique very odd. I did take some lessons for scales and key. So knowing what key a song was in helped bodge my way through some bits. I am pretty competent but I get lazy.. So the 14 day challenge is a way to pick up techniques. I don't want to be a speed merchant.. Just more competent so this will help massively.
This was such an awesome video. Very true how learning by ear can give you that edge when it comes to writing your own songs! Most of the music I come up with will come to me while I’m sitting and learning a new song. The inspiration and emotions are all there and everything just falls into place. Unfortunately, I’m into Periphery right now and I find it extremely difficult to mimic their technique. I’ll try this Logic Pro approach, cutting and looping parts of the songs until I get it right. Thanks Ola! (BELCH!!!!)
Nice video Ola, very useful information for the burgeoning guitarist.
I used to play my favorite songs through my stereo system, record that signal with a mic and 4-track cassette recorder that I could then replay at 50% speed. Doing so, I progressed in my playing accuracy as well as in my 'ear' acuity.
Nice tip. I will try this in the Sonar to learn some musics.
Hey Ola and thanks for another awesome video!
I don't have a guitar on me right now to try it out myself, but what I'm hearing in the slowed down version is both 2nd and 3rd fret in the same interval. So basically like a half of the part you play 2nd fret only is on the 2nd fret and then the other half moves on the 3rd fret within the same gallop. I wish I could try it out and have a more accurate idea. Who knows, I might be wrong, or right! Not trying to call you out here by any means.
Keep up the great content!
That was spot on. A song I have been struggling with the last couple og weeks. Haha. To manage Dime,s “ Texas soul” rhythm style is not easy... I discovered that I’m kinda thinking to mush with tabs, and forget just to play be rhythm feel. Must admit that I’m often go for the tabs though, I think that I’m getting some playing experience, which i feel is paying of, in he sense that I find it easier to listen what going on in songs.
Back in the mids 90's I was using a software called cool edit 96 to loop any riff and slow down and keep the pitch, I still use it but it is called Adobe Audition now. Before that I used cassettes tapes :D
PS. I recomend to use headphones to play by ear, and move your guitar to left or right channel so you can hear both more clear.
Transcribe! is the name of a software which also allows you to do this. It's pretty good. You can even single out instruments or remove vocals.
That’s how I learned to play guitar and always teach ears first. Thank you sweet Ola!
Ola!!
You the man!! Just wanted to say thankyou for all the feared and haunted music!!
Ive been rocking exit wounds album on repeat for weeks!!!
Don't stop being ola!!!
I use Transcribe! or Capo (Mac only) but the RUclips Speed functionality is very handy as well!
3:42 “This is just who I am. If you don’t like me, or my burps, see ya.” 👋🏻
This is AWESOME- how it should be.
I’m the same way. Sensitive guts.
Gotta love yourself like that 👍🏻
I use the amazing slow downer. If I recall correctly you can buy up to three keys at time of purchase so you can have it on multiple devices. If a song ever got too muddy, I would just jack up the pitch to a full octave and play normal against the octave. That clears up any wrong notes quick. It sounds like chipmunks singing, but it gets the job done.
Great tip. You can also slow down videos on RUclips with same pitch
Thanks, really good tip. I have bunch of my own songs that i don't remember how to play and some of them we have practised with my band, but still some of them are lost.
Not sure are any of them worth of relearning, but in other hand i think those should be quite ok, when we have learned them as a band. Usually if riff wont stuck with me then usually it is not worthy.
I have ADD when it comes to practicing, I always end up playing other stuff
Damn Monotony always getting in the way of success. 😁
Little late haha I have ADD too but have great rythm feeling and learning most stuff by ear!
There is a way to use both you can learn the tabs but always make sure to go back to the original recording because you can always tell if you see a cover of a song that the person is just playing what the tab says but, bringing a Certain technique to your playing and really giving it a feel to the song can distinguish I tab reader from a true musician.
That’s my take on it anyway
Great tutorial! Dime is quirky. Reminds me a lot of EVH. All kinds of little tricks and gadgets happening.
Back in the late 80s early 90s all I had is cassette tapes (which de tune the song as tape stretches), couldn't really slow songs down, I didn't even have a frickin' TUNER! I tuned my guitar with a landline phone - when you pick up the phone, the sound you hear is A (not perfect but hey) and that's how I tuned my Czechoslovakian Jolana guitar :D
And FFW to 2018. and what I often hear is musicians bitching about this, that, talk about their "in depth 'knowledge' of crap" (yet they have no clue on the matter) when in fact they have all these new amazing gadgets, the web, online schools, etc.
But at the end of the day - I'm thankful for the hardships I had as a kid, because I know I KNOW when I talk about something and not just quoting some guy from the web.
@Ola - this video is an AWESOME presentation of how to use your ears, instead of learning some tabs filled with mistakes.
Thanks for the varispeed feature, i was not aware of it!
Your method of learning songs by hearing them over and over again is exactly what I and hundreds of musicians did throughout my (their) complete carreer. A handy tip for every grade of musicians, beginners to pros.
Btw., the well known VLC Media Player (Freeware) is able to slow down any data format he is able to play. And you can set bookmarks and repeat the marked part, so you are able to repeate a part of a song as long as you like.
It was not that easy back in the days when we had vinyl albums, and you had to lift the needle of the record player like hundreds of times to get into a complicated part. And when you were not sure about the song, you coulkd slow down the record, just by slowing down the turntable with your thumb. The music was completely out of tune then (for sure), but you had an idea of how the song was played. And, sure enough, Tipton and Downing didn't play stuff as fast and complicated as Dimebag did in his time. So not only usefull technic evolved, musicians did, too.
I use Reaper to learn songs (it's freeware with a nag screen so it doesn't cost you anything to try).
I drop the song on a track and then use the project play rate adjustment and it'll use Elastique to slow it down while keeping the pitch.
Then you can put some loop markers to repeat some part if needed, and you can record your instrument on another track and you can immediately hear if you did something wrong since if you do it right, you can't hear your playing since it'll fit perfectly to the original track.
If you want, you can easily detect tempo or align it to grid etc.
If you play keyboards, you can record MIDI when you learn the song and then you can make transcription out of it at the same time with he notation features... or tabs if you put some more effort into it :D
Highly Recommended :)
I appreciate this fine video installment of music tutelage.
Ola you are the best teacher...
This is what I do! I use my Audipo app. Which is works for me. Cool video,man!
I tried to learn a song by summoning, so i looked up a tab. The first part sounded as it was supposed to But not the 2nd part. After tweeking a bit i finally got it by myself, and That way i felt way More satisfaction than if i were to learn a song Only by tab
Funny, I asked you this question after the workshop in Moscow, and now I see the video made on this question)
I use Transcribe! for this thing, and I totally agree that playing exercises with metronome is kinda boring, its just KILLING you
After you made a cover on The River Dragon Has Come, I started to learn a solo from this song (only a solo cause I dont have a 7-string guitar), and after a month I still cant play it properly, all because I started to learn the sweep part with alternate picking just like was written in tabs, and what a freaking relief I felt when I saw that Jeff sweeps in that part...
Awsome advices from the awsome Ola the Swede. Thanks.
Thank you for another great video, Ola!
Cheers!
I learned that intro from watching you do it on FAQ, some weeks back. Gonna have to learn the rest of the song, now. Thanks for everything you do, Ola 🤘
Thanks Ola. I see that you think just like me. Your confidence is coming along great. The album I'm working on should be done soon. I will send you a free copy. I'll be in touch on how to do that behind the scenes. We are in different time zones so probably are not awake at the same times, but I also never sleep so I will let you know when it's done and you can tell me where you want me to send it. Depending on if my drummer wants to travel, maybe we could do some shows together.
That's how I learned songs. Except I did it with cassette tapes in the early 80s Haha. Wore out a lot of tapes by constantly rewinding 😂
Ive been 100 percent the opposite. I've been playing guitar for about 20 years now and only recently have I tried to learn other people's music. I got into guitar because I wanted to write music, so I never ever wanted to play other people's songs, I didn't want to play like other people, and I just wasn't interested in learning songs. This has.. well resulted in me in having hundreds of songs recorded (that noone else will hear for the most part) but.. also resulted in me being terrible at jamming with people because.. I have no idea how other people play guitar and I am just unfamiliar with how to play different styles of music outside of what I hear in my own head. I wish I didn't go down this route because as I teaching my ear now... I am getting noticeably better at recognizing what someone else is playing. It also has helped me learn my own songs as typically I would just forget each song after recording it, now I have the ability to in a short period of time refigure out my songs.
lolll its really nice advice for people. I love this song. Every song on this album. CFH Tattoo on my arm. Best album so far in the 90's
Love all your videos Ola! Always entertaining and informative. Thank you for being you. - Jonny
there's also the ''Amazin Slow Downer'' by Roni Music. Very good program for transcribing
That's also my method - to make an endless and very short loop and then to figure out what's really going on inside such loop. This is also very useful for developing your musical hearing.
And Yes‼️ - even so called official tab books are sometimes full of incorrect tabs - what's the solution? Your own ears 😎
Thanks for this tutorial, Ola! I totally should practice my ears more.
Back in the day i used to use my cd player with the a b feature. and I would practice the part until it was perfect. Then i would move on to the next part,but i would start from the beginning till i got to the end. This made me a machine. Every band i was in unfortunately had a drummer that could not play the same song twice,and would stare at me waiting for changes. I agree with you on not looking at tabs and learning by ear for the emotion of the song and how i interpreted how they played it. I also ran into tabs that were completely wrong so i gave up on that shit and learned by ear. By the way...what the hell is up with that lock of hair pointing strait forward...i could not stop staring at it XD.
Did not know about this feature in Logic... thank you so much and I hope to try this out on some Pantera tracks myself that I have struggled with over the years \m/
Good stuff. I prefer learning by ear over other stuff. Heard enough inaccurate tabs or tutorials that I'd rather just learn from the source.
And burps are fun.
Amazing Slow Downer is another helpful app.
Dijiste que hablas español, so, cuando inicie sacaba las canciones de oído y ayuda mucho, sin embargo, pierdes días y días que podía haber usado para digitacion. Y no, no había RUclips como ahora y no tenía guitar pro o power tabs. Entonces cuando uno no es un virtuoso eso arruina la paciencia y las ganas, porque empiezas a escuchar cosas diferentes cada vez y nunca estás seguro. O por ejemplo: con grupos como maiden, donde una guitarra toca unas notas y la otra unas diferentes para un mismo riff, eso te sacude la cabeza y quieres llorar. Nota: no tenía, no tengo el equipo que tú usas. Saludos desde México mi querido Ola!
Hey Ola....A biiiig BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRPPPP of approval....I remember sitting with my guitar in front of the stereo and learning the songs of MetallicA's Kill 'em All by running the record in all different speeds I could run the f*¥king record player....great that there are all these cool tools out there.....Thanks for the great videos!!!
I also find live videos useful, if you can find them, in combo with learning by ear. I find it helps with technique, position on the neck etc.
Thank you for this kind of tips my Master!
excellent tip! thank you ola
There is also Riff Maestro and you can do this in Amplitube... and checkout Torrins guitar lessons with these slow video options.
You are an huge influence Ola, thank you!
New Lime solar ltd being delivered today! Looking forward to the guitar and will be my first evertune.
I really wish I had this when CFH came out, lol! I tried to play this SO many times, by ear! I did it the way you used to play it, too, but now I see it was wrong all this time, whoa?!
Thanks for showing this. 🤘
again , that's an Ola-Smart thing . Thanks Ola !
It’s so true. You waste days training your muscles to play song incorrectly and often - more difficult than they needs to be. With any tab, I’ll slow it down and check the notes are accurate by trial and error to ensure the notes are accurate and/or the note positions are organized more appropriate for my picking style.
Great as always, this make a lot of sence !
VERY intresting topic. I wanted to say that there is a software called "transcribe" wich is totally usefull for this kind of purpose. In my begining as a guitar player (ends of 90s), I did not have any software, any tab, anything... But, on now days, it is more than easy to amateur players to learn how to play any song. I guess they aren´t going to develpe their hearing skills as much as we did, but they´ll be able to get the job done in a shoter time, and more excatly.
Great software. I remember ruining some vinyl due to constantly lifting/dropping the needle on tracks.
Wowww! Such a great idea!
Ola, I slow down your burps and learn how to replicate them using this method. I've really begun to notice the results - twice the length of the burp gets twice as much the Wamin! Thanks dude! Great video. =)
Keep up the good work! Love your vids
A good stand alone program to use for learning songs is called transcribe! by seventhstring.com. It allows you to load the song in the program and fully adjust speed while maintaining pitch just like this, as well as isolate frequency ranges and adjust pitch as needed like if a band is tuned like Machine Head which is 40 cents sharp without butchering the sound and other features. Only $39 and easy to use.
That was the way I learned your solos from Fall of Man, Engines of Death and Your Black is my white.
Piece by piece in a slow speed using Reaper.
I listen to the song over and over to get the rhythm down and train my ear to which notes are there, then I pick up my guitar and try to play it. I can get the rhythm down, but sometimes I don't hit the right notes. That's when I go to the tabs, only if I can't get it right beforehand. But first, make sure that you listen to the song over and over again until you can accurately hear it in your head.
I usually try and find a few live performance videos of the song I want to learn for the same reason that most tabs I’ll look for are incorrect. Then I’ll change the tempo of the track to get the accurate notes from the recording 🤘🏻
Cool process to break songs down
Albsolutly a valuable skill to have, i often use the playback speed feature on youtube to slow down the audio, and video if necessary to see where someones hands are on the neck. But you know sometimes you just need a couple of pointers....
Thanks Ola some very useful information there :) 🤘🏻
Good tip! Anyway to isolate just the guitars in the daw so you can hear it even clearer?
When I'm stuck, I always try phase cancellation to minimize the 'noisy center' (shouts, tom/snare fills etc). Helped a lot with The Haunted and Nasum.
Wanna teach us how to play "Godpuppet", "Downward Spiral" or "One Kill Wonder"? I'm curious how close I got ;)
Bless you Ola. I have the same mug.
Thanks for this video!
Absolutely love the stache keep it
i had the pleasure to be very good brothers with dimey man!hes very special in not just his playing but a unreal person !a true legend !hes with us allways in heart !im on way into my house of worship studio!the blacktooth studio!\m/warmup the tubes :)