Learn a Song

• 1). Pick a song to learn. The best way to learn to play by ear is by listening to other people's music that you enjoy and trying to copy it. Start out by picking simple sounding songs.
  
  
• 2). Tune your guitar to the tuning of the song you want to learn. By being in tune, you make it much easier for you to match the sounds you hear in your favorite music. Most guitar parts in most songs are played in standard tuning (from lowest to highest string: EADGBE), but some songs are in different tunings. If you do not know the tuning of your song, research the song, perhaps by looking online.
  
  
• 3). Listen closely to the song you want to learn to play. Listen specifically to the guitar, and think about how the guitarist on the recording may be playing the parts.
  
  
• 4). Figure out what key the song is in. Do this at first by trial and error. Play different notes along with the first note of the song until you find the correct note. Then decide if the song is in a major or minor key. Eventually, you will get pretty good at hearing notes and finding the key a song is in. This will only come with a great deal of practice. Be patient.
  
  
• 5). Learn the song one part at a time. Keep listening to the parts of the song over and over again, until you know exactly how they sound. Then, play within the key until you have figured out something that sounds like each part of the song.
  
  
• 6). Play the parts you have figured out against the song itself. Don't be disgruntled if your parts don't sound quite right. Figuring out how to play songs takes time at first.
  
  

Playing by Ear

• 1). Practice playing your own melodies by ear. Hum a melody that you make up, then figure it out on guitar. This will help you play what you want, when you want.
  
  
• 2). Learn song parts from memory. You probably will not end up playing the song in the right key, but the sooner you learn how to play what you hear in your head (even if it is other people's music), the sooner you will learn to play by ear.
  
  
• 3). Play with other musicians. This is the single most important step in learning how to play by ear. Listen to what the other musicians do and react to it. This will take a lot of practice, but once you learn to improvise with other musicians, the real fun of music begins.