If you are trying to play guitar by ear you will know if this is an ability you have right away.  To play guitar by ear takes a lot of practice and a lot of knowing what distinctive sounds each note has.  Some people are naturally able to do this and these are the people who flourish with this method of learning other people’s music.  While real easy for some, not the easiest for others and if you find you are having a hard time than you will need to just keep at it until it starts to make sense.

There are some great guitarists in the world that never learn to play guitar by ear.  This means that if you are having a hard time with this you should not be discouraged, especially if you have never played another instrument in your life.  Learning to play by ear will take practice and dedication to understanding what sounds like what.  Putting on an album and just figuring out what they are doing takes a lot of skill and a lot of talent.  Some people are just naturally able to do this and if you are not one of these people you should not look down to hard on yourself.

If you want to learn to play guitar by ear the most obvious answer to this is to put on your favorite artist and start trying to pick out what he is doing in a very basic way.  Try to find the single notes on the guitar before you get too far ahead of yourself.  Everything in music has a simple basic structure that the rest of the song builds off of and finding that is your best way to figure this out.  Pink Floyd is a perfect example of this because in their commercially released best selling album Dark Side of the Moon the album starts with a single heartbeat and then proceeds to fill the room up with music stemming from that single heartbeat.  Finding the simplistic nature of a song will most definitely help play guitar by ear.

To play guitar by ear you will need patience and understanding of what notes sound a certain way.  The open D is a happy note that is easy to recognize if you are used to its full and joyful tone.  On the other hand an E-minor has a real dark and dreary sound that is easy to distinguish if you are familiar with what it sounds like.  When you are sitting and trying to play guitar by ear you will need to think about it in the same sense when tuning a guitar.  There will be a unison in sound and tone that will be met and you can not only hear it but feel it in your guitar.

If you are simply playing with another guitarist figuring out what each other is doing by ear is actually quite simple because as you play you can obviously hear what sounds good and what does not.  Again, this can’t be stressed enough; some people have a much easier time with this and if you are someone who doesn’t find it naturally easy than stick with it and in time with practice and patience you will see that playing guitar by ear is nothing more than knowing how to listen.