Originally Posted by: weezthejuice789how do you just lisnten to a song in learn it? i dont get how some people do that. i am a big visual person. can you help me out?

Let me say that there are others on this board that could probably give you better instructions. This is what I know, I taught myself, and for picking a song off an album, I still know no other way.

It's definitely something you will get better at with time, so don't expect to get it right off the bat.

Start with something simple, like "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac. Try and find the chords on the A & E strings. It your totally lost at it, just hit all the dotted frets going up the string. If it's not there, try the alternate frets. You should eventually hit one that sounds right. It's not always the one you want, but now you know one chord from the song by the note you just played. Yay!

Let's say it's E. Now, keep going and every time that E comes around, hit it and try for the next note. Just go for the single notes to keep it simple. Once you have them all (or at least a verse or chorus) substitute the chords for the notes and voila!

From there, subtleties in how your chord sounds vs. the song will direct you to it actually not being a major chord, but maybe a minor or a 7th. Sometimes you can fluff with majors or minors if you can't quite get the chord at the time. Depending on your personality, that will do until you get the rest of the song, or you might be the type to loop that chord until you get it exact. I'm the former type, but I'll generally throw in some variation each time until I get it. I really suck at distinctly picking out 7'ths and 9ths unless it's already a common chord that I use. :)

As you get used to it, you'll be able to recognize the chords right off instead of searching the strings for the notes.

If you know your scales, and you have the first note/chord of the song, you can probably pick the rest of them out of that scale and it won't take long at all to have the whole song.

It always helped me to write the words and the notes over the words as you find them.

Even if you don't know your scales yet, a lot of chords are generally followed by certain other chords and you will see that better the more songs you learn. If you play open chords (like acoustic) it can be handy to be good at barre chords. Many songs I've wanted to play were all flat chords or were down tuned, so I'd learn them in Barre, then transpose them to what I wanted to play in.

It all is a matter of ear, though. If you are tone deaf, you'll soon know it. The bass player in my first band was tone deaf someone always had to tune his bass. Didn't stop him though. He memorized positions even if he couldn't hear the harmony, but he'd never have been able to pick up off an album.

Maybe some other posters have some strategies to share. I find this is a lost art. When I started this site and learning songs again, it never occurred to me to search for tabs or music, but that is all I hear anyone using anymore for learning.

On a last note, there are lots of free tabs in the web, but you might have to search for them. Also, YouTube. There are lots of people getting their 15 minutes by posting song demos.