Originally Posted by: rickcatania

I also cannot listen to a song and play it without looking up the chords to the song.

One quick tip is to actually hum the meoldy or riff and try to replicate it. And skip the 'distortion' we add when were trying to explain a riff to someone! You know that thing we do when you try to remind a person of a song by guitar riff and we growl it? Don't do that thing. True humming of the meody or progression. It helps get the sounds in your head. Saure, it takes time to convert that to the fretboard. To be honest, after my decades of playing, I'm still not all that great at it. I'm ok but could be way better. So I use this tip regularly. It'll take time to translate but it helps.