Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Learning Music by Ear for All Stringed Instruments

If you follow this blog you know that I regularly post videos of baritone ukulele players and let their music speak for itself. I am an amateur player that loves to play the baritone ukulele. I love music of all sorts. The spirit of this blog is all about finding and sharing the best that I can for other bari-players. I started playing in my mid-forties and I am continually learning new things.
 
I have something to share that I really believe in for myself and that I think many of the players like you may also find extremely valuable. I have been purchasing Flatpick Guitar Magazines for the last 5 years although I play almost exclusively with my bare fingers. Why do I do this? It's because the magazines are stocked full of musical insights, articles, theory, and tablature. So I HIGHLY recommend this book below for everyone interested in developing their musical ears!
 
 
The editor of FGM is Dan Miller. The magazine is of the highest quality publishing. I have mentioned it many times on the blog and you can look at the past postings if you hunt a little. Here I want to discuss this spiral bound book.
 
Dan is quite an instructor. This book opens up the process of learning music by ear in a straightforward step by step process. He gives a process of learning the chords of a song using only your ears. I have been working on simple songs and developing this skill. It is a thrill to trust your ears and feel the song. I am amazed at how simply Dan explains the process. I am even more thrilled that he also gives simple instructions on how to find the melody.
 
I would also like to mention that I met Dan once at Gryphon Strings in Palo Alto for a Flat Picking Guitar rhythm class where I brought my bari and played fingerstyle/strumming in the class with several guitar players. Dan confided with me that his daughter plays the baritone ukulele.
 
 
The book is spiral bound
66 pages
1 CD
About $23

1 comment:

  1. I wanted to also say that about 1 out of 5 or 6 song are tabbed in DGBE and you can find good stuff to learn and work through in Flatpick Guitar magazine.

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