How Ear Training Will Make Your Solos Drip With Emotion

By Dylan Andrews

Have you ever heard a solo that made you want to pick up your guitar and start playing it? 

Or have you ever heard a guitarist improvise in a way that moved you? 

Would you like to be able to do the same thing when you take a solo? 

Great guitar players can freely express themselves because they all have a highly trained ear.

Ear training is an important skill all guitar players need.

Having a trained ear gives you the ability to take what you feel and play it on the guitar.

Without a trained ear, you will never be able to create expressive solos and play at the level you want.

And there are 3 main reasons why ear training allows you to express yourself freely.

#1 You need to know what you are going to play will sound like BEFORE you play it

Most guitar players have no idea what something will sound like before they play it.

This means that they continually react to what they played instead of intentionally creating the sound they want.   

Imagine not knowing what words you’ll say until after you have said them.

This is the same as not knowing what the notes will sound like before you play them.

To accurately express what you want, you need to first know how it will sound. 

With a trained ear, you will know what every note sounds like and what feelings every note and phrase will create before you play them. 

#2 You need to know how to express what you want to say 

Whether you realize it or not, every phrase, note, and lick you play will create a specific type of emotion and feeling. 

So, if you don't train your ear to know how to create emotions on the guitar, you won't ever be able to express what you want to. 

You will always express something, but it might not be what you want. 

For instance, If I want to express a sense of lost hope, I know I can play a b3 to a 2nd interval over a minor chord. 

I know this because that is what my ear tells me.

But your ear may tell you something different, so it is key to be able to listen out for what your ear is telling you.

#3 You Need To Know What Chords Are Being Played 

When chords change, so do the emotions of every note you play. A G note will sound great over a G chord, but it will sound very different over a D chord.

You need to know how to quickly identify what chords are being played to know how to improvise over them. 

Without knowing the chords, you will become a reactive player again, not knowing how notes will sound before playing them.   

These are some reasons why not having a highly trained ear will hurt your playing. 

Ear training is an important skill guitar players need, and most don’t have it.

To get more help with your ear training, I invite you to join my online ear training course. This is the ultimate ear training for guitar course that doesn’t suck, isn’t boring, and works every time.

Click here to learn more about online ear training lessons.