Regardless of your musical taste, I strongly recommend that you begin your ear-playing endeavors with very simple and traditional music. Even if you want to be a "rocker", there is great benefit in learning the basic foundations of ear playing by way of more basic and simple music such as traditional country. These songs will often have fewer chords and will therefore be easier to figure out by ear. Additionaly, country and gospel music typically has a very clearly defined bass line that "walks" and that will leave many "clues" to the beginning ear player as to WHAT chord is coming next, and WHEN. CRANK THE BASS UP when you are new to figuring out songs by ear! I STILL do sometimes and I've been playing music for over thirty years now!

The first thing you're going to have to do is figure out what KEY the song is in. It's not often that you are going to start learning a song from somewhere in the middle, and so 99.9% of the time, the FIRST CHORD in the song will be THE KEY of that song - BUT NOT ALWAYS! But again, this is one of the reasons we want to start with a very basic and traditional country song for example (e.g. Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, etc.) - because often, these simple songs WILL begin with the KEY chord (sometimes called the "HOME" chord, but correctly called the "TONIC").

Okay. Great! How in the world do I figure out the FIRST chord of the song? Well, this will come over time by developing your ears with experience. But, to begin with, (again, assuming you are trying a basic country song that starts cleanly on the tonic chord with a bass guitar note that clearly "says so"), you need to listen very closely to the first strike of the music. Often, contained within that first beat of the music will be the tonic chord clearly given out including the bass guitar (hopefully). The moment that first chord hits you need to take a mental "snapshot" of that sound (huh?). What you need to do the instant that opening chord hits is HUM the lowest note that you hear RIGHT AWAY. I think it's critical to HUM THE NOTE OUT LOUD because I believe it CEMENTS the memory of the note. Play the opening of the song over and over and over again until you can consistantly hum the note on a dime. Hopefully you've got it memorized now. If you cannot hum the SAME note every time you have not yet figured out the "ROOT" note of the chord (the lowest bass note that DEFINES the chord).

We'll assume now that you have figured out the ROOT of the opening chord of the song (and incidentally, this process will get quicker and easier as you gain experience. Great! What do you do with it? Go hum it to all your friends! No, just kidding! Anyway, you need to now figure out what the heck that note is. You could go sing it into a chromatic tuner which will hopefully TELL you the note auto-magically. But, what's that? You don't HAVE a chromatic tuner? Okay. Here's what you do. Sing the note while playing each of the open strings on the guitar (if you are a guitarist). Your guitar needs to be in STANDARD A-440 tuning, and don't even attempt a more modern drop-tuned rock song yet. Alternate tuning is a WHOLE DIFFERENT ARENA. If you are on a piano, just hit notes until you match your voice. Often the OPEN GUITAR STRINGS of: E-A-D-G-B-E (6th-1st) will yield the result. Not all, but many standard pop-style songs (by pop-style I mean: country, rock, gospel, blues, jazz, dance, etc...NON-CLASSICAL) are going to be written in either E, A, D, G, B, E...But again, not ALL (more on that in a moment). NOTE! MOST HYMNS ARE WRITTEN IN FLATS: Not easy for a beginning ear-playing guitarist!

While singing the bass note you have memorized, play each of your open guitar strings until one matches your voice perfectly. If one does, you have found the opening chord of the song and hopefully the key. This whole process will eventually be instantaneous for you, so that, you will one day hear the chords of the song and INSTANTLY, without trial and error, KNOW what chord you are hearing (e.g. when you are driving and listening to the radio and have no instrument on hand). For now, you are going to have to experiment with trial and error for a while. If you think you have found the chord, try playing the chord along with the opening of the song, and see if it matches. Remember that you may need to try the MAJOR and MINOR version of each chord: E, Em, A, Am, D, Dm, G, Gm, B, Bm...Remember that MAJOR chords are the "HAPPY", or "BRIGHT" sounding chords and MINOR chords are the "SERIOUS", "DARK", or "SAD" sounding chords (when I was a kid first learning to do this, I thought "HAPPY and "SAD", but now I think "BRIGHT" and "DARK" is a better description).

If the opening chord DOES NOT match one of your open guitar strings, you are going to need to walk up the fretboard on your 6th string one fret at a time until you find the chord root. Use your knowledge of the chromatic scale to name these notes and thus the root of the chord. YOU MUST MEMORIZE the order of the chromatic notes. You simply CANNOT continue without knowing this. I strongly recommend learing the notes on a keyboard first because of the visual simplicity as opposed to the guitar, but one way or another you MUST KNOW the following order starting with the OPEN 6th string and going up one fret at a time stopping at the 12th fret:

0=E, 1=F, 2=F#/Gb, 3=G, 4=G#/Ab, 5=A, 6=A#/Bb, 7=B, 8=C, 9=C#/Db, 10=D, 11=D#/Eb, 12=E

DO NOT CONTINUE UNTIL YOU HAVE LEARNED THIS!

Let's assume you have found the first chord. You are going to more or less do exactly the same thing as above with each additional chord. AH! C'mon! That will take a lifetime! Wait! We'll simplify this a little bit. First of all, remember that this will get easier and easier the more you do it. You will begin to notice patterns that come up AGAIN and AGAIN in pop music. You will begin to develop what other people view as a sort of "Sixth Sense" about just knowing what chord will be next. Here's why that's possible: (1) Remember that pop songs (especially country and the like) don't venture into uncharted waters very often; they do not stray very much in terms of the chords. (2) With the exception of a possible bridge or key change (called a "MODULATION") in the song, once you have heard the first verse and chorus, you have likely heard all of the chord patterns for the WHOLE song. Again, these songs are going to follow a couple of standard patterns, and that's usually about it.

Also, I will give you some assistance in terms of some chord rules(and for now all of this assumes that you will know HOW to play the chords either by prior knowledge, a chord book, or by some other method. How to "spell" and play chords" is the subject of a different article):

(1) In any given key, there are ONLY SEVEN POSSIBLE CHORDS. There may however be some chords that are "borrowed" from other keys (more on this in a moment). The chords will be numbered ONE through SEVEN with Roman Numerals. MAJOR chords will use an UPPER-CASE and minors will use a lower-case. Let's assume your song will be in a major key (most country songs will be). Your chord numbering will look like this:

I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii0 (the "0" on the seven chord indicates diminished, which is normally written with a LITTLE circle like a "degree sign" , which I am unable to type here). So, in a MAJOR key, you have the following (and let's stick with major keys for now for the sake of simplicity- minor key explanation to come later:

I = major
ii = minor
iii = minor
IV = major
V = major
vi = minor
vii0 = diminished

Am I crazy? What does all this mean? READ CAREFULLY: The KEY chord of the song is "I". So, for example, if you are in the key of "E". I = "E". If you are in "A", I = A! From there you use the following PATTERN to fill in the rest of the chords in a given key, using the DISTANCE IN HALF STEPS between each chord number. You absolutely MUST know the chromatic notes (notes as they are arranged on a keyboard) before you can continue (C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B, C). If you do not know this pattern you CANNOT continue! MEMORIZE IT! Here is the spacing of the chords as they occur (which incidentally coinincides with the major scale of the same key):

I - 2 - ii - 2 - iii - 1 - IV - 2 - V - 2 - vi - 2 - vii0 - 1 - I

I have just given you the pattern of half steps between chords in a major key. Example:

In the key of C Major:
I = C
ii = Dm
iii = Em
IV = F
V = G
vi = Am
vii0= B dim

C to D = 2 half steps, D to E = 2 half steps, E to F = 1 half step, and so on...
If you know this pattern, you will know all of the LIKELY chords in a key. Remember, you are dealing with basic music right? Let's do another. What are all the chords in the key of "A" (major):

I = A
ii = Bm
iii = C#m
IV = D
V = E
vi = F#m
vii0 = G#dim

Because: A-B = 2, B-C#=2, C#-D=1, D-E=2, E-F#=2, F#-G#=2, G#-A=1

In country, OLD rock and gospel (the styles I hope you are using to begin your studies), there is often one additional chord that pops up: the "Secondary Dominant": V7/V. The Secondary Dominant is determined by counting the V relative to V. Example: Above, the V was "E". What is the V of E? "B". It will almost always appear as a 7th, so it will actually be a "B7" (actually any "V" will almost always be a 7th in more traditional music). So, the V7/V (pronounced "Five-Seven-Of-Five") in the key of "A" is "B7". In the FIRST EXAMPLE above (the key of "C"), the V7/V would be "D7". "C" is I, "G" is V, and the V relative to "G", is "D".

Armed with this knowledge, you are ready to know in advance, MOST of the chords that will make up MOST pop songs out there. Do a few on your own. What are all the chords in the major keys of: A, B, D, E, F, G? If you have a problem or question, email me at: stevejhacker@yahoo.com. If you email me, I'll give you the answers.

SO! NOW! Armed with this knowledge, you are much more likely to be able to figure out the chords in the songs because you have SIGNIFICANTLY NARROWED DOWN THE POSSIBLE CHOICES...to EIGHT to be exact. Again, there are MANY OTHER possibilities that don't follow these rules, but for now, we are trying to keep it simple. I have only given you the first "baby-steps" to follow. More advanced studies can follow later.

Now, back to the point where you had just figured out the opening chord of the song. You need to use the original steps given above to determine the KEY CHORD of the song, then write down the other possible remaining chords in the song using the number formulas explained above, and quite simply start trying the chords you've written down until you hear matches with the mystery chords you are trying to figure out in the song. Again, this WHOLE process will eventually become instantaneous and automatic for you - no writing - no trial and error. If you do this enough, you will develop that "Sixth Sense" and simply KNOW what the chords are in the song upon one hearing. This is not magic. This is repeated focus in a particular area that will sharpen your skills to the point where other untrained people will view it as being "mystical". Please email me at: stevejhacker@yahoo.com if you are stumped on something. Tell me the song and artist that you cannot figure out. It's usually impossible to stump me with this. You may however be dealing with a song that goes beyond what I have explained here, and I therefore may email you back with a chord pattern and number sequence that looks a little strange as compared to what I have outlined above. It depends on the complexity of the song you are trying to figure out.

GOOD LUCK! And have fun!

Here are some songs I recommend trying. These songs more or less follow the rules I have given above and are in MAJOR keys:

"Louie-Louie" (The Kingsman)(hint: The third chord is a V but is MINOR)
"Sweet Home Alabama" (Lynard Skynard)(hint: Don't mess with the fancy picking, just strum chords for now. The THIRD chord in the song IS THE KEY!)
"My Hereos Have Always Been Cowboys" (Willie Nelson)
"Family Tradition" (Hank Williams Jr.)
"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (Hank Williams)
"Wonderful Tonight" (Eric Clapton)
"Brown Eyed Girl" (Van Morrison)
"Here's A Quarter" (Travis Tritt)
"Help Me Hold On" (Travis Tritt)
"Diggin Up Bones" (Randy Travis)
"Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (Eric Clapton)

There's a million of 'em that follow these rules! All of these follow the above rules. Tell me if you want more.