It may seem like the most important skill for a guitar player to have would be to simply be able to play a guitar. However, the fact is, without aural skills, or ear training, a guitar player will never be as good as they can be. The development of the aural skills is crucial to the development of any player that wants to succeed. Listening to the music is what is really going to help you move forward in your own guitar playing career. Not only does it help to build your technique, it will help you to become more creative with what you play because you can hear how you can change it up. It is essential that you practice your ear training even if it may seem strange to do so.

The first thing you should do is to transcribe the songs with your ear. This means listening to songs, melodies, chords, solos and more and then using your guitar to literally transcribe what you are hearing. Then you should try transcribing without your instrument. By writing down the music on paper and then checking it by playing it you can usually find many errors that you made. Sometimes you can even find a specific pattern that you can overcome in order to perfect your ear training.

Another tip to develop your aural skills is to sing your scales. You can start by singing the major scale and then adding the natural minor scale, the blues scale, the pentatonic scale and then the harmonic minor scale. Singing intervals also helps as well. While you are at it you should sing your chords one note at a time as well. Again this works at building up your listening skills to what you are actually singing. Sight singing is also another way to work on your aural skills as well. Although you will need a basic understanding of how to read music, but simply using any piece of sheet music you can sing the music so that you can “hear” it in your mind.

You will also be able to visualize what it should do rather than plucking it out on your guitar without having a background knowledge. Moving on from singing, another tip that many experts recommend to build the aural skills is to transcribe your rhythms. It is basically like transcribing a melody but you write only the rhythm out on paper to get the background for the rhythms on the guitar. At the same time it helps to improvise on the melodies as well as solos, chords, and whatever else you can find. Not only will you be able to be a little creative but you can start to hear what will and will not sound right on your guitar. When you start to feel the creativity flowing and your aural skills have gotten a lot of practice it is always great to start imagining a 3 or 4 note melody in your mind and then to start playing it on the guitar. You should repeat this many times with different melodies to build up your aural skills.