How to Figure Out Songs

Tabs are great, don’t get me wrong. But it seems that some people are starting to think the only way learn a song is to get the tab for it. It is not so! Who makes the tabs in the first place? People who have practiced and trained their ear! It’s a different way of learning that is missed a lot nowadays. I think that when you learn a song note for note off a record, you remember it better and have more of a chance to “make it yours”. So, here are some ideas to speed up the ear training process.

• Start simple. Simple!!!! If you are new to figuring stuff out by ear, you will thank yourself later for starting slow. For instance: Orange World by Jake Shimabukuro would be a bad way to start. Instead try something like “Happy birthday”. I never said it was a cool song, but it’s easy and the odds are you know it very well. If you can sing it note for note, it’s going to be easier to figure out.
• It’s different trying to figure a song out using only your memory than actually listening to the song on the stereo. If you are going off the top of your head, make sure you can sing the melody one note at a time. Work your way through the melody, matching the note you are singing to a note on the ‘ukulele as you go. When you go this route you are reinforcing your mind (the note you are singing) to finger (the note you’ve just figured out) relationship. The thing is, you could be singing the song in any of the twelve keys.
• If you are trying to figure something out off the CD, you have to approach the song differently. You have to play in the right key to sound in tune. Start by figuring out the key and whether the song is major or minor. Noodle around with different scales until you find one that fits (the one that fits tells you what key you are in). Sometimes keys sound similar, so be sure to play all of the notes in the scale to make sure you don’t miss anything.
• Next, I would listen to and figure out the chords. This is usually harder because a chord is made up of several dominant and recessive melodies (notes). So you have at least three notes to figure out at a time with chords. The good news is, chords are pretty much each their own package. That means instead of having to listen to and figure out each note in the chord – which would take a depressingly long time – you can just listen to the overall harmony and how the notes interact with the song as a whole. Most of the time all the chords will be relative to the key and on a chart like this one at EZfolk. Hawaiian music uses simple chords. Most of the time just 1, 4, 5. At first those 1, 4, 5 chords are going to be very challenging to figure out. That’s why you start simple. You might want to pick out a simple child’s song like “Baa Baa Black Sheep” or something similar and print out the lyrics. Then sing the words, listen for the proper chords, and write them down as you go. Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of times (but not always) the note you start or end a melody phrase with are part of the current chord. That narrows down the possible chords and gives you a good place to start.
• If you choose to try and figure out the chords first and succeed, it should be simple to figure out the melody using the proper scale. “Simple” is relative though. It might take a beginner 15 minutes to get the gist of the melody, but somebody more advanced may have it in 2. Again, keep in mind that you usually start and stop phrases (parts of the melody) on one of the chord notes (if you are playing over C you would probably start or stop on C, E, or G).
• Once you have the framework, go back over it and double check yourself. Even for me, I miss a lot of things the first time through. Things like relative majors and minors are easy to interchange on accident. If one part sounds a bit off, it probably is. Try and work out the kinks. It will be easier in the long run if you are going to embellish the song at all.
• Now that your structure is solid, add the filler stuff – melody chords and articulations. Melody chords are just chords that use the melody note – usually as the highest note of the chord – and fit over the current chord in the progression (Fmaj7 would fit over F in a progression). These can range from major chords to 6/9 chords, so you are only limited by how many chords you know. Articulations are hammer-ons, slides, and anything else that is used to shape a note. Usually this can help make the melody smoother and more vocal-like if you are figuring out a vocal song.