Customer Reviews

Complete Guitar By Ear: 2 CD Relative Pitch Ear Training Course

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The title of this course is very misleading. It is far from "complete". The author simply plays each interval, one kind at a time, in different places on the guitar and you find them. It does not have anything about relating a note to a key center/note, or anything about chords (type & function). I recommend Ear Training from Hal Leonard for a more complete course.

There are 2 CDs in this package. The idea is to listen to them with guitar in hand and play along. Just like the title hints, "Complete Guitar By Ear" is taught completely by ear. There is no booklet or written materials that come with it.

I was never able to figure out my favorite songs on guitar until I bought this course. I was very skeptical when ordering "Complete Guiatr By Ear" because I had tried other ear training books and CDs in the past. This course was very different and it actually worked!

The first CD starts out very basic, which was helpful for me. The first few tracks have you playing along with a short range of notes on the first string. Then as you get more comfortable the narrator has you find notes on your own by playing along with the recording. Next the second string is introduced, you play along, find notes, then combine the first and second strings. This continues until you have learned to play notes by ear on all 6 strings. By the end of disc one you have learned every note, and every note combination on every string.

The second CD has a lot of more advanced ear training lessons. It took me about 4 weeks to complete disc one and two the first time. I started figuring out my favorite songs after 2 weeks of using these CDs. I've listened and played along with disc 2 dozens of times and as a result I can name intervals just by hearing them. Also, I've noticed that when I have my guitar and I'm listening to a song that my hand automatically goes to the notes being played on the radio.

Other ear training courses make ear training seem mystical or impossible. "Complete Guitar By Ear" is easy to use and understand from beginning to end. It has given me an entirely different understanding and appreciation of music.

This pitch trainer is simple yet effective. Cuts out all the useless guitar-jargon that just helps to confuse students. And best of all it deals with ONLY the guitar. After using this trainer I've learned over 20 of my favorite songs by ear! Thanks.

These 2 cds are very simple. He plays various interval starting at the minor second. In the second cd he plays the same intervals only faster. The tracks never contain more than one interval so you cannot test yourself. For chords he says "just combine a major with a minor 3rd and thats all you need to know". Clearly, there are many fingerings etc that you need to know. In short, no beginner could ever use these CDs to learn to play guitar. No intermediate player could use these CDs to learn ear training because they likely already know the names of the intervals and these teach nothing else.
Ear Training for the contemporary musician by Keith Wyatt et al is a book an intermediate player can use for ear training that really works but represents weeks or more of hard work.

I have used the Complete Guitar by Ear course for a few months now and find it an excellent tool to begin playing by ear. It started me off by teaching me how to distinguish between different pitches and helped me develop my playing by ear.

I recently finished a ten lesson special at the local extension school, Beginning Guitar. I have other books and a nice DVD but Complete Guitar By Ear fills a nice gap for me. Ripped to my MP3 player I can go through the exercises pretty much anywhere I happen to be at the time. Also, since I have a poor ear I do thing the repetitive listening help more than reading from a book.

I bought this book based partly on its very good reviews on amazon. I used it and was generally happy with it at first. It teaches intervals and it provided a decent coverage of the topic. This topic is not that hard to teach though, it is much harder to learn. I then got several other books, one being Guitar Fret Workbook by Barrett Tagliarino which cost 2 bucks more. That book has taught so much more about so many different topics. It has helped open up the entire guitar neck for me and in only several months I have made huge progress. The Guitar Fret Workbook also has a chapter on intervals and I think it does as good of a job on the subject as complete guitar by ear, if not better. Therefore, I am compelled to tell everyone that there are better guitar books for your money out there. The complete guitar by ear teaches the important topic of intervals - but it really stretches the topic out without adding much substance. This is basically a single chapter lesson that costs 10 bucks - pretty expensive. Also, the cd that has tones for the various intervals would have been so much better if they told you the interval after notes. That way you could shuffle them on an mp3 player and really test your ear. Instead, each track begins by stating the interval before the music tones are played. In summation, Guitar by Ear is not a bad product, it just costs as much as other products that teach all of the topics in Complete Guitar by Ear as well plus so so much more.

The advert is better than the product. Having bought two guitar tutorials on the same day along with a number of other pieces of material, in comparison, this was not one of the better purchases.