Re: Learning songs by ear
I applaud your ear training efforts. One problem I see is that your playing the various frets down the string while a song is playing is sort of hit-or-miss, since most songs have more than one chord. If you hit a G note while an F chord is playing in a song in the key of C, you might incorrectly decide that the G isn't part of the song's notes. Many common songs are even more complicated. You might have a flat seven chord (a G chord in the key of A, for instance) being very popular in a lot of fiddle tunes. Many other chords are not typical to the key are common. An example is a "5th of a 5th" - for example, a D7 going to a G7 going to the root, C. The F# in the D7 will not map to the C major scale. The D7 is from the key of G, but it leads nicely to the G7, which is part of the key of C.
Still, as long as you're enjoying yourself, you should be learning a lot about your mandolin and music in general.
An easier ear training practice is to just figure out how to play a tune you're familiar with. Don't rush to look up tab or notation - try to play the melody by ear. The more you learn your scales, the easier this will be. You'll still find notes that don't fit into the scale, but that's part of learning too.
Doug Brock
2018 Kimble 2 point (#259), Eastman MD315, Eastman MDA315, some guitars, banjos, and fiddles
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