Listening Party! Train your ear to listen to all genres!

There’s a lot of music out there to listen to. There is great stuff in every genre and style. It’s important to listen to as much variety as possible and absorb all the different approaches that you encounter. Of course, we all have our favorite styles and players that we gravitate toward. Sometimes it’s a good idea to really home in on certain players and try your best to pick up on what they are doing. One can try to learn certain tunes or solos note for note, which is great for training your ear to be able to hear music in this way. Today, there are great resources for this information: TABs to download on-line, lessons in learning songs on YouTube etc. Use these tools as a guide but train your ear to listen and learn from the source, this type of learning can’t be beat!

Here is a list of ten albums that I put in a lot of time learning from over the years. There are a few styles represented, mainly rock/blues on electric and folk/bluegrass/swing-jazz on acoustic. These are simply the first ten that sprung to mind. I’ll add a few more in another post. Add these to your next listening party, and then get busy!!

Ten of my top guitar albums to learn from:

Electric

John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton
Layla, Derek & The Dominoes
Axis: Bold As Love, Jimi Hendrix
Couldn’t Stand The Weather, Stevie Ray Vaughan
Live at the Regal, B.B. KIng

Acoustic

Doc Watson 1964, Doc Watson
Appalachian Swing, Kentucky Colonels w/ Clarence White
Cold on the Shoulder, Tony Rice
Home in Sulphur Springs, Norman Blake
Django Reinhardt Collection