"I'm ditching tabs and it feels fantastic!"
Meet Alastair:
Before Alastair joined my course Level Up Your Ear, he had been playing bass for about 4 years, and even though he had learned a lot, he was still chained to the tab sites that he found frustrating and unreliable:
I was so frustrated by tab. I’d listen to the tab and I’d say, “I’m sure this is not right” and I’d go listen to the record. “No - it’s not right. What is it?” But I couldn’t tell...I was trying to improve my listening skills, because that was one area where I really did need work.
Alastair had even looked into trying to improve his ear in the past, but nothing he had tried seemed to work for him.
I was struggling with hearing. I had looked at [another instructor’s] online course and it was a bit too theoretical - it wasn’t practical…So many people say, “This is how you [play by ear]” and it may work for them and it may work for other people, but it didn’t work for me.
Then in early 2020, he came across Level Up Your Ear and by his own admission, he was skeptical - he wasn’t sure it would be able to help him at all.
I came in with very little expectations because I haven’t been able to hear. People have tried to teach me, so my expectations were low. I thought if I could pick up one or two cues, I’d be happy.
However, over the six weeks of Level Up Your Ear, Alastair watched all the videos in the course, did all the exercises, showed up to all the live masterclasses, did all the work and was incredibly enthusiastic even after the very first week. Have a look at what he said after going through just the first Module of LUYE:
What I found really really helpful were those 3 tracks you took us through...they’re just tremendous. My wife says she can’t believe within 48 hours, how I’m hitting a number of these notes. Some of the notes I just can’t get at all, others I’m right on them, and she’s saying she’s noticed a big difference, even in 48 hours. I was stunned myself.
And Alastair only got better and more confident as time went on.
Alastair didn’t have ‘perfect pitch’, or a naturally ‘good’ ear at the start, but what Level Up Your Ear gave him was a system; a process that he could follow to take him from where he was frustrated with the endless searching for tabs on Ultimate Guitar to now where he says:
I’m basically ditching tab. I was so frustrated with it, but this way [playing by ear] is just wonderful. It feels fantastic...and I really found it to be a very powerful tool.
I'm Incredibly Proud Of Alastair For 2 Reasons
Reason #1 - He put in the work
This is probably the most important thing. Alastair didn’t just sit back and passively consume Level Up Your Ear. He was in there, bass in hand, doing the exercises, making mistakes, correcting them, revisiting the videos.
In fact, nearly a full year after Alastair first went through the course, he’s still doing exercises he learned in LUYE on a daily basis:
I still do my active listening at night - a year later...and I’m still listening very carefully. I’ll go back over the song, listen to the bass part, tapping it out and thinking “I can visualize that”. I couldn’t do that before your course - it was just a mystery to me. It’s been fantastic
And as a result, he’s seeing huge improvements in all areas of his playing - even in the simplest of things, like watching out for his tuning:
“You know, what you did is not just leveling up my ear, you opened a whole new area for me. I got together with some friends of mine and we’ve got a little acoustic group going, and I’m playing my double bass instead of my electric bass...And it’s interesting, when we started tuning, I thought, “Oh - I’m a little out” and I couldn’t do that before. So then I’d go and look at my tuner and “Oh yeah - I was right! I was out [of tune]”
Alastair followed the process and did absolutely everything in Level Up Your Ear - even the things that are suggested, but optional. He did them anyway and now he’s reaping the rewards of his hard work.
Reason #2 - He embraced the systematic nature of the course
Alastair tried every single thing that was thrown at him over the 6 weeks of Level Up Your Ear and embraced the things that really worked well for him; most notably, the concept of ‘Active Listening’.
He enjoyed it so much that he made it a core part of his playing by ear system, which looks something like this:
Now are there a lot of steps in Alastair’s system right now? Well that depends on who you ask. Some people’s systems are more complex, others are more simple.
However, learning to play by ear doesn’t have to mean getting super complicated and hardcore: transcribing 4-part Baroque inventions by ear. It can be as simple as never having to search for bass tabs on ultimateguitar.com ever again.
Alastair's Advice About Who Should
Join Level Up Your Ear
I asked Alastair about what kind of students should join the course and this is what he said:
To be blunt, everybody. I really mean it. Unless you’re really advanced, we can all get something out of it. I would say that certainly every beginner and intermediate player should take LUYE. They really should. There’s so much in that course - like I said, you don’t hold back.
I call myself ‘low-intermediate’, but I don’t feel like you’ll get to high intermediate until you develop your listening skills.
I can’t overemphasise enough having good listening skills. This is one thing I didn’t know until I took your course, just how important it is to have good listening skills. And even when you’re playing with others - people who suddenly shift and do something else - I can hear the shifts, which I couldn’t before and you can anticipate changes. So there’s just so many things that come out Level Up Your Ear - there’s just so much there.
You gave me one hell of a gift. I gotta tell you, it’s been one of the best things I’ve done since I started 4 years ago.
I’d be honored to have you as a student in Level Up Your Ear and help you do all the things that Alastair was able to do, but enrollment is only open until this Friday night. If you’re interested, just click the button below and register on that page.
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