- 1). Sing (or whistle). The process of playing by ear will be much easier if you can sing the melodies you're trying to re-create. Singing will help keep you honest in terms of remembering and reproducing the songs as they really are, rather than making small changes to them without noticing.
- 2). Familiarize yourself with your banjo. In order to play by ear successfully, you'll need to develop a strong muscle memory and physical familiarity with your instrument. Play around and experiment with your instrument. Notice what kinds of sounds you're making and try to reproduce some of them, but don't worry about right or wrong. This kind of practicing is useful to do on a daily basis, even as your skills become more developed.
- 3). Try different note lengths and note beginnings (articulations) by changing the way you pluck and strum the strings with your primary hand. Try to figure out how to create short sharp sounds as well as more subtle starts to notes. Also, try dampening the ringing of the strings by pressing either flat hand against them.
- 4). Copy rhythms without melodies. Once you've mastered playing a single note with good tone, start reproducing the timing and note lengths of parts of songs without changing pitch. This form of practice will primarily train your strumming and plucking fingers.
- 5). Learn simple tunes first. Nursery rhyme songs or slow melodies are good to begin with and standard for most beginning musicians. Learning these songs will help you become familiar with searching for and finding the right intervals. This skill will be tricky at first, but with time and practice, the process of learning new songs will become faster and easier.
- 6). Start re-creating more complex melodies. The easiest way is to start with tunes you can remember well without listening to a recording, since you will have the chance to move through them slowly and piece them together note by note. Later, as you start to move into learning music from recordings, it's helpful to use a computer media player with a progress bar that you can stop, move and set back.
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