One of the number one things I like to do is be a hype man for my students. After teaching for a couple of decades, I’ve seen people go from not being able to play a simple G chord, to writing their own songs. The only reason I have so much confidence in telling them they can learn anything they want, is because I’ve witnessed myself in my own playing and in others time and time again.

We have to check ourselves, and know that we won’t be playing Vai and Satriani songs in our first week. But, over time if we break down songs bar by bar, we can learn anything.

One tool I’ve used time and time again is Transcribe! It’s a great app that allows you to put songs and videos into it, and slow down the speed without changing the pitch of the song. I remember taking a song from Thomas McRocklin and looping sections at 60% speed over and over again. Let me tell you, it feels great when you finally are able to turn on 100% speed and play along with the song.

Something I’ve found useful is to learn a bar, and then the bar after that. Once that’s done, I’ll combine the two to make sure I can seamlessly move between them. The other thing to keep in mind is to not get frustrated, and work on something else/walk away if you’re feeling fatigued. I’ve found that when I give myself a quick break and come back to a tough song, even if it’s in the next day, I’ve made significant progress.

What tools do you use when trying to learn difficult songs/licks?