Now you can experience more of my website by The Dark Rocker’s guitar playing, as I talk about him, a guitar player that I’ve played guitar with.
Here you will see him play his guitar and his great advice on how to get great at the guitar, as told by him and as told by me.
Yes, I will show videos of him playing the guitar also, as you will see in the coming paragraphs.
Let’s start!
One advice The Dark Rocker gives is, play the guitar by tab first, then play it by ear.
Being deceived by a person named Dave Sample (not his real name to protect his identity) not to learn tab. He told The Dark Rocker, just learn chords and your good to go.
He told The Dark Rocker, “You don’t have to read tab or read music, just use your ears only,” is what he was trying to tell him.
But that is not exactly true, you must first learn tab, then learn by ear.
You see reading tab first will cause you to know where the chords go on the guitar and how they are played on the guitar, meaning techniques like, hammer ons, bends, pull offs, slides, vibrato, etc.
Then as you know all this, then learn it by ear.
Because you already know how the guitar works by where the chords are on the guitar and the techniques that come with playing the chords. You will know eventually where the chords go on the guitar if you keep practicing placing your hands exactly where it goes on the guitar.
Which means as you do that, you are playing the guitar by ear, which if you keep doing that, you will get better and better at it, to where one day you will not hesitate to where they, the chords, go on the guitar, as well as single notes also, of course.
You will have taken off your training wheels so to speak, when you transition from playing the guitar by tab to playing it by ear.
For a more detailed article of all this about playing the guitar by tab first then by ear, click here to read it, “Guitar By Ear vs Tab vs Notes Who Wins?”
So now we see that The Dark Rocker’s advice here is, “Learn to play the guitar by tab first, then after that, play it by ear.”
Then in the future, when you play a song that you’ve never played before by tab, you will find that you won’t even need to play it by tab or by looking at anything, you will be able to play it by ear.
Now that you have heard about The Dark Rocker’s first great advice, now let’s read about his second great advice…….
The Dark Rocker’s GREAT Guitar Playing
The Dark Rocker’s guitar
His second GREAT advice is…..
Techniques, of course! BUT why is this so important? Well, because it’s not like what everyone else says about playing techniques, it’s that The Dark Rocker says and plays it different than normal guitar players do….
Well what’s that? Well, I’m here to tell you right now….
If you just straight up play the guitar without techniques here and there, then you will sound like a flat musician, with no great sounds coming out….
WHAT ARE TECHNIQUES?!! I hear you asking…
What I mean by techniques in this example is…. bends, hammer ons, vibrato, slides, pull offs, etc. The works!!, You know!
Add in great techniques and out will come fantastic sounds, glorious sounds, but, you have to put your soul into it, like every professional musician does when they play techniques, The Dark Rocker says…..
PLUS! That’s why it’s hard for you to play the guitar by ear because you may be trying to play it without techniques.
Which if you do play it with techniques it will cause you to not only play the techniques but also hear the techniques in your mind and then apply it to the guitar, which means you’re playing the guitar by ear, The Dark Rocker says.
Of course that’s just a part of how the guitar is played by ear, but it’s a start for those of you who are just starting to learn how to play the guitar by ear.
As you continue to read my articles, then you will be able to play the guitar by ear better and better.
And as you read other website’s and their articles you will continue to improve playing the guitar by ear.
I don’t care where you learn to play the guitar by ear, just as long as you learn it.
Of course you’ll find what you’re looking for on my website but it always helps to get your information from other websites also. To get their different perspectives.
ONE such website is, stringkick.com It will also teach you A LOT about playing the guitar by ear. Click here to see it.
Yes, beginners can learn from this site as well as professionals because believe it or not, professionals are always learning how to get good at the guitar.
There is always something to learn. It’s like that saying that people say at their jobs and that saying is, “I learn something new on my job everyday.”
Another great website is, globalguitarnetwork.com click to check it out.
Check these websites out, they are great!
Another Reason Why The Dark Rocker’s Inspired To Play Guitar
Another thing about The Dark Rocker’s guitar playing is that he uses other famous musicians to get inspired by.
What I mean is that he uses musicians like, Three Doors Down, Greta Van Fleet, Nickleback and thousands of other musicians to get excited by and likes their songs so much, that it causes him to play the guitar.
He gets so excited by these musicians that he literally can not wait to play their songs, that he picks up the guitar in real excitement!
If I was to title this section of my website, I would call it, “Using Others For Inspiration.”
You ask how does The Dark Rocker go about getting inspired by guitar players by musicians?
He does it by listening to their songs on the radio, television and YouTube, etc., of course.
And other means of music media that you can listen to, of course will be, Spotify, Sirius, Pandora, Google Play Music, Pandora, SoundCloud, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Playlist, 8tracks, Spinrilla, Shazam, LiveXLive and lots of others.
You have no excuse not to find some songs to listen to, to be inspired by to playing the guitar, if you’re a guitar player, of course.
The Dark Rocker listens to some of these music media platforms, especially Sirius, he likes to play this in his car, as they have a lot of different choices of music to choose from.
He’s inspired by musicians he hears. And it causes him to get better and better on the guitar.
Who are musicians that you’re inspired by? You’re going to need them in order to stay inspired to play music that you like on the guitar.
What I mean, of course, is just like The Dark Rocker, is that every time you hear a musician play a song that you like, that it would cause you to pick up the guitar real bad, (in inspiration) and proceed to play the song.
Working on them until you are able to play their songs.
Soon you will be able to play them all, just like The Dark Rocker, if you work hard enough.
The Dark Rocker’s YouTube Videos
Below are The Dark Rocker’s music videos of him playing both the guitar and keyboard.
Check them out!
Metallica: Enter Sandman
Smash Mouth: All Star
Kiss: Forever
More Videos
Ozzy Osborne: Mama I’m Coming Home,
Yes it’s guitar and piano covers:
Stryper: Holding On
John Legend: All Of Me
Well, there you have it, some of The Dark Rocker’s videos and his great advice on how you can achieve being able to play the guitar by ear, one day.
And if you already know how to play the guitar by ear, maybe you learned something by this article or his videos.
Photo credits:
Eddie Van Halen playing guitar techniques photo courtesy of Carl Lender: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
