Learn a Song by Ear from a Recording
Pick one phrase you can sing back before you try to play it. A slower excerpt can separate quick notes, but the original recording is where you check the rhythm and feel.
Choose a phrase with an audible ending
A short answer from a soloist is easier to remember than a page of uninterrupted notes. Choose the smallest phrase that feels complete: a pickup and its landing note, or a sung line ending in a breath. Listen to the original twice, then stop playback and sing or hum it. If the ending changes each time you sing it, listen again before reaching for your instrument.
In Tools, keep Pitch at 0. Place Preview start just ahead of the entrance and reduce Tempo only enough to hear the detail you missed. Listen preview covers up to 20 source seconds; you can replay it and stop once your phrase ends. The preview is not a cut or an automatic A–B loop.
Find the landing note, then the route to it
Say you hear a pickup, two rising notes and a long held note. Sing the held note and match it on one string or on a keyboard. If it is G, write down G. Now sing just the note before it: did it step into G or leap? Try the two notes together. A phrase that lands on G does not by itself tell you the key of the entire song.
Work back to the pickup this way. If you can copy the first and last notes but keep guessing the middle, alternate the middle pair with your voice before trying another fingering. Leave room for a slide or bend: you may be hearing one moving note rather than two separately struck notes.
Check the rhythm without the pitches
Tap a steady beat and clap the phrase. Does the pickup start on the last beat or on the “and” after it? Count through the held note and the silence after it. Two players can choose exactly the same notes and still sound a beat apart.
Return to 100% and play with the original, including a beat before and after the phrase. Listen for your first attack, the length of the held note and the next entrance. Only then add the next phrase. For a part you already know but cannot yet play at speed, use the tempo practice ladder. If the part is buried at the bottom of the mix, try the bass octave exercise.
You identify the notes and chords by ear; changing the playback does not generate a score, MIDI file or chord chart.