are there any good resources or any insider knowledge here on how you learn to play things by ear?
i've been wanting to learn a few songs for a while but the extent of information about them online is just chords, and that doesn't help me with finger picking patterns at all so i was wondering if you had any good tips on getting started with it because i have no idea where i'd even begin. (i know i can just google "how to learn to play by ear" (and i am doing that as well) but i like to ask here as well because it's nice to hear directly frmo real people)
plus i think playing by ear is a really good skill to have in general so i don't have to rely on tabs and youtube videos to learn songs.
Actually, I think the go-to answer of just "google it/YouTube it" is very dismissive and is very unhelpful if you don't already know what the answer kind of looks like (especially regarding music.)
I'd recommend getting familiar with all the intervals up and down. Learn what a major and minor scale is. Learn the chords that are made from those major and minor scales. And listen to a lot of music and learn the bass lines.
Also get a teacher (even if it's someone who just knows a little more than you) because music was never meant to be learned in isolation, it's a communal thing, it's a fucking abstract language. Not some hermetically sealed condition of someone's genius, that doesn't exist and imho misguided capitalist propaganda.