Playing by guessing/intuition without score/tab book

**Bob_Ross** · 01-29-2026, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by GBRow

because I knew the melodies for them in my mind, I just kept on playing it by guess.

Now does this type of playing or practice any use or help for improving guitar playing? Or is it better / best to read the score book, and play the guitar while reading the notes on the sheets?

Arguably what you are doing is the best way to become proficient at improvising: You're using your ear, and training your fingers to execute what you hear.

When I was a wee teen my guitar teacher once casually mentioned that someone could play any chords, any order, any voicing, blah blah blah, and he could improvise over it. At the time I was blown away; even if it was just a Cool Party Trick, it was so cool! But it was also a way of making music without having your face buried in the chart, and without dogmatically sticking to a proscribed form. I wanted to be able to do that.

Now, ~50 years later, one of the bands I'm in does this Cool Party Trick at nearly every rehearsal: While waiting for the drummer to setup or the singer to arrive, the keyboard player will just start playing some changes, and I'll jump right in and blow over it...no idea what tune he's playing (if it even is a tune) and no hestitation to think "wait, is that a major or minor chord, or...?" I'm just improvising in the moment.

No way I would be able to do that if I hadn't worked on "playing it by guess" for decades.

**StormyMonday** · 01-31-2026, 05:05 PM

Takes me back to early 60s. At age 7 I wasn't always dedicated to practicing what Grandpa had me working on in Mel Bay 1-4. But he would always play the passage first and I got to where I could play it back just after hearing it. It may have delayed my sight reading but I can't say it hurt me. You're not always going to have a lead sheet to work with if you go outside the standards, big ears will never hurt you.

**Jonah** · 02-02-2026, 07:16 AM

Playing by ear is essential musicality, sight-reading is just a practical tool. Very important and necessary but still a tool.

In classical it is even a bigger problem, they begin to learn immediately with sight-reading and often they learn to read before they learn to understand. So it turns out like reading a text in a foreign language with correct phonetics but without understanding the meaning? And phrasing and articulations are based on meanings.

The text is not a music, it is just a conventional form to fix music.
Even after many years of playing (and I learnt to see and hear behind the text when I sight-read) I still feel that when I play a classical piece by heart without any references to the text, struggles to remember what is next and technical problems, my ear really guides me through the music in much more complicated and convincing way.

What you do is very basic thing - but it is a very good start... after all I think most of us started with guitar by just playing by ear, picking up songs we liked from the records..

Do not ignore learning notation but just keep in mind - those are only signs.

A lot depends on which music you play also: for example some traditional classical music is reflected in traditional notation much better (though not thoroughly anyway), but if you play some modern music - often you have first to go through the text to make it sound what is written and after that through the playing and relying on your ear you can identify the actual structure (just because traditional notation does not translate some modern music well).
So it makes sense to treat all the written musical text like that.

**Christian Miller** · 02-02-2026, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by GBRow

I was playing Greensleeves and Autumn Leaves just by my own intuition stumbling on the fretboard guessing the notes. I made many mistakes in trying to get the right note, but I got about 70% right notes in these songs. When I kept on practicing that way, I got better in getting the right notes. I think I have the scorebook for these songs somewhere, but because I knew the melodies for them in my mind, I just kept on playing it by guess.

Now does this type of playing or practice any use or help for improving guitar playing?

It is without question the most important thing to work on. Everything else is an optional extra.

But - you need to make sure you know what you are trying to play as well as Greensleeves. That means listening to the same thing sometimes over and over again until you can sing every note.

See you in ten years.