Tools For Learning Fast Passages, Slow down your favorite blazing solo to learn it easier Options

[AK Rich]

Hey everyone! From time to time over the years there have been a few posts here at GMC about ways to slow down a song in order to break down and dissect songs or just parts of songs in order to more easier learn them by ear, especially fast guitar solos.

If you are an older musician like myself, you may have used a turntable in the past (long before the internet and home computers) to do this by playing the album at a slower speed which also lowered the pitch in which case you needed to do some transposing after you learned a given song, section of a song, or solo.

Today we have software and some media players to use as tools that allows us to slow down that music without changing the pitch. This is very handy when you are trying to break down that blazing guitar solo or other parts in order to learn them by ear. Some of those applications are free and others may not be and if anyone would like to mention their favorite application or media player that can be used to do this, please and by all means, mention them here.

The method that I have always used in the past is free and simple if you have Windows Media Player but in order to do this you must have the music on your PC. Open the track on your PC with Windows Media Player, go to the settings and look for enhancements and there you will find the play speed settings that will allow you to slow down as slow as half speed or even increase up to double the speed of any song that you have on your PC.

Now I have learned of another way that is free and also doesn't require the song to be on your PC. I am not sure when this function has become available but you can slow down audio on YouTube by going into the settings where you will find play speed settings that will allow you to slow down the audio to as low as 25% of the original speed or up to 200%.

Many of you probably already know of this but maybe it can help someone that doesn't. I honestly don't know how I haven't discovered this setting within YouTube long before now and as I said above, I don't know how long this function has been available on YT but there it is.

So, slow down and break down your favorite songs and solo's and rock on!

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!