We will take a look at two specific components of music to identify that will  help you be well on your way to playing  any song by ear, called Interval recognition and Chord recognition

Interval recognition is a very useful skill in order to deterime the melody of a song, musicians must have some ability to recognize intervals. The ability to tell how two pitches relate to one another is referred to as “relative pitch”. One very useful method of developing releative pitch, is to associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song.

Chord recognition works in conjunction with interval recognition. Hearing the harmonic structures that support the melody of a song is chord recongition. Musicians often practice hearing different types of chords and their inversions out of context, just to hear the characteristic sound of the chord. They also learn chord progressions to hear how chords relate to each other in the context of a piece of music.