The fastest way to learn a tricky riff or solo is to hear it slower, over and over, without the pitch dropping. Here is a practice routine that works, using Fretnook’s free song slow-downer.
Open Songs and load an audio file from your computer or phone. Play through and find the bar that trips you up. Set loop point A just before it and B just after, then turn the loop on.
Drop the speed to 50–70%. Fretnook keeps the pitch the same, so the notes you hear are still the notes you play. Play along until you can get through the loop cleanly three times in a row.
Raise the speed about 5% at a time, only after three clean passes at the current speed. It feels slow, but it is much faster than practicing mistakes at full speed. Once it is solid, widen the loop to include the bars before and after so the part connects.
Press Analyze to see the song’s key and chords as it plays. If the whole song sounds slightly out of tune with your guitar, the tuning readout shows how far off it is, so you can match it. If a song is in an awkward key or tuned down, shift it by semitones rather than retuning.
Then take it to the ear trainer: play along and it shows which scale you are in and when a note falls outside it.
Send the song to a Recorder track and record your part on the next track. Listening back is the quickest way to hear what is not quite right yet. When you have it down, you can even film a play-along video.
Free, in your browser, and your recordings stay on your device.