There are a lot of good resources out there on the web just now which make the job of learning a new song or technique a lot easier than in days gone by where you would have the song on a cassette (remember those) and rewind a 5 second section over and over or keep dropping the needle onto a section of a record trying to decode what was being played.
If your working out how to play a song straight from a recording (known as transcribing) then, although digital formats make it easier to focus on a 5 second section of a song, for example, essentially nothing has changed – you keep listening until you figure out the notes. The best way to do this is to work out the chords being played first and everything else comes after. However, although the basic process of transcribing is unchanged there are tools that make this a lot easier. My favourite…..the amazing slow downer.
It does exactly what is says on the tin. It will slow down a song while keeping the pitch the same allowing you more time to hear whats going on. Of course this has other great advantages…..want to jam along with something but its too fast…use the amazing slow downer. Use it with backing tracks to perfect a performance of a song or to practise playing with other people , which is a different skill to playing on your own, or, and this is where we came in, to replace wearing on the tape heads on your old cassette player.
The Amazing Slow Downer website