Most guitarists play by ear. How do they know where to put their fingers?

Hi, I'm Kevin McFarland, and that deceptively simple question has been a lifelong pursuit. I started playing guitar when I was 14, in the early 1970's. By 19 I was playing in bars, and I spent the next decade in bar bands, including a year on the road. But it was my time as a guitar teacher that really got me thinking. Like me, all my students played by ear. How could I best teach them?

Playing by ear is very visual. Common shapes and patterns are moved along the neck, based on the chord or song key. But beyond chords and scales, these patterns usually don't have a name. This is where a lot of guitarists get stuck. They learn basic chords, maybe a few scales, then think: "now what?".

I tried different approaches. I self-published a book of "visual tab", created computer animations, etc. None of it went anywhere, but I learned more about computers and taught myself basic coding. Later on, I got involved in a guitar startup, which I eventually extricated myself from before it imploded. Then I tried to do my own startup, and wound up failing miserably, but a few good things came out of it (in addition to some amusing videos), and I started developing a library of visual riffs and licks.

I wound up working in tech for many years, including 13 years at Google, where I retired in 2023. I dusted off the small app I had built a few years earlier, populated it with song examples, and launched the free web app and a YouTube channel in early 2024. It had a good response, so I built a mobile app, launching that in late 2025 on the App Store and Google Play. Click the "articles" button above for links and more information.

Its now 2026 and I'm working on a learning path for the app, a roadmap for guitarists to follow to learn more riffs and licks and move beyond just chords and scales. I'll also be releasing more videos on YouTube, as well as rebuilding this crappy (uh, I mean scrappy) web site, so stay tuned!

cheers,
Kevin