Step-by-Step Guide to Learning a Song Entirely by Ear

You want to crack a song the proper way, by ear, with nothing written down. Name the track, the artist and your skill level, and it gives you a method: find the key and tempo first, chunk the song into learnable sections, separate bass from melody, and build it up. Real ear training aimed at the song you actually want.

I want to learn {TARGET_SONG} by {ARTIST} purely by ear: no tabs, no sheet music, no tutorials. I play {INSTRUMENT} at an {SKILL_LEVEL} level.

Walk me through a systematic ear-training method for this specific goal. Cover: how to find the key and tempo before touching my instrument, a chunking strategy for breaking the song into learnable sections, how to isolate and identify the bass line versus the melody versus the chords, what to do when a passage defeats me three times in a row, and how to know when I've truly learned it versus just memorised a pattern. Include one common mistake intermediate players make when learning by ear and how to avoid it.