Theres a lot of good advice here so I wont bother rewriting it in my own style!

Personally I could play by ear long before I took any lessons. Whether I was any good is another matter, of course!

However once I had some classical training, and especially once I listened to and saw some transcriptions of jazzy stuff, knowledge of the theory allows my to recognise the chords much more easily.

The other thing I notice is that a lot of the transcriptions of "Modern" tunes are very inaccurate!

[This message has been edited by MacAllcock (edited 11-29-2002).]