Lately I've been realizing how important it is for guitarists to train their hearing, but I do not know how to go about doing it. Any exercises you guys know or do that can help?

Tab some songs

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Just learn types of chords and types of sounds and intervals, it comes naturally after a while.

uuuhhh what do you mean? so you can ply things by ear? or so you can hear a pin drop? or so you can tell if its intune? or what?
1. play different intervals and listen to them. notice the difference. start off one after the other, then do them together. then progress on to chords.
get a mate to play you different chords and try to guess if they are major or minor, dominant seventh, or flatenned 11th. then try chord sequences.
2. improvise, mess around. try to figure out how to play "ten green bottles" and similar things. eventually, you will get them first time, then you can try harder stuff. like steve via.

or you could do it the hard way, learn theory, all the scales and what they sound like. when you have done that, just pick out what scale it is.

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yes. Go to www.wholenote.com and go to 'basics' then click on ear training. It can play a chord at random and you have to guess what type of chord it is. They also i have intervals that you can guess at. Its pretty sweet, the other night i was bored as hell so i did that for a while. They have easy, medium, and hard settings so its good.

Regardless of how a guitarist has attained his/her degree of skill, it goes without sayingif he/she is great, that his/her aural skills are quite advanced. Then you simply must determine how you learn. For me, analysing songs without tablature or notation is the most benefitial. Learning the song by ear, and then playing the song, with the mp3/cd over, and over, and over. This is how I learn best, by ostensive definition. The point is : do what works.

the first song i ever learned to play - self taught - was a song by Blur...this after absolutly no guitar lessons atall. Ever since that age of 11 i've got my self in tune with certain genre's tuning, notation(in relation to the fret board))ways of playing. And it's the same with most genre's of metal, you basically get to know where the next note is, when the next note value is etc.etc.etc.
Ear training does take a while though, but once you master it...you could tab a whole album within 1 month. i.e.(not impossible but)me, dissimulate..yes if you want them ask.

other note, i've been playing guitar for 12 years now....so...don't expect shit that quickly.

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thanks alot guys

use tabs for easier songs, that way u can get an idea for the pitch of each not that is played, then try another easy song without using tabs, and keep playing the song over and over till you have all the right pitches. or get one of them machines that slow the song down, and keep the same pitch of the notes.

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Yeah whenever I figure out a solo by ear I just geuss the scale, and alot of times it works...

great website. I noticed it has the option of distortion or clean elec. I always play with distortion but would it be better to develop an ear with a clean tone or distortion since my style and everything I want to play is play with distortion.

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I agree that tabbing out songs is a very good way of ear training.

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I try both clean and distored notes, intervals, etc. I'm at 13% on sigle notes. a bit better on intervals. the visual note and interval is kinda dumb cause you can easily count it out from the open string. GREAT website for referencing chords, scales, arggeios, etc. I've been trying to play songs by ear too, for awhile now. complete stopped looking at tab for awhile now too. I dont even like to look when people play on lessons or dont use lessons that use songs or lick instead of showing just the technique or idea.

If that makes sense......

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My guitar teacher always used to tell me to wake up like 1 hour early on saturday and just sit in front of the TV wth your guitar, trying to play every littel lick and riff you here on commercials and shows. While this isn't helpful for every aspect of ear training its a great way to learn how to play what you hear, which for me is the most desireable aspect of ear training. Once you can play what you hear, you should be able to play most anything you come up with in your head.

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that's an interesting idea, I'll have to try that.

for me I dont really hear things in my head (maybe a little) until or while just improvising. its more of the way notes/chords, etc sound together and trying random different things and stumbling apon something. though I cant play complete songs by just listening to them. I'm excitied about practicing and using this more and I'm rambling............

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13/130 from that -Basics: One-Note Ear Training Exercise

guess I have some work to do

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It's strange, because this is something I've always thought is only difficult because most of us have grown up with so much technology that diverts us away from learning the basics of music; interpretating it for ourselves and using our ears.

Can't say I'm complaining, afterall, I'm a guitarist, not a musician

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true. I stopped using tab completely. I dont even listen/read lessons that show licks instead of an idea or technique.

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If you want some flash-card-style exercises, go to http://www.musictheory.net/ and go through the trainers sections.

Also, the ear trainer from http://guitarknowledgenet.com/ isn't too bad.