Learning to Play the Piano by Ear

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Sometimes you find someone who has a natural gift for playing the piano by ear. They can play beautifully, but don't know how to read a note of music. If that is something you wish you could do, there are methods for teaching yourself how to play by ear.

First and foremost, you have to have good recall of the song you are trying to replicate. Listen to a recording of it several times, until you know, not only the melody, but also the harmony that made that tune so special. Then you need to pick out that tune on the piano. Once you have the basic melody, you then need to fill it out, by adding chords and chord progressions. Those three steps may sound easy, but they are not...unless you have the gift.

You may have to sit at the piano for hours, until you are able to consistently pick out the tune, note by note, every time you play it. Then you can perfect the timing, so that your rhythm is correct. Filling in a chord (a series of notes that, when played together give you a pleasant harmony) here and there begins to give the tune some body.

You may then experiment with filling in some of the space by playing the notes of that chord one at a time. However, this process is slow and painstaking if you don't do some research on how to construct chords, fill in the spaces and learn some chord progressions.

If it involves so much learning and work, what are the advantages of playing by ear? Mainly, it eliminates the need to learn how to read music, pay for piano lessons, the cost of purchasing sheet music, and the need to memorize every song you play (if you don't want to carry your sheet music with you very time you go to a party of social gathering). It also enables you to play any song that someone asks you to play...as long as you have heard the song and know the tune.

Another advantage is that you are not stuck playing a song in the key you learned it in. If someone wants to sing along, and the key of C is too low for her, you can automatically adjust your chords to a higher key and accommodate the singer. You are also at liberty to adjust the style and timing, and literally make it your own composition when you aren't reading it off of sheet music.

Don't be afraid to attempt to learn to play by ear. The more you practice, the easier it will become. So follow these steps:

Start with a song you know well that has a very simple melody. Be aware of the intervals (distance between two notes).

Next you have to harmonize the song by adding some chords.

You don't need more than three of them until you get more proficient. Whatever key you choose to play it in (C is easiest, as it has no sharps and flats), the chords are based on the 1st, 4th, and 5th note of the scale (CDEFGAB). Within the three chords, you can change the sound by moving the three notes in the chord around, by playing CEG or EGC or GCE, now giving you nine different chords to add to your song. Try it. bottom custom html 3
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