Playing By Ear

[DoubleBlade]

is there any technique behind this?

or does it happen naturally when a musician progresses with his instrument after a considerable amount of years....

 

[gordonzz]

happen naturally when a musician progresses with his instrument after a considerable amount of years....

 

[Cavett]

I was actually forced to learn playin by ear when I was in a Top 40s band back during my poly yrs.. When tabs for radio songs werent so easily found on the web yet and I had to learn a new songs every week.. Thankfully I got the hang of it and ever since then I've been learnin cover songs by ear..

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Cheez]

is there any technique behind this?

or does it happen naturally when a musician progresses with his instrument after a considerable amount of years....

Both.

 

[seekz]

So can elaborate on the technique?
Cos i'm rather curious too

 

[Panopticon-3]

the key is to memorise your fretboard and pray you are not tone deaf

 

[dhalif]

i oso dunno.. teach ley

 

[Mr_KeyboardMan]

For me i got used to it by ear training

use this site ... it's quite useful for ear training ... there are a lot of other ear training exercise in the net

http://www.good-ear.com

 

[BlackMoo]

Lets your ears do the playing

 

[vernplum]

First things first: learn how to LISTEN.

Do this by transcribing songs by listening and not using tab. These days it is far too easy to get a tab and learn a piece without putting in the effort.

When I started playing the guitar, I used to listen to 10 second segments of guitar solos over and over again until the tape wore out, trying to figure out what notes were being played. Now, unless a segment is very very fast, I can transcribe things by ear quite quickly. Do this.

Second, play well known tunes. Think of little ditties like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or "Happy Birthday To You" and play these without planning. Just choose a starting note and go. You will fail at first, but keep at it. Play as many different tunes as you know. If you can sing it, play it.

Third, when improvising, sing and play at the same time. Memorising the fretboard is useful - but only useful if you memorise the sound as well as the finger pattern. As you play a note, sing that note to yourself, either out loud or in your head at the same time as you play it.

 

[Cheez]

Start basic: aural lessons. You'll need somebody to play for you. There are aural test cassette tapes available.

Things to learn in aural lessons (basic):
1. Timing - able to tell the time of the song (3/4, 4/4, 2/4 etc)
2. Intervals - able to tell the intervals of 2 notes
3. Melody - able to sing a melody line (short and easy one)

This will take time to learn and progress. Next, progress to chords progression.

The important thing is to train the ear first. Then when your ear can pick up the melody and timing, progress to playing it out.

 

[Vio]

I think everyone should learn to play by ear, but also equally important to play by reading tabs or scores for a few simple reasons:


1) reading tabs allows you to play the exact way the musician played it, which is normally more complicated than what it SOUNDS like. For improving technicality.


2) reading tabs helps the player learn when and why the musician played that particular section and for what purpose. For composing originals.


Playing by ear would come after?

 

[turbochicken]

ok since the biggest part of playing by ear is pitching, here's it:

3 kinds: absolute pitch, relative pitch and tone deaf. all of us are definitely in one of the categories.

absolute pitch - congrats. you're the rare breed. you can tell any pitch at almost anytime, without any tonal support. so you're a walking tuner.

relative pitch - not bad, you can catch the pitch pretty well, even during unbelievable transpositions. but you need tonal support to determine the pitch. so you're ok, unless without an instrument. have to work on it. absolute pitch / perfect pitch's not impossible to attain.

tone deaf - that's it. if you wana sing a song you have to memorise it, and transposition's your nemesis. work hard enough and you can upgrade.

 

[3notesAbar]

Once you recognize frequencies i.e. 440hz, you know its an 'A' note at a certain ahem octave. If you recognize all 12 notes at all audible octaves, you have 'perfect' pitch. If not, you have perfect E-ar, like me, only can hear Em 90% of the time.

If you can hear intervals and determine their notation fast, you are relatively good at relative pitch. But you need to start by acknowledge i.e. a C note, and know what a tuner is for.

If you dont understand all of the above, your 'forte' might be elsewhere.

 

[vernplum]

I think everyone should learn to play by ear, but also equally important to play by reading tabs or scores for a few simple reasons:


1) reading tabs allows you to play the exact way the musician played it, which is normally more complicated than what it SOUNDS like. For improving technicality.


2) reading tabs helps the player learn when and why the musician played that particular section and for what purpose. For composing originals.


Playing by ear would come after?

Personally i think tab hinders the development of the ear in that it gives the musician an easy way out - a quick fix. Training the ear takes time and patience and dedication. These days where everybody wants fast results they will take the shortest route possible to the detriment of something else - in this case the listening skills.

On top of this, to address your points 1 and 2, most tabs are transcribed and written by persons who are not the original player and are very often inaccurate (like, most of the time - especially if you go to places like OLGA where many of the transcriptions are so bad they are completely useless).

 

[3notesAbar]

but also equally important to play by reading tabs or scores for a few simple reasons:

If you think following tabulation would make you the next Steve Vai for instance, please go ahead. But do make sure its accurate first.

On another tone, what i am trying to say is, there are other ways of learning to be a Musician besides tabs and emulating virtuoso guitarists.

 

[DoubleBlade]

sometimes both the ear and eye can be a deadly combo , ultimately IMO by far the best present a musician could receive...

for instance , if u hear Steve Vai playing scales on his JEM but not sure in what key is he playing in.U can spend like an hour trying to figure out what scale he is playing using the trial and error method and wasting valuable time.The eye compliments the ear by telling the ear that he is playing in an Em pentatonic (for example) scale judging by where his root note should be and at the same time the scale pattern just by looking at his playing...

or if u see Maksim playing in intervals of 5 to give u that particular sound but don't make use of your ears to figure out the 1st interval , then what's the point? u can spend like an hour trying ur utmost best to figure out that particular 1st interval and wondering to urself "eh i know Maksim plays it somewhere around this octave but i dunno where and also i forgot what it sounds like again..."

whenever we guys watch a music DVD whether it is G3 live in Denver of Maksim live in Japan , we should not just listen to their music without looking otherwise it's just as good as getting the audio version of the DVD.We should examine their style of playing with our very own eyes and ears to understand what technique is the musician employing in his playing....

just my 2 cents worth because this what i usually do when i watch live concert DVDs...

I think being a musician both requires the use both his/her eyes and ears to show some form of virtuosity...

 

[Cheez]

Yes, you can see and hear at the same time. But strictly speaking, if you want to train your ears, then it is only the ears.

Don't try to find out from Maksim etc - at this stage. Maksim plays from a score anyway. Don't try Steve Vai's solo. My suggestion remains - start at basic aural training.

My experience - started aural as with any prim and proper piano student would (no choice anyway). After every piano lesson, my piano teacher would give me aural lessons. Slowly and slowly, one find day, she found out that my ears were pretty good. So she played a note and asked me what it was. I knew it immediately. Then found out I had perfect pitch. I'm not sure if I always had it or because it was developed over time - I like to believe it was the latter. Since then, my piano teacher gave me diploma aural lessons for all my grade 7 and 8.

After I found out my perfect pitch, I started listening to piano pieces (non-classical) to figure out the notes and chords. Took a long time at first - my tape player was almost destroyed by the frequent stop-rewind-play. Then it slowly came. The first piano solo I wrote out note by note by ear was Nightbirds from Shakatak - mainly to test my hearing. Then started with orchestral music - note by note for each instrument.

People always asked me how I play be ear. My answer is - practice listening. No easy way out. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who plays by ear. I believe all the others will agree with me that it is practice, practice, practice...

 

[DoubleBlade]

my initial reaction to musicians who could play by ear was that they were child prodigies.But as i slowly progressed , i found that even laymen musician such ur average garage band guitarist and street buskers have the ability to play by ear.

playing by ear is not only limited to child prodigy but in fact is a skill that muscians have to get used to whether he/she may be talented or not...

the only thing that separates a talented musician from a not so talented musician is that a talented musician can pick up the techniques involved in playing by ear faster than ur average musician.But the fact of the matter is that talented or not so talented musician , the job is still done and that is learning to play by ear....

so my point here...

Playing by ear is NEVER associated with talented musicians , in fact it is a skill which any tom dick and harry musician could acquire given the amount of time of practice the musician has to undergo....

 

[BlackMoo]

Its vital in order to be a proficient musician. Anybody can play from score, better if you can rip riffs straight from a song just by listening to it. You'd be able to irritate other guitarists by copying what they play... Lol what they can do, you can too, just by using your ears... Cool huh.