How does one learn to play by ear?

[balfour-knight]

Just another thought about this subject! I have a friend who teaches harp and many other instruments, including mountain and hammered dulcimer. She has said repeatedly “most people can play by ear if they will just try and do it!” She thinks that too many people learn to read notes and then entirely depend on them. They think that they are not playing correctly if they make up their own variations as they play. This attitude can “note-tie” people so that they believe they cannot play any other way.

So I say, Clinton, just “try and do it.” Prove that my friend is correct. If you are only 32, you should have plenty of time to learn, play, and enjoy your music.

Wishing you all the best,
Balfour

[Tacye]

Another thought is that it is really easy to have too high expectations and get frustrated if you can’t play a piece straight off. Your ear may replace the notes on the page (or vice versa for ear players working from written music) but it doesn’t replace or remove all the working out and practice needed and both methods of note learning have their ‘hang on what happens there’ places.

[Biagio]

Both great observations my friends, Balfour and Tacye. Let me add another: unless the piece is specifically scored in one and only one way, you’ll likely encounter many interpretations. For one example, I mentioned “Beach Spring”; I’ve always heard it in a major key (Ionian mode) but just picked up one by Harper Tasche – Mixolydian that one. So choose one interpretation and don’t necessarily try to mimic it exactly; that gets too confusing and takes a lot of the fun out.

Biagio

[duckspeaks]

Dear Clinton,

My other thought would be, I don’t believe in skipping the knowledge of reading music, theory on intervals, harmony, forms, counterpoints and what not. In fact it sets the bar higher to skip having a written piece and wing it on the fly.

where I am coming from is that, before you have reached your intended goal, some partial taste of success can be sampled with not much efforts at all. just like any teenager with an old guitar can experience. The value of this is to chip away the idea that it is mysteriously too hard to try and provide motivation to make enjoyable progress along the journey.

to be mechanically fair, to play by ear and make it up as u go requiresbyou to be capsble to arrange melodies, rythmic patterns, harmonic progressions and preplan the Drams/contrast of the piece in the fly. You need to he an instant compoder and arranger. It required solid knowledge so well internalised that one can at least thing a few bars ahead at the time of playing.

But again, the good news is that fun can be attained early, even at the cost of chopping up music into short discontinuous sections just to experience the “it works” moments. This joy will fuel your motivation…. may be to browse a few web pages for music theory….

When fumbling around, having fun is most important. Your posts have show a lot of (too much??) respect for music. Lets fool around to pick up some fun and energy to go on.

If you have a chance, get the black & what DVD on late cellist Jacqueline du Pre. It ends with a short scene of her plugging the cello and singing on s train in a carefree manner. Lets have that sort of fun!

[balfour-knight]

On the subject of “having fun” with your music, Clinton, please check out Angi Bemiss’s website at http://www.simplytheharp.com She has put together excellent resources on learning how to play and enjoy the harp simply. Being primarily a pedal harpist myself, Angi really taught me a lot about making the lever harp work, getting the most out of it; what to leave out that was not entirely necessary, tricks on getting the “essence” of the piece/song, etc. I learned to love the lever harp for what it is, a very beautiful instrument, not minding very much what it cannot do that a pedal harp can. (The lever harp can do things that the pedal harp cannot, too! So can the chromatic and double-strung harps.) It is also a very much more portable instrument, as those of us know who have to move a large pedal harp frequently!

So, experiment and learn all you can. I love all these posts, my harp-friends!

Have a great day,
Balfour

[clinton-blackmore]

Thanks for all the replies!

Biagio,

(You mentioned buying a Mountain Dulcimer kit).

Ah, there’s more than one kit I’d like to make!

Chords/Theory: Here are two good books that take most of the mystery out: The Everything Music Theory Book (mainly oriented to guitar but that’s not a problem) and another Ray Pool: “3’s A Chord.”

Oh, more book recommendations. Thank you.

Isolation a section for repeated listening: some notation software such as Finale and Sibelius will read in a PDF or MIDI file which you can then edit and “loop play.” You can also regulate the tempo – I learned Carolan’s Dream and a few other tunes that way and it is actually kind of fun.

I would really, really like some software that does this, especially if I could sit down at my harp and control the music from there. (I’ve been trying to pick out some simple songs; it has been hit and miss. Right now I’m listening to ‘row row row your boat’ (just the melody) on repeat — and hope I can stand it long enough that I can find all the notes the next time I try.)

The Score: I used to get intimidated by the accompaniment (all those notes!) until my teacher pointed out that they were mostly chords broken up into individual notes. The most basic however is a triad in root position: root, up a third and up another third i.e. C-E-G, F-A-C etc. “So”, she said, “Just play the melody and a simple triad”

Yeah, I had that pointed out to me, too. I don’t yet recognize them at a glance (and a lead sheet sounds easier), but the very notion makes it more tractable.

Exploring: … Now let’s have some fun and try a different sequence! Sharp those two half steps – now you are playing in a pentatonic scale and anything you do will sound good.

That sounds awesome. Unfortunately, my lever harp is tuned in Eb Major, which means I can’t do that without retuning some Es and Bs. (One advantage a pedal harp has.)

duckspeaks,

From your reply, I’m able to pinpoint something. It appears you need 4 steps (yes this is a 4-step procedure to attain what you want):

I am all ears!

[Part A]1. Develop the ability to realise and call out (sing out) the so-fa names of every note when you hear music (or work it out when it lingers in your mind). [Part B] Best thing to do is to step through Julie Andrew’s Sound Of Music Theme Song (Doh a deer a female deer). Get printed music (or web equivalent) for this please. E.g. Doh-re-mi-doh-mi-do-mi Re-mi-fa-fa-mi-re-fa Mi-fa-soh-mi-so-mi-so Fa-soh-la-la-so-fa-la……)

I’ve split that into two parts.

Yes, I can see that developing that ability (Part A) would help.

Um, really? I’m surprised there’s any pedagogical values in the song when it has been adapted for entertainment. I did listen to it on youtube, and I’m sure I could learn the lyrics readily enough, but the pitches is another matter. How would the printed music help in hitting the pitches?

I’d better try playing some notes (probably on a keyboard) and seeing if I can hit them.

I read points 2, 3, 4, and 5 and nodded.

Trust me, fun starts during Step 1! When I was a kid I had nothing and that’s how I got started by myself. Now we have the Internet and so many kind souls here with you.

Good luck!

All right. Thanks for the encouragement.

balfour-knight,

here’s to YouTube. (I wonder what being a travelling minstrel would’ve been like. Must’ve been interesting.)

[I have a friend who has] said repeatedly “most people can play by ear if they will just try and do it!” She thinks that too many people learn to read notes and then entirely depend on them. They think that they are not playing correctly if they make up their own variations as they play. This attitude can “note-tie” people so that they believe they cannot play any other way.

So I say, Clinton, just “try and do it.” Prove that my friend is correct. If you are only 32, you should have plenty of time to learn, play, and enjoy your music.

I can believe that.

Sigh. Pity I’m almost 35 now … if only I’d started earlier. 😉

Oh, and if I do this successfully, I think your friend will be proven right.

Thank you.

Tacye,

Another thought is that it is really easy to have too high expectations and get frustrated if you can’t play a piece straight off. Your ear may replace the notes on the page (or vice versa for ear players working from written music) but it doesn’t replace or remove all the working out and practice needed and both methods of note learning have their ‘hang on what happens there’ places.

Thank you. I have to admit, when I see my wife pick out a (really simple) song I’m struggling with with almost no effort, it is a tick frustrating. I just need to realize that, as in so many things, it isn’t fair to compare one of my weaknesses to someone else’s strengths; I can only strive to do better than I’m doing now.

Biagio,

Let me add another: unless the piece is specifically scored in one and only one way, you’ll likely encounter many interpretations. For one example, I mentioned “Beach Spring”; I’ve always heard it in a major key (Ionian mode) but just picked up one by Harper Tasche – Mixolydian that one. So choose one interpretation and don’t necessarily try to mimic it exactly; that gets too confusing and takes a lot of the fun out.

Interesting. I don’t think I’m quite that advanced yet.

Don’t try to mimic it exactly. Hmm… That’s not a mathematical statement at all 🙂

duckspeaks,

My other thought would be, I don’t believe in skipping the knowledge of reading music, theory on intervals, harmony, forms, counterpoints and what not.

Makes sense to me. Why reinvent the wheel (unless of course you are trying to create something that is not a wheel — which I’m not).

In fact it sets the bar higher to skip having a written piece and wing it on the fly.

I’d say.

to be mechanically fair, to play by ear and make it up as u go requires you to be capable to arrange melodies, rhythmic patterns, harmonic progressions and preplan the Drams/contrast of the piece in the fly. You need to he an instant composer and arranger. It required solid knowledge so well internalised that one can at least think a few bars ahead at the time of playing.

Wow. Good heavens.

But again, the good news is that fun can be attained early, even at the cost of chopping up music into short discontinuous sections just to experience the “it works” moments. This joy will fuel your motivation…. may be to browse a few web pages for music theory….

Sounds good to me.

Hmm… That really makes me wonder what different subjects do to have joy in the journey. No wonder so many people hate math(s), as it is so often divorced from any use or joy. [Cue a great article, A Mathematician’s Lament, on what music would be like it taught like math.]

When fumbling around, having fun is most important. Your posts have show a lot of (too much??) respect for music. Lets fool around to pick up some fun and energy to go on.

Huh. My first thought is, “I don’t know how”. All right, I’ll have to play with it.

If you have a chance, get the black & white DVD on late cellist Jacqueline du Pré. It ends with a short scene of her plugging the cello and singing on a train in a carefree manner. Lets have that sort of fun!

Interesting. And on that note, in my day job, I stumbled across a totally unique video game, Cello Fortress, wherein several people use regular video game controllers to ‘attack’ a fortress, which is being defended by a person controlling the game by playing a cello. Such a genius idea. (I’d love something like that for my harp, but I’m not at all ready to spend the time to try to create a program to identify chords from a live recording that has been changed from a time to frequency domain!)

Balfour-Knight,

On the subject of “having fun” with your music, Clinton, please check out Angi Bemiss’s website at http://www.simplytheharp.com She has put together excellent resources on learning how to play and enjoy the harp simply.

I’ve glanced at the site twice now but cannot readily discern that these are different from typical books of music.

Thank you everyone.
Clinton Blackmore

[Biagio]

That sounds awesome. Unfortunately, my lever harp is tuned in Eb Major, which means I can’t do that without retuning some Es and Bs. (One advantage a pedal harp has.)

Clinton, I may have confused you by referring to a C major tuning. For ANY major scale those half steps are the 3rd and 7th. Thus if you’re in Eb major, sharp your G (now you have two Abs side by side); sharp your D – voila, two Ebs side by side. Pentatonic, with two sets of paired strings per octave.

All this jargon, I admit, is annoying but that’s the language we’re stuck with. Could be worse: if you aspired to classical you would have to know some Italian – grin.

Biagio

[clinton-blackmore]

Biagio wrote:

Clinton, I may have confused you by referring to a C major tuning. For ANY major scale those half steps are the 3rd and 7th. Thus if you’re in Eb major, sharp your G (now you have two Abs side by side); sharp your D – voila, two Ebs side by side. Pentatonic, with two sets of paired strings per octave.

Oh, yeah! That sounds lovely.

Why didn’t I work that out myself? 🙂

Thanks,
Clinton

[balfour-knight]

Thanks, Biagio–I just caught this, too, and started to respond to Clinton about the half-steps in the Key of E flat, but you got there first! That was wonderful!

Clinton, check out Angi’s Lead Sheet Basics first, then if there are particular songs you want to learn, she probably has a simple arrangement of them! I helped her out on two books and most recently on the “Essence of Swan” sheet music. We have deliberately kept all the arrangements very simple, which is difficult for me to do, ha, ha! I play the harp more like Harpo, with all the glissandos and flourishes! Hope there is something you can use out of Angi’s many publications.

Best to all of you,
Balfour

[Andelin]

Clinton,
Have you tried musescore? It is a notation software that is free of charge. It might be helpful in your quest for the playback feature. You would have to input the notes (or find something suitable that someone else has generously done already and uploaded to the website) but you can change tempo, dynamics, transpose, automatic playback/loop, add a metronome tick, etc. So many wonderful features. I’ve used it for many things. I really like it, but if you try it and find it doesn’t fit your needs, you aren’t really out anything. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but the website has good answers to many questions.

[clinton-blackmore]

Andelin wrote:

Clinton,
Have you tried musescore? It is a notation software that is free of charge. It might be helpful in your quest for the playback feature. You would have to input the notes (or find something suitable that someone else has generously done already and uploaded to the website) but you can change tempo, dynamics, transpose, automatic playback/loop, add a metronome tick, etc. So many wonderful features. I’ve used it for many things. I really like it, but if you try it and find it doesn’t fit your needs, you aren’t really out anything. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but the website has good answers to many questions.

I sure have. (I laboriously entered in music I couldn’t read to have it try to make it more accessible to me, and found it fairly handy in that regard. I’ve got the iPad app, too, as I recall, although haven’t used it since I’ve made some progress with reading musical notation.)

If I might ask a couple of questions (and I understand that you might not know):
– are you able to loop parts of a score? (“I want to work on this measure, and hear it repeatedly.”)
– can you control it remotely? (Again, I’d really like to advance on learning a measure, or even a few notes, at a time).

I wonder what it would take to write a ‘call and response’ plugin that would play some notes from a song, and wait for you to try to play them back, all without showing the notes. Hmm… [The big downside that I see is, how do I enter in a simple melody I want to know without seeing the melody, which in turn makes it hard to play it as though I have no idea how it goes. Hey — Maybe I could find and import midi files.]

Have you found the musescore.com website, with lots of songs, to be useful?

Cheers,
Clinton

[Andelin]

I believe you can loop playback on just a section of a score, as large or small as you choose. I don’t know the steps well enough to describe it right now, but check the website for explanation.

I don’t think it can be controlled remotely, but space bar starts and stops playback, which can be done more quickly than mouse clicks.if you can situate your harp close to the keyboard (or if you have a wireless keyboard, even better) it can be reasonably done.

You could try downloading an unfamiliar melody, and add in 4 measures of rests in between each 4 measures of notes, which would create a sort of call-response. That’s the best I can think of.

I have found the score database useful, although there isn’t much on there that is written by a harpist for the harp, but there is a lot that is for piano that can be adapted. I have also used musescore for violin, and for notating duets. Sometimes I want to arrange a song and finding one someone else has already done helps me get a head start. 🙂

I have been thinking about this post, and maybe I’m still a little hazy on what your goal is. Playing by ear can be defined as several different things. To hear a song and be playing along by the end of it is Playing by ear, but to make up your own arrangement of a song, without seeing sheet music or writing it down is also playing by ear. There are probably other definitions too. Having a better understanding of what it is you are wanting to do will help us give you better suggestions.

Hope this helps.

[balfour-knight]

I agree, Andelin. Playing “by ear” is a little hard to define! To me, it is hearing something played or sung, then being able to sit down at your instrument and play it. Singing by ear is more common, since your voice is your built-in “instrument.” I have many in my church choir who cannot read music, but they can learn to sing their parts “by rote” very well.

I once knew a woman who wanted to play the violin by ear, but she could not “carry a tune” when she sang. She had very little sense of pitch. Therefore, the violin was not for her. She instead learned to play the piano, since it has set pitches, and she played somewhat mechanically, like someone typing, totally by memory, playing the keys and not really “hearing” it! Of course, any expression in her playing was out of the question, but she enjoyed it, just playing notes and chords.

Do you all remember “dueling banjos?” A harpist friend of mine who also plays beautifully by ear joins me in concert from time to time. We call our act “dueling harps!” She will play a melody by ear, made up on the spot, then I will duplicate it, and make up one of my own. Then she will duplicate that one. We do that with progressively more complicated tunes for a bit, trying to “stump” each other, then go into a piece/song we know. The audience loves it. At one of our concerts, a soprano from the audience requested, then joined us for, Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and all three of us did it by ear, since there was no music available and we had not planned on playing that one! It took just a minute to find the correct key to play it in, but once that was decided, it worked very well on two pedal harps. That was the first time any of the three of us had done “Ave Maria” together!

So, Clinton, find another musician to play tunes for you to duplicate, and have fun. Learning music can be a real chore, but playing music is the greatest joy!

Cheers and best wishes,
Balfour

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