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How Do You Learn By Ear
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How Do You Learn By Ear |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Charmion Date: 26 Oct 05 - 02:32 PM Hi, Michelle. I do not believe that the ability to learn by ear is a gift or knack that you have or haven't got. I believe that it is a skill that you can teach yourself. I, too, was rigorously paper-trained, but I have always learned songs by ear so with the mandolin I am having a comparatively easy transition from learning tunes from tadpoles to learning them by ear. For me, the first stage of learning a tune is breaking it down into phrases about two bars long. This is easiest to do with another person or a cassette tape, but it is also possible with computer CD players such as RealPlayer. When I can play the first phrase perfectly, I start learning the second, then join them and play the tune from the beginning. Then I start the third, and when I can play that perfectly I go back to the beginning and play as far as I can. When I can play the first three phrases without error, I learn the last phrase, then go back to the beginning again and play to the end. Most traditional tunes repeat phrases, so this process is less complicated than it sounds. I then repeat the entire eight-bar section until I can play it perfectly and without hesitation. Then I am ready to start learning the second part of the tune, which I do exactly the same way. When I can play the second part of the tune without error, I start at the beginning of the first part and play the entire tune to the end with the repeats. When I have completed the entire process, I find the new tune is fairly well established and I can recall it correctly with only a little refreshment (i.e., listening to the original). At this stage, I identify the specific combination of notes and rhythm that becomes the "tag" I use to recall the tune. The next stage of learning for me is when the tune becomes an "ear worm" running through my head constantly. Whenever possible during this stage, I give in to the ear worm and play the tune repeatedly. After two or three days of ear-worming, the tune is fully learned and well seated in long-term memory. I can then retrieve it correctly at any time, usually by playing or humming the "tag" phrase, and play it accurately. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: GUEST,Sieffe Date: 26 Oct 05 - 03:18 PM easypeasy, Lily . . . .as a lot of the posted replies have pointed out, just try any tune you have never seen written down anywhere (hopefully there will be some such as "Happy Birthday" that you have never seen in notation form) and play it . . .that simple to start with . . . last night I picked up a dulcimer and made up another tune . . . so you could start with a scale and bend it into a melody . . . enjoy! (If music is not enjoyable, stop playing immediately and eat icecream! . . .) ps. . .I cannot read a note of written music . . .but I play lots of music! |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Jon W. Date: 26 Oct 05 - 06:35 PM good information here. I can only add that sometimes when I'm picking out tunes on banjo, I find a phrase that sounds "right" when played two different ways (I mean with different notes, not just different fingerings). In these cases I sometimes need to go to a printed source to check which is "correct" - often neither is. I guess this is how changes creep into tunes over time - a valid part of the "folk process." |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: NH Dave Date: 26 Oct 05 - 07:08 PM While this isn't exactly playing by ear, it is a good cheat that gets you going on new songs. Observe another playing the same instrument as you and copy the chords that s/he plays. Or observe another good musician on another instrument, learn to recognise the chords that s/he plays and finger that chord on your instrument. This worked well for me when I was struggling along on a banjo and could watch the guitarists, and play the same chords they were using on my banjo. Dave |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: LilyFestre Date: 26 Oct 05 - 07:09 PM (If music is not enjoyable, stop playing immediately and eat icecream! . . .) LOL....I think I like this idea the best!!! And thank you for the many ideas and thoughts shared here...I'm about to embark on a mission...... Michelle PS. Believe it or not, I DID learn Happy Birthday from written music! I think that my music is like my security blanket as I can play many tunes without REALLY watching the music...it's there as kind of a reference...make sense? Wish me luck! |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 26 Oct 05 - 08:01 PM LilyFestre (calm down - take a deep breath - put the books in the closet for awhile.)
Like you I was classical in my training - however, aside from memorized performance pieces I was at a loss without some-sort of sheet music, ANY sort of sheet music was fine.
In a theory class it is frustrating to have vocalists get A's on intervals, and I had a hard time telling if the tone was even higher or lower.
However, ANY "pianist" "keyboardist" should be able to sit down and wizz-out Happy Birthday, or For He's a Jolly Good Fellow it is a shame to have the training and lack the ability to have a gang belt out Clementine without searching for a book.
EPIPHANY for me came with a two night, university extension class.
Start with nursery rhymes, move to a couple simple tunes, pickout one new song a day; begin to add left hand and florishes (use half-step blues bends up or down) When you can do a hundred in the key of "C" take one and do it in C and then F and then G....(don't forget Bb - get it in early - soon you might find a sax wants melody) and try doing a simple one in ALL twelve keys...and then another in all 12, and another.
My sight-reading has gone to Hull.....Last weekend "Concerto in C," by some ghostly hand, slipped off the shelf and nosed its head under the door - gave it a run-through, I'm out looking for two oboes and French horns....or another pianist.
In the mornings I awaken to Public Broadcast Radio, they always have brief melodies as "bumpers" into new reports - as I stumble towards the kitchen - the keyboard is enroute - the challenge is to recreate that brief segway on the way to the coffee.
After the folk tunes, move onto the blues and shortly behind their heels you will find jazz creeping in.
HAVE FUN - it is NOT hard - it will take about three years before you are able to follow the sax/vocalist/clarinet lead in any key.
It will take about three days and you will be able to toast B-Days and Jolly Fellows in the key of C. (I,IV,V - one, four, five, - C, F, G)
My personal groupings are now:
At one point, I forbid myself from using ANY printed music for several months.
PLEASE -
Sincerely,
Don't be angry with Bobert - his parent's ignorance became his loss - it is MUCH easier to learn by ear at our age than it would be for us to NOW learn classical with arthritic fingers, hemroids, blurred vision, halitosis, weak bladder, and memory loss. You and I have cavorted with genius and can step back in awe - while others are happy with only turkey and straw. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 26 Oct 05 - 08:06 PM Oh Shit Lilly!!! -
What I posted does not apply to you. Fiddle??? (you were just trying to be "folkie" right....you studied violin????)
I think Bobert was right after all.
Sincerely,
Always read the entire post before letting your elephant mouth overload your hummingbird ass-hole...sorry. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Peace Date: 26 Oct 05 - 10:34 PM "How Do You Learn By Ear" Never mind how do WE learn. How do the Italians learn. Didn't Mark Antony borrow . . . . |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 26 Oct 05 - 10:40 PM I said Friends Romans Countrymen, lend me your ears! What ya got int eh sack? Ears! |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: GUEST Date: 27 Oct 05 - 12:12 AM Friends, Romans, Countrymen
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: JohnInKansas Date: 27 Oct 05 - 01:56 AM Despite a mis(non)-reading of the subject, I'd like to congratulate Gargoyle on one of the most elegant and thoughtful posts I've seen from him recently. (26 Oct 05 - 08:01 PM ). Musta' been readin' some love pomes or somethin'. Or maybe it was that "Concerto in C." John |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 27 Oct 05 - 06:54 AM Hi Lily, lovely fiddler (all female fiddlers starting with an L are lovely) - it's only a problem of training, best done together with others. My experience: While I got music lessons with a lot of theory and sheet music I learned tunes by ear with the boy scouts. We sang together, and when we were all in unisono we had done well. When I intend to learn a song by ear I involuntarily hear the main intervals and steps, too. That's my classical training. So it is unimportant which instrument I use, or which key. I often have to do this when I'm checking the DT for tunes, and I still remember that "John Kanaka" proved to be difficult at first for a certain interval ... So I started again and again, till I had mastered it. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 29 Oct 05 - 05:01 AM Lily - and now a practical advice: Listen to this song [click to play] and try to play it on your instrument. It consists mostly of firsts and seconds, with a few thirds, and an occasional fourth here and there. Some phrases are segments of the scale, so it should be easy for a start. (The song was played when my hard fighting bataillon marched out of Yorktown, due to the artful strategies of the British Supreme Command.) If you are too paper fixed, start with trying to write it down on a sheet; you can change to an easy key, prefereably C major. Start with the offbeat in g', then c''. So you won't need any auxiliary lines. Or, if you are a violinist, d - g. Bonne chance! wilfried |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Ebbie Date: 29 Oct 05 - 10:59 PM Not germain to this discussion but I have to put it somewhere! At the Getaway, somebody (Amos) started a lively beat on the guitar but the room was noisy and nobody sang. Then Teresa (from Shellbacks) shouted: Does anyone have a tune to go with this rhythm? And everybody sang. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Bert Date: 29 Oct 05 - 11:34 PM Fhwooo! (coming from the worlds worst guitarist) It's difficult. When I first picked up the guitar I had to look up the chords for each song. After some years I was able to pick out some chords for myself. Eventually I decided to take some guitar lessons and my teacher got me playing scales in all different keys. With a lot of practice I found that I was able to pick out some tunes by ear. Tunes that I knew well. Now if I can't figure out how a song goes I will play the scale for that key a few times and I find it helps. You as a trained fiddler will know all your scales so now's the time to play them again. Hope this helps a little. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Bert Date: 29 Oct 05 - 11:40 PM Oh, and I forgot, sometimes it helps to start with the ending os the song. |
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Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear From: Ebbie Date: 29 Oct 05 - 11:55 PM Sometimes I say that if I get the first chord and the ending chord right, that's all anyone can aspire to. *G* |
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