How Do You Learn By Ear

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 06:34 PM

start off with a very simple tune like a nursery rhyme
I think a lot of nursery rhymes actually developed as mnemonics for tunes.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 06:13 PM

I think we've had this discussion before on concertina.net Alan. Perhaps it's worth looking there for all the ideas that came up. This seems to be quite a common question for concertina players.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Alan Day
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 06:08 PM

Some people memorise the written notes for each tune and play the tune as if they were reading.I cannot do this and the correct method for me would be to memorise the tune in respect to the notes I am playing.For this method start off with a very simple tune like a nursery rhyme.Forget chords at this stage and gently progress.It will be hard at first, but then once you relate a tune to your finger pattern the music will start to flow,add chords and you are there.It is possible to hear a new tune through a few times and start playing it.You will then move on, to what you may think is impossible, to actually play your instrument in your head with chords.
A good friend told me he could never remember anything and this would be impossible,but I reminded him that if I told him a joke he would tell it to someone next day word for word.It is all just practice and the reason I can do it Michelle is that I have started and you have not.Give it a go and good luck.
Al

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 05:41 PM

If you can already play from the dots then one good idea is to look out for scales and arpegios. All tunes are made up of these with some interconnecting extra notes.
I have even found that one person I know, who is considered tone deaf because they cannot sing a scale, can sing perfect arpegios.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 05:35 PM

I was interested to read somewhere that the trickiest thing about picking out a tune from the radio or wherever is to take it note by note. The untrained ear is usually skipping ahead or listening to the whole sound. To slow down and pick up each note takes a lot of patience.

This is different from learning by ear as you go in a band setting. I recall that Rick Fielding used to start off with simple I-IV-V chord progressions, so you could hear the changes (also watch the fingers on the other person's guitar). Then he did the I - I7 - IV progression, and then the blues progression. After that it was rags, and then lastly the jazz III-VI-II-V-I. He would then do 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, diminisheds, and augmenteds, and start sprinkling them into the previous progressions. After an hour of this, your head hurt. After one of these sessions (we would do them all) he said -- "If you can hear these, you know 99% of everything unless Miles Davis is in the room. If Miles Davis is in the room, put the instrument down and listen."

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Tootler
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 05:14 PM

Like many things musical, practice is important. I got involved in playing traditional music about a year ago and at first I found the learning by ear very difficult. I had been playing from music for many years and this was very different.

I am quite surprised how much I have improved in that year, and now when a go to a session, I can have a fair crack at a tune that I am not totally familiar with. I still find learning tunes "cold" for example at a workshop difficult, but even that is coming easier. I was at a folkworks workshop this weekend and I managed to learn four tunes without the dots, though I was vaguely familiar with three of them. We were given the dots to take home, though.

I put the progress down to having to learn tunes by ear on a regular basis. Knowing a tune and being able to hum, sing or whistle it helps immensely, though.

My trouble is that it is too easy to play from music at home :-)

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 05:12 PM

Play along with the radio/TV/CDs etc. as much as you can. Get an understanding of scales and chord progressions (if you don't already) and keep practising. It will come eventually.

Good luck.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Grab
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:58 PM

Can you hum/whistle a tune after hearing it on the radio? If so, it's probably just a matter of practise. If not, you may be one of the unlucky few who aren't born with it.

Being a beginner in the tune-learning stakes myself, I can say that's it's easier learning by ear when everyone else is playing slowly! :-) So forget those buggers who play everything at 200mph - they're no damn use. Whitby FF had a great idea which was a "reasonable-pace tune session".

Graham.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: LilyFestre
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:03 PM

I should have mentioned that I play the fiddle....

Michelle

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:03 PM

Do you sing or play an instrument? If you sing and want to learn to play an instrument by ear, sing the songs you know by heart. As you do so, pick out the tune on your instrument and practice it over and over. It may sound a bit simple as an approach, but it is one way to start, at least.

I was fortunate to learn by ear from my parents and siblings playing by ear and by music and also in that I started violin and piano lessons when I was eight. I spent most of my adult years playing with music, classical mostly, until I came to Mudcat and started remembering a lot of the old tunes mom and dad played, etc. I found it easy to improv and play the dulcimer by ear and now have done the same with the fiddle. I didn't think I'd EVER be able to do that on the fiddle as I was so classically oriented. Still, I'd have to feel a lot more confident before I tried to jam with anyone as I have never had a chance really to practice that...it's been a fairly solitary thing for many years.

Have fun and good luck! Great thread, btw.

kat

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:02 PM

For me it's a bit automatic. If I hear a tune often enough, eventually, I will learn it well enough to whistle. And if I can whistle it, I can play it on any instrument on which I can play a scale. If it's not automatic for you, maybe you just need to hear a tune more times than some other people before you learn it.

Back when I used to attend weekly jam sessions, I would take a tape recorder with me and tape them (every week). Then I would listen to the tunes I wanted to learn over and over until I knew them. Sometimes I have to replay a particular passage over and over again, while playing just that passage until I have it down, if the passage is complicated or difficult.

Learning by ear has its good points and its bad points from my perspective. There are tunes that I want to learn exactly as they were written. Those tunes I try to use sheet music to learn. Other tunes, it isn't as important to me whether or not I learn it exactly as written, or maybe it's old and has many variations. Those, I don't mind learning by ear. Exception to this is chords. I am only able to learn melodies by ear, and sometimes very basic chords. If I want to learn a complicated chord progression, I need sheet music.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:54 PM

This is a challenging thread title. Having learned everything I play and all the harmonies I sing by ear, I forget that playing by ear can seem to be an insurmountable task for some people. I have a friend who is a wonderful piano player, who really wants to be able to play by ear. He's finding it extremely difficult. I don't think I'll have a lot to offer on this topic, but I think it's a very worthy one.

My attitude in music, and often in life is "I wonder what happens if you do this?" That doesn't work well with dynamite and a match, but it's worked well for me in music, and many other areas of life. Maybe just "messing around" can be elevated to an art form? It usually works for me.

Jerry

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Beer
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:53 PM

I think it may be something you are born with. I come from a very large family and I think that there may be just one of us who can read music.
One thing I use to do to improve my "ear" was to hit any object that would produce a sound. I would take a guess as to what key the sound was in then I would go to the key board and see if I was correct. It is a lot of fun and especially if you can do it with someone.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: GUEST,Giok
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:49 PM

Careful how you go about it or you could end up in dire trouble, and you don't want dire ear do you?
G..

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:47 PM

I learned by ear when I was 12 years old. After I learned some chords I would play along with some records (Kingston trio, actually) which were loaded with 3 chord songs. I would do this by sliding my capo up the neck to first establish what key a song was in. then I would try to play along.

Then (and this is where the ear comes in) I would LISTEN where the drone pitch changed. The drone pitch is the same as the chord and when you heard the change, this is where the chord changed (usually to a 4th chord or a 5th chord)

I would literally hum the drone pitch with the chord until the drone pitch (and the chord itself) needed to change. It works.

Hum the pitch of the chord. Listen for the pitch to change. The chord changes there.

Subject: RE: How Do You Learn By Ear
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:46 PM

If you go to tune sessions where people play through tunes three times then move on to another tune, try listening the first time through, then quietly playing whatever bits you have picked up the next time through, and even more the thrid time through. Keep going to sessions, and each time you will learn more of the tunes.
You might spot after a while, that tunes have recognisable chunks that come in other tunes - repeated phrases and such like. Once your fingers have got used to playing the phrase in one tune, it is really easy to play that same phrase in another.
it's like a musical alphabet, where the letters can be arranged in any order to make new words, but once you know the alphabet, it gets a lot easier.
And beware - it all takes a lot of time, but is great fun learning1

Subject: How Do You Learn By Ear?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:40 PM

I am wanting to learn how to play by ear...I have admired that trait in others for years. I know it's something I'm going to have to play with and have some patience with, but aside from that and listening to lots of music, does anyone have any suggestions as to go about this?

Michelle