How to play by ear - a foolproof method.

[mcmurray]

Thought you guys might like to read this little tutorial I wrote on how to play by ear. I've seen 3 year-olds and 75 year-olds have success, so you can too. Not to mention it forms the core of a music degree ear training course, but most guitarists aren't familiar with it.

 

The method is solfege, and see how to apply it directly to the guitar here:

 

http://www.jsguitarforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56336

 

Being familiar with solfege will enable you to play by ear (i.e. play what ever you hear in your head or hear on a CD, and allows you to write it down - very helpful for composing), transcribe very easily, and gives you the ability to read a piece of sheet music and hear exactly how it sounds in your head without picking up an instrument.

 

Hope it helps.

[80LPC]

This is interesting but it seems really complicated to me. The only way I've ever played is to try to remember the pitch and it's position on the fretboard, but I have to admit to being a complete dummy when it comes to any kind of notation.

[dem00n]

See if you play by ear your a guitarest. If you learn how to read music your a musican.

[mcmurray]

See if you play by ear your a guitarest. If you learn how to read music your a musican.

 

What is the difference between a guitarist and a musician then? A guitarist is simply a musician whose instrument is guitar. Some guitarists play by ear' date=' some use standard notation and some play by ear. It is beneficial to be familiar with all 3 methods, although when you have learned to play by ear and from standard notation, TAB is not needed.

 

This is interesting but it seems really complicated to me. The only way I've ever played is to try to remember the pitch and it's position on the fretboard' date=' but I have to admit to being a complete dummy when it comes to any kind of notation.[/quote']

 

Unless you have perfect pitch, your method will bring you more confusion.

[Swmcv2007]

Ear training is very important. Most musicians who play for a long time pick it up eventually but taking a course or getting a book on it really help.

 

I took ear training in college and high school and its one of the most valuable things I've learned as a musician.

[mcmurray]

Ear training is very important. Most musicians who play for a long time pick it up eventually but taking a course or getting a book on it really help.

 

I took ear training in college and high school and its one of the most valuable things I've learned as a musician.

 

Did you use Solfege to train your ear?

[Swmcv2007]

Yes. Solfege is pretty much just putting names on the different notes of the scales. The more general term for ear training is in fact "Ear Training." At my college they had Ear Training 1-5.

[80LPC]

 

Unless you have perfect pitch' date=' your method will bring you more confusion. [/quote']

 

How do blind or partially sighted people learn to play. Do they develop perfect pitch ?

[Swmcv2007]

 

How do blind or partially sighted people learn to play. Do they develop perfect pitch ?

 

 

Perfect pitch is something you are born with. It is the ability to distinguish the difference between notes. To the rest of us all notes and pitches are relative.

 

 

Now about the blind people. Humans are the dominant race on earth because of our amazing ability to adapt. When someone's sight is impaired of non-existent, then their other senses become sharper to make up for the lack of vision. Adaptation is a beautiful thing. When blind people choose to learn music they have an acute sense of hearing so they might develop perfect pitch or something very close to it. They pretty much get a course in ear training by just fiddling on their instrument for a while.

[mcmurray]

The more general term for ear training is in fact "Ear Training."

 

Yes I'm aware of this. What other tools/techniques were you taught at college in your ear training courses?

[Bruce_09]

This was pretty interesting to read.

 

I'm studying a diploma of music at the moment and we have Aural classes in which we're taught to recognize intervals and chord qualities by relating them to recognizable tunes. For example when I hear a perfect 5th I'll know what it is because I'll hear the first couple of notes of the Star Wars theme song.

 

I've found this pretty useful as far as transcribing riffs and bits go, but I'd be interested to put some of this solfege business into action.

[Cheeks]

i say just learn A B C D E F G and be done with it.

 

That way you can also read music.

 

Why put all that time in learning something that is somewhat

backwards and not advancing you in reading sheet music for example.

 

I learned ABCDEFG .... just 7 notes.

All the sharps & flats are in between....

 

not that hard.

 

CHEEKS

 

A_BC_D_EF_G_A <=== LEARN THAT and you have it made...

 

...the spaces can be either a sharp -OR- a flat.

[cjlandry]

Seems simple enough. In the C major scale:

 

Do= C

(whole step)

Re= D

(whole step)

Mi= E

(half step)

Fa= F

(whole step)

So= G

(whole step)

La= A

(whole step)

Ti= B

(half step up to Do= C)

 

Kind of like that old movie. How did that song go again?....

 

"The desert's alive with the sound of warfare!"

[rocketman]

Well I don't pride myself with much talent but I do have good pitch. I can tell you the exact notes in a tune. I really have no idea how I do it and it used to drive my music teachers nuts because most people can't do it.

 

"Seeing" the notes and playing be ear are two different things though. The latter is something everyone can learn and I don't believe that one needs any special tools to do it. My music teacher would point to one of us and say something "play Yankee Doodle (Dandy) in the key of F#." I really think the key to doing it right is to be able to play along with humming it with your head. The intervals will come naturally over many times practicing it.

[Dave]

This was pretty interesting to read.

 

I'm studying a diploma of music at the moment and we have Aural classes in which we're taught to recognize intervals and chord qualities by relating them to recognizable tunes. For example when I hear a perfect 5th I'll know what it is because I'll hear the first couple of notes of the Star Wars theme song.

 

I've found this pretty useful as far as transcribing riffs and bits go, but I'd be interested to put some of this solfege business into action.

 

Or the guards outside the castle in the "Wizard of Oz"

O-Reo O-Reo O-Reo

1 5 1 1 5 1 1 5 1

 

I've always been able to run notes through my head and tell you the relationship in terms of intervals. My head is like a jukebox sometimes. Frequently there's a tune going through it and I can view the fingerboard at will and visualize the fingering for the song. Sometimes its distracting!

 

I just discovered the Nashville Notation method last year and realized that I had been using it for at least two decades and didn't know what it was called. Root-5th, 5chord, and so on was the way we always called out the chords for a song. An Am in the key of C was the 6minor.

[euclid]

This is interesting.

[Rock642]

For me I'll find a tab to song then work on it without the tab (by ear), then review the tab on parts that I know are off to see the errors of my ways.

[amplifiercity]

See if you play by ear your a guitarest. If you learn how to read music your a musican.

 

very well put.

[amplifiercity]

Perfect pitch is something you are born with.

 

Actually, most people are born with perfect pitch, but they lose it as they grow up because they don't use it. I have studied various perfect pitch methods for a full year and regained some of it.

[NathanBai]

Interesting method...ok

[aopagary]

Actually, most people are born with perfect pitch, but they lose it as they grow up because they don't use it. I have studied various perfect pitch methods for a full year and regained some of it.

 

 

i'd like to add a modification to that statement... most people are born with "the ability" to achieve perfect or excellent relative pitch hearing, but if not taught or exercised at an early age, the ability will be lost forever or perhaps at least as hard to pick up as a second language would be for an adult. i'm going to guess that not one player in this forum who thinks they have a "good ear" wasn't exposed to music at a very early age.

 

...gary

[Rich W]

How do blind or partially sighted people learn to play ?

 

I play in the dark for hours at a time. It was tough at first, but now my fingers really know the fretboard and I have a good mental image of it (which comes in handy when my mind starts to wander in boring staff meetings). Blind guitarists like Jeff Healey could burn up and down the neck with the best of them, and you really don't need your eyes to play.

[EpiphoneFan1989]

Thought you guys might like to read this little tutorial I wrote on how to play by ear. I've seen 3 year-olds and 75 year-olds have success, so you can too. Not to mention it forms the core of a music degree ear training course, but most guitarists aren't familiar with it.

 

The method is solfege, and see how to apply it directly to the guitar here:

 

http://www.jsguitarforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56336

 

Being familiar with solfege will enable you to play by ear (i.e. play what ever you hear in your head or hear on a CD, and allows you to write it down - very helpful for composing), transcribe very easily, and gives you the ability to read a piece of sheet music and hear exactly how it sounds in your head without picking up an instrument.

 

Hope it helps.

 

Shame. Must register to see this.

[corpse-juice]

Shame. Must register to see this.

 

 

This is what I was thinking. I don't have much for a ear but I gotta keep trying

[mikekefr]

Possibly the hardest thing you could try to TEACH someone,heres an attempt to give help to people who cant "hear" it.First,if life doesnt allow you to keep a guitar on you 24/7,and if you're not familiar with the sounds of each note in the music scale A-G#,try getting one of those cheapy guitar tuners you blow into and start training your ear to pick out each note during times you dont have a guitar with you.Exercises i did w/ guitar in hand was to close my eyes and hit a note,top string only at 1st to keep it simple,building up to any/every string,any/every fret,and compare it to the notes i started to pick out at first,ie. A,E,D.This is all hindsight,i did not use a tuner,i used what i call "staple" songs.My staple songs are,"i dont know" by ozzy starts on A,"paranoid" by black sabbath starts in E,"sweet child of mine" starts in D.Use your favorite music genre to create your own list.So in my head/ear i can 99% of the time hum the beginning notes of these songs to myself with no music playing,and when i hear a song on the radio or a music video,i hum what my ears are hearing as a rythym or bass line,jot down the name of the song and what key/note i think i heard,and check it out later when you get to a guitar and have time to play.One downfall to this is different bands tuning down 1/2 step lol.One exercise ive used on students ive taught is to turn my back to them and make them guess the note im playing,once they get good at that,then start throwing major/minor chords at them,some people just wanna learn songs, but i used this in short incriments on people that wanted to learn stuff by ear.Good luck,if you want/need help making a song list for yourself,shoot me a line and tell me what kinda music you like.FYI i am not a qualified teacher of music or music theory,i can only tell you what worked for me.