Playing by Ear ?

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Playing by Ear ?

Postby Brian007 » 27 Jul 2016 08:01

OK,

How many of us can/ do / have, played by ear ? I have and can.

My definition of playing by ear is when you can't find the music for the tune you want and have to resort to playing without the dots.

If there's any interest in this subject I will describe how I do it, and maybe those that can will describe how they play by ear also.

Brian007 8) 8)
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Rev Tony Newnham » 27 Jul 2016 08:23

Hi

I play by ear when I really have to, but I much prefer to have the music in front of me - even if it's only a starting point for changing harmonies, etc.

My late Father pretty much only played by ear, although he did eventually learn to read the treble clef.

Many years ago, I came across a book in our local library (West Sussex at the time) about playing by ear - I can't remember the exact title or author now (I was still at school at the time!). It included some suggestions & exercises. It might be worth hunting out what's available.

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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Brian007 » 27 Jul 2016 08:34

Hi Tony,

I can read music and play from it, but even then there's not many pieces of sheet music that give you the complete tune
.. and I am talking the full intro and ending of the tune and any instrumental sections in the middle, so even with the sheet
music there`s sometimes you need to resort to finding these out by ear.

Brian007 8) 8)
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby FREDDIE » 02 Aug 2016 20:31

I can't play for toffee without sheet music. Even a simple melody like the first 4 notes of Morning Has Broken leaves me stumped unless I have the dots in front of me. I would love the skill to play by ear, but alas no... :oops:
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Georgeandmarj » 02 Aug 2016 23:39

Hi all
I am unable to play without the dots in front of me. I can usually manage a rough version of the melody, but my brain doesn't seem to link to the right chords. It's a skill I would like to master.

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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Brian007 » 03 Aug 2016 06:49

Hi George,

I can do both as long as I can remember the tune I am playing. I am fine playing by ear so I find that if I really like
the piece of music I am trying to play it helps a great deal.

If its just the chords you struggle with, you could find them on the internet usually with the Lyrics for the song also.
Right click and copy them into NotePad on the computer and save it
and then load it into your PRS 950 as text files using the Lyrics function

See demo below




Brian007 8)
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Georgeandmarj » 03 Aug 2016 07:39

Hi Brian
I didn't know that was available on 950. I'll have a bit look into this. Thanks. Georgeandmarj
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Rev Tony Newnham » 03 Aug 2016 07:58

Hi

There are some books out there - a quick Google came up with :- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Piano-Faber-Lu ... 0571539025

https://www.amazon.com/Play-Piano-Ear-B ... 3795755190

I emphasise that I've not even looked at these, so no reccomendation. Neither are the book I remember from our local library back in the 1960's

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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby VAL7JEAN » 03 Aug 2016 20:33

Am unable to play without the dots in front of me - ME ALSO
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Brian007 » 04 Aug 2016 06:48

Hi Freddie and VAL7JEAN,

It's not a bad thing being able to play only from the dots, and I do envy the people who can sight read fast enough to play off the dots at will.
I just don't have that ability and doubt that at my age no amount of practice is going to make that much difference now.

So where possible if I have the dots I will read them and learn them and commit to memory and play that way, but if I don't
have the dots I find the chords off the internet and pick the melody out from the chords used and what I hear off an mp3

Each method, dots or ear has it own merits and at the end of the day it's what the end result is that matters The Music.


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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby papadeedee » 04 Aug 2016 18:20

Hi,
If I can hum the tune then the chances are that I will be able to play it, If not, it is trial and error to pick the correct intervals between notes and listen to hear if it sounds right. I have enough experience to have a good idea of what chords to choose to fit the melody.
The first thing to do is learn the diatonic chords (Using notes in the scale) for the key you wish to play in.
For instance, the scale of G major, using triads only would be G, A min, B min, C,D, Emin, F# dim and back to G
These are the most likely chords but there are often notes and chords outwith the scale as well.
If I want to learn a tune from scratch
1, I play the tune on You Tube and find out the key.
2, Listen and pick out the bass,
3, Fit the chords to the bass whilst humming the tune
4, Pick out the melody and play it
5, Put it all together.
I hope this helps. :)
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Abacus » 04 Aug 2016 22:45

David Ash did a good book in the 80s (Anybody what happened to him) called How to Play Music by Ear, and is still available used. https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-play-music-ear-David/dp/0950845515

Hope this helps

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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Brian007 » 05 Aug 2016 06:47

Brian and Bill,

Thanks very much for your input on the this subject it's always useful to hear how other people do it. I usually.

1/ Look on the internet for the chords, a good start is http://www.songsterr.com/

2/ if I want to make sure I am playing in in the right key I go to https://play.riffstation.com/
this attempts to give you the exact chords used in the original MP3 ( its not usually too far away ).

3 From here it's just a question of picking out the melody line bearing in mind most notes will usually fall
in the key that the song\tune is in.

Now I am not suggesting that learning to play by ear is better than the ability to sight read music,
but it has its uses and its place, certainly in my world anyway.

Brian007 8) 8)
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Hugh-AR » 11 Nov 2017 23:54

Brian,

I have come across this topic and it certainly makes interesting reading. One comment I would make is that often when you listen to some music eg. a song from the 50s or 60s, you hear certain things going on in the background which you subsequently find are not in the sheet music in front of you. I suppose they can't show everything with dots in the music, but often these phrases/counter-melodies are what make the piece 'special', and just 'playing from the dots' is not going to give you the satisfaction of knowing that you have played the piece as you want to hear it. Now you can probably work out those little melodies you hear 'by ear', but then the next problem you have is working out how to get these into the song when you only have two hands. If you are able to do multi-tracking then you can add these bits in afterwards. But you would have to do this 'by ear'.

On my AR I have the facility to record the Upper Manual and the Lower Manual separately, so I effectively have four hands to play things. I play chords and counter-melodies on the Lower; and then whilst listening to that 'playing back' I can record something with my two hands on the Upper. Then when I play it all back as one piece I get a fuller sound than just playing the piece 'straight'.

One example of this is Away In A Manger which I posted in the Christmas 2017 section. Click the below to hear a DEMO of the bit where I have done a 'double recording' of the Melody together with a Counter-Melody (which I have put in 'by ear').

https://app.box.com/s/6w347vgglhhabfn1ogblb7m8dpnepogv

Hugh
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Re: Playing by Ear ?

Postby Brian007 » 12 Nov 2017 10:08

Hi Hugh,

A lot of stuff I can never seem to find the sheet music for and even sometimes just finding out the chords isnt enough
so I have tried a couple of times finding a midi file of the music off the internet and passing it through a piece of software
that will show all the notation one at a time for all the tracks, so its another way of finding the music

Brian007 :D :D
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