You can learn to play by ear without having to learn all these phrases and numbers! I starting playing by ear when I was 7 years old. I’m 82 years old now. What I did I listened to a song several times until I memorized the sound. Then I set down and started picking out the notes on piano that sounded good together. What I was doing (and didn’t know it then) I was forming cords. I now can play any thing I want by ear. I love playing gospel and country music. I’m now teaching myself to play Jerry Lee Lewis style.
Bless you brother Greg I wish I could have a piano teacher like you, I i feel so blessed every time I listened to your piano playing praises to God wow what a great talent proud of you your just using it for the glory of God, amen.
Just started piano lessons by ear. Your comments and advice adds significantly to my playing. Your comments also reduce to fear and anxiety that often adds difficulty to my playing practice, Thank you.
Thanks for posting this video! Good point about "doodling" the right hand melody without having to worry about identifying the precise intervals between the melodic notes as this will streamline the learning process quite a bit for beginners. Attention to and identifying the intervals between the melodic notes (played on the main down beats) and the bass notes however is extremely useful in helping me identify the right bass note (and chords) to play with the melody. If you don't mind me sharing this with your viewers, here's how I learned to play songs by ear on piano (explained in precisely 100 words) and I hope your viewers will find this helpful. 1) Start with simple MELODIES with narrow note range, playing final note of song on note C (to minimize use of black keys). 2) Play BASS note at 1, 3 or 5 intervals (+1 octave) BELOW melodic note played on (sometimes immediately after) main down beat with left pinky. Play intervals 1 or 5 for melodic note I, II, IV and 3 for II, VI, VII. Use 3 when melody progresses up & down chromatically; 2, 4 or 7 in mid-section of song or melancholy song. 3) Roll CHORD up & down notes at 1-3-5 or 1-5-8-10 intervals ABOVE bass notes. Jazz up with 7-9. I demonstrate these three basic steps at th-cam.com/video/gt4er_hsgP0/w-d-xo.html
Thank you Greg. I always enjoy hearing your ideas. They refresh my memory, reinforce things I've heard you say before, and get me motivated to keep practicing.
Great video! Tnx for this. You're right, I have been trying to do this consciously for a while and I have seen progress. I've become faster at figuring out how to play a song by ear.
Good advice! Almost all blues pianists play by ear. I can read music but I'm convinced that you will learn a lot more about music theory by playing by ear. Sheet music never teaches you how a chord 'sounds' or that there are always alternatives and improvisations available. It helped me a lot to learn a 'library' of LH blues patterns and rhythms in different keys. Pretty soon I was able to identify chords, intervals and notes by ear alone. After a year or two I was able to improvise over almost any melody. Now I almost never play from sheet music, although lead-sheets are sometimes useful to promote ideas for rhythms and LH patterns.
Thank you very much for this material. I watched several videos explaining how to play by ear around youtube and none of them explored the concepts you talked about the "texture" of music, that was something very useful and inspiring, specially for the beginners to know and hear how those aspects really work. . Keep working the good job.
very informative video, definately a great starting point. I agree with your houghts, too often people only praise talent and not hard work, I learned to play by ear by accident when I was pressig keys and realized it sounded similar to a song that I knew, anyone can do it!
Yes i've done it with a few others, so far I can only play the melody though I haven't really gotten the bass notes down lol. It's not luck really you just need to to listen to the songs you want to play a looooot
Actually, I’m noticing the opposite. People have shift towards praising hard work over talent, which has become problematic to an extent. It’s well known that music takes hard work, but recently I’m seeing that people are ignoring the clear talent aspect, even to the extent of saying it means little.
Thanks for bringing light to this! There are those who have been brought up to think either playing by ear is best, or think sight reading is the best way, but in reality there's no dominant way to play, and both are a developed skill. Learning both ways are probably most beneficial.
Greg, for a 22 minute fly by lesson on transition/modulation, this was incredible! This will be really easy to pick up and your explanations were spot on. Thanks for helping me in making my modulations creatively better!
I just stumbled onto your video as I was looking for a way to help my pianists on my church music team improve their skills. This is going to be super helpful--you've introduced, broken down, and set up a schedule for the tasks. Now going to work on how to implement. THANK YOU! (If I remember, I will check back with you on our progress.)
I have a desire to learn by ear so I will follow how you described to do it. I have played bass for 30 years and what I have learned already on keyboard is improving my bass. I'm learning so I can teach my children and grandchildren if the desire to learn. Thanks for all you do and God Bless !
wow thanks, this is actually the only video that helped. I don't really like technical piano methods, my teacher used to use this method and I was so stressed out I quit it. I'm going to start taking lessons again.
Wow. that's very good. I'm actually a guitar and drums player, but I like how you laid this out. I've been working on this myself.... Thank you for you using such a great song to illustrate this. God bless you!!!
I begin to learn keyboard organ . Next lesson is picking my music i like , it will be '' You Got Something '' J.J. Cale . I try to learn here and there , and i found this video interesting . By ear sounds like a divine gift . I hope to do it .
People say 90% of songs are I IV V and major key but every song I like enough to try to analyze and learn never uses this progression or are in minor keys or some mixed method like major harmony with minor melody or modes and a lot of borrowed chords and notes out of the scale...
A 1, 4, 5 Is really a 2, 5, 1 in another key. Also the 2,3, & 6 use minor chords. The 1, 4, & 5 use major chords. The 7 uses a diminish chord or is played over a 5 chord that should help you play basics
Great lesson! Very useful. I've been playing by ear in the past but you are able to verbalize it and actually helped me understand the theory behind it. I mastered 1 4 5 and now need to master the other 10%.
This was my plan more or less but properly described. I think maybe learning sheet music would be easier with the dexterity and musical coordination you get after a year of this.
Haha my piano teacher used to hit the piano if I played wrong or if I played by ear. I had lessons with for about 5 months and I got pretty discouraged by feeling stupid. Quit for 12 years and I am convinced I can learn it now. Tho sometimes I feel too old to learn an instrument.
So, in my opinion, playing by ear is hearing a song and you can replicate it on the piano without much effort. And by replicate I mean chords and melody. I understand from this course that you will need to do a lot of figuring out by yourself. Or will you learn to play by ear (by my definition) in the process? So when you hear a song, you will instantly know when they play a I chord, IV chord, V chord, etc...?
@Robey Thomas interesting points ,if anyone else wants to uncover play best piano online course try Dalz Perfect Play Discovery (should be on google have a look ) ? Ive heard some amazing things about it and my partner got great results with it.
With me I trouble learning new songs, I have to go over notes about ten times before getting the rythum. Then it come to me. 4/4 is easy but 3/4 is puzzling. tie notes are troubling. I had rather hear it first then then see on the sheet how they go. I play mostly by ear.
Greg, what would you advise for someone like me? I’ve done years of ear training with various different systems and courses. I can happily hear and sing the intervals I’ve learned.. however I have more difficulty spotting them when they are buried in the context of a song (for example, we learn the Maj sixth from 1-6, but it also occurs on 2-7, 4-2 and 5-3). It’s very tempting to just “doodle around” for the melody as you put it, but I just can’t help trying to spot the intervals, even though I know that sometimes it’s giving me a bum steer… What do you think?
Yes, I would forget the interval training. As you mention, the problem is what works in isolation sounds different in a song because of the pitches the intervals start and end on. For example, a perfect 4th that starts on tonic sounds different than a perfect 4th that starts on dominant. I think sight sing if you want to continue training outside doodling which is essentially working backwards towards the same thing. What you want to get to is the ability to hear a melody and transpose it into notes in your head. This is very doable with practice.
Thanks for the video Greg. I've been doing something similar to what you've described for the last five years - whereby i am just playing and not thinking about theory. Currently, i am at a point where i can play my version of just about anything in any key, and i do it on the fly (although if the piece is difficult i do it slowly of course). However, I cannot do it consistantly, and it's really bothering me. For example, I can be playing a song one minute, and everything is fine, and then the next minute i cant play that song anymore, and i either have to take a timeout from playing or play some other song. Perhaps it's a psychological thing where i am doing something and i have no idea how i am doing it, and i start thinking about it, and once that happens i cannot do it anymore. Did you run into this type of a problem when you were learning to play by ear? Does it go away over time? If yes, how long before i can expect to do it consistently? =) BTW, i don't look at my hands when i play, if i do, i cannot do it.
sounds like you're humblebragging but I'll bite. You might just simply be losing focus, you might not completely have that song in your ear at that part, or (kinda related to the previous part) you've reached the bridge of the song. in any case, take note of where you're losing it, record that part or notate it by saying something while you're playing and and listen to it, compare it to the song you're trying to get down, how does it differ? when you do that you might have to ignore the "texture" of the song and just purely listen to the melody.
Greg if what you say is true...why is Bach's music so difficult to play. Why was he considered a prodigy, brilliant. What make Bach brilliant in composing music. I play the pipe organ just a little, but Bach's music is hard, difficult, can you transpose his music. Can it be play in "C" major? Can anyone answer these question?
Chesterbarnes1 I'm not really an expert, i came here to learn as you probably did, but i this the reason bachs music is so difficult because it is much more complicated then the 1 3 5 progressions that 90% of songs use today. His music uses progressions and melodies that are so complicated it is almost mathematical to understand how it fits within musical theory, despite all this boring sounding math and logic it creates beautiful music. I would say that this is why it may be difficult to transpose bach's music because his music does things musically that dont follow trends commonly seen in musical theory. Therefor you have less of a point of reference to fall back on as an example of how it might go. As for playing it in C major, yes i believe any song can be played in any key but it may be harder or easier depending on which key and which song, so it may not be worth the effort to deliberately learn a song in a different key sometimes
pryan455 Hi. Bach uses a lot of modulation in his composition, that means the music journeys from one key to another, and to another, and so on Bach was a master at this and then eventually finds its way back to the starting key. This is why it seems difficult to play. As for transposing it to c major, of course it is possible, though it can change the effect of the music too. Different keys suit different moods, and would have been chosen for their effect. hope you find playing Bach is worth persevering with, its amazing music and you can learn a lot about composition from it.
Playing by ear is really no different than singing along. At some point a musician knows where a note is on his instrument by the sound of the note. A singer that sings along just matches notes. An ear player does the same but uses his instrument instead of his throat.
But singing along is just the equivalent to pressing one note at a time on the piano to match the song, which is the really easy part. The hard part if finding the bass treble and pattern, and adding more notes on the right hand.
One of the way to train your pitch recognition ability is to sing every notes you play but you have to sing what's the note. It's kinda similar on learning new language but in pitch.
some would argue it's easier, but I really believe it just depends on what level of learning you are at. If you can play piano and read sheet music but it still takes you a lot of effort then I think you'd be trying to learn to different methods too soon but if your understanding of music enables you to learn from sheet music pretty quickly then you likely have a good idea how different octaves sound on the keyboard, then I believe learning to play by ear would be an easier transition. biggest tip if you're a level 0 novice is just like he said, fumble out the melody. once you get the general octave then you'll be able to eventually start to kinda tell if the next note is higher or lower, is it closer to sounding like John Coffey, just like the drink only spelt differently (couldn't help myself), or is it closer to sounding like hannah montana?
Hi Greg, I really enjoyed watching your lesson, it was very informative and fun. By the way, I absolutely love that picture behind you, it's a gorgeous piece of artwork. Many thanks for the upload :-) .
I'm trying to teach my grandson how to play by ear. the concept just goes over his head. "give me tabs, give me chords". "ok, but you're gonna be leaning on that anytime you come across a new song". so I came here hoping I might get a few pointers, and so far, 7 minutes in, you have yet to teach your audience a thing. you keep saying you're going to skim over 3 main parts...and if they REALLY want to get their feet wet they can pay you to teach them. well no wonder you're not digging into it. you teach them too much and you won't get any money. ugh...are you out to help people or not? and while I believe it CAN be taught I also believe it's a gift to some. I was 11 when the Beatles hit the scene. I struggled to learn the very first few songs by whatever sheet music I could find, but there wasn't much. I felt there had to be an easier way. I started thinking about how chord progressions were related to one another. E is to A & B as G is to C & D, or A is to D & E, and so on. It was musical math! I immediately stopped literal learning. the minute I understood that...I instantly, and yes I do mean instantly...KNEW how to play pretty much anything...if I'd ever heard it before. One day I knew 3 or 4 songs, the next day I could play anything. I would learn songs in my head as I would walk to and from school. I'd get home...just sit down and play them...like I'd been playing them for years. I was 11...maybe 12. anyway...don't make them have to pay to learn. Give the knowledge of music as a gift. you don't own music. why get paid for it. stop 'glossing over'.
Joni Oden idk if you'll reply to me but I understand what you're saying about how each note is related to the other (circle of fifths right?) but how'd u find the melody of each song?? Did u play at a young age or how?? Ty if u reply
I get where you're coming from, I do, but anything more than he described in the video would require more and more of his time. I sure one video can be rewatched as we see here, but if you can't figure out how to pay using the tools he gives you here then you likely need lessons because beyond this you get into each student's own individual quirks and learning methods. the only real way to learn is to play, that's the only way to get better at anything is to do it. I'm really horrible at explaining things so I use videos like this to explain the same concept using a different method, but that doesn't mean that because someone understands the concept they'll be able to immediately play, some understanding comes from doing. unless you're going to create a free course yourself or picket everyone selling music lessons you don't have a right to attack his method of sharing his knowledge just because you never have to look him in the eye.
I had the same experience - suddenly learning and knowing how to play songs by ear on piano instantly after playing three or four songs - after coming to the realization that the bass note is typically 1, 3, or 5 note intervals (+ one octave) below the melodic notes played on the main down beats. I was able to figure out this pattern very quickly when I forced myself to “doodle” out and play all the songs in the key of C so that I could see the note interval patterns more easily between songs. While focusing on the melodic-bass note intervals playing more complex songs, I also quickly learned precisely when to use these as well as other note intervals (with little or no trial and error) depending on time, place, and moods within a song. Now, I can explain how to play piano by ear in exactly 100 words! No joke! Google it...
This isn't playing by ear. This is learning by ear. Playing by ear means finding the right notes first time, without trial and error. That requires serious training and/or perfect pitch.
yeah, that's not true at all. if you played an instrument, your comment makes me feel you don't, then you would understand that just because you can hear the notes doesn't mean you can arrange them perfectly to what is being played every single time. Not trying to put you down, just trying to be blunt and honest.
Why do some people that watch TH-cam feel the need to complain about free information? If you don't like it, move on. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I 100%, absolutely, completely disagree. You cannot be taught to play by ear, you either have perfect pitch, relative pitch or none! You DO need to understand intervals or how else are you going to know how many notes(intervals) to go up or down. Why is it that the vast majority of people cannot sing in tune? They don't have any concept of pitch. The same goes for an instrument. I play a number of woodwind, brass and sting instruments to a very good level but cannot sing a tune to save my life. Good luck to all if they want to try to play by ear but do not make it sound as if this is a plausible talent to learn. It is NOT!
Mike, I am curious as to whether you have studies and real data to back up your assertions? I am also curious why you have so much passion about this? And last, you sort of prove my point. Playing by ear is a skill like any other and it is just interesting that for whatever reason, it is treated like it is some magical power. It ain't :)
A tip: be sure that when you try to sing that you are singing in the natural range of your voice. Often people cannot match pitch because their voice lies lower or higher than the average range. If you practice matching pitch, just one at a time, where your voice is, not where the song is, you might find you can learn to sing. Then of course you can transpose as needed. But first you need to show yourself and your brain that you can indeed match pitch, which you probably can.
@@GregHowlettpiano Hi, well this is a 3yr gap before my reply - apologies for not getting back sooner but I was unaware of your reply! In your order: no, I have NO studies/data to back up my assertions, simply my real life experiences; which I will come back to. I am passionate about this as there are many people, on various 'outlets', who say perfect pitch can be taught and I, simply, disagree. Whilst it may not be a magical power it is most certainly a 'gift from above'. What is my experience you may well ask? I left school aged 14yrs old and enlisted into H.M. Royal Marines Band Service. I spent 4 years at the RM School of Music where we practiced from 09.00 - 17.00, 4.5 days a week - that's a LOT of hours! I played clarinet, sax and violin....... if one could 'acquire' perfect (or even relative) pitch surely one would have done so in that time? I then spent a further 6yrs, in service, rehearsing every day and playing a concert, or two, almost every week. 1/2 a century later I can still not play without music - no dots, I cannot play. I am NOT proud of that, in fact I am rather ashamed but I maintain my stance that you either have 'it', or you don't. I would willingly accept, open mindedly, any music teacher to try to teach me how to achieve perfect pitch but I , genuinely, do not believe it possible.
@@user-ht9fr6eh9u Hey M, I came back to this thread as your reply came up on my notifications. You can read my reply to Greg (that I have just posted after 3yrs!) and I hope that will answer your comment. I was (and still am to a lesser degree with age!) a reasonably skilled musician but repetition didn't help me in any way. Here's a link to one of my 4 videos so whilst I am NOT claiming to be anything 'great' I feel it is not one of the 'poorer' musical examples on youtube!!!! th-cam.com/video/QLJyOT2GtWo/w-d-xo.html I now 'entertain' myself with a Roland Aerophone so it allows me to make sounds that I could never have dreamt of doing by learning each individual instrument. I spent almost 10yrs serving in HM Royal Marines Band and I cannot even begin to count up how many times I would have played the Corps Regimental March, A LIfe on the Ocean Wave, but I could never play it without the dots. As I said above, that is something for me to be ashamed of but, very sadly, makes my point that some of us just can't 'get it'!
I was born with the gift...slowly over time. It's a blast! If you're like me...and not Fiesta, you 2 can be born with the gift...by watching helpful videos just like this one. It's great fun and you'd be surprised at how easy it is to do.
![How to Play By Ear INSTANTLY 🎹 [Ear Training Explained]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3sXrWz763J8/mqdefault.jpg)
![How to Play By Ear INSTANTLY 🎹 [Ear Training Explained]](/img/tr.png)
I am a teacher and recognize excellent teachers. You are definitely one
You can learn to play by ear without having to learn all these phrases and numbers! I starting playing by ear when I was 7 years old. I’m 82 years old now. What I did I listened to a song several times until I memorized the sound. Then I set down and started picking out the notes on piano that sounded good together. What I was doing (and didn’t know it then) I was forming cords. I now can play any thing I want by ear. I love playing gospel and country music. I’m now teaching myself to play Jerry Lee Lewis style.
Excellent, highly talented pianist I have ever heard playing.❤
Bless you brother Greg I wish I could have a piano teacher like you, I i feel so blessed every time I listened to your piano playing praises to God wow what a great talent proud of you your just using it for the glory of God, amen.
Just started piano lessons by ear. Your comments and advice adds significantly to my playing. Your comments also reduce to fear and anxiety that often adds difficulty to my playing practice, Thank you.
Thanks for posting this video! Good point about "doodling" the right hand melody without having to worry about identifying the precise intervals between the melodic notes as this will streamline the learning process quite a bit for beginners. Attention to and identifying the intervals between the melodic notes (played on the main down beats) and the bass notes however is extremely useful in helping me identify the right bass note (and chords) to play with the melody. If you don't mind me sharing this with your viewers, here's how I learned to play songs by ear on piano (explained in precisely 100 words) and I hope your viewers will find this helpful.
1) Start with simple MELODIES with narrow note range, playing final note of song on note C (to minimize use of black keys).
2) Play BASS note at 1, 3 or 5 intervals (+1 octave) BELOW melodic note played on (sometimes immediately after) main down beat with left pinky. Play intervals 1 or 5 for melodic note I, II, IV and 3 for II, VI, VII. Use 3 when melody progresses up & down chromatically; 2, 4 or 7 in mid-section of song or melancholy song.
3) Roll CHORD up & down notes at 1-3-5 or 1-5-8-10 intervals ABOVE bass notes. Jazz up with 7-9.
I demonstrate these three basic steps at th-cam.com/video/gt4er_hsgP0/w-d-xo.html
Thank you Greg. I always enjoy hearing your ideas. They refresh my memory, reinforce things I've heard you say before, and get me motivated to keep practicing.
Great video! Tnx for this. You're right, I have been trying to do this consciously for a while and I have seen progress. I've become faster at figuring out how to play a song by ear.
Wow. Thank you for your comment. I'll give this method a try too .
You are great! Thanks for the steps!
Loving the practice adding a texture on melody!
Thank you so much for your kind lessons!💗🎹
Good advice! Almost all blues pianists play by ear. I can read music but I'm convinced that you will learn a lot more about music theory by playing by ear. Sheet music never teaches you how a chord 'sounds' or that there are always alternatives and improvisations available. It helped me a lot to learn a 'library' of LH blues patterns and rhythms in different keys. Pretty soon I was able to identify chords, intervals and notes by ear alone. After a year or two I was able to improvise over almost any melody. Now I almost never play from sheet music, although lead-sheets are sometimes useful to promote ideas for rhythms and LH patterns.
Thank you very much for this material. I watched several videos explaining how to play by ear around youtube and none of them explored the concepts you talked about the "texture" of music, that was something very useful and inspiring, specially for the beginners to know and hear how those aspects really work.
. Keep working the good job.
very informative video, definately a great starting point. I agree with your houghts, too often people only praise talent and not hard work, I learned to play by ear by accident when I was pressig keys and realized it sounded similar to a song that I knew, anyone can do it!
Haha I've had that too, but that's just kinda luck, can you do it with other songs too?
Yes i've done it with a few others, so far I can only play the melody though I haven't really gotten the bass notes down lol. It's not luck really you just need to to listen to the songs you want to play a looooot
Yeah true, I have it with a few songs too but only ones I really know well
Actually, I’m noticing the opposite. People have shift towards praising hard work over talent, which has become problematic to an extent. It’s well known that music takes hard work, but recently I’m seeing that people are ignoring the clear talent aspect, even to the extent of saying it means little.
Thanks . You are a gifted teacher.
Thanks for bringing light to this! There are those who have been brought up to think either playing by ear is best, or think sight reading is the best way, but in reality there's no dominant way to play, and both are a developed skill. Learning both ways are probably most beneficial.
Thank you :)
Greg, for a 22 minute fly by lesson on transition/modulation, this was incredible! This will be really easy to pick up and your explanations were spot on. Thanks for helping me in making my modulations creatively better!
Awesome lesson
I am terrible at ear training, I play guitar, and it totally slowed me down and still does!
I have never commented before, but I found this very helpful.... thanks for doing it....
Get in on the commenting . You are safe we dont know you from Adam. Comment comment comment.
I just stumbled onto your video as I was looking for a way to help my pianists on my church music team improve their skills. This is going to be super helpful--you've introduced, broken down, and set up a schedule for the tasks. Now going to work on how to implement. THANK YOU! (If I remember, I will check back with you on our progress.)
Thank you for sharing! I have been learning by ear.
I have a desire to learn by ear so I will follow how you described to do it. I have played bass for 30 years and what I have learned already on keyboard is improving my bass. I'm learning so I can teach my children and grandchildren if the desire to learn. Thanks for all you do and God Bless !
Thank you Greg.
Yes sir !
Thanks Greg, this is just what I needed for this year. Blessings to You!
wow thanks, this is actually the only video that helped. I don't really like technical piano methods, my teacher used to use this method and I was so stressed out I quit it. I'm going to start taking lessons again.
thank you. very helpful!
Thank, this is very helpful
Wow. that's very good. I'm actually a guitar and drums player, but I like how you laid this out. I've been working on this myself.... Thank you for you using such a great song to illustrate this. God bless you!!!
Thanks for your free time!
That was a great video! I've been looking for good piano tutorials and I think I finally found them!
Thanks
i appreciate your lession
Excellent video Greg!! Thank you.
I begin to learn keyboard organ . Next lesson is picking my music i like , it will be '' You Got Something '' J.J. Cale . I try to learn here and there , and i found this video interesting . By ear sounds like a divine gift . I hope to do it .
Thank you sir, I sure appreciate this video.
Thanks Greg! Very helpful.
Thanks so much!
Haven't tried it yet, though this is a great simplified intro to playing by ear, thankyou
Very generous, very helpful thanks.
have just discovered your channel. Definitely will try you play by ear method. here's praying.
Hope you get it down :)
People say 90% of songs are I IV V and major key but every song I like enough to try to analyze and learn never uses this progression or are in minor keys or some mixed method like major harmony with minor melody or modes and a lot of borrowed chords and notes out of the scale...
Good thoughts.
A 1, 4, 5 Is really a 2, 5, 1 in another key. Also the 2,3, & 6 use minor chords. The 1, 4, & 5 use major chords. The 7 uses a diminish chord or is played over a 5 chord that should help you play basics
SoulGuitarMetal
Great lesson! Very useful. I've been playing by ear in the past but you are able to verbalize it and actually helped me understand the theory behind it. I mastered 1 4 5 and now need to master the other 10%.
This was my plan more or less but properly described. I think maybe learning sheet music would be easier with the dexterity and musical coordination you get after a year of this.
Haha my piano teacher used to hit the piano if I played wrong or if I played by ear. I had lessons with for about 5 months and I got pretty discouraged by feeling stupid. Quit for 12 years and I am convinced I can learn it now. Tho sometimes I feel too old to learn an instrument.
Great video! Thanks Greg sharing these tips to us !!
That was a great lesson. You know your everything; well :) Thanks
So, in my opinion, playing by ear is hearing a song and you can replicate it on the piano without much effort. And by replicate I mean chords and melody.
I understand from this course that you will need to do a lot of figuring out by yourself. Or will you learn to play by ear (by my definition) in the process?
So when you hear a song, you will instantly know when they play a I chord, IV chord, V chord, etc...?
I can play most of the songs by ear but there are some songs I can't play by ear... I wanna know why I can't?
why?
thank you :}
I've always found playing by ear a bit painful. I prefer to use my hands. HA HA We need some humor!
You must have some long ears to hit all the piano keys!
@Robey Thomas interesting points ,if anyone else wants to uncover play best piano online course try Dalz Perfect Play Discovery (should be on google have a look ) ? Ive heard some amazing things about it and my partner got great results with it.
Greg, are your courses by ear?
With me I trouble learning new songs, I have to go over notes about ten times before getting the rythum. Then it come to me. 4/4 is easy but 3/4 is puzzling. tie notes are troubling. I had rather hear it first then then see on the sheet how they go. I play mostly by ear.
this is actually very very good advice. Im amazed how you simplified this
Love the BEHAG - great idea
"I know that, I've been doing this a long time." LOL
Greg, what would you advise for someone like me? I’ve done years of ear training with various different systems and courses. I can happily hear and sing the intervals I’ve learned.. however I have more difficulty spotting them when they are buried in the context of a song (for example, we learn the Maj sixth from 1-6, but it also occurs on 2-7, 4-2 and 5-3). It’s very tempting to just “doodle around” for the melody as you put it, but I just can’t help trying to spot the intervals, even though I know that sometimes it’s giving me a bum steer… What do you think?
Yes, I would forget the interval training. As you mention, the problem is what works in isolation sounds different in a song because of the pitches the intervals start and end on. For example, a perfect 4th that starts on tonic sounds different than a perfect 4th that starts on dominant. I think sight sing if you want to continue training outside doodling which is essentially working backwards towards the same thing. What you want to get to is the ability to hear a melody and transpose it into notes in your head. This is very doable with practice.
1) Doodle the melody, 2). Harmony. 90% of songs consist of three chords - the 1, 4, and 5. 3) Texture - playing chord in an interesting way.
When you learn the major scales it comes easy
Thanks for the video Greg. I've been doing something similar to what you've described for the last five years - whereby i am just playing and not thinking about theory. Currently, i am at a point where i can play my version of just about anything in any key, and i do it on the fly (although if the piece is difficult i do it slowly of course).
However, I cannot do it consistantly, and it's really bothering me. For example, I can be playing a song one minute, and everything is fine, and then the next minute i cant play that song anymore, and i either have to take a timeout from playing or play some other song. Perhaps it's a psychological thing where i am doing something and i have no idea how i am doing it, and i start thinking about it, and once that happens i cannot do it anymore. Did you run into this type of a problem when you were learning to play by ear? Does it go away over time? If yes, how long before i can expect to do it consistently? =)
BTW, i don't look at my hands when i play, if i do, i cannot do it.
sounds like you're humblebragging but I'll bite. You might just simply be losing focus, you might not completely have that song in your ear at that part, or (kinda related to the previous part) you've reached the bridge of the song. in any case, take note of where you're losing it, record that part or notate it by saying something while you're playing and and listen to it, compare it to the song you're trying to get down, how does it differ? when you do that you might have to ignore the "texture" of the song and just purely listen to the melody.
useful. Like it! ***
Greg if what you say is true...why is Bach's music so difficult to play. Why was he considered a prodigy, brilliant. What make Bach brilliant in composing music. I play the pipe organ just a little, but Bach's music is hard, difficult, can you transpose his music. Can it be play in "C" major? Can anyone answer these question?
Chesterbarnes1 I'm not really an expert, i came here to learn as you probably did, but i this the reason bachs music is so difficult because it is much more complicated then the 1 3 5 progressions that 90% of songs use today. His music uses progressions and melodies that are so complicated it is almost mathematical to understand how it fits within musical theory, despite all this boring sounding math and logic it creates beautiful music. I would say that this is why it may be difficult to transpose bach's music because his music does things musically that dont follow trends commonly seen in musical theory. Therefor you have less of a point of reference to fall back on as an example of how it might go. As for playing it in C major, yes i believe any song can be played in any key but it may be harder or easier depending on which key and which song, so it may not be worth the effort to deliberately learn a song in a different key sometimes
pryan455 Hi. Bach uses a lot of modulation in his composition, that means the music journeys from one key to another, and to another, and so on Bach was a master at this and then eventually finds its way back to the starting key. This is why it seems difficult to play. As for transposing it to c major, of course it is possible, though it can change the effect of the music too. Different keys suit different moods, and would have been chosen for their effect. hope you find playing Bach is worth persevering with, its amazing music and you can learn a lot about composition from it.
Playing by ear is really no different than singing along. At some point a musician knows where a note is on his instrument by the sound of the note. A singer that sings along just matches notes. An ear player does the same but uses his instrument instead of his throat.
Correct
But singing along is just the equivalent to pressing one note at a time on the piano to match the song, which is the really easy part. The hard part if finding the bass treble and pattern, and adding more notes on the right hand.
One of the way to train your pitch recognition ability is to sing every notes you play but you have to sing what's the note. It's kinda similar on learning new language but in pitch.
Love the video. I appreciate you! But am I the only one that noticed the picture on the wall is crooked? I pay WAY too much attention to detail. LOL
i can't unsee that now
I missed the crooked picture . I will check it out
Is this possible when I have never learn a piano before?
some would argue it's easier, but I really believe it just depends on what level of learning you are at. If you can play piano and read sheet music but it still takes you a lot of effort then I think you'd be trying to learn to different methods too soon but if your understanding of music enables you to learn from sheet music pretty quickly then you likely have a good idea how different octaves sound on the keyboard, then I believe learning to play by ear would be an easier transition. biggest tip if you're a level 0 novice is just like he said, fumble out the melody. once you get the general octave then you'll be able to eventually start to kinda tell if the next note is higher or lower, is it closer to sounding like John Coffey, just like the drink only spelt differently (couldn't help myself), or is it closer to sounding like hannah montana?
If you ever hummed or whistle a song, you already did it.
I didn't come here for the video but damn that rhyme in the title
its not right as he say its right ..... how do you know its right, i mean the chord
I am confused by your question
what Umair said:)
actually what all those at this point said:)
Hi Greg, I really enjoyed watching your lesson, it was very informative and fun. By the way, I absolutely love that picture behind you, it's a gorgeous piece of artwork.
Many thanks for the upload :-) .
Thanks a lot for your post... may God bless you so far... just wondering what did happened to your eye...?
Stay blessed
For once an actual helpful video... others were mostly promotional ._.
If this works, I'll kill myself in sorrow for not having discovered it 70 years ago.
NOICE
I'v tried playing by ear but its painful !
you're not supposed to actually use your ear to hit the keys....
Hehe it rhymes
so 81% of songs
"Music is an ear thing". Yes. Yes it is.
I'm trying to teach my grandson how to play by ear. the concept just goes over his head. "give me tabs, give me chords". "ok, but you're gonna be leaning on that anytime you come across a new song".
so I came here hoping I might get a few pointers, and so far, 7 minutes in, you have yet to teach your audience a thing. you keep saying you're going to skim over 3 main parts...and if they REALLY want to get their feet wet they can pay you to teach them. well no wonder you're not digging into it. you teach them too much and you won't get any money.
ugh...are you out to help people or not?
and while I believe it CAN be taught I also believe it's a gift to some.
I was 11 when the Beatles hit the scene. I struggled to learn the very first few songs by whatever sheet music I could find, but there wasn't much. I felt there had to be an easier way. I started thinking about how chord progressions were related to one another. E is to A & B as G is to C & D, or A is to D & E, and so on.
It was musical math! I immediately stopped literal learning. the minute I understood that...I instantly, and yes I do mean instantly...KNEW how to play pretty much anything...if I'd ever heard it before.
One day I knew 3 or 4 songs, the next day I could play anything. I would learn songs in my head as I would walk to and from school. I'd get home...just sit down and play them...like I'd been playing them for years.
I was 11...maybe 12.
anyway...don't make them have to pay to learn.
Give the knowledge of music as a gift. you don't own music. why get paid for it.
stop 'glossing over'.
He doesn't owe you anything.
Mike Post I don't think I said he owes me anything, did I?
Joni Oden idk if you'll reply to me but I understand what you're saying about how each note is related to the other (circle of fifths right?) but how'd u find the melody of each song?? Did u play at a young age or how?? Ty if u reply
I get where you're coming from, I do, but anything more than he described in the video would require more and more of his time. I sure one video can be rewatched as we see here, but if you can't figure out how to pay using the tools he gives you here then you likely need lessons because beyond this you get into each student's own individual quirks and learning methods. the only real way to learn is to play, that's the only way to get better at anything is to do it. I'm really horrible at explaining things so I use videos like this to explain the same concept using a different method, but that doesn't mean that because someone understands the concept they'll be able to immediately play, some understanding comes from doing. unless you're going to create a free course yourself or picket everyone selling music lessons you don't have a right to attack his method of sharing his knowledge just because you never have to look him in the eye.
I had the same experience - suddenly learning and knowing how to play songs by ear on piano instantly after playing three or four songs - after coming to the realization that the bass note is typically 1, 3, or 5 note intervals (+ one octave) below the melodic notes played on the main down beats. I was able to figure out this pattern very quickly when I forced myself to “doodle” out and play all the songs in the key of C so that I could see the note interval patterns more easily between songs. While focusing on the melodic-bass note intervals playing more complex songs, I also quickly learned precisely when to use these as well as other note intervals (with little or no trial and error) depending on time, place, and moods within a song. Now, I can explain how to play piano by ear in exactly 100 words! No joke! Google it...
This isn't playing by ear. This is learning by ear. Playing by ear means finding the right notes first time, without trial and error. That requires serious training and/or perfect pitch.
It really doesn't...
yeah, that's not true at all. if you played an instrument, your comment makes me feel you don't, then you would understand that just because you can hear the notes doesn't mean you can arrange them perfectly to what is being played every single time. Not trying to put you down, just trying to be blunt and honest.
football fan
why do people on youtube ramble before getting to the point
Why do some people that watch TH-cam feel the need to complain about free information? If you don't like it, move on. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I 100%, absolutely, completely disagree. You cannot be taught to play by ear, you either have perfect pitch, relative pitch or none! You DO need to understand intervals or how else are you going to know how many notes(intervals) to go up or down. Why is it that the vast majority of people cannot sing in tune? They don't have any concept of pitch. The same goes for an instrument. I play a number of woodwind, brass and sting instruments to a very good level but cannot sing a tune to save my life. Good luck to all if they want to try to play by ear but do not make it sound as if this is a plausible talent to learn. It is NOT!
Mike, I am curious as to whether you have studies and real data to back up your assertions? I am also curious why you have so much passion about this? And last, you sort of prove my point. Playing by ear is a skill like any other and it is just interesting that for whatever reason, it is treated like it is some magical power. It ain't :)
A tip: be sure that when you try to sing that you are singing in the natural range of your voice. Often people cannot match pitch because their voice lies lower or higher than the average range. If you practice matching pitch, just one at a time, where your voice is, not where the song is, you might find you can learn to sing. Then of course you can transpose as needed. But first you need to show yourself and your brain that you can indeed match pitch, which you probably can.
hey nutty thru repetition you learn to recog
@@GregHowlettpiano Hi, well this is a 3yr gap before my reply - apologies for not getting back sooner but I was unaware of your reply! In your order: no, I have NO studies/data to back up my assertions, simply my real life experiences; which I will come back to. I am passionate about this as there are many people, on various 'outlets', who say perfect pitch can be taught and I, simply, disagree. Whilst it may not be a magical power it is most certainly a 'gift from above'. What is my experience you may well ask? I left school aged 14yrs old and enlisted into H.M. Royal Marines Band Service. I spent 4 years at the RM School of Music where we practiced from 09.00 - 17.00, 4.5 days a week - that's a LOT of hours! I played clarinet, sax and violin....... if one could 'acquire' perfect (or even relative) pitch surely one would have done so in that time? I then spent a further 6yrs, in service, rehearsing every day and playing a concert, or two, almost every week. 1/2 a century later I can still not play without music - no dots, I cannot play. I am NOT proud of that, in fact I am rather ashamed but I maintain my stance that you either have 'it', or you don't. I would willingly accept, open mindedly, any music teacher to try to teach me how to achieve perfect pitch but I , genuinely, do not believe it possible.
@@user-ht9fr6eh9u Hey M, I came back to this thread as your reply came up on my notifications. You can read my reply to Greg (that I have just posted after 3yrs!) and I hope that will answer your comment. I was (and still am to a lesser degree with age!) a reasonably skilled musician but repetition didn't help me in any way. Here's a link to one of my 4 videos so whilst I am NOT claiming to be anything 'great' I feel it is not one of the 'poorer' musical examples on youtube!!!! th-cam.com/video/QLJyOT2GtWo/w-d-xo.html I now 'entertain' myself with a Roland Aerophone so it allows me to make sounds that I could never have dreamt of doing by learning each individual instrument. I spent almost 10yrs serving in HM Royal Marines Band and I cannot even begin to count up how many times I would have played the Corps Regimental March, A LIfe on the Ocean Wave, but I could never play it without the dots. As I said above, that is something for me to be ashamed of but, very sadly, makes my point that some of us just can't 'get it'!
To be able to play by ear you have to be born with the gift.
I was born with the gift...slowly over time. It's a blast! If you're like me...and not Fiesta, you 2 can be born with the gift...by watching helpful videos just like this one. It's great fun and you'd be surprised at how easy it is to do.