Simpedia

Cindy B. Illinois

I always tell a student who’s interested in playing by ear that if he wants to be able to play WELL by ear, there’s a lot more to learn than just hearing everything correctly. What to do with his hands, for instance. How to teach the hands to do what the ear is hearing. In Simply Music, EVERY skill involved in playing the piano well is covered completely.

1. I suppose that any single aspect of piano playing could be singled out and called a methodology. I have a boy who is quite skilled at playing by ear, but extremely limited in what he can actually do. He can come up with awesome chords and harmonies but when he attempts to play a melody with a harmony it’s all “bump and run and bump again”. Not a lot of mental mastery. I give lots of composition assignments to help students apply the tools they’re learning in the foundation program and to see how much more they can do when their tool box fills.

2. I have no idea what would be in a lesson that is strictly playing by ear.

3. The ear is part of the team – some people are strong aurally, and some aren’t – but in SM all the senses involved in piano are developed. I often point out to the students in the same group that so and so has evidently got a good ear and needs to focus on the visual aspects of playing, while another in the group is evidently good at interpreting the shapes or music on the page but needs to focus on the aural aspects of playing etc.

4. No idea

5. Depends on what this teacher and parent mean when they talk about playing by ear. Paul McCartney is a great example of someone who was able to learn his own way to make music, actually avoiding “lessons” entirely to protect what he already knew and was able to develop on his own.

6. I would have definitely quizzed the Dad on the phone about the questions you are asking us. If his mind was already made up and this was a courtesy call, I’d encourage him to go for it and if it didn’t meet his expectations, to give me a call back

Sheri R. California

Just some food for thought… I am not an expert by any stretch on this but I want to tell you a few things I do know from my kids, myself, and my students.

My son truly plays by ear–he has perfect pitch and can hear a piece and then play the bass, harmony, and melody correctly the first time and with his own spin. Last summer he learned much of Fantasie Impromputu by Chopin (lots of notes!) from listening to it (many times). He finds that easier than sitting down and deciphering the page. He did not learn this–perfect pitch is a genetic fluke.

On the other side are the rest of us, people like my daughter. (She likes to say she plays by ear too.) If she wants to learn a song that she doesn’t have music for she will hunt around until she finds the right note and can only do this in the melody.

I recently took an informal lesson from someone I met who told me he has his own way of teaching and that it emphasizes learning by ear. I found it frustrating, although I can see how one can develop some ease with it with practice. He was trying to get me to find the right major or minor chord of different popular songs by singing the melody at the same time as finding the chord. Picking out melodies is obviously easier than finding a chord.
With Amazing Grace I tell students I want them to not memorize it at the beginning so they can develop the skill of reading from a lead sheet. However, I often tell them in a subsequent lesson to try to figure it out by ear. Giving a student only a few chords to choose from helps!

I find that if I am trying to figure out a melody now I find it much easier to do so, having done Simply Music Before I really would be all over the place looking for a proper note. I feel that Simply Music has helped immensely my relative pitch. Making the connection between the eyes and the ear and the brain has really begun to integrate the totality of music it seems.

As far as your question number 5–I have had a lot of students who come to me from previous experience telling me they play by ear. I’ve never had one who was really very good at this and they have a harder time breaking the habit of searching around for notes and truly doing Simply Music. They tend to make many more mistakes so it seems relying on your ear for learning from what I’ve seen does not really achieve outstanding results. Perhaps there are techniques to ensure better results but it seems it would be daunting and take years beyond years to be able to sit down and accurately play something the first time through having learned how to play by ear.
If learning by ear was relatively easy and worked wouldn’t we all rather do that?! I believe relative pitch is something that can be learned–I have no idea how long it would take, but that still doesn’t mean a person could always accurately render a song they have heard.

I have a feeling your student will be disappointed–perhaps you already told him your studio is still an option for him should the other not be all he’s expecting. Maybe you can have a conversation with him and his dad about some of these issues–hopefully others will write with more experience than me–I think this is a very interesting subject.

Laurie Richards, Nebraska

I think people use the phrase “playing by ear” to mean any process of learning to play that doesn’t (ever) involve reading notes from the page. That could mean different things.

Here’s what I like to tell people on this subject, and often to potential students/parents:
I have found that, generally speaking, adults who play piano either
1.) read music but are “incapacitated” without the page in front of them, or
2.) play “by ear” and do not read music at all.
Either scenario is very limiting for a musician. One of the unique, fantastic things about Simply Music is that they learn both skills. That gives a musician unlimited potential in the world of music. It’s like having either gasoline or a lit match – separately they have their uses, but combine them, and they explode – whoo, the POWER!! Combining the 2 skills (reading, using the ear) gives them power as a musician. And don’t forget the other playing-based skills they develop in addition ~ recognizing shapes and patterns and visual cues, mapping, reading all those chord symbols in every key, all the learning strategies, etc. I must say it again…….the POWER!

I just love having this conversation with people!

Desiree K. Florida

I do not play by ear, so I don’t know of any ‘ear methodology.’ I do know about church musicians. I suspect that your student has been anxious about wanting to play all the worship music he hears and sings each week. Therefore, he probably makes a point to talk to the members of the music ministry team every chance he gets. A well meaning, but in my opinion, misguided musician offered to teach him how to play the worship music by ear, the way she plays. That will work only so long.

Worship leaders come and go as well as fellow music ministry team members. When this happens, will this boy have the necessary skills to adapt to new team members that work off lead sheets? Will he be able to plug into other church worship teams? (When he gets older he may be required to relocate for educational or vocational reasons.) What if he is asked to play at a wedding? Playing at weddings requires versatility and often music reading of complex pieces. Simply Music allows him to read and then process the songs in his hands so he has them where ever he goes. Simply Music training does not limit him to playing only by “ear,” but affords the ability to read lead sheets, and music.

Most importantly, he can learn to compose worship music and write (notate) it. How sad if the worship music that comes from his heart can only be shared with those that hear his music played. Can you imagine a world where Bach could only play, but not notate? Think of what the world would have missed out on.

Try to discuss some of these points with your student and his father. The church needs more musicians that will put in the extra effort that allows us to, “Do all things as though doing them unto the Lord.”

Ginny W. AU

I found the other responses to this interesting, especially Desiree’s as a church insider. My gut feeling on reading your email, Beth was that the issue may have much more to do with the students need to feel a strong sense of belonging (ie within the church) and is therefore an issue of psychology rather than methodology (although of course I believe none of us will have any difficulty seeing the benefits of SMs multi-sensory methodology and will therefore question the long term effectiveness of something that seems to be less complete). I wonder if the student’s relationship to the new ‘by ear’ teacher is comparable to the issue of successful students suddenly changing their mind when an older hero sibling or family member expresses disapproval or disbelief, because they need that person’s approval more than they need SM?