Learning Music By Ear Can Be More Fun Than Reading

Over the years I’ve been guitly of only playing the dots on pages and not exploring other approaches to playing such as transcribing music.

There are so many ways to pick up music. When I was young, doing ‘traditional’ piano lessons we worked on books only. The very thought of asking my teacher to play one a tune that I could learn by ear never came up. My first teacher would have had a mild heart attack if I said let’s learn something by U2.

Over the years I’ve had many students come to me who want to do something a little different. Play a theme from a game or a film. Some have picked up part of the tune from YouTube and want to show it off to the world. Others have learned some of the music by ear. Some teachers hate the idea of this but I love it.

Personally I never make time to transcribe music however when a student comes along with something they’d love to learn I happily jump on the bandwagon and help where I can.

The thing I find interesting about doing this is that when I get the music writting down on the page it can often be quite complicated. However, if we’re just playing it a copying what someone else has done then it feels easier. 

Notated music is definitely a good thing. It allows music to be available to people for centuries. This is why I tend to like getting transcribed music down on paper for other people to try.

This week, have a think about a tune you love. Do you think you can sit down, find that first note and just go from there. No instant need to worry about what key you’re playing in. You don’t even have to think about the time signature. Just get a device, sit it on your music stand and get it on loop. If you get stuck, look it up on the internet, fix that bit then go back to using your ear. The more you do it the better you’ll get.

If you are going to give it a try, I suggest Spotify. YouTube loves to interrupt your transcribing fun with adverts.

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