Learning music by ear tips Got any?

[soultensionbenjamin]

well i finnaly managed to learn to read sheet music, after some training but now i want to take it a step farther and learn music by ear any tips

[Seven]

Aaah, my first post...Music by ear?

I've played piano for a couple of years - and playing by ear is pretty natural to me; once I get the notes right, I tend to practice them until I know them by heart, but it's really just a "practice makes perfect" act.

Knowing the scale and chords makes things a lot easier - even if you don't quite remember a specific part: tone by tone, you can refer to the chord progression. Best case scenario, that missing note comes back to you. Otherwise, you may improvise, and knowing how the song is structured, makes improvisation sound (Somewhat) good.

My tip, as an amateur, is to continue playing sheet music. Practice until you can play it fluently, and then: Try to look away some from the notation. See where you get stuck: Practice that bit, and continue playing. Soon enough, you'll be able to play the whole song - by ear.


Aaah, didn't even ask which instrument you were playing. Suppose it's the same for each and every one.

[Versilaryan]

The real trick is to be able to associate pitches with physical notes on your instrument. And that just comes with time and practice. Knowing your scales helps A LOT, though. When I transcribe music, I don't think in terms of absolute pitches, but in scale degrees that I can then anchor with whatever note tonic is.

If you really want to practice, start by being able to identify intervals by ear. And then move on to triads, and then work on transcribing music -- putting what you hear into sheet music. And then learn to play it. Or just learn to improvise -- find a song you like and just noodle over the changes.

[natsukashi]

k everyone is gonna hate me for this but what I do is that I start with a D, and then use the intervals between the note to get the correct everything. Except it's not correct because all my transposition is in D.
So yeah, it works but I wouldn't recommend it.

[Whitetail]

Honestly once you find out the key the song's in from there it's just a matter hit and miss, guessing what tones should be based on hearing how it relatively sounds and then correcting for when you miss - knowing the key it's in basically sets you up to know every note that will be in the song (unless it's something that's a bit more complex tonally, or uses a lot of chromatics, etc.).

Like everyone else said knowing your scales is the absolute most useful thing you can know for learning things by ear - and scales work with a "pattern" per say which, depending on the instrument, may be more or less evident - remembering scale patterns can work wonders for guitarists or other stringed instruments but it will be a bit difficult to think through without just memorizing the scales themselves on wind instruments (honestly music makes a LOT more sense to me on bass guitar than it does on say Saxophone).

[bartekko]

for finding out the key of a song, i recommend melodyne