The majority of the workings of the human ear are muscle, and, just like any other muscle in the human body, it can be trained to work even more efficiently. Your ear is a marvellous organ – the human ear can identify literally thousands of different sounds.

If you hear the same piece of music over and over again, you will recognise it. It’s much like training a dog – you continue to give the dog the same order over and over again, until it recognises the sound and knows what it must do. This is why playing the piano by ear comes so naturally to some people – when they hear a certain chord or selection of notes, they can immediately identify how those notes were played and the position of those notes on the keyboard.

By listening to major thirds constantly for two days straight (for example C and E or F and A), you would get a good idea of how training the ear works. Then, the next time you are walking down the street and you hear a car horn, I bet you would immediately identify that sound as a major third (this is because the vast majority of car horns are “factory-tuned” to a major third).

It can be done, and it can be done relatively easily. Once your ear is actually trained to identify these certain sounds, you’ll be amazed at how much you recognise them as they occur everyday life all around you. Train whistles, car horns, even tannoy announcements! If you can identify a train whistle as producing a tritone portamento descending, then do you see how easy it would be to learn to play the piano by ear?

Finding a friend who doesn’t mind too much sitting in front of your piano and constantly playing the same chords over and over again can be a difficult task. The good news is, there are other solutions: find yourself a tape recorder, that way you can play it once, record it, and listen to your hearts content. If you can find a tape recorder with a number counter all the better, as you will be able to rewind to any point you like.

A reasonable place for you to start is with melodic intervals such as skips of a major third or a perfect sixth. This is where most piano teachers start, so it’s a reasonable place for you to begin as well. Another good place to start is with chord progressions – they can often be a bit more engaging than the relatively simple melodic intervals, and a bit more fun to play.

It can be done, and it can be done relatively simply – training your ear to recognize specific sounds and thus transferring them onto the piano is a time-honored tradition that has served many people well in the past. There’s no reason that you cannot do it yourself – learning to play the piano could not be simpler!

http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/learn-by-ear-how-to-play-the-piano-934824.html

beginner piano

Filed under: Piano by Phil Bell
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