Playing Music By Ear
People always admire musicians who can play an instrument by ear. Sometimes we see and hear very talented people who don’t read music. Playing by ear doesn’t have to mean not reading music and learning to play using your ear is vital to a students lessons and it all starts with fun games.
High Notes and Low Notes
It’s really simple, one of the earliest things we learn on any instrument be it guitar, piano, violin or ukulele, we learn to play high notes and low notes. Training your ear to hear these notes just takes a little practice.
Do This Game With Your Child On The Piano
On piano you can hit a note on the lower left hand side of the piano keys and ask your child, “is that a low note or high note” the answer is Low. What that means is if you played a note on the upper right side it would be a high note. Notes in middle during this game can be called “middle notes”. Your child will laugh and understand and you don’t have to have any training to play with them.
Reverse the game and have your child who plays the piano play to you and you listen. It’s not as hard as you think and they’ll get a kick out of trying to test your skill.
Its possible to really work on this you can then compare to notes, which is higher, which is lower, etc. If you do this for a couple of minutes everyday you’ll be developing a good ear.
Picking Out Melodies by Ear On Guitar
Sometimes all you need to do is try. Trying singing a simple and familiar song. Good example could be Twinkle Twinkle, Old MacDonald, Amazing Grace, or Joy To The World for example. It only seams hard until you try a few times. Once you can pick out these simple songs you can try harder ones. It’s a lot of fun.
As kids, many guitarists spent hours and hours beside a record player listening and trying to repeat what they heard. This is how a lot of amazing guitar players learned to play. Their teachers were the recordings from their favorite artist.
Use Your Instrument All The Time Not Just For Lessons.
Lessons aren’t the only time you should be playing your instrument. Use it all the time. You don’t always have to play what your music teacher assigned you. If you learn something unique, you can show your private teacher at your next lesson. I bet they’ll love it!
