#252: Learning to Play By Ear: a First Steps Seminar
Playing by ear is one of those things that musicians either know they can do or think they’ll never be able to do. Those who are practiced at it seem to have endless tunes at their fingertips. Name a tune, and if they know it, they can play it. To those who can’t do it - at least not yet - it seems nothing short of magical.
But ask someone to explain how they work this magic, and you will likely get an answer that isn’t much of an explanation. They might talk about understanding and learning to hear chords. Or they might say they learned by trial and error, trying to play along with songs they liked. Or they might simply shrug and tell you they have no idea. But it’s only rarely that you encounter someone who will actually attempt to explain their process.
Notice that I said, “When you meet someone who is practiced at it.” Playing by ear is something you can learn. Like so many other apparent feats of magic, there’s no real trick to it once you learn how it’s done. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s certainly doable. Even better, if you decide to experiment with the practice ideas we’re going to talk about today, you’ll find that you will begin to notice things in your music that you never paid attention to before, things that help you learn and understand your music at a deeper level. That’s why playing by ear is really not a magic trick, but a serious musicianship skill, and that’s why I wanted to talk with you about it today.
What you’re going to hear is a part of a live seminar I gave a while back for our My Harp Mastery members. This call was followed by a workshop where I guided them through the practice techniques from the seminar so they knew how to continue developing their skill in playing by ear.
This is the kind of thing we do inside the My Harp Mastery community. We have a live call each week where my coaches and I guide you through every aspect of playing the harp, whether it’s learning new music together, or learning how to learn a piece of music, or working on technique or working through our Scale of Success curriculum. If you like learning about topics like this and getting expert instruction on how to be a better harpist and musician, I strongly suggest you check out everything that we include in our My Harp Mastery membership and join us.
Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:
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