How To Properly Learn Piano by Ear

[Music] [Music] huh do [Music] what's up y'all so [Music] how's everybody doing today kind of giving the others uh a few minutes to jump on come on in y'all come on in give me a thumbs up in the chat if you guys can uh hear the piano and hear the keyboard hear my voice clearly [Music] all right audio sounding good on y'all and that's awesome that's great that's great that's great give the others two more minutes to jump on [Music] do do so so [Music] i'm just having some fun here guys [Music] mmm all right enough of me doodling so everything sounds good uh somebody said increase the piano volume a little bit all right i'll just put up the volume a tad bit more for you guys also know that you can turn up your speaker a little bit more all right if you see me sucking on something i got some uh some some awls here been battling a little bit of cold as the temperature's starting to change from warm to cold so the alls helps me to not cough because i've been battling that as well but welcome y'all i see we got 66 people online so we're gonna get rolling for those who are late they can catch the replay so the nature of today's live stream is to talk about how to properly learn piano by ear i mean that's why we're all here online right is to either starting to learn how to play by ear or you want to get better at doing so and so i just want to share some tips some things that has helped me over the years to get better at playing my ear and it really starts from looking at playing my ear from a strategic standpoint you know you can't just try to wing this thing trial and error every day you get up you kind of just try to jump on the next new video you see on youtube the next new lick the next new chord movement that kind of sporadic learning where you're constantly being led astray by the next shiny thing is the biggest problem to growth the biggest distraction why most of you who not seen the progress you want to it's partly why you're staying stuck you're getting led astray by too many distractions too many things that while they might be cool they might be important they're not important right now to where you are and that's one of the biggest takeaway i'm starting with the biggest takeaway right now that will break down the nitty gritty the biggest takeaway is knowing where you are that's it before you can even start to make progress in anything you have to take stock of where you are why when you know where you are in your playing then you can start making strategic decisions about what do i need to be working on right now and i see uh on a side note i saw the chat the chat's going and we're gonna take some questions right because i know you guys always have questions for me but i want you to save the questions till after my little you know introductions or my my little presentation because i can't take questions while doing all that but if you guys want to chat back and forth amongst yourself you can do that but i'm going to save the quote save the questions until after this right so go back what i was saying the biggest thing is to take stock of where you are the musical journey from beginner to advanced is long and i'm gonna be real with you guys all those other videos that you might see people telling you that you can become advanced in six months and all that it's not true true growth true transformation from beginning to advanced it's going to take years how many years it's going to take i don't know it's going to be different for different sets of people but i do know doesn't matter how smart you are it's going to take years and it's going to take hours and hours of practicing right so get that in the mind from right now condition the mind that this thing is a journey you're going on and it's a journey that takes years but before you start the journey you have to take stock of where you are where am i in my playing right over on my website i have an assessment um that folks can take once they join the membership program i have an assessment that they can take that helps to set them on the right path but this is also assessment many of you guys can kind of just take stock of your um for yourself and by the end of this presentation you're going to understand what are the questions you need to ask yourself to help you gain a sense of where you are and then once you know where you are what you're missing then you can start to make actionable progress in decisions about what information i need to be consuming right now because not all information is valuable to where you are right now so that's the first thing right we're on the right path awesome we're up to 86 people right now so that's good now let's talk about how does one really start to learn piano by ear the first thing you need to think about is what i call the cat the category method of learning music you have to start breaking down music into categories things that are uh um the different areas so to speak of music we can't just look at everything the same way because it's not we need to understand the different elements that goes into creating the musical mind i mean if you take a car for example as complex as it is there are different parts of the car that has different functions right and so when the car stopped working you don't just pull apart the entire car to find a problem you first identify what part of the car isn't working and then you address that part of the car so when we take a stock of our musical education we need to be looking at it in terms of parts coming together to form a whole now let's talk quickly about those parts the first one i like to address is ear training because ear training that's the whole notion of playing by ear you have to start developing the ear right and i'm going to break down each of these individually in a bit but that's the first one ear training that's one aspect of learning music and learning music by ear we have to develop our ears right that's one the second one is technique that's the second category the second part now technique can be broken down into subcategories the way i like to break down technique is scales arpeggios blocked chords broken chords this is it this is where i like to hang out with these things once you can develop those subcategories scales block chords broken chords and arpeggios that helps to form the technique why is technique important because it's the vehicle the vehicle as which you express your musical thoughts and creativity you know imagine someone who's mute can't speak it's extremely hard for them to express their feelings and their emotions without being able to utilize words now it's the same thing on the piano if you don't have good technique it's hard for you to express the musical ideas when i'm playing and you see me doing [Music] as soon as i get an idea up here my hands can execute it almost flawlessly that technique that's what technique allows you to do i don't have to think about my chords i don't have to think about my inversions i don't have to think about my fingerings because i've spent years developing the technique behind that so then all i have to focus on is what do i want to do musically and then my hands is already equipped to help me do that so that's technique and that's why technique is important technique is the second category now talk about the first one ear training second one technique what's that third category that i like to talk about it's progressions when we think about playing by ear a lot of us think about chords and that's because a big part of what we do as pianist is accompanimental if you're playing for a singer 90 of what you're doing is chordal so we have to get very comfortable with our chords in the form of progressions and progressions is just a fancy word for saying a series of chords just as how we string a series of words together to create a sentence you string a series of chords together it gives you a progression and to play a song you have to be able to play progression so when we talk about the 1625 in the key of f that's a progression one six two five right [Applause] i am very comfortable with my progression if someone say do the same thing in the key of b flat i can do it without thinking about it 1625 [Music] and so we have to get very comfortable with progressions there are a lot of different variations and combination of progressions so that means by extension we have to get comfortable with chords right so i need to be able to play my c chords in all the different inversions root position first inversion second inversion right i have to learn my sevenths in inversion as well right [Music] so that's the third category of music first one your training second one technique the third one progressions these are the big blocks and all of these big blocks of categories then have subdivisions the last one that i like to think about is songs at the end of the day that's why we're learning the piano so we can sit at the piano and play songs i always recommend that you allocate the bulk of your practicing to learning songs now some people like to introduce the fifth category when they say tech um theory they like to have a fifth category of a theory but the reason why i don't isolate that fifth category on its own theory it's because it is already covered in these four categories when we talk about ear training we got to learn some we're learning some theory when we talk about technique scales arpeggios block words broken chords we're learning some theory when we talk about progressions we're learning theory we're learning the theory about chords we're learning the theory about inversions and we're learning theory about progressions intervals all of that blends into theory so when you learn those four categories you're subconsciously learning everything you need to about theory so it would be kind of redundant to then isolate a separate category for theory so those are the four blocks that goes into efficient practicing and developing your skills to play by ear ear training technique progressions and songs when you're learning a song all the categories come together your ear training is engaged your technique and your understanding of progressions scales melodic lines all of that comes together in the form of a song so the big question now is in your daily practicing and you might be saying what daily practicing yes i recommend that everybody needs to be practicing at least four days out of the week if you want to see transformation minimum four days if possibly an hour a day now an hour can be split between half hour in the morning half or in the evening or however your days is best structure but that's kind of like the minimum hang if you want to see progress and every week you should be hitting those four categories make sure that you're practicing scales block chords broken chords in the form of text that that's how you build technique make sure that you're working on ear training now let's talk about some of the things that your training involves because it is one of the most crucial things for people who want to play by ear right they're training but what is this ear training how do i even begin now a rough summary your ear training should always start first with pitch recognition that's it you first need to be able to recognize pitch and by that is if i play this note can you hum this back [Music] you can also call it think of this as pitch recall you have to be able to hear a note and sing it back not necessarily at the octave because if i play this [Music] i am not singing that octave but i'm singing it in an octave that is comfortable for my register [Music] but regardless of where the note is on the piano you have to be able to match that pitch so if that's not something you're able to do every day say that your piano spend five minutes and try to match it just practice it that's what we call pitch recognition why do we need to be able to recognize pitch because that then leads into interval recognition so when i hear da da i can tell that's a fourth da da [Music] that's an octave and eventually that's something you want to be able to be able to do by ear you hear an interval and you can tell exactly what it is why is it important to learn intervals because then intervals allow you to be able to discern chords and scales [Music] so i could tell that's built on the one three five three one it's a major chord [Music] it's a minor you know and so on and so forth so pitch recognition helps you to then start to discern intervals intervals will allow you to discern chords chords will allow you to discern progressions this is how we layer ear training so when you someone say how can you transcribe a song with those crazy chords i didn't start there i start from just being able to hear a note and sing it back now you might be saying okay that sounds good but then how do i actually practice these things i have an ear training app at this point that quizzes you and this stuff it's in the app store it's a part of my membership program but it's right here it's called active ear and it teaches you all of these different levels of what i just explained to you i also have an ear training course in the membership program that outlines all of these tips in more detail and practical examples in exercise so you know how do i know when i'm right versus when i'm wrong it's not a guessing game there's a method to it and all of that stuff is explained over at pianolessonworthwarren.com now i know what i just explained is a massive task and how do you do this in a systematic way that you can progress in a timely manner so you're not consuming too much at once now i want to show you guys something for those who already uh for those of you who do not know this but i created a study app that i call the practice path and it uh it explains all of this stuff that i just talked about and it breaks it down for you and it gives you video lessons with each of these categories pdfs instructions so basically i've taken the guessing game out of it for you let me let me let me show you real quick what this thing looks like um let me see if i can um let me see if i can show you guys this real quick oops ah so i don't know if you guys are seeing that you guys are seeing that so that's what the practice path looks like let me take a look over here so so if you look at the practice path right there you'll see see i've outlined everything for you you see ear training right here you see technique and you see i break down technique into scales blocked chords arpeggios then you see me break down progressions and then you see me break down songs now look at the cool thing i also break down this practice session in the form of skill level so if someone were to come here they could see that okay if i'm an early beginner if i'm brand new just off the press beginner i would start here if i'm later big more mid beginner then i would start here if i um later beginner i would start here so it it even helps to solve where do i start in the process i always recommend everybody start with early beginner especially if you're self-taught to ensure that you don't miss anything now let's take a look at the early beginner now then i've further break broken this down into modules early beginner star has 12 modules in there each module has six sessions and each a session is like a practice session right so if you take a look at session one you can see i start off with some videos here that you would watch it also tells you where in the ear training app you would start you're practicing it tells you what scales to practice for your technique so it's saying hands separately c major and g major scale i even have a pdf right here that you can download and then it gives you the videos that walk you through how to play the scale right then it also tells you that you would practice this at 60 beats per minute so if you look at the bpm it's where it says 60 beats per minute and spend four minutes on that blocked chords it tells you to practice the diatonic chords in the key of c and g and it shows you here are some video lessons once you click on any of these a video lesson will pop up in the next window explaining to you how to do this exercise see very interactive and everything goes that way when we come to songs we have the song separated by ki and look how many songs we have and we have pdf download for the songs backing tracks scores all of that right here and you can select whatever songs you want to be worked on or you can go through the pre-selected songs that i have suggested same thing for progressions they teach you all the different progressions in the different keys look all the different progressions and each of these progressions have video lessons that go with it so this is the practice path app it allows you to set date you can mark complete we have an assessment we have a notepad so you can take notes as you go along so many different things right but really and truly when it comes to when it comes to learning piano by ear you have to think about it from this strategic standpoint right you have to be thinking about it from this strategic strategic standpoint we can't just be going on youtube and just trying to just get random ideas you know why because without a system it's hard for your mind to retain all these jagged sort of random informations that don't connect imagine you're trying to solve a puzzle and all the pieces you're given doesn't fit the current piece on the board that you're trying to match it's just it's going to be difficult but what if you are able to give in each piece of that puzzle in the order that you need it to create that puzzle just think of how quickly you'll be able to solve that puzzle right and so that practice path app that i developed helps you to do just that learning to play piano by ear is not like learning to play by score where you just learn notations and you're playing everything random not random everything based on how it's laid out on the score playing by ear is not like that because you're not given a blueprint right people just kind of expect you to just know how to find a key to a singer and then know what chords to use and what inversions and what runs to use well how does one learn all of that stuff for a lot of us who learn piano on our own through trial and error over many years we kind of just slowly pick up that stuff but look how long it took us right what if there was someone that was able to explain to you that learn this first then learn that second and that third once you get here you move on to that just imagine how much simpler your progress would be and how fast you'd be able to progress so anyway that's kind of my little presentation that i wanted to explain to you guys that this is how you learn properly to play by ear it has to be methodical and systematic if not it's going to take you a very long time through many years of trial and error to start to see a little bit of progress so if you want to make things easier for you i would highly recommend you check out pnls with warren.com i am currently running a one dollar trial for you to check out this thing i'm gonna just put the link to that in the chat one dollar trial see if you guys are all right this sounds good warren i want to test it out right if you say it sounds good and you want to test it out all right then i'm i'm i'm i'ma send you the link to that right now in the chat and you can check it out okay where are we so i just post the link so if you guys want to check out that one dollar trial one dollar you pay you get access to the program for seven days see if it's right for you i guarantee you it will be right for you because i've put a lot of thought into this and gotten a lot of feedback at this point hundreds thousands of students have gone through this and they absolutely love it and this program came about based on just my own trial and error over the years most of you may not know i studied music formally i think i went to college for music but i learned classical piano how to read music and play classical music that's what i learned in college gospel music and playing by ear and all of that was something i kind of study on my own never really had much help so a lot of it was trial and error for me so this is why now looking back i'm like okay had i known this this and this and this i would have done that differently and then it would have moved on to that so it's based on almost 20 years of experience i have created this program so y'all check it out you can create something like this on your own you could sit and map it out it's probably going to take you extremely long because this is not something you've done before and even though this is a path i've took before i've went through many reiteration of that practice path to get to where you see it today so when i had the idea it still wasn't clear in my head how to do it many trial and error many asking people for feedback what you think about this thing what what do i need to change and getting feedback so i had help along the way along with my knowledge so in other words i would say don't try to create the wheel to create something like this on your own it's already here for you check it out all right now i know some of y'all may have some burning questions so let's hear it what questions you have for me today on any topic and i'll try to spend a few minutes answering some of those questions for y'all excuse me like i said i uh i have a little cold so i gotta be eating this cough drops to help me stay contained so i'm gonna jump to the chat now for those who have who had questions now is the time to post them but start your questions with the word question in bold this way as i'm scanning the chat i can easily see your questions all right yes yes yes yes welcome y'all this was fun david says i am under the impression that the greatest jazz sole pianist did not need to go through such a long path to know what what and and how to play am i wrong did stevie wonder learn in jazz school honestly uh david i cannot speak for the greats um it was a very different time and a lot of those guys back then there was a lot of trial and error involved because you know like right now we have so many software we have midi files that we can see exactly what people play we have decades of transcriptions of some of the greats so we can study their chord voicings study their solos these guys that pioneered a lot of this stuff stevie wonder herbie hancock they didn't got none of that to learn from they were the inventors a lot of these guys came out of the classical tradition now again i'm speculating because i didn't read the biography of all the greats but we're talking about post 1950s i mean pre-1950s there was no jazz school i think the first jazz school came on the scene in like the 70s so if you wanted to learn music formally at that point you had to learn classical piano so a lot of these guys came out of the classical world tradition they learned classical so they learned how to develop technique they you know they learn how to play but these guys were also always jamming in nightclubs and smoky bars and coming up with new harmonic ideas i mean like i said these guys were the one that created jazz so at that point the the things they were doing were seen as fringed ideas outcast not a lot of people like that stuff you're talking about all these dissonant chords [Music] can you imagine the face of a classical pianist when you hear all of that stuff just like oh i mean even though if you go earlier or a little bit before that guys like ravel a lot of the post are sort of romantic composers and even post romantic they started to explore the harmonies jazz guys took that and went further but still that stuff was considered fringed it wasn't mainstream it took years before the word jazz made that stuff mainstream so while they um you as you say you're wondering if they took this long path i would assume for them it was a long path because they had to create this new style i'm sure there was a lot of trial and error in creating this new style i'm sure there was a lot of like fringed out they were considered outcasts of the stuff they were experimenting with you know not a lot of people was clinging on to that in the early days so a lot of what we know today as jazz solidified itself in the 50s 60s 70s but before that during the developmental stage it wasn't sort of the norm but a lot of these guys were trained players a lot of these guys played for a living they had to keep their chops as in technique ear training but you see the thing is a lot of those early pianists were forced to develop their ears i mean how is he going to learn music if you want to learn the new hit song you had a vinyl that you had to sit by and rewind god knows how many times to learn it i mean when i was growing up not too long ago we had walkman right but the cassette player that's how we learned you would rewind out rewind that cassette player and that's how we learned there was nothing to slow down so through that tedious process your ears is being developed right we didn't have youtube for someone to show you the breakdown of a song you want to learn a song for church the only way to learn that was through the recording and i'm talking about late 90s mid-2000 you still couldn't find sheet music of a lot of like gospel music right even jazz stuff some of the jazz stuff it was just like the only thing the only sheet music version of it was a transcription that someone may have done remember we're still talking about where the internet was in its early stage so most people back then who weren't playing classical music had to learn everything by ear the tedious hard way now i'm sure if they had a method that taught them from early how to listen what to listen for what to practice to develop their ear they probably could have developed developed that process faster than through tedious process of transcription but based on my experience every great jazz player had to go through the ropes what they called pay your dues wood shedding there was just nowhere else to get there stevie wonder went through it too stevie wonders and ray charles are an exception because those guys are blind blind folks generally have heightened here so these guys couldn't rely on their their sights so they rely on their ear so it was almost an edge for them to be able to play by ear because they had they couldn't see a c major chord and watch over someone's shoulder what the chords they were playing it was all here they that's how they navigate the world through their ears so their ears was forced to develop maybe three times four times faster than the average person but yeah these guys put in the deals they they put in the time all right let me scroll down man this chat's moving fast it's hard to keep up with all the the commentary you know even though i would love to all right i see some questions here bio nemesis that's an interesting youtube um channel name but anyway is it bionemesis it says how to apply jazz chords on every type of song now let's talk about that question because there are many layers to that questions first of all jazz chords don't work on every type of song it's like saying how to add hot sauce to every type of food i know some people that does that hot sauce and everything i think it's gross not every kind of spice work on every type of food it just certain things don't mix chords works the same way not every song was going to sound good with jazz chords now first let's define what jazz chords are in a sort of layman term a lot of people think of jazz chords as extended harmony so once we go beyond a triad get into sevenths ninths sharp elevenths thirteenths you know so when people talk about jazz chords a lot of the time they're talking about these type of chords and so what bionemesis is asking is how to use these types of chords in every type of song and so the first thing i would say is not every type of song is going to require that right so you have to be very peculiar about the song you're going gonna use this on and why that's the most important thing what am i trying to achieve by changing the chords can you take any song and turn it into a jazz song absolutely and so that's what you need to determine am i trying to take this pop song and turn it into a jazz song am i trying to take this rock song and turn it into a jazz song or am i trying to add some jazzy flavor to this pop song it based on how you answer that question is going to give you two different outcomes right if i'm playing yesterday by the beatles [Music] yesterday [Music] [Music] and now i say what if i want to add some jazz elements to that [Music] see now major nine yesterday all my trouble seems so far away [Music] suddenly [Music] um [Music] so you see how i added some jazz element to that song definitely doesn't sound like the beatles version anymore but it also didn't sound too bad right i mean i kind of did this on the spot so not all of my core choices i would have used if i had time to work it out in advance but that's what i mean the difference between when you say how do i use jazz chords on any song we have to determine what am i how far am i trying to go with using jazz chords on a song am i just trying to add some jazz elements or am i trying to completely change the song because based on how you answer that question it's going to give you a different outcome and just to answer that question in a wider frame it requires an a a very meticulous understanding of how these chords function because there are a lot of different extended chords you have to have an understanding an intimate understanding of how these chords function before you can start to determine how am i going to re-harm songs using these jazz concepts so in other words this is not something i could just explain with a blanket sentence to say do this this this and then you can add jazz chords to every song no it's a surgical approach and that surgical approach requires a lot of understanding about chords and harmony which means you need to study that thing study that stuff over the course of many songs to understand how it works great question though great question galana says how do scales corporate to chords example a major nine chord can go with with scale it help me understand uh this is a big topic big concept but let me see if i can crush this idea into a two-minute explanation for you now the way we kind of determine chord scale relationship is to find a scale that includes all the notes of the chords you're playing for example your example a major nine chord c major nine what scale has all of these notes in it well obvious one is c major [Music] right but also a natural minor whoops [Applause] i just played a natural minor because all these notes can also be found in a natural minor right is there not a scale that include all of these notes absolutely g major scale [Music] but look at that when i play a g major scale i gotta play an f sharp so that f sharp now changes the function of this chord to a sharp 11. now you see how these jazz guys get those sounds by just simply playing a c major 7 over here he can give you a sharp 11 sound by using the g major scale over it by extension the fact that he can use you can use a g major scale over a c major 7 it also means by extension i can use any of the modes derived from g major scale so i can use this a dorian because a dorian derives from g major i can also use b uh um uh the the scale the mode built on the b major the b the b b note i can't talk today b phrygian right or can use c lydian i can even use d mixolydian [Music] so now you see how many different scales modes i can use because all i'm thinking about is g major and all the modes derived from g major right is there not a i can use that um includes these notes any scale that has these notes you can use so for i can't see readily any so that's what i would do if i'm playing in c i'll just hang out on that g major scale what if i change the quality of this scale to a c minor six then we have to think about the scale or scales that would introduce these notes the first one the c melodic minor [Music] i can also use the d the c dorian c dorian derived from b flat major scale because it would have these notes in there as well right [Music] which means if i can use c dorian that means i can use any other mode from the b flat major scale [Music] so check out this weird progression if i'm going from a c major seven c minor six remember we talk about the two scales you can use for improv right [Applause] [Music] so when i'm on that c major i'm thinking g major scale and all the modes that derive from it when i go to my c minor six i'm thinking about b flat major and all the modes that goes with it now this is a rabbit hole that goes deep there's so much more layers to it but at the surface level this is how you begin to think about chord scale relationship so when people are saying which scale can i play over this chord think about what scale would have all the chord tones that i'm playing over here and that's where you start all right let's see if i can get some more questions in i know i'm not gonna be able to get all the questions in y'all but bear with me bear with me kobe says when i attempt to play melodies by ear i always have to sing them first in order to identify the pitches how do i identify the notes of the notes in my mind's ear like without singing them for me i think self-edge for example if i'm in a crowded place where i don't want to have to burnt out singing a melody and i hear cool melody playing on the radio i would just sing it in my head and think about the solfege of the notes right now it takes practice right but that's the first step right sing it in the mind in the head and think about the solfege so you first have to identify the key center in the mind and then associate that with the solfege it is a very advanced technique so it's not easy right but you're you're definitely on the right path start by singing it so what you can do is practice when you're by yourself first you sing it then you try to quickly associate the solfege to what you're singing and then over time you're going to be able to translate that without having to sing the notes you'll just be able to do it up here great question um god flow cool name says what is the cost of the seven day trial it's it's one dollar and the link is somewhere somewhere in the chat here if you scroll up you'll see where i post the link seven day trial it's one dollar and like i said it's a trial give you full complete unfeathered access to the entire program for seven days because i want you guys to make sure that you're spending money on something that is of value to you so if you don't if you don't think it's right for you cancel your subscription before the seventh day because after the seventh day it's going to automatically upgrade which is not a problem because if it automatically upgrades and it didn't want it to upgrade you shoot us a message we give you a full refund we're not trying to bait and switch you into anything right we want you to be wide open about what you're signing up for because i really do believe we have a pretty solid program one of the best online to teach you to play by ear and we're constantly upgrading it and most of the upgrade and updates we make is based on feedback from you guys because you're all the one using the program so i make sure that changes are made based on you guys feedback and suggestions but the pro current program we have now is very solid so if you guys want to cut out the guessing game of this piano learning process i highly recommend you check it out after the seven day trial the cost is just 37 a month right 37 a month to continue to use the program and if you guys obviously have more questions on this you can shoot me a message you could comment down below i'm definitely going to be checking this out later to see if there's any additional comments and i'll definitely explain in more details for you guys all right um let me see question from neil neil says let me just turn this thing right here so i can see what's going on neil says um where's neil where's neil i kinda i think i lost it yeah neil white neil says i struggle with hand independence um any tips on this yeah many people especially beginners struggle with hand independence and what is neil referring to when he says hand independence the ability to play something with this hand while playing something with this other hand like that independence and flexibility between the hands it's a technique issue right you've never had to use your hand in that manner before and so we have to make sure that we're practicing first of all all the things i talked about earlier scales arpeggios broken chords you have to practice those things religiously so you can get to play them well if you can already play your scales in what we call parallel motion which is [Music] you want to be able to do that with all your scales major minor right what you can start to do now starts to practice scales in contrary motion [Music] and then another advanced technique that i used to practice is different rhythms between the hands when playing scales so for example i'll play a quarter note over here and then i'll play eighth notes over here so in other words my right hand is playing twice as fast than my left it sounds like this or i might say i'm going to play three notes over here when playing one note over here [Music] so when i'm playing one note here three notes here that's called playing triplets over a quarter note you can even go further and play four notes over here while playing one over here sixteenth notes over quarter notes [Music] and then you switch do the same thing with this hand [Music] let me start from up here [Music] and you go through the different rhythms you can do dotted eights over here quarter over here or so [Music] there's just so many different rhythmic um combinations you can use that's going to force you to think independently start slow at first start with just one octave because you might see me doing multiple octave just you know start slow one octave and that's how you can start to develop a sense of independence between the hands don't underestimate the scales folks a lot of people think about skills and they're like ah why do i need that there's so many benefits to practicing scales practice your skills in octaves [Music] or [Music] right [Music] chromatic scale [Music] technique used to be a big part of what i do so when you see me with this level of comfort and independence i put in about 10 years of just straight technique so that's why i tell you guys that that's part of the category of what i mentioned you can't develop this stuff without actually doing the work see unlike theory it's easy to watch a video and sort of consume theory knowledge right when it comes to technique there is no just watching a video and consuming you gotta just put in the physical work just like if you want to build muscles you can't just wish yourself into build muscles or drink muscle juice nah you gotta sweat and burn and hurt through daily exercise to build muscles building technique is the same thing so if you guys have been skirting on the scales arpeggios block chords broken chords you got to make it a regular part of your routine not just for a week or a month forever technique is just something you just keep working on and getting better at that that's how it works great question neil excuse me jay jalen jalen says can you talk through what you're thinking about when you want to change keys i often feel like i'm running out of things to play and i feel i sound uninteresting now this is a vocabulary problem i like to equate this part to the actual language vocabulary the english language if you've never used certain words before it's just not going to be part of your vocabulary right so how do we widen our actual language vocabulary by learning new words and by practicing those new words that we learn practice those new words in the form of sentences to laughter apart it becomes a part of your standard vocabulary now as it comes to music it's the same thing so when it comes to chords if you only have a limited chord knowledge then you're forced to use the same chords all the time you're not going to just be able to just pull random chords out of the ear because you've never used them so it's not in your fingers it's not in your ears so we have to constantly be learning new chords and practicing those new chords in the form of progressions and then trying to add those new chords to songs so it becomes a part of our vocabulary the same things as it relates to licks lines and runs a lot of people talk about licks lines and runs but did you actually set aside time to practice licks lines and runs you have to so when you see me do certain licks 90 of those licks are things that i have practice i'm regurgitating lines and licks and what i like to do is practice lines and licks over specific chords so i'll play a chord like this and i'll practice just little runs that go with that so you can think of this chord as a b flat major 7 or a g minor 9 rootless doesn't matter and now practice licks [Music] and i just practice one lick to get it really clean and so i understand what i'm playing not random not just by whim i'm practicing a specific line and i'm trying to reproduce that line the same way every time the same inflection the same fingering the same feel right you practice different licks and lines right once you get one two or three different licks over a specific chord then try to see if you can combine that with like a two chord progression and you're going to realize that there's some times you can even extend that line it's just going to happen naturally go with the flow but this is how you start to develop licks lines runs eventually you're going to develop a bank nice fat bank of licks and lines that you can start to extend your licks over longer progressions but this is how we practice these ideas and then you try to execute them in songs right you're developing that vocabulary harmonic vocabulary melodic vocabulary now for a beginner or an intermediate early intermediate i would say don't worry about this part yet at a beginner and intermediate level you want to spend most of your time working on fundamentals so you see the stuff i just showed you with the practice path ear training progressions blocked chords broken that's it don't worry about improv improv is a different thing that more advanced players need to focus on so if you're like a a later intermediate player where you you're pretty strong with your chords you can play your scales then it's time for them to start developing vocabulary melodic vocabulary and harmonic vocabulary but if you're a beginner you haven't developed enough fundamental skills yet to start focusing on vocabulary so it goes back to what i thought talk about at the beginning of the video knowing where you are so you can focus on the thing that matters to you at that level because if you're a beginner you barely know a few chords only can play in one or two keys and then you're focusing on vocabulary you're skipping over a lot of stuff that you're going to eventually have to come back to so might as well just put on the blinders focus on that fundamentals right now and not on the more advanced cool stuff that you see those players doing cool great question jalen um delano says before i play any technique on piano by ear how my fingers elongate to maximize the speed i don't know if that was a question or comment based on what i uh yeah i'm gonna scroll back down remember guys i'm only looking for the questions that start with the actual word questions um question from jordan he says do you think the music is a profitable pursuit for a young person if so any tips on a successful journey to profit profitability great question now first you got to define what is pros what does profitability means to you it means different things for different people right for some people just being able to pay the bills is good enough some people they want to be jay-z i don't know what does profitability mean to you there are many avenues to take in the music industry and that's another thing to determine do you want to be a performer do you want to be an educator like me i'm an educator i i play okay but i don't consider myself a performer you know it's like i tried that in my 20s and it was just not a life that i really like performance life can be rigorous i mean we're talking about 20 cities in 10 days it's it's it can be a lot a lot on the body and if you're in homebody and family man like me that that that can be a difficult lifestyle so all of those things you got to factor in you know um because as a performer you're gonna have to sacrifice a lot give up a lot and you can't base that based on what you see out of someone what other person is doing you have to make those decisions for your life and for me i just realized that that wasn't right for me so i sort of pursue more the education route i still play little gigs here and there but it's not it's not something i set out to do anymore you can also work alongside performers so you may not have to be the one doing the performance yourself you could be studio musician like i know guys who play as good as i can and better but their thing is studio they record artists they mix tracks they they master tracks um some guys just work predominantly in software take take for example jamal from gospel musicians you guys probably know him as well great guy he i remember seeing him when i was in college on youtube and was like man this guy is killing but over the years he's sort of transitioned more into software development you know so he doesn't do much on the teaching front anymore that's a decision he made that's probably worked better for him good for him so all of those things you guys have to you got to think about when you want to pursue music what area of music that you want to pursue because at this day and age there's a lot of areas a lot of categories in music it's not just performance or teaching there are a lot of other areas and each of them in its own right can be profitable very profitable but you first have to decide where you want to go and then think about how you're going to do it because in in you know we're also talking about a business especially if you're going to do you know go your own your own sort of some self-employed route it's not just an industry it's a business so you have to start you have to also start thinking from a business perspective how i'm going to make this profitable because i know guys who could run circles around me in their playing but they're still struggling financially because being able to play well doesn't mean you know how to market that skill marketability and playing ability it's two different things you know right and so i had to learn about the business side of music separately because nobody taught me that that's not something you're going to learn in music school either so if you're going to college to trying to learn that stuff you might as well save your money i learned the stuff in the streets meaning you know i just you learn business and by being around other business people and taking some business classes you know it's a separate thing so again talent doesn't mean you're going to be profitable it's two different things and if you're talent talented or if you put into work to develop the necessary skills it does give you an edge because then all you have to figure out is the the business side right but if you have no talent no skills no business acumen then it's not gonna work so figure out one and then you figure out the other great questions um let's see let's see let's see let's see questions question question um see a question here from encosi and cosi he says i can play by ear but i'm quite slow how can i progress to playing instantly um practice uh it's just your your body and your mind is telling you that you're not there yet to be able to do these things at a faster speed you know it's like if someone say i can play my major scale but i can only play it at this speed yes that person can play their major scale but that's at a slow speed how do they get it to the point where they can do [Music] from the first example of the accepting example is night and day different in terms of speed but you can't just jump from there to there that person we need to gradually increase the speed at which they practice their mental scale over time eventually they'll get to that fast speed so it's the same thing playing by ear you know if you have the basic understanding and you can work certain things out but it's slow it just means you need to practice those routines and those skills more frequently so the brain can start calculating those things at a faster space right so it's just practice and time that will get you there question from na nagawani he says how can i be able to uh synchronize the improvisation i do in my mouth with my hands uh that would be a very slow process because you know especially if you're a vocalist that you can sort of come up with melodic lines vocally like then trying to translate that on the piano it's not going to be that easy got to be a slow process sing short melodic lines and then slowly try to figure that out on the piano the more you do that process the better you're going to be able to hear a melodic line and have an idea as to where to go and find that melody now when i'm improvising i'm not thinking melody here and then trying to do it here it's kind of one thing as soon as i'm thinking it here it's already happening happening here right and so i like to think about that's why i talk about earlier the chords once you got the chords down build melodic lines based on the chords in the scale which means approach it from a more strategic standpoint opposed to just i'm gonna try to come up with a random melody and then try to figure it out here that part is a lot harder but if you think about it that okay i'm playing an a a a e flat major seven chord here then i can sort of match it with these scales here or i can think about arpeggiating these notes here you know think about it from that sort of combination and your improv skill is going to develop a lot faster than if you're just thinking about a melody here and then trying to figure out where to go play it here i don't think about improving that context okay questions from miss b flat says i have problem ad libbing trying to practice major minor chords can you give me something else to practice if if you were late to the chat miss b flat i just talked about the wonderful practice path that i laid out over here in the form of an app that basically is designed to take you from beginner to advanced and it covers everything on ear training technique uh progressions chords scale theory in a systematic order because like i said the road to development is long so i wouldn't be able to spit out a few things and say go practice that without more detailed instructions it just wouldn't work so what you really need is a program like what was explained at the top of this video check out pianolessonwithwarren.com i guarantee you won't regret it okay michael says how do i hit less wrong notes when playing chords my fingers slip sometimes and hit other keys that's also a technique problem right it just means you need to be practicing chord progressions regularly practicing them slowly because what you're actually practicing when you're practicing chord progressions scales and those things slowly you're also practicing precision how to be precise so if i'm playing and i go i just played c major in multiple octaves but it was pretty precise right i didn't just jump and do that it's because of years of practicing chords like that so if you're practicing and you're hitting notes that just means you haven't put in enough chord practicing at a slow pace to develop precision and i would say start doing that it's a technique problem that will help you to be more precise um i think bio nemesis asking a similar question where he says how to not mess up fingering with the right hand when you're doing a scale or different harmony would be the same thing i would say it's a technique problem through the practicing of scales arpeggios black chords and broken chords you develop very solid fingering styles that will translate into your playing right all of that stuff if you're messing up when you're playing hitting wrong notes all of that goes back to technique it's a technique issue it's not a theory issue it's not an ear training issue it's probably not even the fact it's probably not even the understanding of chords it's a technical issue that can only be solved through technique regimental exercises which is why i really stress the importance of technique building when you're practicing technique you're practicing how to be precise and efficient with when you're playing runs you know when i'm playing this blues scale that was pretty fast right but i didn't play any note that did not belong to that blue scale because i've practiced efficiency and clarity and precision with that specific bruce scale in that order many many many many many many many times that's how i'm able to do it effortless and efficient and accurate all the time i play it technique technique technique that's how you develop precision and accuracy jackie says actually i think nora has a question is it useful to learn to play the same song in every key also should i learn the number system or just chords in both let's answer the second question first the number system should be the default way in which you learn song if you want to learn to play by ear you have to get very comfortable with the number system because that's how we develop the skill to then transpose that song across multiple keys that's how we also develop the understanding of how progression functions knowing that sort of what i call tendency chord of how chords wants to resolve the number system um helps us to see that a lot clearly now the first question how the um which is uh is it worth transposing the same song to every key it's a good practice for someone who has a lot of songs under their belt like for example if you can play like 10 20 songs fairly comfortable but you want to get better at transposition then start transposing some of those songs to other keys as a means of practice but if you're just learning songs it it's not worth learning one song then trying to learn it in all 12 keys then a second song the same way that that's that's that's too much right but it's definitely a good skill to practice eventually to learn to move songs through different keys as just the means of getting better at transposition but you don't need to do that for every song you learn and i wouldn't recommend beginners do that because there's just so many other things you want to be learning one of the best things you can do to be key proficient is learn songs in your original key every song you learn try to learn it in its original key don't transpose it to your favorite key first no learn it in its original key first then if you need to transpose it for church you transpose in a key that is suitable for your congregation or for your singer but learn it in its original key first through that process it's going to help you to become key proficient a lot faster because it's going to challenge you with some of them keys that you've been ditching and avoiding for years right that's going to allow you to be able to develop the skill to playing 12 keys a lot faster than trying to learn everything in one key then transpose it to all 12. all right guys i got about seven minutes i could take a few more questions jackie says does your course show slow go to modules from one key to another let me read that does your course i'm not sure i understand that question jack jackie um but if you're asking if the if the modules go through different keys yes every module go to another key if you go to a different module you're learning a different song in a different key and it follows the cycle of fourth so by the time you complete the first 12 modules you would have gone through 12 songs multiple different progressions in all 12 keys you can also go through all 12 scales or 12 arpeggios broken chords block chords it takes you through everything in a systematic way through all 12 keys um question um from a name i'm not even gonna try to pronounce because it's just too long says there are a few sample songs which are very boring to play and i can also not add more cool chords as to say how can i spice those types of spice of those types of hymns um there are many ways to spice up hymns first thing we start to do spicing up hymns i would say start thinking about the rhythms right what can you do rhythmically to make things different like if i'm playing amazing grace right how sweet the sound that's saved like me [Music] rhythm is one element second one is chords so this goes back to vocabulary how much chords do you got in your vocabulary because remember if a chord doesn't exist in our vocabulary already we can't use it because we're not going to know what to play how to play it or even when to play it so when it comes to spicing up songs we're talking about use of rhythms use of chords use of melodic lines and all of that comes from vocabulary so are you actively building your vocabulary another question are you at that stage where you need to be focusing on vocabulary because remember music needs to be approaching stages if not you're going to feel overwhelmed and there's a greater chance you're going to be skipping over important things to get to the thing that you think is what you need and that's a big deception and so we got to be learning things in the right order so based on your questions i don't know what your skill level is your experience how many keys you can playing your technique your chord vocabulary melodic vocabulary rhythmic vocabulary because it's going to require all of that before we can even start to know how do i spice up a song what am i doing to spice up vocabulary all right um [Music] delano has another question says how do you based a major scale using turnaround technique i'm not sure i understand this question my brother um because we're talking about scales and turn around two completely different things so i'm not sure i won't need more specific context especially because we're winding down um david says i have been practicing 251 progression for years but still have to think over each note before playing and becoming quite desperate is there a way to improve this how do you practice these two five ones that's what i would think because you're saying years if you've been practicing something for years you should be somewhat proficient so i'm more concerned about how you're practicing than what you're practicing it um because there are two ways to practice all sorts of chordal technique there's the mental practice like i can sit here and read out to you that uh 2 5 1 starting on d would be 2 d then g then c then f then b flat cycles of fourth and then there's actually kinesthetic practicing where we're working on the muscle memory right so so at one point the muscle memory should be kicking in there's a video i have somewhere on youtube that talk about the best way to practice two five ones you could probably just search for that two five one exercise warrant and you'll probably come up but i like to practice that in the cycles of fourth because then it becomes a part of the muscle memory and you don't have to think about it too much so starting on d 2 5 1 in the key of c 2 5 1 in the key of b flat 2 5 1 in the key of a flat so this exercise allows you to go through the keys descending in whole steps so you start with c b flat a flat g flat e d back to c then i go up to c sharp and descend and hold step but also this exercise is taking me to the cycle of fourth so that's how the key is naturally formed so all i'm doing is just doing then minor to the core that i land on i turn into the two chord for the next progression so b flat then a flat g flat and e then d then back to c go up to c sharp do the same thing like i said there's a video on this and so i don't have to think where am i now um i think i was on c sharp b there we go a g c then i'm back to my b flat i'm not even thinking about the chords i'm playing because at this point it's a muscle memory movement so every time i'm in a song that i need to do a 2-5 progression my hands know what to do because i've practiced this sequence so many times i'm not even thinking about chords at this point it's just the pattern you know and that's what you're trying to develop when we practice a lot of these exercises we're developing patterns that you could just do without you you could turn your brain off and your fingers will know what to do so that's what i would say david i'm more concerned about how you're practicing this um because a lot of when it comes to harmonic practice exercise it's best to do things in ways that allows you to develop a strong muscle memory so you don't have to be thinking too much about what comes next because like i said when i'm going through this exercise i could even walk based to it [Music] so [Music] what i'm thinking about is just what base note i want to play because my right hand knows exactly what notes to play next and i'm not thinking about the chord because it's a pattern we're going through the cycle of force [Music] and because of that the notes are going to move in a sort of pattern and once you can think pattern you don't even want to know you don't even have to think about what chord you're playing all right i could take one more questions guys i know there's a lot more questions but we're gonna have to save it for another day i'm gonna take one more question let's see who's gonna be the lucky winner who's gonna be the lucky winner who's gonna all right michael michael's a lucky winner michael says i hear songs with their soul fetch only any tips on how to hear songs solely based on intervals without knowing the solfa first um well here it is intervals have a specific quality sound to them like an interval of a fourth is going to sound different from an interval of a six or from an octave and so what you can also start to do and this also goes for chord start to see if you can identify chords and intervals based on their quality because all you're doing is training your ear to hear a specific sound and identify a name to that sound oh that's a perfect fourth so eventually through practicing you're going to be able to hear oh that's a fourth oh that's a fifth so you need to start assign names to intervals assign names to chords because the chord is going to sound the same way the interval is going to sound the same way and you want to be able to assign names so you can identify a minor chord from a major chord a major third from a minor third so in terms in learning in terms of sulfa is not bad but then you have to go a step further and start to assign names to these different qualities of intervals you're hearing so that when you hear an interval you can start to associate a name with it all right y'all that's all i got for you today i trust this live session was very entertaining educational mostly for you guys remember if you remember anything else that we just discussed today learning piano by ear effectively needs to be done in a systematic way you can't wing your way into being an advanced player you just can't it doesn't work like that gotta get more strategic about your approach to learning music when you when you can follow a strategy it's easier to be consistent why a lot of people don't progress is because they don't have a strategy to follow and so every day just feels like they're throwing things on the wall to see what sticks after a while that process is going to become very depressing and demotivating so you just give up but if you have something to follow that guarantees result as long as you put into work then it's easy to just maintain the progress and as i said at the beginning of this video pianolessonwithwiring.com offers that let me show you guys one more time what this practice path looks like for those of you who haven't seen it it's a brilliant app and to my knowledge this thing doesn't exist anywhere else online right i've developed a process that breaks down music into categories of learning that comes with videos lessons all of that wonderful stuff ah where am i where am i where am i there it is guys it's a very detailed program that explains that it gives you everything all the videos all the quizzes courses pdfs everything you need this video right here it says click here to learn how to use a practice path once you click on that it's a video of me explaining everything as to how this thing works right this is one of the best program i know for people who want to learn piano by ear and learn it systematically this takes the guessing game out of everything and at the moment we have a one dollar trial where you can gain access to this entire program for seven days for one dollar to test it out to see if this is something you want to continue with and if it's not no problem but i think you should at least test it first before you decide whether or not it is right for you i'm gonna post the link again in the chat for those who want to check out the one dollar trial want to sign up for that here's the link coming at you in the chat check it out let me know what you think let me know if you have any questions regarding this we're going to sign off now but if you have any questions after you can post it below this video or just any other ways you know to reach me i check all social platforms for those who follow me on other platforms alright so until then keep listening keep singing keep practicing get some structure in your life it will solve your problem music has little to do with gift it's not about giftedness very little to do with giftedness but a lot to do with people who can follow structure strategy and people who can hang in there for the long haul and put into work hard work will beat giftedness all the time right every time for people who work hard put in the work put into practice they're going to see results over those people who are gifted right and so i believe all of you here can develop the skills to play by air but there is an efficient way of doing something and there is an inefficient way the inefficient way is going to take you three times four times as long than the efficient method and my goal is to constantly refine the efficient method to make it even more efficient and more efficient and at the moment we have a pretty efficient setup and i want you guys to check it out you owe it to yourself to check out this program so you can make some progress all right catch you guys next week have a blessed week bye for now [Music]

Channel: Piano Lesson with Warren

Views: 121,680

Keywords: how to properly learn piano by ear, learn piano by ear, properly learn piano by ear, piano tutorial easy slow beginner, piano lessons with warren, Why is it important to learn intervals, How can I spice types of hymns, How to apply jazz chords, how to play any song by ear on piano, piano lesson with warren, play piano by ear training, important to learn intervals, How do scales corporate to chords, how to play piano by ear for beginners lesson, music theory for beginners

Id: XudDk4zd0n4

Length: 97min 20sec (5840 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 03 2021