Part 1: Playing by ear

what are the benefits of being an ear player don't have to pack around to music right what are other benefits can play any song any song what are the disadvantages you better know the song if I tell you to play um she drove a yellow Cadillac up the hill in Monterey could you play that song if you're an ear player I just made the song up by the way nobody knows it you couldn't play it you just did there with it like no but if I had the music to I drove a golden Cadillac up a hill in Monterey and handed you the music if you were an operator you'd be fine right if you knew how to count you used blue the chords you're there okay so what are the disadvantages of being and note reader we don't have the squad front of you you're lost right no music no play now if you had a choice and you can only be one either in a ear player or a note reader think about it very carefully because God says you get one Talent ear or nose can't have both which one would you pick think about it very carefully how many of you would pick ear have a half how many would make notes not even half what are they arresting you going to do you're not gonna have any fun yes how can you make the transition from notes to here that's why I'm going to teach you aren't you glad you're here all right how many of you are no readers just you got to have those notes or you're not going to play very long okay most of us are we learned that way I don't think there's very many music teachers in this world that can even teach people how to play by ear my teacher I asked her as I got older I went back to visit my family in Wisconsin and I said do you know chords no do you she said I go triads and I know scales but she she never really learned to play core so she didn't teach them I said do you know how to play by ear no all right then and I asked our teachers here in our teaching Network group that we have there's about 25 teachers and I asked them how many of you could play by ear one how many of you can play a song if I tell you to play it you are my sunshine how many you can pick it up with chords to see most teachers are still in the box all right there's not very many places you can go to learn to play by ear and I learned because I had a gentleman that was going to play a concert with me that told me I had I had to play with no music and I said I can't do that he says well then I'm going to teach you I played the concert with music but after that he started teaching me it took me years to be able to sit down and have confidence in them to try at least try and I still can't play they really hit hard songs but I can play almost any song in certain classifications okay it will in minute all right so this class is how to play by ear and then we're going to use the four things play more existing notes play the notes link add grace notes and trills and play chromatics then we'll use that side to embellish or to make it fancier this side alright okay so here we go right can you come up when you play by here the key is you can't use any music so just put the music away my friend who taught me how to play why here sit did this he gave me a piece of music or a piece of paper and he put it on the music rap now that this this has always been my security blanket this is my security blanket I always have to know what's and I do where they were as soon as he put a blank piece of paper up there I was like Boop well I'll play but I'm not playing very long all right so when you play by ear all you do is you take a pencil and you write down the name of the song the title that you want to play by ear now here's the problem generally what happens is a brain drain about right then and you can't remember the title of one song nothing so here's what you do you get out of that book and you look at the table of contents that's how you get the suggestions ear players only use tables of contents all right pick up an easy play books pick up something and go okay here's a book and Christmas is a great time to do this since all you had to be a this book alright and this is all I get I am not allowed to look in here okay cold turkey needs you just look there and I'm going to look down here and I'm going to go okay which ones do I go this is a holy night I know that I go silent night I know what child is this I know I have this is a kind of an off-the-wall Christmas oh but I know side of the night so I'll pick it all right so all you do is you take your paper and you write number one silent night and then I'm going to write the first note of my song after the title that's it that is all I get now I told the Wednesday class about this gentleman that was in my class years ago we lived on the boat down on the roof and his name was Jim and Jim wanted to play by here and he started out in our class with this list and then he took his boat and he went out to the area we did see him for a few years came back a few years later he says Karen I gotta tell you and he pulled his wallet out and he had this cash register tape all kind of holds it up and he held it up and went to do it and he had a whole list of songs that he played by ear that he had learned over the years and he kept away on his a little piece of paper in his wallet because he said couldn't remember the songs that he knew but as soon as he saw the title then the song came to him he had like a file cabinet in his head so this will kind of keep you oriented on what you know alright so silent night is going to be my challenge okay okay great you can write because for the video we won't you can't little card okay all right so number one when you want to play by ear first thing you have to do is know that you can everybody can there is an anybody I've ever told this to that said that they ended up could not do it period you can do it you just have to have confidence and an attitude and the ability to make a mistake and not have it blow you up you know just blow your mind and totally short-circuit your head so you just have to be calm and go this is fun I'm going to screw it up but it's more fun to fix it if I do screw it up all right number one you always tell the instrument what key you want to be in most people can't play by ear because they start playing a melody and they end up in the key of E 8h flat and they can't ever figure out a force to use there is a key of E flat yes sir all right so first you have to take control and tell it what key you want to be in what would that be the Spanish key right the key of C and I'm going to play a C chord all right I know now then all of my melody notes are probably going to be white ones I'm not going to have sharps or flats because I'm in the key of C I may have a few accidentals but generally I'm safe and I can play on the black on the white

Channel: Karen Ramirez

Views: 574,634

Rating: 4.7318377 out of 5

Keywords: Karen, Cuneo, Ramirez, playing, by, ear, Roland, AT, 900, 900C, 800, 90, 80

Id: zOxo6V7HTSc

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 01 2008

Reddit Comments

[u/Veg_n]

It's a video from 10 years ago but is simple enough and I like her teaching maybe it'll help someone else to at least get started

[u/Veg_n]

Much more recent video of playing by ear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzKDkbY04R4