For many people, the cost of piano lessons is too expensive. For others, the time required for piano lessons is just too prohibitive. But these factors don’t have to prevent you from learning the piano. You can still enjoy the beauty of the piano. However, playing the piano by ear may be the only option for you.
Learning to play the piano by ear has added benefits. For one, you experience the joy of trying to match what you hear to a sound you create. Another benefit is that you learn how to hear notes as you try to translate what you hear into what you play. You also learn what each key on the keyboard sounds like.
You don’t need a lot of preparation to get started playing the piano by ear. Take an old tape or audio file of a simple tune like “Three Blind Mice” and play a little of the audio. Turn to your piano and push keys until you hear the first note. Next, try to find the second note. Continue this for a while adding one note at a time. After a few minutes you’ll be shocked as you are playing stanzas of a tune you know on the piano. As you do this with more and more songs, you’ll get much faster at it until you can learn simple tunes in only a minute or two. You are now playing the piano by ear, but only as a melody.
After you have achieved playing melodies by ear, you can try practicing chords. You can tell when you’ve played a chord because it gives you a sense of completeness. Chords are made up of three notes played at one time that go together well. For the refined music ear, listening to chords is easy. If you’re not real music experienced, you may want to look up a chord chart online before beginning to play chords. Once you know where the chords are, you can do the same learning process again you used to learn to play the melodies of songs like “Three Blind Mice” except this time while playing the piano by ear, you will be hitting three notes at a time instead of one.
After you have learned how each of the piano keys and chords sound, you can begin playing with a few other techniques to complete your skills playing the piano by ear. You can practice using the pedals while playing the piano by ear to see how they influence the pieces you play. Also, get a feel for playing notes softer and louder at various points to add emphasis and mood to your music. Start paying careful attention to how long you hold down each note, as music is based on an exact time mathematics.
If months of practicing playing the piano by ear don’t work for you, there is always the option of old fashioned sheet music. A good beginner piano book will take you through learning to read and play sheet music on a simple step by step basis.
Of course there is always the option for the more dedicated and serious student to go and buy a very basic piano music book. The books will have a copy of the piano keyboard in it with the keys marked. Theses keys correspond to the notes on the music scale. Don’t fret. The one thing anyone wanting to learn to play piano by ear needs to remember is to not be afraid to experiment. Unlike a stringed instrument, pianos won’t go out of tune easily. Try playing some scales and chords. And hum some simple tunes to get yourself started. Don’t worry about finger placement if you are playing for yourself, and above all, have fun.
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