Play Piano - How to Play Piano

Training your ear is much the same as training your dog: you

keep shouting orders at it until it recognizes what a certain

sound means.

For example, if someone sat at your piano and kept playing

major chords without interruption for two straight days, you

would no doubt recognize a major chord any time one

sounded during the remainder of your life!

Or you might have the same dedicated friend strike nothing

but major thirds: C and E, D and F#, F and A, etc. And the

next time you heard your car horn you would probably

exclaim, "Hey! It's a major third." (Most car horns are

"factory-tuned" to a major third.)

Once your ear is trained to decipher certain sounds, you can

pretty much drive all of those around you to a padded cell

with your recognitions. "Hear that train whistle? It's a perfect

fourth!" Or when a car horn passes you on the highway

producing the sliding Doppler effect: "That car just produced

a tritone portamento descending!"

In spite of that, many of you have written requesting some tips

on how to play piano by ear, so here it goes:

The first order of business is to find that friend who will sit

and pound out the sounds for you. The best one that we can

recommend is your tape recorder, or a cassette recorder. It

should have a numerical counter on it so you can rewind to a

specific spot accurately. (Thanks to the electronic age we live

in, we can all become better musicians than would have been

possible some years ago.) The tape recorder should be set up

on a table close enough to your instrument so that you can

operate it with the least amount of hassle.

You now must record a series of sounds, which you wish to

learn. The question is whether to start learning melodic

intervals, chords, rhythms, and chord progressions, whatever.

Most teachers would recommend starting with melodic

intervals such as skips of a major third, a perfect fifth, major

sixth, etc.

For example, the first two notes of "Here Comes the Bride," is

a perfect 4th. In the Key of C, the notes would be C to F! In

the Key of F, the notes would be: F to Bb.

But I personally feel, you should start with chord

progressions. It is a lot more fun, and gets you right into the

"mix" immediately.

You can train your ear in melody easily enough by continually

picking out melodies of songs on the piano. The operative

word is continually. And later on in your tape recorder

exercises you can record easy melodies, which you will later

take as musical dictation.

So if you want to start playing piano by ear, just practice and

study very simple chord progressions. But before recording

any progression, I advise you to record the tonic note. (The

first note of the scale)

For example, if you are playing a progression in the Key of C,

record the single note C followed immediately by the

progression. This will orient you to a "home base" and make

things a lot easier.

Learn More