Discover Playing Music by Ear!
When a person begins to play music by ear, he must not be too particular about the results. One begins by getting the overall effect and then gradually refines the rendition. His performance will, of course, never be better than he can hear; but at first it will not be satisfactory even to his own ear. Indeed, no one ever plays as well by ear as he would like to; but neither do the note players ever play as well as they would like to.
Nearly everything we learn in life is learned in a general way first and the details and refinements are added later. This is very distressing to the note player, who frequently works at just a few measures until he has them perfect and then adds a few more measures until they are perfect, etc.
He is greatly annoyed by a single note that sounds wrong to him; but one can't learn to play music by ear and be such a perfectionist. He may know exactly how the music should sound, but he is like the amateur trombone player who expressed his dilemma: "I blow in so sweet, and it comes out so sour!"
Indeed, this rather careless-or carefree-approach to music is just what makes playing music by ear playing so enjoyable. We need a relaxation of our rational life, and we enjoy the freedom from discipline and concentration which is the characteristic of good ear playing. Our most notable ear players started when they were young and practiced as naively as they practiced their native tongue. The little child is happy to spend hours making vague gurgling sounds which eventually become refined into beautiful English. Let the music by ear player follow his example.
We have all heard the person who was so anxious to get just the precise words in the precise place that he was unable to speak at all. This is very irritating to the listener, and the similar procedure in music by ear may be even more exasperating to both performer and listener.
Indeed, the agony of pupil recitals often hangs on just this point. Instead, we should treat our music like a foreign language in which we are content to get across our main idea without worrying too much about the correct grammar and pronunciation.
We adults find it difficult to realize how much learning takes place without any conscious effort on our part.
William James reports the case of an ignorant servant girl who was thought to have connections with the spiritual world because she recited long passages of Greek, which she obviously had never studied. Upon investigation it was discovered, however, that several years earlier she had worked in the home of a Greek professor who recited these passages in Greek while waiting for his breakfast.
Although we may not be able to learn with such naive abandon of intellectual concentration, we may, nevertheless, take a lesson from the servant girl and permit our impressionable ears to retain as much as they can. In other words, our intellects often interfere with our learning process; we force a conscious analysis which blocks our native talent.
Nor can we be too certain of the order in which this musical learning should take place. Often the thing which strikes the ear most poignantly is learned first rather than the simplest item.
A little five-year-old coming to me for his lesson once played music by ear passionately the opening strains of Tschaikowsky's Marche Slave. He had heard it several times on the phonograph and it had caught his ear; or he had happened to strike on the piano the notes which make up the familiar motive. For him that was the natural beginning point. In other words, we begin by learning to play what we want to play-within limitations. For the child these limitations are scarcely noticeable; but for us adults-well, our ambitions may just be too great at the start.
Start in a carefree manner and who knows how far you may go by playing music by ear!
"I blow in so sweet, and it comes out so sour!"
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Added: October 4, 2008
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