Playing Piano by Ear

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Does anyone know a good way to learn how to play piano by ear?

I had a weird ability as a kid to do this. I probably still could if it was still an interest, but it's not. I can't advise on how, I just...did.

I could be wrong, since like siuan I just kind of play things by ear, no effort involved, I think this is one of those things you either can or cannot do.

Ok, thanks

I pretty much agree that it's usually something people just up and do.

I do this and my daughter does this (much to the consternation of her piano teacher), but she also reads music as I do.

One thing I can think of is this...

On the piano, you have a set number of keys that comprise a scale... a set of notes.

Perhaps it would help if you familiarized yourself with all eight notes in one scale, then played around with them to see how they jump up or down when you move up or down the keyboard.

Next thing is to learn to 'sing' the music of songs you want to play.
One of the best teachers I have had for Quebec fiddle music had us 'sing' the notes to a song until we were comfortable with the notes, the inflections, the tempo, then he'd have us pick up our fiddles and play what we could sing.
This is at a music camp my daughter, her mother, and I have been going to for 10 yrs or so.
The guy's name is Kevin Carr and he is a terrific musician!

So, anyway, playing by ear involves understanding which notes are being played, where on your instrument these notes are located, and how you get to these notes on time... your fingering.

On the piano, you have the added dimension of ten fingers which may play in any number at any time.
Picking out all the right notes and figuring out which hand plays which notes and which finger on that hand plays a particular note, is what's most difficult for me.

Saying that, I have still learned to play songs by ear on the piano.
I can play a song off of George Winston's Winter album strictly by ear, but it does not involve complex chording.
He's a great musician to see in person by the way.

Try familiarizing yourself with the scales, the keyboard and whatever song you are trying to play.
Maybe start out with one that does not have too many notes or note-changes.

Hope that helps.

Thanks wsmac, that helped a lot

By the way, what's Quebec fiddle music? Is it a style of fiddle music or just fiddle music from Quebec?

This is why I wanted to start playing piano by ear:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9hzHcxRuas[/youtube]

Hi, Google the guy from pbs, his name is ( Scott Houston, the piano guy), if you google that, you should be able to find the easy way to learn to play the piano--
I learned to play the mandolin, and the guitar by ear...but for me to improve, I had to eventually start buying instructional videos. I didn't want to take lessons, too expensive and I'll avoid one on one lessons like that in a heartbeat....ugh.
I didn't used to avoid things like this with strangers when I was a child, I'd have loved to have had piano lessons...but they said no, and my mom gave the piano away....apparently, I was only supposed to be tortured with the possibility of piano lessons....oh yeah, I hate my mom btw....but that's a different topic....for another day....
Anyway now I have a piano, and I love it; I don't play well yet, but I love it. I spend more time trying to improve on the mandolin.

WOW! You play just fine! You don't need to learn to play by ear!

Just kidding!

I ripped that one for my daughter to see... thanks.

So here's a little more I hope can help you.

I'm not trying to be condescending, so please don't be offended by my possible over-simplification...

You already know that you play the right and left hand differently on the piano... right hand is the treble, left is the bass, on the music sheet.

Everyone I know who learns a song on the piano has to learn each hand independently first, then put the two together which is more practice to get them synch'd well.

Someone who plays by ear naturally would probably start out by playing the higher notes (right hand) until they figured out the melody.
After they either figured out the main line of the melody or the whole right-hand part, they would then go on to figure out the bass line or left-hand. I figure that one out mostly by understanding music theory without having learned music theory... confusing huh?...
I can pick out the left-hand chords and notes that 'sound correct' when played with the right-hand notes.

I'll talk a bit about music (which any better musician here can do much better than I.... please!?).

A song is comprised of parts. You have your intro, the body and the conclusion. Just like writing papers huh?
The body is made up of repetitive parts linked together with a bridge.
Once you can recognize the basic verse or chorus, you will notice it is repeated throughout the song with slight variations.
Go to the time marker 4:00 on that youtube vid.
Right then, you see and hear his right hand play the verse but it is dramatically different in certain aspects. It eventually goes into what we've been hearing throughout the piece and he adds more notes. Hope that made sense.

I tell you what... compare the beginning, the repeat at 4:00 and the very end when he slows it waaaayyy down.
It's the same piece of the song just played with a little more or less 'coloring', if you will. Get it?

You'll find this in the songs you listen to everyday...
Song starts.... first few notes are likely to be an unrepeated intro except when the song repeats to the beginning.
Song moves into the verse/chorus
Song either repeats the verse/chorus and then moves into a little 'bridge', or puts the bridge between every verse/chorus.
Song ends with a variation of the verse/chorus or a different ending.

This is way over simplified, but I hope it is making sense to you.

A song is almost a mechanical instrument.
It has parts that are placed in a particular order and repeated until time is up, then some sort of ending takes place.

Another thing you can do to learn songs is to record them and slow them down so you can pick up each note.
If you just took a tape recorder and made the motor run slower, you would get a grossly distorted sound.

Since we all have computers at our disposal here... you can do something better....
CLICK THIS LINK --->THE AMAZING SLOWER DOWNER

This program will change the tempo of any song without distorting the sound.
You could rip the audio off this youtube vid, import it into ASD, then play it back so slow you could easily pick up each note.
Because of the software, the notes are true when you hear them even slowed way down.
I only learned of it this year at Lark Camp (the music camp I go to) and it helps me to learn fiddle tunes where the original fiddler plays notes a hundred-miles-an-hour

So, to recap... get a job, marry, have kids, settle down and forget all this nonsense....oops... sorry... wrong lecture

Get it into your head that a song is just a repeating bunch of notes, sometimes played with a few extra or fewer notes to 'color' it a bit, and don't forget the intro and snappy ending!

Learn the notes he plays with his right hand first... perhaps just a single-note melody just like you would sing it (unless you're a Tuvan throat singer... but that's another loooooong lecture ).
Watch his hands in the video to guesstimate where he is on the keyboard... use every clue available to you to learn it.

Be sure to post a youtube vid of youself when you do get it!

I automatically knew how when i was a child too.

For a better understanding of music terms go here --->WIKIPEDIA MUSIC LINK

Couldn't tell you. I just, well, worked it out as I went along, but then I learned from guitar to piano.

Ditto.
I can't read music, I just play instruments by ear. It comes automatically for me, always has. I have had music lessons, they do me no good. Learning how to read music is useless to me, why bother when I can just listen to something once and then play it....

I've played piano since I was 5 (I'm now coming up for 21) so as a pianist, I would say:

You either have it or you don't, to an extent.

I was never brilliant at playing by ear, but because I'm so familiar with the piano and how it works, I can intuitively play by ear these days. I read music extremely well, and my fingers instinctively know where to go and what to do, and I can tell you exactly how to put a song together and what notes to hit and what chords will sound best in what progression and what timing is best and blablabla...

When I play the piano, it would be more accurate to say that I BECOME the piano, or it becomes an extension of me.

So with that in mind, I can now play by ear very well, but I think it's improved a lot as my piano skills improved too. I'm not pitch-perfect naturally, but I'm pretty close. You just get an inkling for how it all works and how songs come together and how music happens, and that helps you play by ear.

So if you can't do it naturally, I'd say invest in a few lessons and go from there.

I think some people are born with the ability, but you can learn it to some extent too. Honestly, I think the concept of learning to play by ear is simple: the more you play, the more you'll learn to recognize the notes when you hear them. That's what happened with me, anyway. Not to say that it happens overnight or that it's easy, but it's possible, lol. Good luck!

I can sort of play by ear, but only simple songs and it takes me a while to figure out how to play them.

What I should have asked is if there is a course or class to take to get better at playing by ear