You Can Learn How To Play Piano By Ear In Short Order

Has the thought of leafing through music sheets turned you off from pursuing a plan to study piano? Do you have issues with your vision? Do you desire the skill of playing a tune on the piano solely from listening to it?

You’ll be surprised that many professional musicians didn’t learn the piano by attending formal classes. They discovered how to play piano by ear and possess the skill of repeating tunes they had only listened to.

With the following steps, you too can quickly pick up how to play piano by ear:

1) Acquire the things that you’ll need to get started. You can choose from a keyboard or a piano, which has to be in tune. Rearrange your schedule to fit in time for practice daily.

2) You’ll find that a piano has 88 keys while a keyboard has a smaller number. If you count the regular notes, sharp notes, and flat notes, there are 12 notes in all. The white notes begin with an A note up to the G note. Then you would start the next batch with the A note. This order of notes gets repeated for 7 times until the white notes are completed. Likewise, the black notes – with its sharps and flats -- are repeated.

3) To know where the Note C, or Home Key, is located, find the white note situated to the left of the two black keys. In the middle of the keys is the C note. That’s where the C chord is located. Put your right thumb on C, visualize that as number 1. From that point, count the keys towards the right, including black keys.

As you reach the fifth, put your middle finger on it; that would be the second note of the C chord. Next, count from 5, then count the notes to 8 – that would be the final note of the C chord. That’s where you’ll place your little finger. Simultaneously press on those notes; listen to that impressive sound.

4) Get to know this sequence by heart…1, followed by 5, and 8 in counting. When starting with any note, remember to count and include the sharps and flats as well. You can use these chords as your base. This can also be done when you want to start on a sharp note. It means that this is a sharp chord.

5) I can’t overemphasize the importance of practice in learning how to play piano by ear. By repeatedly counting and listening, you’ll soon find it to be a simple task. For instance, if the number 5 in the chord drops by 1 key then you’re on the number 4 key, making the major chord into a minor one.

To play a C minor chord, your finger only has to slide one key to the left. You will be able to recognize the difference through their sound by listening. As long as you don’t really have any hearing defects, you will know how to spot slight tune changes.

A Piece of Advice

Don’t limit your practicing to the middle of the piano or keyboard; you can choose from other keys. Push yourself in practice to not only use 1 or 2 fingers on each hand, but all of them. Now that you’ve gained insight into how the experts did it, you’ve surely realized that learning how to play piano by ear isn’t that unattainable after all.