An easy exercise to play piano by ear

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Susan McAllister-Bee

In my studio students get to explore the art of playing piano by ear. One way is through improvisation.

Once we realize the role of chords in the structure of music, we can have fun playing our own rhythms and note combinations within the chords. This is a great way to get your “ear training”.

At the beginner level, we start with I, IV and V chords. In the key of C major that is the chord C (C, E, G), F (F, A, C) and G (G, B, D). If this doesn’t make sense to you, then check out my previous posts.

This exercise is with a metronome, or if you have a keyboard with a drum beat pattern, that’s even better!

Set the tempo to a medium to slow rate. Use a basic 4/4 beat. You need to be sure you can hear and feel the strong beat. The strong beat is the first beat (#1). This is beat where your left hand will play the chord. Start with the C chord.

Once you get the C chord playing on beat 1 consistently, let your body and mind think and feel the pulse of that strong beat. It is your anchor.

In your right hand you can start adding notes C, E, or G…one at a time. If your left hand starts to miss the pulse of beat 1, take the focus off your right hand. It is much more important to get the pulse of the left hand on beat one. Keep your right hand very simple at first. No need to be that busy. Start with only one or two notes in the right hand. Just simply keep the pulse going with the left hand chord on beat 1. You will eventually be able to add in more notes in the right hand. And, keep it easy by only using the notes in the chord…the C, E, or G.

Here is an example of a right hand combination with the rhythm ta, ta, ti ti, ta…that is 5 notes in the time of 4 beats….you could play C, E, G, G, E.

Once you feel secure playing around with the C chord, you can try going to the F chord (or the G chord). The important factor when moving on to more chords is to make sure your left hand keeps playing the chord on beat 1.

The second more important factor is to have fun while you’re doing it!

The Basics

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Susan McAllister-Bee

Learning to play piano by ear is an intertwining discipline of two separate coordinations….rhythm patterns and chord patterns. I have long neglected this very special part of my blog and I plan to make time for it over the next few months.

I’m not going to string you along……the best and easiest way to learn advanced playing piano by ear is to have some solid background of the language of music. That’s what I intend to show you …. the language of music, as it relates to playing piano by ear.

This does not include sight-reading….unless you consider learning how to read a chord chart…sight-reading. But it isn’t sight-reading….it’s reading lead sheets and chord progressions.

What do you need to know? Well, for sure you need to know the notes on the piano! Next, you need to start understanding what a chord actually is. It is “harmony”. In it’s simplest form a chord is 3 notes. (We will start with only major (+) and minor (-) chords at first).

You need to know what a major scale sounds like ( C D E F G A B C ) but you don’t need to know how to play it in every key. You will learn how to transpose to other keys as we go along. We will start in C major because it’s the easiest scale to understand because it is made up of only white notes.

Note that every note in the major scale is identified as a Roman numeral. This is important to grasp as we move on to other “scales” and “key signatures”. Therefore, in the C major scale, C is I, D is II, E is III, F is IV, G is V, A is VI, B is VII and C is VIII.

Let’s put this into the G major scale …. G major has an F# in the key signature. Therefore, G is I, A is II, B is III, C is IV, D is V, E is VI and F# is VII and G is III. Make sense?

Now consider forming your chord in the left hand with your baby finger on the first note of your chord which is also the name of your chord. Let’s make a C chord with your baby finger on C. Then skip D and play E with your middle finger (#3). Then skip F and play G with your thumb (finger #1). This is a C chord.

Now you can do the same on the D note (D F A) and the E note (E G B) and the F note (F A C) and the G note (G B D) and the A note (A C E) and the B note (B D F – watch out, this one sounds funny), and again up to C (C E G).

So, this will get you started. On my next post I’ll talk about what kinds of chords these are that you playing, and then we’ll really start to have fun when we add rhythm!!

Play Piano by Ear

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Susan McAllister-Bee

I teach a keyboard program called Music for Young Children. One of the building blocks of this program is the introduction of left hand (LH) harmony chord structures early on in training. We teach the young student to listen for the “colors” of I, IV and V7 progressions in their music.

If young students aim to succeed in today’s music business, learning how to play freely with rhythmic patterns and chord structures on the piano is key. All styles of music including blues, jazz, country, rock, ragtime and contemporary pop use rhythmic patterns and harmonic chord structures in their music. Classical music, on the other hand, is the one style of music that doesn’t benefit as much from this type of learning because there is not nearly the same amount of repetition involved. Here, the musician relies heavily on sight-reading the composition for interpretation.

As a parent, I always wanted my children to learn freedom at the piano. Freedom to express themselves how they wish, with the knowledge of chord progressions and rhythmic patterns. This is how I learned as a young child from my grandmother. I took classical lessons where I learned how to sight-read, but it was my beloved grandma who taught me how to free myself from the sheet music and play by ear.

Rhythmic patterns will free the young student from the music book, and help lead the way to improvisation. In my studio, students learn how to read lead sheets and make their own accompaniment to their favorite songs.

Learn to play piano by ear!

Posted on December 26, 2010 by Susan McAllister-Bee

Learning to play an instrument by ear is no secret. Guitar players have been doing it forever. But somehow piano players have been left out. Instead, piano playing has mostly been associated with reading music. While this is a worthwhile venture and opens doors to learn to play any other musical instrument, playing piano by ear is a fabulous, yet-rare talent. You will be hard-pressed to find a teacher who can teach this way, and yet guitar teachers teach how to chord all the time.

The average person who plays the guitar usually started by simply being shown how to play a few chords. The melody line is sung with their singing voice. Once a guitar player has mastered the I, IV and V chords with maybe the II and VI minor, they are set to play 1000’s of songs in any key they desire by simply moving their hand position higher on the guitar strings. Some players will use a capo for this. This is relatively easy because the “feeling” is the same in every key.

However, playing chords on the piano is more difficult than on a guitar, because on a piano you have to deal with an entirely “new” feeling everytime you want to play in a different key. Therefore, it takes a little more diligence and practise to learn the same I, IV and V chords in different key signatures. Creating rhythm on the piano is also more difficult than on the guitar, but with a few bits of knowledge, and some time to practise, you can be well on your way to playing piano by ear!

The very first thing I would suggest is to practise making major chords starting on every note of the piano. This means knowing the first, third and fifth note of a given scale (or key). For instance, in C major these notes are C, E and G. When played together they are called a major chord. Notice that the name of the chord is the first note of the scale. A lot of people who play by ear already know this because it is a familiar sound and it sounds good to them. Here is a trick to finding the first five notes of any major scale….tone, tone, semitone, tone….In C major, this is C, D, E, F, G……in D major this would be D, E, F sharp, G, A. Then you simply play the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes to make a chord. I suggest practising these chords in the right hand above middle C. These chords sound “muddy” when played below middle C, and must be “spread out”. That’s a later topic.

A good next step is learning how to play a minor chord. You can do this by simply lowering the third note. Therefore, C minor becomes C, E flat and G. Easy, right?

Now, practise putting the notes of these chords in a different order. In other words for C major, instead of C, E, G…put the E on the bottom and play E, G and C. You will notice that the “feeling” is different and it will require different fingering. This is called inverting the chord. You can also play the chord with the G on the bottom…G C and E.

There are many more chord types that you can practise. There are diminished chords where the 3rd and 5th note are lowered…C, E flat and G flat; and there are augmented chords where the 5th note is raised…C, E and G#). There are also 3 different types of 7th chords to practise…major 7ths, minor 7ths and dominant 7ths. A major 7th is made by simply adding the 7th note of the major scale to the chord. For instance, C major 7th (Cmaj7) would be C, E, G, and B; and C minor 7th (Cmin7) would be C, E flat, G and B. A C major dominant 7th (C7) is when the 7th note is lowered….C, E, G and B flat. An easy way to make this a 3 note chord is by putting the 7th on the bottom and leaving out the 1st note. For instance, Cmaj7 would be B, E and G. Now, if you add the C (root note (I)) in the left hand, you have a beautiful sounding Cmaj7 chord!

You can find these piano chords in many different music books and online. It can be handy to have when you want to look something up real fast.

There are many more ways to enhance your playing by ear. Learning rhythmic patterns in different time signatures will quickly make your playing sound more complex and interesting. Also, learning how to add suspense and tension to chord progressions adds an entire new dimension to chording. Sure, you can analyze these chords to death from a theory point of view, but that’s not necessary. Instead, by simply learning a few things about “chord embellishment” you will quickly be sounding like a pro. Learning how to “spread out” a chord with different voicings (space between the notes) is another fabulous technique to add to your knowledge of playing piano by ear.

I would love to hear from anyone who has tried to learn the piano by ear. I will try to answer any questions you might have. Thanks for reading! Susan