Playing music by ear on your instrument is one of the best feelings ever. It will break you free from having to read and follow along on sheet music, tabs or any written notes.
If you are a beginner on you instrument, playing anything by ear might seem like magic. But the truth is that it is not that hard to learn.
Sure, playing whole tunes by ear is hard, but picking up a melody, theme or motif quickly on your instrument is something you can learn to do quit easily.
5 Tips on How to Play Music by Ear
First is of course to listen to the tune you want to play. Get into the vibe of it, and truly listen to the harmony and chord changes, rhythm and groove, and most importantly, the melody.
After you have listened intentionally, here are some things you can focus on to learn how to play the tune (or at least a part of it) by ear:
1 – Find the Scale & Key (especially the root note)
The first thing you should do is find the root note of the key of the song, and play it on your instrument. As you play it, make sure to sustain the note for a while, to get used to the tonality of the song.
Then you can progress by playing the scale of the song up and down. This will get your brain wired for the tonality and harmonic language of the tune.
2 – Play the Root Note of Each Chord
To make things simpler you can start by playing and sustaining only the root note of each chord as it changes in the song. You can play back the song and do this as you listen along to the tune.
This way you will get a quick overview of the harmonic changes, as you play along on your instrument.
3 – Slow Down by a Huge Degree
Now you can turn off the song playback, and start to play by ear and memory, the actual melody and theme of the song. But make sure to always start with a very slow tempo. It’s way easier to hear mistakes and correct them, if you practice slowly.
4 – Play Phrase by Phrase
Instead of trying to play a whole verse, chorus or even the entire song. Play 1 phrase at a time, it will be much easier, and then you can start to chain phrases to play entire sections.
5 – Start Simple and Evolve
Don’t try to add expression and emotion with decorations, legato, vibrato or any other “fancy” stuff when you first learn to play any song by ear. Instead start simple, and focus only on playing the actual notes and rhythm correctly.
After you get into it, you can always start to add your own expressive techniques later…evolve your playing of the particular song.