PLAY WHAT YOU WANT - Lesson 35: How to Play by Ear (Despacito - Part 1)

Free Piano Course "PLAY WHAT YOU WANT" - LESSON 35: How to Play by Ear (Despacito - Part 1)
Have you ever met anyone that took traditional piano lessons when they were younger, quit because they didn't like it, and now regret quitting?? Or maybe this is your experience!? Well I have been the teacher pushing the traditional, boring and lengthy process onto my students. And what I noticed, is a very select few continue on to get to a point where they truly play what they want to play. Even when I was a student, did I rarely get to play the songs and pieces that I truly wanted! Only until I became an advanced student did I start to play popular songs by ear on my own time.
But this is backwards! Music is all about listening, and the learning process of music should be that of experimentation and innovation. The focus should be listening, and replicating what we hear in our heads. I believe in learning to play the song first, and slowly building on the theory later. So many people have quit taking lessons because the focus on theory and technique was pushed so early, that the fun in music just faded...
When you start the "Play what YOU want" course, we will go over proper posture, fingering and letter names of the keys. But after that, it's all FUN STUFF! We will talk about how to figure out melodies, and make them sound better by adding a left-hand part. Then we will talk about different types of left-hand patterns we can add to our song. So within the first few sections, you will already be able to start figuring out popular songs and play them on the keyboard!
THE GOAL of these online lessons is to INSPIRE new musical hobbyists, and future serious musicians. And when one of our members is ready to take their playing EVEN FURTHER, we will have a resource to help them find a professional music teacher in their area. One-on-one lessons are great when learning difficult Classical works, and wanting to become a professional musician. But to learn the basics of music and ENJOY IT, you came to the right place!
In this course, you will learn:
- proper posture of the body and hands (super important and often not even talked about in this way!)
- learning the landscape of the keyboard
- how to figure out a melody in a song you LOVE!
- building cool accompaniments ("left-hand parts") for those songs
- Improvising!
- creating your own music
- starting the sheet music reading process
- foundations of proper technique and playing some crazy stuff!

[@allanjeong]

When I was first learning, it was easier to play any song by ear in the key of C for major or in the key of A for a minor song to minimize the use of black keys to make it easy count note intervals between the melodic notes played on the down beats and the root notes. So what I did was sing a song from start to end and identify the number of note intervals separating first and last note - the last note being the tonic note of the song. Once I identified the intervals separating the first and last note, I was able to figure out how many intervals from note C to start playing the song in C major or how many note intervals from note A to play a song in minor key.

[@PianoHooks]

Thank you for the comment. It can certainly help to play everything in the key of C major, as there are no black keys and large gaps to deal with. What I find is most people remember a song in the key they originally heard it, and to have to transpose it in their head, can be quite challenging. Also, when someone learns a song in the key most people have heard it also, it seems easier for most people to sing along as they recognize it.

[@allanjeong]

@@PianoHooks Are you saying people remember the original key signature of a song and sing the song in the same key signature as if they had perfect pitch and perfect memory?
I can sing Mary Had a Little Lamb in any key signature and not know what key signature I’m singing. If you asked me what original key the Beatles sang their song Let It Be, I would have no idea. Yet, I could sing this song for you right now without knowing the original key signature. For me and most people I think, its all about RELATIVE pitch, not absolute pitch.
Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean. Could you clarify?