PLAY WHAT YOU WANT - Lesson 36: How to Play by Ear (Despacito - Part 2)

Free Piano Course "PLAY WHAT YOU WANT" - LESSON 36: How to Play by Ear (Despacito - Part 2)
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]

Here’s a summary of the steps I discovered and used to play piano by ear in my 55-word poem titled “I Can Jive in 55!”
To play song by ear
end song on note C
to make learning easy
by avoiding black keys.
To add chords to song
play root BELOW melody
on each down beat
at intervals -1, -5, or -3.
Now play each chord
by rolling ABOVE root
the notes 5, 8, 10
then add notes to suit.