Playing By Ear

I often have people ask me about playing a piano “by ear”. What they are referring to of course is learning and being able to play songs just by listening to them.

When I was quite young and still learning to play the piano I remember watching someone listen to a song on the radio and then quickly walk over to the piano and play what was on the radio. It was very impressive. I remember thinking how amazing that was. The thing that I’ve learned since then is that if you spend time with music, listening to it, playing it, paying attention to it, that things start to stick out. By this I mean certain chords start to become familiar, certain melodies that then go along with those chords. Probably the most important aspect of this is that chord progressions that start to stick out. These are the fundamental parts to playing by ear.

One thing that happens quite often with piano is that when someone starts their piano education they are usually taught how to read music first, then to play off sheet music. So when it comes time to play something that isn’t written down they have great trouble. I know, this was how it was for me in the beginning.

To really learn to play music by ear you need to have at least some knowledge about chords and chord progressions. Once you know a little more about chords (major and minor and what they sound like) you can start learning to play by ear. The first thing to do is find a song you really like and would like to play. The second thing is to do is make sure it’s an easy song. (You will probably find out pretty quickly how difficult it is to play!) If there are a lot of chord changes then it might be a good idea to pick another song. The thing about learning by ear, when you first start out, is that it will take a while and you will need to be patient. When I first started it took me quite some time and I had to work through quite a lot of frustrating moments but it’s much more rewarding.

Some people will be able to pick up music by ear much easier than others. This is just a fact of life. Some people’s ears are just more tuned to music than others. Quite often though, these people are the ones who listen to the most music.

The key is to experiment with playing along with music and give yourself time to learn to play by ear. You will find that the more you that, the better at it you will become, and after a while it will come naturally and you will be able to play with whatever is on the radio. To learn more click here.

Learning To Play The Piano

If you are learning the piano, either as a beginner or as a slightly more advanced player, you can appreciate how frustrating it is learning the skills and techniques without seeing any noticeable results. The time and effort that many put into exercises don’t seem to be reflected in their standard of playing. There also seems to be a frustration in the lack of quality information on the market.

The Piano Guy and the team at Rocket Piano have bucked the trend with the latest developments to the Rocket Piano brand. They have had considerable success with their 3 book series, Learn to Play the Piano with Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit. Given the positive feedback from the success of this package, the team decided to develop the product further, and have come up with a package that is unrivalled in terms of quality and its comprehensive nature. This package truly does enable piano students to accelerate their learning, and includes an impressive array of features.

In addition to the quality information in the glossy 3 book series, the team at Rocket Piano has included hundreds of sound files that explain how to play, so you can hear what your playing is supposed to sound like. The songs are broken down into pieces, which enables the student to learn each piece before they are ready to tackle the whole song. Being able to play these songs will amaze friends and acquaintances alike, and this is made easy through the hundreds of lines of music included for your benefit.

In addition to this, the team have spent hours developing exclusive educational computer games to develop your skills in reading and training your ear to transcribe music. The pro version of Jayde Musica is now available as a free bonus as well as Perfect Your Pitch Pro, a program that is designed to give the student the ability to tune their ear to recognize notes and transcribe songs from the radio. Both of these programs are very well made and presented, and most of all are easy and fun to play.

As well as this, when you purchase the package, you get two additional free bonus books. The first is “Advanced Learning Techniques for Piano”. This book introduces the idea of mental visualization, which is a powerful tool in speeding up your rate of learning. Mental visualization uses the same pathways inside your brain other than the fact you are not performing the activity physically. The second bonus book, “How to tune your piano” solves the problem with tuning pianos, and introduces the reader to the most effective way of tuning a piano.

With all of the information in this package there really is no excuse to delay learning to play your piano. The Rocket Piano team has given the reader five high quality books, two fun educational games and access to hundreds of recorded sound files that will have students playing popular songs like a professional in no time.

As an added bonus, the team at Rocket Piano has also thrown in free email consultations to customers that may have specific issues or problems that need addressing. This is of enormous benefit to students that need specific answers to their training queries.

This package is by far the most complete and fresh approach to piano playing that I have seen in a long time. I highly recommend this product because I do believe it will deliver results and have you playing popular songs like a professional using the most effective techniques. There is something here for every piano player, regardless of ability. And at the current cost, it really is worth every dollar spent!

Click here to find out more…and accelerate your piano playing today!