I remember as a young child, watching my grandmother sit down at the piano and playing beautiful music. She carefully tapped out a few notes, found the right placement for her fingers, and played away. She never took lessons, never learned to read music, but she could play!
It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t a trick. She wasn’t a musical prodigy. In fact, most of us have the ability, it’s just left untapped.
Why?
Because we have an innate ability to understand music. It’s a part of us, and we don’t need to take years of lessons to play the piano for fun.
Reading sheet music can help you become better at the craft of playing the piano. But to play your favorite songs? It requires listening and finding the right notes.
It starts with paying attention to music. Make sure you use a high quality recording of whatever song you wish to play. Play it through a high quality system, great speakers, or headphones. Make sure you can hear all of the notes clearly, and can differentiate between the different tones. High quality recordings allow you to pick up on all the crucial notest that can make the difference in the way you play the song.
The biggest part of being able to play by ear is not to rush the process. You can’t hum a new song and expect to play it perfectly the first time you sit down at the piano.
Start by learning the music in small segments. Pick out five to ten seconds of a song, and convert that over to piano playing. Learn one part first, play it with one hand, and then try and pick up the other. You can do this over and over again as you make the sound more complex.
If you master thirty seconds or so at a time, take a break. Come back another day and internalize what you’ve just learned. This helps you fully recognize the ability to play, and creates the pathways necessary to keep playing at this level.
Then repeat. You can do this until you have your favorite song mastered, and can play it anytime you sit down at the piano.
Of course, you can continue to do this with your favorite music. But if you prefer to take your piano playing to the next level, learning to read music will only improve what you know.
But for now, it’s a great way to learn your favorite songs, and be able to play them whenever you desire.
