by Sammy Stein

Created on: March 24, 2009

You cannot actually play music with your ears (joke!) the term means to learn with no formal training and sometimes without knowing how to even read music. My grandmother was a good pianist and taught herself to play songs and carols but she had no formal training. Many musicians I have met in bands have had no formal training and have taught themselves. It seems musicality is a gift which you either have or don't have.

My youngest son has taught himself to play the clarinet by listening and copying other musicians on CDs and also followed the fingering in books.

Playing by ear is something you can either do or you cannot. The clarinet was actually bought by me for myself as I thought I could play along to songs and perhaps make some great music on my own. Sadly, all I got was a noise akin to some poor cat being strangled and no, I never did play along with Coltrane. It is not just playing by ear, it is knowing where to put your fingers, how to hold and blow and so on.

It was the same with the oboe- I thought perhaps a double reed was more suited to me and thought I could learn by ear but never got beyond a painful rendition of the first few bars of Scena' from Swan Lake. I actually got to grade 5 playing largely by ear (as my actual music ability is very limited).

With the piano at least I got as far as the first 16 bars of Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven actually I cheated by copying the notes from my sister who is an accomplished pianist but I never got beyond those first bars and to make it sound better, I simply played them again and again in different rhythms sounds fine to me.

The one instrument I never thought of and did not realise I had was my own voice. For a start I had never thought of it as an instrument and for another I never thought I was any good but my relatives thought different and paid for some lessons. Finally, I had found the ideal instrument for me and for everyone else it seems. I can, at least hold a note and tune even if I can still not really read music, learn by ear and, if the truth be known, when I appear to have learnt' a new song which all my other opera singing friends have also learned, the fact is I have really only listened to a recording and copied it by ear!

Actually, if you learn by ear and are reasonably good at it, you can cover up the fact that you actually do not know much about music but only up to a point. I got grade 4 clarinet, grade 5 oboe and grade 6 singing but that is as far as I can go formally because there comes a point when you actually have to be able to write music down and show you know the theory side and I realise I have come to the point where I can no longer pretend that I actually understand how or what I am playing.

My son has just bought himself a trombone he is due to start lessons. Now, with my gift for playing by ear, I just wonder......

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