How to play a tune by ear.
This is a method that piano learners can use to develop the skill of playing by ear. It helps to start with the basics, and work your way up. A good place to start is with figuring out single line melodies. Then, once you have gained some confidence with figuring out melodies by ear, you can progress onto harmonies (chords).
Pick a very simple tune that you know the sound of really well. Something like a well known nursery rhyme or folk song to begin with. It needs to be very familiar and also very simply structured if you’re not yet used to working out tunes by ear. You can progress onto your favourite tunes later once you have started to learn the skill.
Something like Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Mary had a Little Lamb, or Frere Jacques would be a good place to start because these sorts of tunes are easy to remember, repetitive and have a small range of pitches (which makes the notes easier to find). Or you can choose any similarly easy, short tune which you’re familiar with.
It helps a lot if you can start by singing or humming the tune a couple of times. Then sing your starting note again, and see if you can find that note on the piano. Try and keep this starting note in your mind, or keep humming it until you find it on the piano. To narrow down which note it is, remember it is not likely to be very high or very low, because the vocal range has a limit, even for very skilled singers. If you have a high voice, try searching for your starting note from a couple of notes below middle C, and work your way upwards until you find a note that matches. If you have a low (e.g. male) voice, try searching for your starting note from just below middle C downwards. A vocal range is never going to reach either of the extremes of high or low notes on the piano, so searching somewhere around middle C and working your way outwards is a good place to start if you’re stuck.
Once you have found your starting note, try singing the tune again making sure you are singing from the same starting note. Then sing just the starting note and the next two or three notes, and start searching for those next notes on the piano. They are not likely to be very far from your starting note, because most melodies that sound good don’t leap around too much. A smoother melodic line (not too much jumping around) tends to make more musical sense. In a more complex tune there will probably be some jumps (i.e. large intervals between notes), but not usually more than an octave for a melody, and not very often. Certainly for the simpler tunes mentioned above, there won’t be any really big leaps between notes. For example, the biggest distance between notes for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is a 5th (if you’re not sure what an octave or a fifth is, read this tutorial about intervals). This is one reason why it is best to start with a simple tune - the notes will be closer together and cover a small range, and thus easier to find.
Keep working out your melody notes just a couple at a time like this, until you have worked out and remember the whole melody.
The more tunes you work out like this, the easier and quicker it will get. Eventually you will start to recognise the sounds of particular intervals (an interval is the distance between two notes) and remember roughly how far apart the keys on the piano are for those particular intervals. This then makes it much easier to work out the notes that follow the starting note of a melody, because you will be better able to hear how far up and down they are in relation to each other.
With practice you will also get quicker at finding the starting note of a melody because you will start to remember and recognise how high or low particular notes are, and have a rough idea of where they are on the piano. With enough practice you can even start to remember the sound of specific pitches and know which are the corresponding keys on the piano (this is advanced though). You can start off by simply recognising whether a note sounds like a high note or low note on the piano, and eventually you can start to narrow down the area of the piano that the note is on.
Once you have practised figuring out a few simple tunes by ear in this way, you could progress onto slightly more complicated tunes. Perhaps try and work out the melody of a favourite song, and use a recording of it to help you. Play a tiny bit of the recording and see if you can try to find some of the right notes on the piano while you’re listening.
You can find some general tips and exercises for improving your ability to play by ear (including chords) in this article: Improving Your Ear and Getting Better at Aural Tests.
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Pick a very simple tune that you know the sound of really well. Something like a well known nursery rhyme or folk song to begin with. It needs to be very familiar and also very simply structured if you’re not yet used to working out tunes by ear. You can progress onto your favourite tunes later once you have started to learn the skill.
Something like Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Mary had a Little Lamb, or Frere Jacques would be a good place to start because these sorts of tunes are easy to remember, repetitive and have a small range of pitches (which makes the notes easier to find). Or you can choose any similarly easy, short tune which you’re familiar with.
It helps a lot if you can start by singing or humming the tune a couple of times. Then sing your starting note again, and see if you can find that note on the piano. Try and keep this starting note in your mind, or keep humming it until you find it on the piano. To narrow down which note it is, remember it is not likely to be very high or very low, because the vocal range has a limit, even for very skilled singers. If you have a high voice, try searching for your starting note from a couple of notes below middle C, and work your way upwards until you find a note that matches. If you have a low (e.g. male) voice, try searching for your starting note from just below middle C downwards. A vocal range is never going to reach either of the extremes of high or low notes on the piano, so searching somewhere around middle C and working your way outwards is a good place to start if you’re stuck.
Once you have found your starting note, try singing the tune again making sure you are singing from the same starting note. Then sing just the starting note and the next two or three notes, and start searching for those next notes on the piano. They are not likely to be very far from your starting note, because most melodies that sound good don’t leap around too much. A smoother melodic line (not too much jumping around) tends to make more musical sense. In a more complex tune there will probably be some jumps (i.e. large intervals between notes), but not usually more than an octave for a melody, and not very often. Certainly for the simpler tunes mentioned above, there won’t be any really big leaps between notes. For example, the biggest distance between notes for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is a 5th (if you’re not sure what an octave or a fifth is, read this tutorial about intervals). This is one reason why it is best to start with a simple tune - the notes will be closer together and cover a small range, and thus easier to find.
Keep working out your melody notes just a couple at a time like this, until you have worked out and remember the whole melody.
The more tunes you work out like this, the easier and quicker it will get. Eventually you will start to recognise the sounds of particular intervals (an interval is the distance between two notes) and remember roughly how far apart the keys on the piano are for those particular intervals. This then makes it much easier to work out the notes that follow the starting note of a melody, because you will be better able to hear how far up and down they are in relation to each other.
With practice you will also get quicker at finding the starting note of a melody because you will start to remember and recognise how high or low particular notes are, and have a rough idea of where they are on the piano. With enough practice you can even start to remember the sound of specific pitches and know which are the corresponding keys on the piano (this is advanced though). You can start off by simply recognising whether a note sounds like a high note or low note on the piano, and eventually you can start to narrow down the area of the piano that the note is on.
Once you have practised figuring out a few simple tunes by ear in this way, you could progress onto slightly more complicated tunes. Perhaps try and work out the melody of a favourite song, and use a recording of it to help you. Play a tiny bit of the recording and see if you can try to find some of the right notes on the piano while you’re listening.
You can find some general tips and exercises for improving your ability to play by ear (including chords) in this article: Improving Your Ear and Getting Better at Aural Tests.
More articles