Three years ago I bought a 300 page course book with a CD called “The Secrets of Playing by Ear”. The author of the book, Jermaine Griggs, is the founder of HearandPlay.com. I joined his website and started a wonderful journey to learn to play by ear.
Jermaine’s theory is: “If you can hear it, you can touch it.” So if he can hear the melody in his head, he can play it on his instrument. Coming from a note-reading background, he would say that playing by ear is hard at first, unless you’ve been blessed with a special gift like Stevie Wonder! It takes practice to hear the melody of a song, determine its key center, and know which chords to play with your left hand. I’ve searched and pecked Happy Birthday for hours. Now, I have a roadmap, a guide to learning to play by ear!
Listen there are 4 steps to learn to play a song by ear!
- Determination of the melody – Melodies determine which chords will be played. If you can use your ears to figure out what notes are being played in the melody, you’re well on your way to learning a song!
- Harmonizing the melody – Once you’ve figured out the melody, it’s time to harmonize it. This is simply choosing various chords to accompany the melody. There are several techniques and tricks to do this.
- chord alteration – This is the best part! Now that he has strategically discovered the melody of a song and harmonized it, the next step is to alter its chords to produce certain sounds. If you were playing gospel music, you would modify your chords differently than if you were playing classical or country music.
- listening – Once you’ve determined the melody, harmonized the melody, and altered some of your chords, there are a number of techniques you can use to make sure your song sounds good.
In addition, both the book and the 300 pg course teach you the basics of playing songs by ear, first determining the melody, then harmonizing the melody with chords (Harmonization Scale), and then adding the bass and altering the chords. Once he learns his basic harmonizing scale, he’ll be amazed at how quickly he can take a melody and turn it into a song. Also, the best thing about the DVD is that it comes with a free e-book that you can print. It has notes of things taught on the DVD, as well as the Harmonization Scale illustrated in each key. As Jermaine says, if you learn the scale in 2 keys a week, in 6 weeks you can be playing in all 12 keys.
I highly recommend the Course Book because you will be able to learn songs faster and easier. You will understand why chords are played at certain points in songs. Using your ear’s ability to recognize melodies, chords, and progressions takes a lot of practice, but you’ll soon be on your way to playing more songs without sheet music. Get your copy of this amazing course today!