Play by Ear

Today, we’ll learn how to play music by ear intrinsically.

Hi, it’s Ron Greene here,

In my last blog post we discussed how music theory relates to my Music Dials, and how you might discover some insightful ways to play better on your musical instrument. Also, I provided you with a blurb about my development experiences with the Music Dial.

Within this posting I’d love to discuss some thoughts with you, regarding your ability and feelings about… playing music by ear, and how it relates to the Music Dials.

Here’s my take on playing music by ear or “play by ear” if you will. It might reference a typical means of playing music without wanting or needing to read notes on a music staff or on a tablature. The ability to play by ear, no doubt, means a lot of different things to a lot of people. To me it seems that on many occasions, playing music by ear would be a practical thing to learn and do.

Let’s say you hear a song on the radio that you’d like to learn immediately, and you don’t want to get references from the song sheets or tablatures. You would just like to start playing the song right away… play it by ear. Or, you might be a songwriter that’s just looking to put together an interested chord and melody structure, for a song you have in mind. Even in a living room jam situation with other musicians, there are lots of examples where playing by ear would be a helpful skill.

Now, in all of the instances above I would certainly like to relay the message that you might discover the Music Dials to be an interesting and supportive reference tool for your musician’s library.

When playing by ear, a musician doesn’t necessarily have “all” of the ‘key’ chords and scale structures committed to memory. Music Dials provide a concise, effective representation of the best sounding chords in each key, along with the best sounding notes in each key. As a movable device, one simply turns the dial to the key you hear for that song, and immediately reference the chords and scales you require.

So… it doesn’t matter if you’re coming from no knowledge of music theory or a seasoned player, the ability to reference different notes for chordal and/or melodic playing can be noted at-a-glance on the Music Dials.

So… if you’re not interested in spending a lot of time and energy researching and studying… a precise condensed version of chord and scale theory is presented in a hand-held, movable at a glance dial, representing the best sounding chords and scales for any song in any key: the Music Dial!

If you have any further suggestions as to how “Playing by Ear” relates to music in general (and not necessarily relating to the Music Dial), please, I’m all ‘ears’… and I’m very interested in your take on the related subject of… music and how to play it by ear.

Have a great musical day!
Ron Greene