Reading Music vs Playing By Ear; Which is better?
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- Which is better, playing by ear or reading music? There are pros and cons to both, but there really is a better approach that improves your understanding of music and your timing.
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The more tools in your toolbox, the more marketable you are & the more gigs you get. Learn both as soon as you can.
Very true...but not everyone wants to play gigs.
Sheet music is limiting, and most people who play by ear can't improvise progressions and without a book in front of them, they cant do anything. People who play by ear tend to be talented and can arrange a song in several different ways. Ear players have theory which they can use for their own liking, whereas people who read have theory that tells them what do. Great video😊
I'm 28 and self-taught starting back in 2020. I struggle with reading music, but I can easily pick-up the melody of a song and even improvise solos. Played with a few local bands and go to jam nights pretty often and I'm often approached to perform with people in songs that I've usually never heard or original compositions. I'm glad I learned to play the way I did because of the freedom and improvisational skills, but I really want to learn to sight-read because there are so many classical and jazz pieces I want to play and struggle remembering the progression at times.
The first time I heard Gerry Mulligan's version of Prelude in E Minor I fell in love with classical saxophone and that's my first goal in reading music.
Thanks for your response. There are many resources out there for reading - you can check my website for articles as well.
Agree! The ideal sequence of learning music is hearing, playing and reading. And, reading music implies hearing what you read.
"We Feel Rhythms, We Don't Read Them" ^_^ ...You're a True Professional Donna :) Thanks for the Vid! Love & Blessings
You are gifted when you play by hear not a lot of people can do that okay
Donna Schwartz is a fabulous teacher. Wow! Her course on tone for sax changed everything for me.
Thanks so much Rudy - really glad the Get a Killer Saxophone Tone course helped you :)
I think you are absolutely correct on everything in video. I feel many people give up on playing too soon because they dont get to actually play the instrument and that is why 90% of people want to learn an instrument, to play it.
You hit the nail on the head, and when you start off learning the foundation and learning songs by ear, the reading is one less thing to worry about.
Great video Donna!
If you can sing it you can play it
Hi Donna, Your video is very usefully thought provoking - so let me add my two penn'eth worth. Music is what is hear, music is an aural experience. "The dots", the music score is the score - it is not "music" . When we play we interpret the music - we put in expression. Learning by ear is like learning a language by hearing native speakers - we hear the intonations, phrasing accent and so on. But being able to read a language and not speak it fluently does not allow you to experience life in that country fully. Similarly, being able to speak the language but not read limits your access to information. In reality you need to be able to read and speak that foreign language. The same is true in music - being able to take the dots off the page and play music is the goal. When you are in a band it is just as important to hear the band and play sympathetically to the style phrasing and parts being played - which needs ears. Reading the dots helps you understand the grammar of the dots - harmonic structure / chords, scales and so on. You expressed the issues well - the answer is to both play by ear and to be able to read the dots. This applies to both Jazz musicians and classical musicians - I know of both who play by ear. I also know both jazz musicians (e.g in big band) and classical musicians who read the dots - and go the next step using ears to make music.
Your two pennies was worth a million bucks! Thanks for that great analogy and perspective :)
Playing by ear requires more of a musical gift than learning to read music .....also music theory is a must IMO. I don’t posses the ear I, need charts.
Yes for music college you cannot pass without knowing how to listen and write what you listen to
Greta lesson, Donna. Getting there slowly :) :) x
Hi Donna. I agree with you - both are important for different reasons. I would add that after learning to read first, improvisation was/is more difficult to learn for me. In my experience, relying on written music throughout primary and secondary school detracted from my ability to create music on the spot, organically (improvise) because my ears and brain we're not developed enough musically. Participating in a jazz ensemble in high school might have helped, but I played strictly concert/marching band and orchestra music (baritone horn/tuba). That is why I now play mostly by ear, although I do read when necessary (e.g., to learn very difficult passages of a song faster). I feel that playing by ear enhances my ability to improvise.
I would completely agree with that Zab, that playing by ear enhances the ability to improvise. When I was taught how to improvise, we just made $#!+ up on the spot. This would happen to me sometimes even while sight reading. I'd get lost. I don't know how to explain it. I have a condition where I will be playing and the music gets drowned out with a very lucid vision. As if I were dreaming with my eyes wide open. Well, when the vision happens, I end up loosing my place on the sheet music. So, I'd end up having to make up crap to fill, as I was the only person in my section at the time.
Kriss, I hear you, lol. Anyone who says they haven't improvised by accident when reading sheet music is lying, lol.
Good video. I find it strange that people actually debate this in the music world. Look at how babies learn language. It is purely through listening and mimicing what they hear. In other words, by ear. A 5 year old is a native speaker in whatever language even though this child probably can't read anything yet. Then reading comes rather easily. In a lot of grade school music education, kids are taught by "reading" music which is completely backwards from how humans naturally learn language... and music is a language.
I totally agree with you!
@@DonnaSchwartz Of course you agree. It's cuz you're smart! Love your videos. :D
Thank you! 😊
In my personal experience, my interest in an instrument dissipated when I hit a wall trying to learn to read, and time allocated to practice learning to play an instrument transitioned to the boring task of interpreting notation. Timing goes out of the window when it takes seconds to figure out what note is being called for, for how long, and whether it's sharped, flatted, or natural. Suddenly, it becomes math class rather than an outlet for feeling and passion -- unless one is passionate about math...which can be possible....
Exactly
Read first for basic as building a house, we need a good foundation, that is achieved by reading. When begin with listening some people only guess without much accuracy for beats, rhtyhm and right tone. If you master reading, you can check quickly to the partitur. And make it right.
A good foundation is built upon hearing. There's no context to reading music when you have no context for what it should sound like. When people read with no basis in hearing is when there's no accuracy in steadiness of rhythms.
yo le sugiero que cambie el tema con que empieza sus videos
However, playing by ear does not mean not knowing theory. I play by ear and know all scales, chords, inversions, extensions, bass lines, I can modulate passing chords, chord substitutions, cadences, different rhythms. In a nutshell, playing by ear requires 70% of theory
Totally agree, but I also think that it's more than 70% - depends on each person and how much they want to understand the music on a deeper level. Thanks for your comment!
Okay. I've always thought this has been my deficit. I learned to play piano first and then classical flute, all by reading. My first love is jazz. I hear music in my head all the time, including solo lines, but it seems to get stuck between my head and my horn. How do I overcome the ridiculously solid education I received in reading first?
It's not about overcoming your education - you need to find a way to use it your advantage. When you start developing your ears, because of your education, you can label what you are hearing and understand it deeper.
I am one of those people that says, "I wish I had taken up playing when I was young". I took up cornet and learnt to play with my local Brass Band when I was 65, nine years ago. I am ashamed to say I can't even play "happy birthday to you" without written music but I do play with a number of bands and can sight read, not a great reader, some rhythms are hard to hit first time, but good enough to play through new stuff with the band. Now I am starting sax (soprano and tenor - a longish story) and feel I should try to begin playing by ear. Can you suggest a strategy that will avoid frustration - I want to advance quickly but I want to be able to play in a different context where relying on sheet music during performance wouldn't be cool. Is there a hybrid approach?
I also note that looking at books like the Bb real book music theory is pretty essential to improvise with others (jam) but given that most people can sing along and even improvise a little without theory, is theory really that essential.
I'm not so much looking for an answer more a starting point and discussion for those that took up music for the first time in retirement years.
HI Brendan, Teaching beginners of all ages using "playing by ear" approaches is what I've been doing for 30 years. I would suggest lessons - no RUclips videos will help with this because it needs to be personalized based on your ability.
Contact me on my website if interested in lessons
Ummm, I think you just said that you need both.
If you are missing either, it limits you.
I play in 2 concert bands; we obviously read charts. An amazing amount of time is spent making things sound the way the conductor wants, and usually with players (and instruments) that have never just jammed.
Yup. Both.
It depends on your playing situation, but if you want to play professionally, yes you do
Good morning Donna! I was starting to comment on this video yesterday, but ended up getting distracted. I was just going to say how this video came at a perfect time. I had this question come up in my head, personally about a week before I saw this video! I've been starting to learn the violin. After being classically trained on woodwinds for many years, I was wondering this exact question, if I should be reading the actual notes as I play or if I should just familiarize myself with the instrument and either 1 learn to play by ear or 2 if I should just learn the fingerings first... Then, I started thinking about the people that I have seen making videos when they were asked if they are reading sheet music while playing, and each one says "NO"... I am dumbfounded that the kids today just go by a written out sheet like this: F#EDC#BABC#. This does absolutely NOTHING for me. It doesn't tell me the length of the note, the dynamic of the note, and it doesn't tell me if it's F#4, F#5, F#6, or F#7... However knowing the song, I know it's a F#5 held for 2 counts. For some, the numbers don't even mean anything, especially when you have a transposed instrument. I loved how you mention that playing by ear is good to learn the mechanics of your instrument (wasn't your exact words but that's how I took it). I am finding that I'm doing all three, Playing by ear, and sight reading at the same time, so that I can figure out Where the fingerings are; where the written note is in conjunction with that fingering. Then, I'm playing by ear especially on the violin, because the strings may go out of tune making the placement of the fingering just off a tad. The bow sometimes doesn't hit in the "sweet spot" between the fingerboard and the bridge. I thought that string instruments had it easier than us wind players... WOW!!! Both players have their own complexities. Being a player of both wind and strings, I have more appreciation for our counter parts!!! In all, this vlog needs to be probably #1 in the series, because it gives everyone the heads up as to why we need both eyes and ears in music. Although I know a deaf musician (Mandy Harvey) that would disagree and I also know a blind musician that would disagree (Rahsaan Roland Kirk) Of course there are many many more. But, we don't have time to list all of them!!! Awesome vlog Donna!
Question coach, is sax or trumpet more difficult ?
The one you don't practice is more difficult.
@@DonnaSchwartz Amen to that
I think there's a real disagreement in how people understand the term "play by ear". To me, "play by ear" does NOT imply improvisation, but that seems to be a common definition. "Play by ear", to me, implies being able to "parrot back" a tune/progression that you hear through your horn. Instead of a mapping of visual cue to finger position (reading), you take an aural cue to finger position (by ear). I would expect someone who excels at playing by ear to have a very good intrinsic "feel" (not necessarily understanding) of intervals (ear training), and a great comprehension of the sound of their horn with respect to fingering. In some ways, I would think someone with this good sense of "ear" would have an easier time of improvising, as I imagine they could translate a line they think of into mellifluous output. But that supposes that they can, in fact, "hear" the note they want to play in their head WITHOUT it being played externally (the parrot factor),
Playing by ear can be within any genre - absolutely. I feel it is a bit more than parroting back lines. Equate it with having a conversation - the more vocabulary you know, the more sophisticated conversations you can have. And most conversations are improvised. The more vocabulary you obtain by ear, the more sophisticated the solo could be. So instead of only parroting, you could be creating ideas off of what you heard.
Also, folks who play by ear tend to listen a bit more deeply to the other players in the group, regardless of genre. It's more interactive.
Thanks for sharing your take on this.
@@DonnaSchwartz Very well put :)
You assume that beginners can play by ear. obviously simple tunes but that’s not the case. some people just cannot pick up tune by ear when they first start.
No I don't assume that, especially since I've taught beginners for decades now. Yes, some (if not many) people cannot pick up a tune by ear right away. It's a skill that needs to be practiced. That's why I created my HSP Framework to help people not only learn that skill but also learn to play what they hear in their head
@@DonnaSchwartz Thanks for your reply I know I’m being picky but at 11:15 you did say beginners should learn simple songs by ear. Perhaps that’s the case with a teacher but if you’re teaching yourself and you haven’t got an ear for working out tunes then you’ve got problems.
Yes, simple songs like Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had a Little Lamb. That should NOT be hard for any beginner, especially if you have patience and don't expect the song to come out of your horn on the first shot.
I have done this literally thousands of times with students of all ages and abilities, and even those with learning disabilities and those that think they are tone deaf.
This is really about learning to be patient when you practice, and following a system, like my HSP system, and working on it every day.
I bet you don't know how to play by numbers lol