It is surely very similar to 'my learning'. I have looked at the 'Piano Magic' site and I'm most impressed with the method. This is much more fascinating to me now as a new form, 'to me' of learning, what I always thought to be a 'natural sense'.
I would have to leave it to the professional posters to describe how you learn to recognize what sounds you hear and how to memorize them and tranlate them to the piano keyboard. So I guessed, probably incorrectly, that playing by ear was a certain method of playing along to the popular 'songs of the day'. I did speak to other pianists who were defined as Ear Trained and non had ever had lessons. Some of the pianos were really jangly as you saw on some of the movies those days. I then, at age 16 went to the bars and played for the singing crowd as accompianist. I had one workmate that was a super trumpet player and I used to go to his gigs where he played in a small jazz band. I loved the piano so much and we had quite a nice in tune upright then. I soon left all that simple stuff in key of C Major and used jazz improvisations and listened to a huge amount of jazz and swing on the radio and bought records, at least one per week out of my pay when I started work at age 14. When I saw song sheets I would see the written 'tonic sol fah' near the words for singers and did realize this was a way of reading a scale as a simple confirmation of a basic pop tune. When at school we used to have singing lessons and I do recall the teacher saying sing this a scale called 'Dou ray me fah so lar te dou' excuse spelling! I never had lessons except to say I used to take my younger sister across the busy road in York to her Piano teacher (1940's) and discovered that the simple music she was taught I could easily relate to the correct notes without reading. I only found out since reading posts on this and another (jazz) related Forum that you could be actually taught to learn to play 'by ear'.
Our house was always full of singing and music. I found I could easily pick out notes to resemble sounds I had in my head of the pop songs I heard from the radio and records. That was because my mother showed me what the little children's songs like 'Three Blind Mice' where as notes on the piano. I have been playing that way for some 70 years since age 7 or so. I thought that playing by ear was a natural ability. Second, if ear training would be useful, what methods/programs would you suggest? So can I get to that point through ear training?
But it's just sort of a general idea, I'm not really translating exactly what I hear in my head.
My question is two-fold: first, is it possible for someone like me to train my ears to get them "up to speed" so that my improvisations can be pretty much simultaneous with what I want to play in my head? Right now, I work off of a number of different scales and modes, and I have a good idea of what sounds I can get out of each scale and what effect any accidentals will give. After a lot of playing piano, a very small bit of computer ear training (until the 10-day demo ran out), and a lot of effort trying to plunk out tunes I heard on the radio, my ear has improved greatly but I'm still fairly slow to figure things out. I certainly do not have a naturally great ear, in fact I used to assume I was pretty much tone-deaf until I started playing piano again 2.5 years ago and realized I just couldn't sing well.
Step 2: Download this handy PDF document and find the age of your piano based on its manufacturer and serial number.I'm sure this has been asked before, but I've only been on the boards for about a month now. Find the name of your piano on the listing.įind where your number falls, and that will give you an idea within 5 years as to when your piano was built. It is highly unlikely that you will find your exact serial number. There are many brands that are difficult to find. It can also be found stamped into the soundboard under the strings at times. It can also be found on the “beams” of the plate stamped on the side. Or it may be somewhere else on the plate near the tuning pins. These are usually found on the “Plate” near the tuning pins between the bass and tenor sections as shown below. You are looking for a number like those shown here. It can also be found on the top of the piano when you open the lid on Upright Pianos.
Step 1: The serial number is usually found on the plate of the piano between the bass and tenor strings. Once you know the name brand of your piano, you will need to find the serial number.