The eJam has been very entertaining and informative. It has brought out the many ways(combining talent & technology) we use to keep today's audiences entertained.

Putting aside playing over SMFs and MP3s, I am interested in another phenomenon I have run into all my musical life... and that is "Playing By Ear" vs. "Reading Charts".

My sister is an excellent player and can't play a note without a chart in front of her. I, on the other hand, can't tell a chart from a Rorschach Test. Consequently many of the chords or changes I play sound right (to me) but may not be exactly as written. Critics say she (my sister) is technically correct in her playing...and I have more "feel" for the music. Which is better?....I dunno... I wish I could read...but I am so thankful I can play and people relate to it.

Who here reads?
Who here plays by ear?
Who here reads and improvises from the charts?

Amongst those of us that entertain for a living...its an intersting point. Don't ya think?.

BTW... I often use the "Nashville Numbering System" while learning songs. It's what works for me.

What works for you?

Eddie

I do all three and I know there are other members in the group who also do so. The best solution is to employ all three methods. Start off by learning to read, then leave the printed sheet and play by ear. Finally, practice reading “charts” and improvise off them.

Of course, there’s more to it. Learning your chords and how they move in a song is important to “ear playing,“ improvising and memorizing.

You’re story hit a “chord” in me. In high school I had the same situation. My friend played by ear and I was being academically trained. While I played real well (so they tell me), every time I visited my friend I got jealous because he played circles around me. Years later I realized that because he didn’t read music he was forced to “play around” on the keys. So he was constantly full of arrangement ideas while I just “played technically well.” Now I’m glad I had the training, but I still sometimes wish I didn’t rely on it so much.

What is the Nashville Numbering System? What helps ME to remember songs is studying the chord progression in each one. Most of the songs move in predictable progressions (as in: All The Things You Are).

Lucky

Hi Eddie,
Slow day today, this is my third post.
I am an absolute reader.......and IMHO the perfect result is being technically correct and having a feeling for whatever you are playing. Both styles certainly have advantages and to combine both would be the ideal. Most non-readers I know want to play everything in C,(My brother drives his car in the key of C) and some music is better served when played in a different key. Some will say you can use the transpose button, but that is not the question, but it may expand this topic. In the meantime, to do what ever you can to the best of your ability, I suppose, is all anyone can ask
Ray

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Ray The Saint

Hello:

I only play by ear, I have been doing this for the last 40 years (I began playing pro VERY young, 12 yo to be precise),in a Restaurant in my home town long time ago.
I now use 2 arranger keyboards, and only styles, no MP3s at all, and as far goes SMFs, I don't use them, unless I made them for a specific situation.
I have learn to read chord charts only, Cmaj7, Fdim, Esus4, etc..Software like Cakewalk, Power Tracks, BiB helped me to learn.

Some of my friends and colleagues, have told me that I have perfect pitch, I guess I can hear in what key is been play X song, and I learn those songs with all the chords and most of them in the original key too, sometimes when I was the accompanist for a singer that the song was not in a suitable key, I transposed manually, that was when the then Organs did not have a transpose function.
When I have became very familiar with the songs I add more chord to the songs; and I guess that they are correct, since I have perform along side with a Jazz pianist in the area (as a duet and with his band too),and he ask me what chords I have added to the wherever song we are playing, he likes them, and he includes those chords in his arrangements.
I play in many keys, and of course, "C" too.

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mdorantes

Interesting thread...

I can read, but am not great at it. It's difficult for me now to play exactly what's written on the page, let's say.

For as long as I remember, I take a piece of sheet music or a fake chart and work off the chords. If its a tune I've never heard before I can sit down and grind through it, but with the aid of the internet, I can usually find a recording of it. Once I hear a tune a few times, especially if I have the chords, I'm able to put something solid together.

This approach works for me very well. However, when I was younger, I really liked bands like Kansas and ELP. I bought a few of there songbooks and immediately ran into a brick wall.

In short, that's the price I paid for never taking lessons, I guess...



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Bill in Dayton

I read and play by ear. I learned to read at a young age when I started piano lessons at around 5 years old.

Took classical piano for about 10 years, mainly a combination of Royal Conservatory and John Thompson Courses.

Learned how to play by ear when some friends wanted to form a band...fortunately they were all fairly good ear players, and even more fortunately, they had a lot of patience.

I then took the Yamaha Electone course, and after completion, I taught for several years, leaving to go work as a clinician.

I still read a lot, and play/practice a lot of piano...I mainly use fake books with the arranger, and like others have stated, I generally add some extra chords to a basic arrangement.

I usually use charts in the studio.

Ian

Eddie,

Great post,

I read music. 30 years ago I could read a lot better. Family, career and other life's responsibilities changed that and I'm not as adept at sight reading. Today it takes plenty of practice.

Ian, I too used John Thompson courses.

Forget playing by ear, my half hearted attemtps in the past didn't get me too far. I found it very frustrating to try to play by ear. My reading skills were better so it has always been easier to just read the charts.

I do some improvising from charts. In the last few years I have used fake books for arranger play.

These questions could raise another question, is it possible to learn to play by ear, if you don't have a knack for it? Do the advertised courses in places like Keyboard Magazine or on the net work?



[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 06-25-2009).]

I think I'm Bill's evil older brother - ditto for most of what he said. Today, at 59 I can read a lead sheet, a chart, a score and Nashville. But for most of my life if it wasn't a lead sheet or something simply notated, I struggled.

When I went to college, I stayed away from the music program like it was the plague. I knew I had a lot of talent and could play decently, but felt I'd have to start at the beginning because my reading ability was poor. I've always had people comment on my skills and style, then ask the ultimate question - "how do you do that without reading?" As we all know, it's a gift.

With my church job, I have worked to improve my reading to the point I can teach an SATB song, but can't play the accompaniment completely as written. The better the choir knows the song, the more I can concentrate to converting my arrangement to the written music.

Great thread - I'm heartened to see and hear that there are many more talented than me who also struggle with notation to some degree.

Great post and it's really what I'm all about. I, too, do all the above. You have to be a good sight reader to do things for community theater, especially the auditions where you might have less than 5 minutes to work up a section of a song with a singer you just met and hands you the music. You also need to be able to read chord charts, standard and Nashville, and lead sheets as well.

For our production of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" that we are in the middle of, I am using the Conductor/piano score which has piano but also the other orchestra parts here and there. I'm playing second keyboard so I'll be covering clarinets, saxes and occasional french horn, celesta and harp, where needed. That is all strictly reading but I think of some of it in terms of chords rather than written notes. On some of that theater music stuff where it changes keys so often, I have to stop and pencil in chord changes over then music because of accidentals and double sharps, etc.


As a last note, just wanted to remind everyone that I do and TEACH all three, have a music school and can teach online, so if anyone is interested in learning more skills in ear training, theory, chords, reading musis, or just about anything else, give me a shout. I would be happy to give anyone a free online consultation.

Jeff

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I'm a schooled musician and my early training kind of hurt me because I was so dependent on the written page. I still use my home made fake book and lead sheet cards for my gigs but I can improvise and figure things out by ear also.
A combination is best but the again, one of my favorites, Eroll Gardner, couldn't read a note.
Bottom line --does it sound good.

Bill NJ

The best way is by ear, as long as it is sophisticated enough to handle ANYTHING you throw at it. The trick here is, unlike what some are saying, it is NOT a gift, but something that can be taught and trained... While I was at music college, the first 30 minutes of every single day there was spent doing aural exercises. No pen, no paper, no nothing, Interval recognition, chord recognition, melody repetition, singing back what one heard, interval singing... These kinds of things can be vastly improved by practice.

Yes, I had a fairly decent ear going in to college (had some of this while I was at high school, and some of it WAS innate), but those years of sharpening my ear up first thing in the morning, I honestly believe, were possibly the MOST useful thing I ever got from attending college (this was an all classical college, no jazz or pop curriculum, so only technique really was useful when I went off to make a living playing popular music).

Reading is a double edged sword, particularly in pop music. If you want to be a session player, or work in larger, more formal outfits (pit orchestras, bigband, show backing, etc.), you MUST read, but the worst thing is if you ONLY read. Written music is only a GUIDE to playing well. It cannot truly tell you how to play something, it is just a shorthand for the notes and approximate timing and feel, that YOU have to interpret and make better. If you play any pop sheet or chart EXACTLY as written, it will be horrible

So, unless you CAN play by ear as well, knowing charts only gets you half way (barely!) there...

Trust me on this one, guys. If you can't play by ear, and resort to rote charts to get you through, don't give up. You CAN develop the skill of playing by ear. BUT.... it takes time. Just as you spent YEARS learning to play the piano well, it takes a long time (depending on how hard you practice) to train your ears up as well. But the rewards are MORE than worth the effort. You weren't born a great player. You had to work many years to get where you are. Put that kind of time into ear training (and it will pay off from day one) and after a while, you won't need your charts at all.

But at least you'll be able to read them when you DO need them...

Here is Tom River's introduction to the Nashville Number System. http://gospelmusic.org.uk/resources/nashville_numbering.htm

He doesn't mention minors, Augs, Dims and such, but you can add those designations to the numbers.

Eddie

Started off as an "ear only" player, but needed to sight read when I worked as a staff session player.

Diki is right...both skills are needed, but it's easy to rely on charts. The hardest thing to do for me is throw away the "crutch".

I have some old yellow cards on my piano. They are songs I never learned to play from memory.

I'll never learn them until I either throw away the card or it simply dissolves from old age. Some are old enough to be written on parchment or tree bark!


Russ

[This message has been edited by captain Russ (edited 06-25-2009).]

I'm with Diki here, you can train your ears.

I've been playing by ear for as long as I can remember, but also had classical training from 7 to 20. What I found was, despite thinking I'd got quite a good ear, I couldn't "hear" anything too distant from classical chord structures. I could tell that my version of a chord was different but couldn't work out what the difference actually was.

However, playing with a band who had good transcriptions of "modern" pop and light jazz numbers (we are talking early 80's here) introduced me to the wonders of diminished, 9ths, 11th, etc with added extras and bass notes that sometimes seem random. After sight reading such things for a few months I discovered I could hear them as well.

I think I'm really an ear player with adequate for most things sight reading capability. If I'm reading something that gets beyond my technique I start to play the tune as my ears remember it whilst checking as I go along that I'm not deviating grossly from the notes that I should really be playing. I find most singers will forgive small excursions in notes so long as you keep the feel and get any hits and suchlike exactly in the right places.

I'm completely by ear. Though I am very familiar with how printed music works.
When I was in school, I learned braill music, but what a complete pain. Especially for me, who has perfect pitch and a good ear. The problem with braille music is that it has to be memorized first anyway, unless I could learn to read with the tip of my nose or something as my hands were on the instrument. So, if it needs to be memorized anyway, in my case it was much easier to learn by ear.

Another of my teachers, wanting to make sure I understood how music worked, insisted upon dictating my music to me on a tape, rather than playing the part. It would go something like this:
"first measure, quarter G, second line, Tied 8ths' F first space E first line," etc etc. Talk about a long and tedious way to learn a tenor sax part for band class.

Now that I'm in Nashville, I have a good head understanding of numbers, so I can talk the same language as the other people I work with. My only problem is a minor song. I'm used to the root of the song being 1, period. So when a song is in G minor, all the Nashville guys think of that as 6 minor of B-flat. Whoever heard of a song being in the key of 6? So 2-5-1 into G minor is actually a 7-3-6. That's just wrong.

I do all three. I never play in public with music in front of me. Eye contact with the audience is imperative to what I do. I learned to play first by ear. I picked up the reading because of my church work. I also studied music in college. I can play pretty much anything I hear. However, I will sometimes check out the chart for the correct changes and voicings.

Joe

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Songman55
Joe Ayala

Wow! Great topic ... actualy discussing music rather than the next best arranger!!!
Question for all. When the "Chart" calls for a 13th do you play it with your left hand (I'm talking arranger now) or will you simply play a 7th and embelish with your right hand???
I learned to read early on and fare quite well. Even at the age of 58 would like to work on playing better by ear!!! I feel it is absolutly essential to have the ability to play by ear and I do not do it well.