How to find the melody?

[Denn]

Playing by "ear" in my opinion is a misnomer. Most play from memory. I read the sheet music (I have to do this as my memory is not the best now) and when I play out it is the songs in my memory that are played. If any of you listen to MY recordings on YT and try to copy them then you will make all my mistakes and then add your own. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ends up as Baa Baa Black Sheep. 😊
Someone once said to me "I don't want to play what someone else has written, I'll play what I think." Yeah!!

Play on and enjoy it. Whatever you think you are right. If you think you can, then you are right. If you think you can't, then you are right.
Kind regards, Denn.

[mikf]

If you memorize a piece that's not playing by ear. The true meaning of the term describes the ability of a musician to play a piece they heard (hence ear) without ever having seen any notation of any kind. Playing by ear exists at many levels. Most people can slowly pick out a melody, then memorize those notes but I don't think of that as playing by ear. As I described above, to be playing by ear you need to be able to fully play the piece properly in real time just from having heard it, or in the case of improvisation, just from what you hear in your head.

Mike

[Lefty]

The term "Playing by ear" has a whole range of meanings to folks. The meaning I see amongst pro players here is more akin to "memorized" than to "hear once and can play thru at tempo".

Best Regards,
    Craig

[mikf]

I agree, folks put all kinds of meanings into it - the term has been expanded into people's minds to mean playing anything without music. But classical soloists play whole concertos with no music and they are not playing by ear. They have it memorized so well it's almost sub conscious. It's not the same thing as playing by ear. Playing by ear involves your memory only to remember the piece, not memorizing the notes or chords involved in playing it.
As a pro I could play whole sets without music same way because I had played them all many times. But that's not really playing by ear either. But when I played in lounges people would ask me to play a piece I had never played before, and if I had heard it often enough I usually could. That is definitely playing by ear.
I once read that Mozart was so good at playing by ear he could hear a complete classical piece once, then play it perfectly.
Here is an article on playing by ear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_by_ear
Mike

[scannie]

Yes, Monja is a good example of melody that I play by ear on this video -I mean, everyone knows this simple melody. Btw. I played it in C key, so everyone can easily learn it. It's interesting...

Maybe a stupid question, how to play in C?
Is one specific chord the C major chord?

[andyg]

A piece being 'in the key of C' simply means that for the most part, it will stick to the notes in the scale of C and, most likely, finish on a C in the melody with a C major chord as the harmony.

You'll need more than one chord. Harmonies in a lot of tunes are based on the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of scale that goes with that key. In C major that would be C, F and G majors. They may need variants of those chords, adding a 7th to make G7, for example. And they may well use the minor chords based on notes 2 and 6 of the major scale. In C, that would be D and A minors. Many tunes will need more chords than that!

And there's a lot more to melody and harmony, scales and keys and how they relate to keyboard playing. Spend a little, find a keyboard teacher (not a piano teacher who may reluctantly teach keyboard - and often badly!) in your area or on line via Zoom. Better in the long run than floundering in the dark, building up bad habits that will be hard to shake off!

[DrakeM]

If you are trying to play by ear here is a great 17 video lesson series. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOxo6V7HTSc&list=PLKYNAd1fui_ioqWChSXRZzbzoOdtKgu34

Keep in mind you can TRANSPOSE the "chords" to every song you want to play into the key of C. By doing so, you will only need to LEARN one key to play on your keyboard (the key of C). That way you can memorize the scale quickly and generally you won't be using the black keys at all.

You can always use the TRANSPOSE key on your keyboard to sound like you are playing and any key you need or want to. Use the power of your HIGH TECH keyboard to your advantage. It will make learning to play more fun and you will enjoy playing it more often. 

Drake

[Divemaster]

 Thanks for the link to those video lessons Drake
Very helpful.

Keith.

[andyg]

Keep in mind you can TRANSPOSE the "chords" to every song you want to play into the key of C. By doing so, you will only need to LEARN one key to play on your keyboard (the key of C). That way you can memorize the scale quickly and generally you won't be using the black keys at all.

With due respect to Drake, the musician and especially the music teacher inside me are both screaming "Please don't do this!"

Playing in most keys is easy enough but, as with all things musical, you'll have to put in some effort to do some learning and practice. Learn the simple keys and scales - C, G and F to start with, then go further to A and D, Bb and Eb. That will cover an awful lot of material and you'll find that books published for arranger keyboard will stick to easy keys most of the time anyway.

The transposer can be very useful, I'll sometimes use it to add a 'lift' to the final verse or chorus of a piece. And it's handy when your sheet music is in one key and the version you have on CD or whatever is in another!

But it has some limitations and things can go awry when you start moving up or down too far. If the piece is in F and you want to play it in C, you can transpose up 5 semitones or down 7. The melody can easily be moved up or down an octave to sound good, but the chords can be very muddy down 7 or a bit 'squeaky' up 5.

[Ron]

I am not really all that surprised that so many on here are EAR players.  Maybe I was lucky in having classical piano lessons for 10 years when I was a child.  This enables me to sight read and play almost everything in the written keys.  Well done to all who manage to perform well only by ear technique.  Playing from memory is another useful tool but was not something I ever tried as I could just put up the music.  I take my hat off to those who can sit down and just play. Never lucky enough to be able to do that. Now, too old to learn new tricks.

Ton

[BogdanH]

hello scannie,

Maybe a stupid question, how to play in C?
Is one specific chord the C major chord?

Maybe this video will help you understanding chords.
No, I don't think it's a stupid question.. otherwise I wouldn't make that video 

Bogdan

[mikf]

In fact I don't think many on this forum are truly 'ear ' players. They may not read music, but are really memorizing the song. They pick out the melody, learn the chords and repeat it until it sticks. Nothing wrong with that if it works.
But as I said in a previous post, that is not truly playing by ear. True ear players hear everything in their head, the melody, the correct harmony, the arrangement, and maybe even for very advanced players, alternative harmony - all while playing in real time. It is partly a gift, but can also be learned. But to do it well requires significant musical knowledge and experience, especially if playing songs with complex chord patterns.
In fact, even great ear players will use a combination of memory and ear playing. Some songs have very tricky harmony or melody in small parts, so they will often just memorize those few bars, but the rest they don't need to memorize.
But we are now an awful long way from dealing with Scannie's near term needs. Scannie, you are way back at the beginning  here, and just need to work through some basics. Then even your questions will be more informed. Learning to make music late in life is no easy task.
Mike

[mikf]

Maybe a stupid question, how to play in C?
Is one specific chord the C major chord?

Scannie, it's not a stupid question, but it is a question with no useful answer. It's like asking how do you do brain surgery - well you train to be a brain surgeon.
Thats why you need to get into lessons, and understand the basics. No one here is going to teach you how to play, not matter how well intentioned they appear to be. They can answer very specific questions about arrangers, like how do I save a voice or a registration, but not how to play. You have to either learn by yourself - not a great idea - or get lessons.
Some people here will tell you they managed in their golden years to learn to play an arranger without taking lessons, but hardly any of them started on the arranger from point zero. They either had taken lessons in the dim distant past, when young, but stopped, - or played another instrument, at least a little, - or had friends helping.

Mike

[pjd]

Hi Scannie --

I just got back into town and saw your question and the replies. The replies have good advice, but might be a bit intimidating.

Most how-to articles begin with the C scale (AKA "C Major"), perhaps because it's the easiest to picture and play (i.e., all the white keys):

https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/music-theory-notes-intervals-scales-chords
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/musical-tricks-transform-your-tracks

In the first article, you'll see seven chords (3 note triads) which use the white keys: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. Don't worry about the Bdim (diminished) chord right now, but try playing different combinations (progressions) of the C, Dm, Em, F, G, and Am triad chords. You'll find that zillions of songs are based on some combination of these chords!

And guess what! If you start with Am, you'll find that you can create minor key (sad) songs with this scale, too. That's why the relative minor key to C major is A minor.

Once you're comfortable with C major/A minor, try other keys/scales. The same basic theory applies.

Hope this helps -- pj

[RoyB]

From time to time, when reading a piece of music, I sometimes find myself having to look up on the Internet the notes for a less-common chord derivative especially if the music is in a more difficult key. So, having some spare time on my hands the past month or so, I decided I would write my own 'chord lookup' program. Once started, I thought it might be something to share with this forum if it would help others to develop their playing abilities, and it then developed into something rather more than a simple 'chord lookup' program.

It is nearing being completed and a sample screen shot is attached. It might look quite complicated, but it is really dead simple to use. Having made a selection from the area on the left (it starts up with the selection of 'C'), the program provides 2 sets of information. One is information on the CHORD of C, and then being able to select numerous derivatives of chord C from the section on the top left(middle) and to see the notes making up the chord in the keyboard section at the bottom.

The other is information on the KEY of C, which is shown in the box in the top right.

You will see that within the information section for the KEY of C are the most important chords for that key (as mentioned by AndyG and PJD) that fit well together to create nice sounding progressions (and forming the basis for much popular music), under the heading Diatonic Chords. Clicking on any of those chords will show the notes making up those chords in the keyboard section at the bottom. Under the heading Chromatic Chords, there are a further set of chords that also fit well together with the Diatonic Chords (which together would cover most popular songs).

As I said, the purpose is to help others (such as Scannie) to understand chords and chord progressions, and to help develop their playing abilities. There is little actual musical theory - I am not competent enough to instruct on theory (I had less that 12 months' piano lessons when I was about 8 years old, and nearly 70 years later much of the theory I was taught has been forgotten).  So the emphasis, together with a help tutorial and possibly a video tutorial, is on what works in practice, the significance of what I have referred to as Diatonic and Chromatic chords, and how to arrive at them for any key without knowing any music theory.

It is not far off being completed (just the help file and a possible video tutorial to do), and I hope it will be useful to some people. As far I as am concerned, if it helps just one person to develop his/her playing, then it will have been worthwhile.

Regards

Roy


[attachment deleted by admin]

[Michael Trigoboff]

Looking forward to its release.

[mikf]

Roy
If I may put a slightly different thought on chords, I believe that the reason people have so much difficulty in playing chords is because they think in terms of the individual notes in the chord, not patterns. When you think in individual notes ie what specific notes make up a chord, the problem becomes that you are trying to memorize an awful lot of information.
Basically, your really only need to know three basic chord shapes, major, minor and diminished. They are the same in every key. The altered and extended chords all have the clues in the name. A maj 7th chord adds the 7th note of the scale to the maj chord, a 6th the 6th note of the scale and so on. The augmented chord adds a sharpened fifth, the b5 adds a flattened 5th ..
When you think in patterns I think the the whole chord world becomes relatively instinctive. And when you are playing instinctive is what you need. When you think in terms of individual notes, you end up either trying to memorize too much, .......or always consulting chord tables.
If you go down the route of chord tables, you will be stuck in that groove for ever. When you learn to think in patterns, the light bulb will eventually click in, and it will all suddenly seem straightforward.
The real requirement is to intimately know the scales, which is why nearly all traditional lessons and practice emphasize scales, which may seem boring, but are the building blocks of everything in music.
Play scales every time you sit down to play. And if you find it boring, just do a few. Let's face it, most people learning arrangers don't play in every key. So just do the ones you commonly use, C F G, maybe Bb. Just do two octaves with each hand, major and minor. Takes less than a minute, but has huge benefits for every aspect of playing - dexterity, fingering, instinctive feel of where those extra chord notes are....
Mike

[Divemaster]

 What Mike says is very good advice, and how I start every playing session. With about 5 or 6 minutes playing nothing but scales and chords.
It really loosens up your fingers, gets you relaxed for playing, and helps me decide what to play.

For new players, a tip.

Playing basic Major and Minor Chords is easily remembered using the simple 4/3  3/4 method. That's all you need to remember.
MAJOR  is  4  3     MINOR  is  3  4.

Major chord for example: C Major
C +4 notes is E +3 notes is G   so  CEG.

Minor chord for example: F Minor
F +3 notes is A flat + 4 notes is C   so   F Ab C

Very easy to remember.

I play lots of chords. Some of them sound really good, but I've never been able to name them all. Just enjoy playing is key. That, and trying to learn something, no matter how small each time you play.
Over time it starts to fall into place. Never give up!

Keith

[BogdanH]

I'm with Mike on this.
In my opinion, chord tables, no matter how logically made, are useless if we don't understand chords in first place. But if we understand chords, we don't need tables anyway. Chord table is only a summary and as such, it doesn't really help learning.
And then, as a hobby musician (beginner), why would I even bother with some exotic chords that I will probably never use -they just add the unnecessary confusion.
I'm an amateur musician and honestly, so far I only needed major and minor chords for songs that I play.

It's not a shame to admit, that big majority of us (hobby musicians) only play in Cmaj key: we only use C-F-G major chords. And over the time, we additionally learn some other chord when the song requires it -that is, on the need basis. The goal is to play songs and not to learn all existing chords at once.

Bogdan

[mikf]

Keith
When people know the scale they can just remember major and minor chords are both notes 1 3 5 of the appropriate scale.
But your way is the 4/3 ...3/4 is also a very good way to remember the pattern - essentially a major third is 4 semi tones and a minor third is 3 semi tones. And a major chord is a major third and a minor third, a minor chord is one minor third and one major third, and a diminished chord is all minor thirds. It's all simple patterns,
The half diminished chord is always written like this - F#min7b5 - and can look intimidating. The notes following the scale method would be 1 3 of the minor scale, the flattened 5 th of the scale and the added 7th. Fairly easy to work out the notes without a table. But even easier is to recognize that it's a half diminished and their pattern is always two minor thirds and a major third.
It's all about memorizing only 3 or 4 patterns to do everything, instead of hundred of individual chords.
One thing that you can't get around though is how difficult these extended/altered chords can be to play on an arranger even if you know the notes to play. Piano players do this across both hands, so adding notes is relatively simple, but using lh chord drivers with a split on an arranger these chords can sometimes be really hard to finger.
Mike

[RoyB]

Mike and others

I agree with all of that, which is why the emphasis on the help tutorial part of the program will be on the KEY side of the program and practical chord usage and how chords relate to scales. I hope the program can be a useful tool to help learn and understand that, and help beginners to learn chords and to play in key scales other than C by seeing what chords work in those scales, and to help them learn those chords and use them in progressions. The working assumption is that there are some hobbyists who are beginners to keyboards and have little or no music theory knowledge, and who may not yet even be familiar with scales. The chord derivatives part is just a handy look-up reference for those (like me) who need to lookup chords from time to time for some chord derivatives in more complicated keys when they are used in sheet music (which is why I started the program in the first place for my own use).

The purpose of the program is to be a practical help tool, rather than a theory learning tool. So the emphasis of the help tutorial will be to demonstrate how chords relate to scales (using information from the program), how easily to get to the diatonic and chromatic (secondary dominant) chords (without getting bogged down in music theory) and why they are important, and then give simple practical examples of how they are used in chord progressions (I hope to give one example of a very popular song from the 1960s where all 6 of the diatonic and chromatic major chords shown, plus some of the minor chords, or their 7ths, are used just in the first verse).

Another aspect I will be promoting in the help/video tutorials is to practice using the chord inversions shown in the program, and I hope to demonstrate the practical benefits of chord inversions in the tutorials.

Regards

Roy

[RoyB]

Mike

Your point about some chord derivatives containing too many notes to play with one hand is noted in my program for those derivatives, meaning that the only way of attempting to play some of them on an arranger is by missing out a bunch of notes, and perhaps playing them inverted as well.

[mikf]

Roy, that's great but I always get concerned when people mention theory. The fact is that unless you are trying to become an orchestrator or arranger or concert pianist, playing music is largely about understanding simple patterns. That's all most people need, and what they should concentrate on. Theory makes it sound much more of a challenge than it actually is. For example there is no need to understand what chords are useful in which keys once you grasp that there are actually only 3 main chords and they are exactly the same pattern of major and minor thirds in every key. Similarly chord progressions in popular music are repeating patterns, with occasional exceptions.
When people fail to see this as a small number of patterns, music can seem like a tsunami of data, hundreds of chords, thousands of songs and become very intimidating. But when you think in patterns it becomes much simpler.
Mike

[RoyB]

Mike

We are on the same page. That is why the program and its tutorials together concentrate on the practicalities and are light on theory, and why they demonstrate how to arrive at the main chords and chords patterns and progressions for any key without having to know any music theory beyond what a chord is. Hopefully, in time, it would all become instinctive.

My own experience is that, after finishing my brief piano lessons at the age of 8, and before I moved on to home organs and then arrangers, for 25 years I played piano at home in my own way in a hybrid fashion, a mixture of playing by ear, playing by copying and playing by reading music. Although my early piano lessions taught me to read music (as long as it isn't too difficult), I tended not to stick to it and ended up improvising the left hand part around what was written. During this time, the type of chord patterns and progressions you talked about did become instinctive. When I listen to a song, I can sketch a visualisation of the chord progression in my head from how it sounds - it may not always be 100% at the beginning but it will be close.

I also developed a habit of playing chord inversions instinctively to transition between chords, and I use chord inversions alot. I was not aware of it at the time, but I now understand that it is a technique known as 'Voice Leading'.

[robinez]

I started Simply Piano this month.
I'm surprised about the results.

I tried Flowkey before.
But for me it wasn't the help I needed.

lot's of good advice in this thread, but also advice that suits the more experienced players.

Personally I think that you started in a good way by starting to use simply piano. But I got the feeling that you stopped with this, which I can understand. I would advice you to go use the Yousician app, It's less serious than simply piano and more gamification elements to keep you motivated.

[andyg]

AI Fingered Mode can be your best friend for altered and exotic chords, of course, as well as tricky runs of simpler chords. But... you have to understand how it works! I will get around to writing that definitive guide at some point, but I'm still learning what it can do after 20 years!

Example: C7b9 - C G E Bb Db, can be played as Bb C Db E
               F9 - F A C Eb G, can be played as A Eb G
               G13 - G B D F A E, can be played as F B E

And I'd recommend going past simple chords, as and when you're ready. b9s, #5s, m7b5s etc all add a lot of character to a piece and often prevent a clash between chord and melody.

[pjd]

The fact is that unless you are trying to become an orchestrator or arranger or concert pianist, playing music is largely about understanding simple patterns.
...
Chord progressions in popular music are repeating patterns, with occasional exceptions.

Amen. A lot of folks on the Forum just want to have fun making music -- not take a seminar on music theory. 

All the best -- pj

[KurtAgain]

AI Fingered Mode can be your best friend for altered and exotic chords, of course, as well as tricky runs of simpler chords. But... you have to understand how it works! I will get around to writing that definitive guide at some point, but I'm still learning what it can do after 20 years!

Example: C7b9 - C G E Bb Db, can be played as Bb C Db E
               F9 - F A C Eb G, can be played as A Eb G
               G13 - G B D F A E, can be played as F B E

And I'd recommend going past simple chords, as and when you're ready. b9s, #5s, m7b5s etc all add a lot of character to a piece and often prevent a clash between chord and melody.

All three examples also work for me with the normal fingering type "Fingered" (i.e. without "AI") and even with "Multi Finger". So no AI mode is necessary for this.

As I understand "AI Fingered", a special feature is that you can easily play slash chords without having to double the bass note in the octave (is that the correct way to express it in English?).

An example that only works with AI Fingered:
C/G can be played as G C

This makes it easier to play bass lines.

Kurt

[BogdanH]

AI Fingered Mode can be your best friend for altered and exotic chords, of course, as well as tricky runs of simpler chords. But... you have to understand how it works! I will get around to writing that definitive guide at some point, but I'm still learning what it can do after 20 years!

Example: C7b9 - C G E Bb Db, can be played as Bb C Db E
               F9 - F A C Eb G, can be played as A Eb G
               G13 - G B D F A E, can be played as F B E

And I'd recommend going past simple chords, as and when you're ready. b9s, #5s, m7b5s etc all add a lot of character to a piece and often prevent a clash between chord and melody.

That's an example of a post that, in my opinion, scares away every hobby/beginner musician in this forum... and makes him feel inferior. The thing is, only those who already know such exotic chords understand what you're talking about.
Being at that, I think that "AI" fingering modes are meant for advanced musicians. We first need to learn how to properly play normal chords by using normal Fingered mode.

Just my opinion,
Bogdan

[andyg]

If you've read some of my many posts about AI Fingered Mode, one of the things that I emphasise is that it's 'transparent' to ordinary chords and you can start simply and it will grow with you.

My advice is, and always has been, that unless you need MultiFinger mode, you may as well switch to AI.