Improvising/Playing by ear

[jamie_liszt]

Hey

I have never improvised or done anything, my teacher has never brought me up to sight read, improvise, play by ear. I would like to learn how to know a piece and just play it by ear, nothing over the top just simple chords, notes, something nice.

Where should i start, any websites that can help to teach me to play by ear, any improvising tips, anything would be useful.

Do you need to know your key signatures well? cadences? scales? arpeggios? obviously you need to know different chords and stuff, can anybody explain.

perfect pitch also helps right, anyone know if its possible to develop something like perfect pitch.

[henrah]

Every single baby is born with perfect pitch, but the majority of them lose it from not utilising it. It is impossible to develop perfect pitch, but it is possible to develop nearly-perfect pitch, or excellent relative pitch. What I would do is listen to a piece you want to play by ear, then go to the piano and play what you think is the starting note. If it's wrong, change it accordingly until you find the right one. Then keep adding notes, each time listening to them to hear if they sound right. Eventually you will have the song, and the more you do this the better you will become. It's best to first listen to the song in a different room then play the piano somewhere else, so all you have to rely on is memory. If you practice like that, I think it would come quicker to you.

[abell88]

Every single baby is born with perfect pitch, but the majority of them lose it from not utilising it.

I've heard this said a few times, but no-one says how they know this...I'm not saying it's not true, I'd just like to find the source of this idea.  (Sorry to hijack thread!)

[nightmarecinema]

Every single baby is born with perfect pitch, but the majority of them lose it from not utilising it. It is impossible to develop perfect pitch, but it is possible to develop nearly-perfect pitch, or excellent relative pitch. What I would do is listen to a piece you want to play by ear, then go to the piano and play what you think is the starting note. If it's wrong, change it accordingly until you find the right one. Then keep adding notes, each time listening to them to hear if they sound right. Eventually you will have the song, and the more you do this the better you will become. It's best to first listen to the song in a different room then play the piano somewhere else, so all you have to rely on is memory. If you practice like that, I think it would come quicker to you.

This is an excellent way to develop relative pitch, and an een greater way to develop pitch memory. Hoiwever, it won't do much for your perfect pitch.

[casparma]

I think Henrah's suggestion is great...


In fact, after two years of piano studying, sometimes I got the urge of trying out the notes I had heard from the audio CD of music that I played on the piano, because I just felt something about the structure of the piece.....

However, I thought this can improove my relative pitch or perfect pitch, but the music I played back then and I play now are actually "too difficult" for me to start with for pitch training in terms of the complexity of the harmony and speed.....

Does any one know an alternative to counteract this problem? I really wanna develop relative pitch........


thanks

[Derek]

I improvise a lot and I've never needed perfect pitch in even the slightest capacity to do so.

Relative pitch is good to have---but that develops as you gain experience improvising.


My advice would be to teach yourself some key with a bunch of sharps or flats in it and just start making up simple riffs in that. Try to memorize these riffs...maybe even record yourself at some point.  By riff I mean...lick...melody....chord progression (these don't need to be "correct" of course....if it sounds good then its good)....anything that is simple and easy to memorize.

They don't have to be good---they just have to be simple, and your own. This is a pretty easy way to begin building an improvisational vocabulary.

As for advice on how to improvise BASED on a tune...I'm afraid I can't give much advice there...I make up all my own stuff.

However I should add that I've often picked out melodies that I liked...this has become progressively easier as I have applied the above tips over several years.

In fact...quite a few melodies I can just PLAY now (from hearing it once or twice or its in my memory)...I don't have to think about it very hard. So..anyway if you want more tips feel free to personal message me.

-Derek

[lostinidlewonder]

I personally improvise in 3 different ways.
1) Using melody/chords etc borrowed from other compositions.
2) Using building blocks of music chords/arpeggios/scales/chord progression etc and using them in my own choice.
3) Random playing where I forget about conventional musical building blocks and just immerse myself in controlling a random like sound.

All require thorough knowledge of the keyboard. So if you have to concerntrate when someone for instance asks you to play a selection of the hundreds of chords possible, you have to simply memorise more music. No easy way around it.