Why can my son play by ear and I can't?

[bernadette60614]

This isn't a serious life altering question, but I'm curious:

Our son sat down at his first lesson and picked out by ear some pieces he had learned three years prior while learning the recorder (which seems to be the requisite instrument for American kids.)

I've been studying piano fairly seriously for 3 years, and in my teens, fairly inattentively for 5, and I can't play anything more advanced than chop sticks by ear.

Our son also tells me "I practice in my mind".

So, to bring Seinfeld intonation to this: Hey, what's up with that?

Thanks!

[gr8ape]

Either you dont have that great of an ear, or your son has an excellent one, or a combination of the two. Is this the answer you were looking for ?

[quantum]

Your son has developed a certain skill set that enables him to play by ear.  Your own musical development has focused on various other skill sets, however playing by ear is one that needs more work.  Not to worry, it is something you can work at as well - you just need to make a conscious effort to do so.  It doesn't just happen out of thin air.

Do you or your son sing by any chance?  Singing can be a very useful skill in picking out tunes by ear.

[cwjalex]

is your son adopted?

[bernadette60614]

Well, he's a pre-teen so some days I think he was switched at the hospital!

And, yes, he does love to sing. He's always been in choir and he's always singing/dancing around the house.

[amytsuda]

What kind of pieces does he play from ears? I am wondering if you are comparing apple to apple. You may not play Schubert sonatas from ears, but you can play Mary had a little Lamb from ears? So if you forget all the advance stuff occupying in your mind, you can probably play from ears?

[bronnestam]

I was also convinced that I could not play anything by ear ... but this summer I went to a piano summer school and chose to take classes in improvisation, just because I sucked at this. In my first private lesson the teacher asked me to "play a Swedish Christmas Carol!" and I was like "huh??? I know no Christmas Carol by heart!" but ... well, I simply had to try something, and it worked (after many mistakes and try-outs, of course). After the lesson I sat down by myself and tried several other familiar songs, and I discovered that the more I tried, the easier it got (duh!)

Since then I think it is much fun to pick out tunes by ear. The "trick" is to hear the song clearly in your head, and it might be helpful to hum it while you work. I am a very untrained singer and I don't like to sing, but it is helpful nevertheless. I cannot play two hands by ear, just melodies, but that is a good start. My son loves film music and sometimes he asks me to play this and that theme, and he is delighted that I can do that - not with total ease all the time, but I can always figure it out. This is freedom! Now I can go to any piano, even without having my note sheets, and without having practiced, and just play something. Simple, but why not? If you think that you must always play "on top of your skill", you are some pathetic character.

Playing by ear also turned out to be useful when memorizing. Memorizing always has given me a hard time. If I have learned the piece before, I am stuck with muscle memory and it seems to be almost impossible to memorize it as sight reading is engraved in the process. That is, if one little detail goes wrong, the whole chain is broken and then I'm lost, and confused. But I discovered that if I can relax and play (HS) by ear instead of trying to remember the notes, then I find my way over the keys again. This assumes that I really KNOW this piece, of course, so that I can hear it in my head. And I am not at the stage yet where I can play HT by ear. 

So, stop comparing yourself with your son and just work with this. It is great fun and you will quickly improve. I would not recommend you to start with some advanced Bach fugue to begin with ...  ... try the "Dallas" theme or a Christmas Carol, or your national hymn or whatever you are very familiar with. Then try to add some chords - knowledge in music theory is a good thing here - and voilá! Enjoy!

[japzz]

one key to playing by ear is SINGING,I have the impression this is sometimes forgotten or neglected(I'm not talking about singing like a trained opera singer,juèst singing to get an idea of a melody).Everything you can sing,you can play....as far as your hands want to corporate.
On the other hand,to play something you cannot sing seems quite impossible for me or at least leads to very mechanical playing.
And the good point is that hardly anybody with a germ of musicality can learn to sing.

[quantum]

one key to playing by ear is SINGING,I have the impression this is sometimes forgotten or neglected(I'm not talking about singing like a trained opera singer,juèst singing to get an idea of a melody).

Indeed. 

Learning to sing in solfege is another useful tool.  You get to learn the character of the mode, making it easier to pick out where melodic fragments are placed within a mode.

[indianajo]

I've sung all my life, at least since Sunday School assemblies age 3.  I was a pretty good boy soprano in fifth grade choir.  That skill  has never helped me play by ear.  The notes in my head and the notes on the piano are totally disconnected. 
In my sixties I'm trying to play by ear, but I've backed into it from trying to teach my self guitar.  Guitar is all about chords, and hearing those chords on the guitar is the sort of ear training I needed to recognize them when sitting at the piano.  I can now spot III, IV, V, VI, dimVII chords just by listening. I don't have perfect pitch though, and am liable to start out in any random key on the piano, whatever key the recording was actually in. 
The second part of playing by ear, once you figure out the chords once, how do you remember them without writing them down?  Pieces I worked out last year, I can't play now because I haven't gotten good enough at remembering chord symbols or names or anything.  But I can learn, I'm not fossilized yet. 

[chopincat]

Might he have absolute pitch? Obviously that's not a requirement for playing by ear, but I know that I was able to play by ear at a young age almost definitely because of my absolute pitch.

[yadeehoo]

Play your eyes closed if you want to develop you ear