What does it mean to have a good ear?

[atticus]

Hi,

I often hear the expression from my teacher "he/she has a good ear."  I'm sure this means many things and I was interested in obtaining people's input on what it means to have "a good ear for music."

Thanks,
atticus

[adrian]

They have a well developed aural perception and are able to kind of,..Its a bit hard to explain..
In all my musical skills..I belive that MY ear is the best..In exams I do the best in Aural....I also play a lot of piano by ear and improvise

[quasimodo]

It might refer to two different skills :

- recognition of sounds (pitch). Having perfect pitch means to recognize any note when it's played. Having relative pitch is recognizing intervals (for example you're able to say what's the construction of a chord that you hear but not in which key it's played).
- memorization by listening : being able to reproduce music just by hearing it a few times-even once (which is not possible if you don't have at least relative pitch).

These skills can be learned by anyone but apparently some persons are more gifted than the average. Obviously the earlier a child is ear-trained the better...
 

[Bob]

yeah, like they said

... able to hear a melody and play it back.  Or plunk out a melody they heard long ago.  That would include rhythm.

... able to sing on pitch.

... able to sight-sing.

... able to tell whether something is in tune or not.

I've even heard it used to describe being able to recognize a piece or a style.

Lots of different meanings, just like "technique" or "color."  Basically, it means listening skills.

[adrian]

Does any one here have all them skills?  You know..perfect pitch,abilty to site sing?
Would you say its Rare to find a person who has those skillls?

[Bob]

I think everyone has the skills to some degree.  You can work on them to develop them and you get better.  Perfect pitch seems to be much more genetic or learned at an early age.  You can definitely learn good intonation (with or without perfect pitch). 

It's like speaking, reading, and writing in many ways.  You can be able to sing back melodies like a bird, but not necessarily be able to write them down well.  (and all the different variations of this idea)

There's also inner hearing, or being able to hearin melodies in your head (like you might be doing with these words).

[Sketchee]

I'm often told I have a good ear.  I'm sure they don't refer to my skill to play music just by hearing it, sight sing, determine intonation or determine pitch by ear.  I don't do any of these things in any regular circumstance and would consider any ability I might have average at best.  Intonation and pitch were more important when I played the trumpet as many different pitches shared a single fingering, but it was usually fairly obvious if you're playing too low or two high as there's at least a fourth between most of these tones.

I think in my case they must be refering to my ability to play piano expressively, hearing what I play and make adustments in tempo, voicing, dynamics, etc.

[galonia]

I agree with Sketchee - I don't think it's just about telling intervals and chord progressions and getting your melodic dictation right.  It has to do with voicing and tone and phrasing and nuances within phrases and how all the phrases link together and make the piece sound whole, rather than just a collection of disjoint phrases - in short, it has to do with expression.

[quasimodo]

Sorry, Sketchee and Galonia, but I think you're rather talking of "musical sense" than "ear". Musical sense obviously involves aural skills, but it's more about aesthetics. The "ear" stuff, in my opinion is at a subconscious level, while musical sense deals with a conscious intellectual process.

As a matter of fact, trumpetists and fretless string-instrumentists develop a very acute "ear" because they physically need to control the tonality.