Play Any Song By Ear in 3 Simple Steps (Piano Lesson)
Summary
TLDRThis video script reveals a method for playing songs on the piano by ear, breaking the process into three steps. First, identify the key by finding the tonic, the home note that resolves tension. Next, use the major scale to determine the key and apply a chord formula to deduce the song's chord progression. Lastly, listen for bass notes to understand chord changes and use the major scale to play the melody, adding harmony by incorporating notes from the chords being played.
Takeaways
- 🎹 Playing a song by ear on the piano is possible and can be broken down into a three-step process.
- 🔍 The first step is identifying the key of the song, which involves finding the tonic or home chord.
- 🎶 To find the tonic, one can rely on their ears to recognize the note or chord that feels like a resolution.
- 📊 A practical example is given using an instrumental version of 'Sign of the Times' to demonstrate the tonic finding process.
- 🎵 Once the key is identified, the next step is understanding the chord formula for that key, which simplifies the process of figuring out the song's chords.
- 🔢 The chord formula is based on the major scale and assigns a chord quality (major, minor, diminished) to each degree of the scale.
- 🎧 Listening to the bass notes or root movements is crucial for determining the chords in the song.
- 📝 The script provides a method to practice identifying bass notes and applying the chord formula to figure out the song's progression.
- 🎼 To play the melody by ear, one should use the major scale corresponding to the song's key and harmonize it with the chords being played.
- 👂 Ear training and practice are emphasized as essential for improving the ability to play songs by ear.
- 📚 Additional resources like a piano chords and scale book are suggested for those who need more help with identifying chords and scales.
Q & A
What is the first step to playing any song by ear?
-The first step is to identify the key of the song by finding the tonic, which is the 'home note' where everything feels resolved.
How can you find the tonic of a song?
-You can find the tonic by experimenting with notes and playing the major scale over them to see which one fits best, indicating the key of the song.
What is the tonic in music?
-The tonic is the home note or chord of a song, where everything feels resolved. It is the first note of the major scale and provides a sense of closure.
Why is identifying the key important when playing by ear?
-Identifying the key is crucial because it helps you understand which chords and notes fit into the song, allowing you to play it correctly.
What formula do musicians use to quickly figure out the chords in any key?
-Musicians use a formula where each note of the major scale is assigned a chord: 1 is major, 2 is minor, 3 is minor, 4 is major, 5 is major, 6 is minor, and 7 is diminished.
Which four chords are most common in pop songs?
-Pop songs often use the 1, 5, 6, and 4 chords. In the key of F, these would be F major, C major, D minor, and B flat major.
What is the importance of listening to the bass root movements?
-Listening to the bass root movements helps you identify the lowest notes in the song, which can guide you in determining the chords based on the key.
How do bass notes help in identifying chords?
-Once you identify the bass note, you can apply the chord formula for that note in the key you’ve identified. For example, if the bass note is D in the key of F, the chord would be D minor.
How can you figure out a song’s melody by ear?
-To figure out the melody by ear, you can hum the melody and then play it using the major scale of the song’s key. The melody will generally follow the notes within the key.
How can you make the melody sound fuller when playing by ear?
-You can make the melody sound fuller by adding notes from the chord being played underneath the melody. This harmonizes the melody and creates a richer sound.
Outlines
🎹 Understanding How Musicians Play Songs by Ear
The speaker explains that while it seems impressive when musicians play songs instantly after hearing them, it's not as difficult as it seems. There are three key steps to learning this skill, starting with identifying the key of the song. This involves finding the tonic or the 'home' note where the music feels resolved. The speaker demonstrates this with an example using an instrumental of 'Sign of the Times,' playing chords and experimenting to find the correct key, which turns out to be F major. Through trial and error, they show how you can use your ears and musical intuition to find the tonic and key of any song.
🔢 Using a Formula to Identify Chord Progressions
In the second step, the speaker introduces a chord formula based on the major scale. Each note in the scale corresponds to a chord, and in most pop songs, only four main chords are used: the 1, 4, 5, and 6 chords. For the key of F major, these are F major (1), B-flat major (4), C major (5), and D minor (6). The speaker explains that knowing this formula allows musicians to quickly identify chord progressions and play them by ear. They also mention additional resources like a piano chords and scales book that can help with mastering these concepts.
🎵 Listening to Bass Notes to Determine Chords
The speaker explains that the final and most important step is listening to the bass notes, as these notes often determine the chord in the progression. By identifying the lowest note in the song, you can easily figure out the chord's quality. For instance, in the key of F major, if the bass note is D, the corresponding chord would be D minor. The speaker demonstrates this process by playing the instrumental track again, identifying the bass notes, and matching them with the appropriate chords to create the progression: F major, D minor, and C major.
🎤 Using Melody and Harmony to Enrich Your Playing
In this bonus section, the speaker discusses how to add melody and harmony to make the music sound fuller. By using the F major scale and matching it with the appropriate chords, musicians can harmonize the melody with chords from the scale. The speaker demonstrates this by playing a simple melody and then adding chords underneath it to create a richer, more dynamic sound. They explain how you can experiment with different combinations of notes from the chords to enhance the melody and make it sound more complete.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Tonic
💡Major Scale
💡Chord Progression
💡Bass Notes
💡Melody
💡Key of F Major
💡Ear Training
💡Music Analysis
💡Creative Flow
💡Harmonization
Highlights
The ability to play a song on the piano after hearing it for the first time is not as impossible as it seems.
The process of playing a song by ear can be broken down into three steps.
Identifying the key of a song is the first step, which involves finding the tonic or home note.
The tonic is the note where the music feels resolved and without tension.
Using one's ears to find the tonic can be done by listening for the home chord.
An example is provided using the instrumental of 'Sign of the Times' to find the home chord.
Music analysis involves listening for chords and identifying their positions in the key.
A method to find the key is by playing major scales and seeing which one fits the song.
The key of F major is identified as an example by playing it over the chords.
The second step involves understanding the chord formula for the major scale.
The formula includes major and minor chords in a specific pattern.
Pop songs often use a progression of four main chords: 1, 5, 6, and 4.
The third step is listening to the bass root movements to determine the chords.
Identifying the lowest note helps in figuring out the chord being played.
The tonic chord provides a sense of resolution in the song.
A bonus section discusses how to figure out the melody by using the major scale.
Adding notes from the chord being played can enrich the melody.
Practicing and using one's ears are essential for playing songs by ear.
Transcripts
You' probably come across a musician
who's heard a song for the first time
and can play it on the spot a lot of
times it seems like oh like only you
know keyboard Wizards or like really
Advanced people they they know how to do
that well here's a secret it's not as
impossible as it seems in fact I've
broken it down into three steps so that
you can listen to any song and know how
to play instantly on the piano so in
order to play any song by ear you need
to First identify the key so in order to
do this I'm going to rely on my ears to
find something called the tonic now if
you don't know what the tonic is tonic
is the home note it's the home chord
where everything kind of feels like it's
finally resolved there's no tension and
if you were to play your major scale
over it everything would sound like it
fits perfectly like a glove so we're
going to try this with an actual song I
have an instrumental of sign of the
times we're going to try and listen to
find out where is this home chord or the
tonic okay so off the bat we have some
piano chords so we have two chords
there and there's my third chord is
there a fourth
chord no it just stays on the third okay
so I know I have three chords right so
we're kind of doing a music analysis
right now and you can do this a couple
different ways step one is you can come
and just try and find find the notes
that sort of fit
like and if I come there's this notes in
it this not's in it this not's in
it and if I found okay where's h
[Music]
you kind of find the note that you're
looking for and you're going to make a
lot of mistakes you're going to hit a
lot of
sour until you finally find the right
one so this is one way to do it the next
way is to use the major scale so let's
try key of C if I
play it doesn't sound bad but it's not
100% right what about
D definitely not e
not the key of E what about
F that sounded really
nice and does it work over the first
chord over
[Music]
here we found it it's the key of f right
there and at such a dramatic point in
the song too we found the key so in
order to find the key I had a couple
different variations that I was going
with pick a note and start playing Major
SK
and find which one fits and you're going
to have a really hard time at first
because some might sound like they
almost fit like QC didn't sound bad but
the key of f sounded even better and
that's because those keys are really
closely related the tonic chord again is
that home chord when it finally hits
this F chord it feels like you finally
arried to a resolution in the song and
that is how you find the key if you
don't have one already download the free
pdf below all right so step two is
actually the real secret as to how
musician
figure out songs so fast because it's
all just a simple formula that you can
transpose into any key so now we found
out that our song is in the key of F F
major so I know my major
scale the nice thing is each one of
these notes has a chord that's attached
to it so let's give each one of these
notes a number f is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and we
get back to one again or number eight
here is the formula number one one is a
major chord so F major number two is
minor number three is minor number four
is Major five is Major six is minor
seven is one called diminish and we're
not going to focus on that too much
today and the last one is Major again
because you would just start over so
once you know what the formula is the
pop progression actually uses four main
chords the 1 5 6 and four and a lot of
your pop songs are just going to be
using those four chords so how do we
figure out what those are well one we
said the one was a major chord so that's
F the five was also major the six was
minor and the four was Major so now I
have four chords that I'm really looking
at we have one minor chord and the rest
are major so already this is helping my
ear figure out what are my chord options
in this song if you need a little bit
more help with them we actually do have
the piano chords and scale book that
will really help you out which shows you
every scale every chord all in this book
so if you need help with that make sure
you grab this book I'll leave a link
below this video the most important step
step three listening to the base root
movements and you might be like okay
what does that mean when you're
listening it's very important to know
what you're listening for and when
you're listening to a song we're going
to play that track again one more time I
want you to think of the lowest note
that you can hear aka the bass because
again in pop music most of the time if
you can figure out the lowest note you
can figure out what chord it is because
if I hear a
d I know that D in the key of f is going
to be minor if I hear a B flat I know
it's going to be major and if I hear a c
I know it's going to be major again so
if you can determine the lowest note
that is your secret weapon let's play
the song again and let's see if we can
he he what the bass is
doing so we know we start on
F so this one we have to find is it C D
or B
flat all right so this one sounds like
we're hitting it so there's our C note
right there and you can kind of
experiment you can hit like B flat first
not quite there it sounds like
that there's the D and then it goes down
one more it sounds
like and he could have gone down to B
flat again
I think he actually does that later on
at the very end of the song but it
sounds like at the beginning we're
staying between
f d and c and just by knowing those bass
notes that allows me to add the chord
qualities that apply to these bass notes
so f is the first degree so F major D is
the minor cuz it's the
sixth C is the fifth which goes a major
chord so now I have my progression which
is F D minor and C so let's try that 1
sounds
good there's D
minor and here's that
[Music]
c and now I just figured out how to play
the song by ear okay so listening to the
bass is absolutely crucial cuz once you
hear those bass notes you just apply our
dionic chords that chord formula and you
can start to figure it out
now there's going to be a lot of trial
and error when you're figuring this out
because if you can hear that low note
and you're like okay well there's an F
major chord but then you're not sure if
that second note was D or C then try a c
chord you're like oh and use your ears
as your guide you're like that's not
quite right it's really close but
there's the D minor and then it goes
down to C at the end and when it
resolves to our tonic our home chord
that's how you know what key you're in
and that's how you know how to play a
song using your ears all right so this
last part is a little bit of a a bonus
section but there's still one missing
ingredient is how do you figure out the
melody well that's where your ears
really going to come in handy because we
know the key of f so I know I have to
use my F major skill right if you can
hum it you can play
[Music]
it and it kind of does like a back and
forth thing right
[Music]
here I'm just using my F major scale e d
e d e d c c so what if I add the chords
to that right
now so that's just a single note
right but it kind of sounds a little
thin right how do I make it sound even
bigger well let's add notes from the
chord I'm playing into the melody let's
take it up an octave there's no rules I
say I can't so I can use a I can use C
or I can use F A and C I can use any
combination of this and this is where
you get to use your creative
flow there's a full chord just CN
F there's just a single
note so now I'm using G and C so why am
I using G and C well it's because
there's a g note in my C chord so that's
the secret fa A and C whenever you're
playing the melody with an F chord you
can use any of these notes same with D
Minor d f or a and you just play those
underneath the melody to hard harmonize
it and make it sound even bigger so if I
use this trick and I try and play The
Melody now it sounds like there's
Harmony in
there I'm using G and
c and then it sounds different every
time I play it let's just do single note
for a
[Music]
second now it's at the the sixth
it's sounding a lot more full all of a
sudden and that's that final step and
that takes a lot of practice all right
so there it is those are the steps that
every musician needs to know to play
songs by ear so happy practicing we'll
see you next time
[Music]
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