Playing by ear

[john in fla]

They DO scram... I may have forgotten to mention that

 

[LostCircuits]

How do you keep the cats in the room, mine used to run away as soon as the horn came out of the case? You must have a special technique.

My cats don't really like sax but my Pyrenees comes and lies down whenever I play. When I started cello again, he used to give me that look and leave but now he also seems to enjoy it. I assume I am getting better

 

[Dr G]

I know this is an old thread but I just found it. I play almost exclusively by ear Sometimes I'll look at the sheet music if it's available just to to figure out a particular phrase if it's hard to hear. I can't read fast enough to play an entire song from the dots. Two things that probably hinder my progress using this method are that : 1, as I hunt and peck I am forced to weed out all the wrong notes making the right notes harder to remember. The other thing is my attention span. One day I'll have "Harlem Nocturne" in my head so I'll figure that out. Two days later I have "Two Sleepy People" in my head so I'll work on that without ever getting Harlem Nocturne down pat. I'm a living room musician and my audience consists of three cats.

You make a good case for learning to read the dots enough to learn a song.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Everybody plays by ear. The dots just advise you what to play by ear.