By Mandi Weems
|
Subscribe
to Free Piano Sheet Music
I will not spam you or rent,
sell or pimp
your email address. I 100% respect your privacy.
Copyright 2008 © - Free
Piano Sheet Music.
|
When you pick up
and instrument, especially the piano, there is much to learn before
you can truly play some of the greatest works ever written. Some
musicians have the wonderful ability to play something simply by
hearing it, while others have to work at it constantly reading sheet
music. During music studies, everyone learns about those amazing
composers, such as Mozart, who played and composed great works
without ever looking at sheet music when they began to play. But,
how do you learn to play by ear like the greats do? Do you learn
with sheet music or do you try to learn by ear? And, what about the
piano and music teachers? Should they teach beginning musicians to
learn by sheet music or should they teach them to learn by ear?
There are advocates for both sides, as there are people who have the
ability to learn both ways.
Every piano
player, and musician in general, needs to learn how to read sheet
music. It doesn't matter if you are playing for yourself or a
concert hall, dabbling or composing, a good musician knows how to
read sheet music. Learning to read sheet music will help you in
your musical career by allowing you access to every piano work out
there and allowing you the ability to compose or write any type of
music you prefer. Sheet music also helps improve hand-eye
coordination and will help you to instantly translate what notes are
and what they sound like. Knowing how to see, hear, and play music
will help you later learn by ear when you simply hear a piece of
music.
There are people
who learn both ways, just like there are music teachers who will
teach both ways. For intermediate or advanced piano players,
learning by ear will be easier and come more naturally to them,
especially since they have been playing for a while and already know
the notes and sounds. But, most music teachers will have you learn
by sheet music first. You will hear the notes, as well as see them
on paper in front of you, so you can begin to memorize them and be
able to identify them as you play. Beginning piano players will be
able to learn notes, sounds, pitches, and finger positions on the
keys by learning from sheet music before they begin to learn by
ear. There are literally thousands of works to help new piano
players learn the fundamentals of piano playing that will give them
the ability to learn by ear later in their career.
The music
teachers who will teach you by sheet music first will normally start
with scales and positions so the beginner can learn how everything
sounds and where it is. From there, beginning piano players will
move on to more complicated works that will help them to learn
strains, chords, and more. Once a piano player has the basic notes
and sounds down, it will be easier to pick up music by ear.
Learning to play by ear can take years for some people to master,
while learning by sheet music is fairly easy to master once you
learn how to do it.
Once a piano
player learns to read by sheet music, they can pick up any work and
learn to play it. Even those extremely complicated works can be
learned when practiced enough. Other works can be perfected and
played over and over until they are memorized, and a budding
composer can begin to write their own music since they now know how
to read the music and play it as well. But what about those
naturally talented to play the piano, doesn't it just come to them?
There are always
those musically gifted people who can sit down and pick out a melody
simply by ear. For these musicians, they learn better by ear, since
their brain is predisposed to learning the sounds instead of the
written works. These players will need a piano teacher who can
teach them to play by ear, and then to read music. Most people who
are naturally talented to play music by ear will sometimes have a
hard time learning to read sheet music, so they will need a teacher
who is strong in both to help them become a well-rounded musician.
There are great learning tapes and other piano techniques that you
can use to learn by ear as you begin to master this area of piano
playing.
Learning to play
by sheet music and then by ear is one of the great traits that any
piano player can master if they work hard enough at it. Most of the
great jazz piano players of the past had to teach themselves to play
the piano and then learned sheet music. And, most jazz piano
players of modern times learn the opposite way. But, no matter
which way they learned, being a great jazz player means that you
have to learn to improvise, and you cannot do that without being
able to play by ear. Improvisation is something that comes after
years of practice and study, and once you are able to master it on
the piano, you can play anything, with any group of musicians.
How you or your
students learn will depend on their natural talent and what they
aspire to be in their musical career. Every musician should learn
to play from both sheet music and play by ear, to give them the
ability to do anything that they want with their piano. No matter
what you want to do with your abilities to play the piano, you
should be able to learn from both sheet music and by ear, so you are
able to work and play in any situation. Being able to learn from
both sides is a great way to become one of the well-rounded piano
players who can pick up and play any piece of music.
Christopher Carlin is the founder of this website,
Free Piano Sheet Music.
IS IT BETTER TO LEARN WITH SHEET MUSIC OR BY EAR?
