Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about when to listen to recordings of music you are learning. I know a lot of students like to listen to a bunch of recordings of a piece to get familiar with it before they start learning it. Then as they’re learning they keep listening and listening. Maybe they find one performance they particularly like and just listen to it incessantly. Naturally, they’re going to imitate that performance. There are two reasons why I don’t recommend doing this. Listening to performances to see what music you’re interested in learning is great. Of course listening to music is enjoyable and valuable. However, when you want to learn a piece of music, you don’t want to be highly influenced by any one particular interpretation. Also, you want to challenge yourself to see if you can learn something from the written page and see what you come up with. Naturally, there are styles of music where learning by ear is the best approach when the sheet music is incidental to the original performance or recording.
When I start working on a piece, I don’t listen to any recordings at all!
I learn the whole piece until I have it on performance level. At that point I’ve carved out a concept of how to play that piece. That’s when I first listen to recordings. That way when I listen to those recordings, they don’t overly influence me. I get a different take, but I come to my own conclusions about the music, and I think you should do the same thing. This method really helps you to understand how to decipher rhythms, phrasing, expression, not to mention the notes of the music, and to come to an idea of what tempo you like.
Give yourself the opportunity to find your own way.
If after you’ve learned a piece of music you listen to half a dozen recordings and everybody plays it way faster or slower than you do, you might rethink what you’re doing. Maybe there’s some validity to the common wisdom. Maybe there isn’t though. Have you ever heard Glen Gould recordings where he plays tempos that are drastically different from other people? Sometimes that can be enlightening. So, go with your convictions! But the only way to have convictions is to not be influenced before you learn something. So. don’t depend upon recordings to help you learn pieces by ear because you’ll never be able to express your true inclinations of the music if you never give yourself an opportunity to explore them. I hope this is helpful for you!
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
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4 thoughts on “Should You Learn Your Music by Ear?”
In a very respectful way, I am going to disagree with your comments about ‘listening to a piece before you learn it”. Not having a background in classical music, I am now studying these selections at an old age. I need to know how the selection sounds. Need to hear other interpretations before I attack the piece. I listen to several Piano Artists before I dive into my practice. Your last comment about listening to a piece in order to play it by ear — don’t buy it. I am not listening in order to play by ear — I cannot play by ear. Just want to get an idea of how the piece sounds. Choir Directors will sometimes let their Choir hear an anthem at the beginning of their learning. Listening to a piece before I start studying it works for me. Maybe I am the only one.
Thanks!! gib rogers
If it works for you, that’s great! Being able to develop the ability to digest a piece of music without the aid of hearing it first is important to some people. There are several benefits to this approach. One is for people who play new works of music which don’t have any recordings to reference. If they never approach a piece of music without becoming familiar with it first by listening to other performances, they may not develop the ability to learn a score without that benefit.
For casual players, being influenced by other people’s interpretations may not be an issue. But for pianists who seek to develop their own unique voice at the instrument, hearing a piece before they can form their own concept of the work misses the opportunity for unique creative expression that can only come from one’s fresh impressions of a piece of music unaided by other’s concept of the work.
This reminds me of what Japanese who study Suzuki do. And other Asians in other circumstances. Under Suzuki, a very young child listens to the same recording at least hundreds of times. Then the child will pick it out on the violin or piano. The results is that Suzuki-trained (not educated) musicians who are very young may well play with apparent mature expression, but it’s all imitation, and not at all indicative. Even though the outstanding Suzuki student can bring tears to my eyes, I know full well that what I am hearing is a parrot, not a mind.
Incidentally, I do not recommend Suzuki to anyone. For the vast majority, the tedious method results in a loss of love for performing music, for life. And there are other methods which are much more effective in the long run.
There are some teachers who incorporate some elements of Suzuki training with great success. Listening to music a great deal can be very beneficial to developing an ear for music. However, developing the skill of learning a piece first without the aid of hearing it first many times can help foster good learning habits.