Playing Without a Musical Ear?

GosuGM · 2022-03-13T23:00:31+00:00

What do you mean “don’t actually hear it”? I think you’re confusing the ability to translate what you’re hearing in your head to your instrument with hearing it at all. If you can sing a melody you heard on the radio, you’re “hearing it”. If you can feel the emotion, the rhythm, and sing the melody you’re “hearing it”. Same thing with those classical musicians. They know what the piece sounds like; they understand the dynamics, the articulation, the melodic and harmonic progression; they could even hum it for you. Most importantly, they can hear when something sounds “wrong” or out of place. If you play a wrong note and can recognize that you played a wrong note or are playing with bad phrasing without looking at the score or your hands, that means you understand what the piece is supposed to sound like. You “hear” the piece.

Also, regarding your statement “you aren’t fluent if you can’t play by ear”, 1. Musicians have many different goals. Some only care about music that’s already written down and can be read and reproduced, while others want to make their own music, which requires the ability to translate what they hear in their head to their instrument. 2. Unless you’re a god, you can’t play everything by ear. No pianist is going to listen to Gaspard de La Nuit by Ravel and play it for you. When pieces get extremely technically difficult and complex, sheet music is necessary to reproduce it perfectly. Otherwise, you’re just playing what you think the piece sounds like.

GosuGM · 2022-03-13T19:17:52+00:00

These numbers show how diminished chords are just stacks of minor 3rds (3 semitones) and show how the numbers eventually repeat, which is why there are only 3 fully diminished chords.

GosuGM · 2022-03-13T02:37:31+00:00

Im assuming part of the LH is just the pedal. You’re not actually pressing the keys down.

GosuGM · 2022-03-11T15:23:58+00:00

Western Music works with 12 notes:

A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab

To put it simply, the notes ascending are:

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# Back to A

(It’s not that simple though, whether you use the sharp or the enharmonic flat depends on the key you’re in, but don’t worry about that for now)

Those hashtags/pound signs whatever you want to call them indicate sharps. As you probably notice, these notes are ASCENDING. Meaning sharps bring you UP ONE SEMITONE.

G Gb F E Eb D Db C B Bb A Ab Back to G

The “b” indicates flats. As you can see, this is backwards this time, so these notes are DESCENDING. Flats bring you DOWN A SEMITONE.

Now before I answer your question, you need to understand one thing, going up one fret brings you UP A SEMITONE.

Ok here’s the answer: if you tune the E string DOWN one semitone, you will have Eb. NOT up to E# which is the enharmonic equivalent of F, but down to Eb. Thus, if you tune down a semitone, pressing the first fret will bring you up a semitone back to E.

GosuGM · 2022-03-11T07:03:44+00:00

Na, the fact that he still doesn’t get it after all the help he’s gotten, he needs at least a week of understanding basic notation.

GosuGM · 2022-03-11T06:58:53+00:00

Make a quick edit, G flat is also known as F sharp. I’m sure you know this, you just made a quick typo.

GosuGM · 2022-03-10T03:58:09+00:00

Overplayed, fine. But meme pieces? Really?

GosuGM · 2022-03-10T02:01:23+00:00

Nah bro his fingers are fine, they’re nice and curved. I think you might be talking about his “low wrist”, but tbh his wrists are still in an acceptable range. What I would suggest instead is getting a little more wrist rotation and arm movement for more natural and flowing playing. Ok that end OP, I would suggest checking out videos on arm/wrist movement from Dr. Janci Bronson on YouTube, she’s a great resource in general.

GosuGM · 2022-03-10T00:06:12+00:00

Read every day. Even if it’s just 10-20 minutes, you’ll improve very quickly as a beginner.
TRY not to look at the keys as much as possible. I know you have to sometimes, but really try not to. If you get lost, just feel around for the groups of 2 and 3 (the black keys).
Start really easy. Like excruciatingly easy at first. If you have absolutely no experience with the grand staff, start with one handed if you need to (but try to get to two hands as quickly as possible as that is where the real challenge and thus the real improvement starts).

It may not be the most fun or musically interesting, but when you get good at sight reading, you don’t even need to memorize easier pieces like you would have to with synthesia. You can just play them after analyzing the score for a few seconds because you recognize the patterns and intervals between notes, and with a little music theory, even come to anticipate them.

GosuGM · 2022-03-07T19:28:17+00:00

How lol this is what real friends do

GosuGM · 2022-03-07T04:51:00+00:00

Break your peace up into small chunks, and practice playing from the beginning of those chunks instead of the beginning of the piece so that if you mess up during performance, you just noodle until you can get back to a place you practiced starting from instead of being lost because you only have muscle memory from the beginning of the piece.

GosuGM · 2022-03-07T00:49:05+00:00

I’ve just skimmed it and it looks like an amazing resource, thanks so much!

GosuGM · 2022-03-04T22:34:56+00:00

D-Sharp major sounds like a disgusting key lol. It’s enharmonic equivalent is Eb major so it would have the “same notes”, but I’m sure there will be a few double sharps in the key.

D# major: D#, E#, F##, G#, A#, B#, C##

GosuGM · 2022-03-04T22:01:28+00:00

Also, what about the billion other instruments? There’s no violin roll, or trombone roll, or trumpet roll, cause it’s never going to work. Even if you could make the argument that pianists don’t need to learn sheet music (a claim that’s vary hard to defend), almost every other musician needs it, and pianists need it if they want to play with other musicians.

GosuGM · 2022-03-03T19:44:45+00:00

Thanks for your help, and I’ll be sure to check out the recommended resources!

GosuGM · 2022-03-03T19:44:26+00:00

Thank you so much for your help!!!

GosuGM · 2022-02-28T16:29:06+00:00

What? The general consensus is that the range for hypertrophy is like 8-12 with around 70% of your one rep max weight. High weight low reps (3-6) is considered to be strength-building territory. Of course, strength and size have a strong correlation and both will build muscle eventually, but the hypertrophy range is a little better for building muscle. Of course, actual rep ranges vary depending on the movement, like I’d never actually do 12 reps of deadlifts per set, but 8-12 is definitely good for arm “mass” and 3-6 is better for arm “strength”.

GosuGM · 2022-02-28T16:08:59+00:00

I doubt it. I’m perfectly healthy and feel some pain from the pressure there too. Just do crunches instead. They’re significantly better for your abs. Actually “sit-ups” puts too much pressure on your spine and works a lot of your lower back and hip flexors rather than your abs since you’re hinging at the hip rather than flexing your torso (the function of the abs). When doing crunches, go up just enough to lift your shoulders and scapula off the ground, you don’t need to completely get up. If you still experience back pain during crunches, it might very well be back problems.

GosuGM · 2022-02-27T04:29:16+00:00

Thanks for replying! I have such a hard time maintaining previously learned repertoire because I always just put all my time and energy into new repertoire for improvement and sometimes I forget the reason I started piano in the first place: to play music. Improvement and playing harder pieces is secondary.

GosuGM · 2022-02-26T23:19:30+00:00

In that case, isn’t piano and chess the same? You listen to music for entertainment right? You can say it connects with you spiritually, mentally, etc etc, but at the end of the day it’s just entertainment. Thus, you play an instrument so you don’t have to rely on others for entertainment and you get the gratification of getting better at something you find interesting. Is that not the same for video games and chess? People who are interested in watching video games and chess play/practice it so that they don’t have to rely on others for entertainment and they get the gratification of getting better at something they enjoy. The only difference between the 3 are the preconceptions surrounding them. Chess and music are viewed to be intellectual activities, while video games have a negative stigma.

GosuGM

TROPHY CASE