Music As a Language
by Joseph Pingel This video by Victor Wooten is about as down-to-earth as can be. He talks about learning music just like learning language when we were babies. It’s very specific to a mind-set that all pianists would benefit from and is a good perspective to keep in mind playing music on any instrument. We…
A Well-Thought-Out “Improvised” Solo
The thing I really like about this video (besides the dancing), is that the Boogie Woogie Piano solo is totally all pre-thought-out licks (I count 22 different riffs he plays). Not to take anything away from his skills .. . he’s great, but he’s not all over the place improvising. He’s got a lot of…
Listen to Gilligan’s Island (Stairway To Heaven)
To play piano by ear is to play with creativity. Click on this rare song to listen while you’re reading this. It’s better than Zepplin, lasts half as long as the original and uses the art of imitation and creative license. The overall affect is for the listener to say “Hey, they ripped the theme…
Playing By Ear On My iphone
I’ve been playing my iPhone by ear listening to songs as I exercise. The playlist consists mostly of old 45s that say it all in 2 minutes and 56 seconds (to satisfy a 3 minute rule to get radio-play back in the 60s). Every hit was a slick story -start to finish- with stations playing…
Oh Shenendoah and Nat King Cole
There’s much to be said for simplicity when playing piano by ear. We like to overthink what we are doing. Concentrate on the essentials and you too can sound like a million bucks with the right direction.