That's the way I always listened to music. I'd listen and copy it. I play by ear so that's easier than reading.
The fact that I wasn't expected to read music at all and was absorbing everything by ear... it had a huge affect on the kind of musician that I became.
I learned when I started to study piano that I could play by ear. I could hear a song on the radio a couple of times and hear the song and the lyrics and sing it for you after a couple of plays.
I could sing in English before I could understand it because I phonetically learned it from the musicals.
My dad noticed some kind of talent on piano when he asked me to play a couple random songs on piano when I was 6 and I just did it. I attempted lessons but I was just so bad at reading notes. I would read "Three Blind Mice" by ear, so learning notes was almost impossible.
I'm blessed with a good pair of ears. That's how I fooled my piano teacher. I'd watch his fingers and I'd listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.
Today, with a recording, he can hear the thing enough times until he really gets acquainted with the language, and then he can begin to make an estimate of the intrinsic, aesthetic value of that piece of music.
I took opera lessons. I can't read music to save my life, but I would just copy and get away with it. I think that they thought I could read music, but I can't. I would just listen.
I'm actually - believe it or not, for an academic - an aural learner.
I took opera lessons. I can't read music to save my life, but I would just copy and get away with it. I think that they thought I could read music, but I can't. I would just listen. It was really me just mimicking. That's one of the reasons I decided I didn't want to do that anymore.
I didn't study anything really. I didn't learn out of the books because I couldn't read music very well, so it is what they say it is - you learn from other people. And my cohorts and I would sneak around the coffee shops and hear stuff we wanted to learn, and then you ask whoever was playing it to teach you.
Young children especially are receiving so much of the world through their ears and their eyes, particularly if they're pre-literate. So engaging them with sound, particularly sound that stirs them emotionally because of the sequence of notes, will make them pay attention.
I've never approached classical music in a formal way, ever. I couldn't read very well. I'd have to play every piece and internalize it, almost as if I had written it myself.
The music I heard growing up, since there was no TV or cinema or record covers, I didn't know if it was black, white, hip, square, male, female... whatever. I'd hear melodies and things and got intrigued on that level.
I never learned to read or write music. Never wanted to fool with scales. That was boring, forced. The music I heard was free - flowing.
All the high-tone, big-time folks would say, 'Isn't it wonderful how these untrained, primitive musicians can pick up all the latest songs instantly without being able to read music?
