Playing by Ear Quotes

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.

To play your colors by eye is worse than playing the piano by ear.

I started playing bass in my friend's band for some reason. It was just something I did because, well, he asked me if I wanted to play bass and he played me this song - Nirvana's version of "Molly's Lips", the Vaselines song - and he said, "You can do this! This is not hard!" and it's like a two-note song. I learned that and then I thought I was a genius.

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

Being called up by the Azzurri is a great source of satisfaction. There are so many strong young players with great personalities, and for me, it's nice to be here, even if I'm playing it by ear.

When I was younger, I was always a musician that could play by ear better than I could analytically.

I feel like I always had an ear. I have the ability and the gift to hear a song and really play it in a matter of five to 10 minutes and make my own version out of it. So it's always been easy playing by ear.

I grew up in a classical music household. My dad is a phenomenal musician who can play any and all instruments, can sight read, can play by ear.

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.

My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all.

I learned to play by ear before I learned music theory. For me, that makes sense. After all, children learn to speak before they read and write. The more you understand of music - how harmony and time signatures work, and what chords and inversions are - the more you'll enjoy it.

I never had lessons. Used to try to play to records, which I hated doing. Still can't play to them.

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 can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.

Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it.

Lionel [Richie] said, "Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums."

I wish I were more musically gifted, more intuitive in playing instruments.

I'm not a guitarist as far as a technician goes, I just pick it up and play it. Technique doesn't come into it.

I'm very specific about scripts that I like. I don't have a master plan or, like, a game plan. I don't have a chart that I'm following or anything like that. I'm very much playing it by ear. Certain things just happen and it's undeniable, you just go that way. But I don't have a specific path I'm following, I'm just playing it by ear.

I also went to art school and learned to play a piano there, but I play by ear.

I can't read sheet music, I have to just listen to it, and then just go for it.

I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear.