Lots of people try to learn musical instruments, whether as a hobby, as a young child trying to find their interests, or as a sort of New Year’s Resolution or similar self-help method. However, lots of these very same people either find it hard to learn what they’re doing and end up giving up. I saw this was a widespread struggle and decided to do something about it.

As such, I’ve compiled some different advice from different musicians on whether you should learn by ear as opposed to the traditional methods of learning scales and theory and how to read music.  For the sake of those who may not know what I am talking about, there are primarily two methods to learning a piece of music. To take the more traditional approach is to look for sheet music for a piece of music, whether online or on paper, and read the music and perform it that way. Some people who learn this way also primarily spend their practice time focusing on scales and other technique exercises, arguing that because all of music is built around these exercises and scales that they will be able to learn new songs faster upon reading them because they already have the building blocks. 

However, this is not to say that people who learn by ear do not practice scales or cannot use them. Lots of people who learn their music by ear still know their scales really well, because if they can determine what scale the tune is based on, they will be able to limit the number of notes that they have to discern from. Regardless, the way that people learn by ear is by turning on the song they want to learn, listening intently to the part they want to play, and slowly picking it out until they can hear the full melody in their head. At this point, it is all about how well you know your instrument and how efficient you are at finding the notes you hear. What’s ironic to me about this though is that when I learn by ear, I don’t listen to them playing and think, “Oh, that’s an E-flat.” I simply hear what it sounds like, then try different things until I find what I have to do to get my instrument to sound the same way. Now, if you have been playing your instrument for any stretch of time, you will understand where some notes will sound high and others will sound low, at which point you simply have to try different notes within that region to find the right keys or frets or whatever it may be.

Although a lot of people think they are not capable of learning music, if you can listen to music, you can learn to play your favorite songs and even music as a whole. For people who are overwhelmed by the idea of scales and music theory and reading complex music on a page, learning by ear is a great method of learning music. Learning by ear is an effective way to play and learn music on an instrument.

I have personally met people who only play by ear, or do so as much as they can. For example, one of my friends that plays the saxophone really likes listening to saxophone jazz music and wants to learn to play like them. More often than not I would see him in the band room in the mornings, headphones on, listening to whichever tune he wanted to learn today, playing away, searching for the notes to the main solo he wanted to learn, whether on the saxophone or the piano. Sure enough, after sticking to the same tune for long enough, he would be able to play out the solo as if he was the one to record it.

If you can sing/whistle/hum a melody, you can play it.

One of the lead guitarists from the church I go to told me that the only way he learns new songs for a Sunday morning worship service is to listen to the tracks and learn the guitar parts by ear. I was absolutely dumbfounded by this at first, especially since I came from a wind band, so all we ever did was read music. However, as I have progressed at playing the electric guitar and have participated in more and more marching band performances (where I most certainly forgot the memorized music) I have learned to listen and to be able to find the notes that people around me are playing. Even if I can’t play it as well or as fast as them yet, it is still progress towards learning whole songs by ear.

Learning basic melodies over time will make you at least somewhat good at your instrument. You can get good at an instrument by just learning a collection of songs. I did not believe this when I first began playing saxophone, so I took the other route and learned lots of scales and technique exercises in order to put together the building blocks of music so that I could quickly pick up more songs in the future. However, this is simply not the case. In the words of King Solomon, “There is nothing new under the sun.” What he is saying here is that anything that people do has been done in some shape or form before. This can also be applied to music, as lots of musical patterns get heavily repeated. Take for example, the ABC’s song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. They have the exact same melody, but different lyrics. Yes, these are simple kids’ songs and mainstream music doesn’t quite work the same way, but the principle still applies. There are only so many different intervals and patterns that one can play within a certain key, and so lots of melodies can sound very similar to another one, but not be a direct copy or even inspired by it.

Hardly anyone has perfect pitch, and so it would be very hard for the average person to hear a piece of music and play it back perfectly.

While it is true that most people do not have the ability to hear a musical note and recite what the pitch is or even play it back when they’re first starting out, the ability to quickly find a heard note on your instrument and eventually an entire melody becomes developed with time.

Anyone who has looked into learning music before will know that lots of people argue that to learn music you must learn scales and music theory and practice repetitive exercises to become better.

While I will concede that these scale patterns/exercises and theory concepts do improve your music ability much faster than simply learning songs ever will, because music is built out of these scales, I would argue that you can also get by just fine by only learning individual songs, especially if you are just learning for fun and have little aspirations of performing for money. To quote the legendary lead guitarist of Polyphia, Tim Henson, when asked about reading sheet music vs. playing by ear, “I personally think that learning by ear is a bit more important, as, you know, if you’re thrown into a performance with other musicians. And maybe there’s no sheet music, playing by ear, you’d be doing it no problem.” In essence, he is saying he does find value in being able to read sheet music, but he thinks that being able to play by ear is so much better because you can really use that skill at any time, especially when there isn’t any music to read.

To sum it all up, learning by ear is a very effective way to learn music because it can teach you how to be a more musical player, you will not “get behind,” so to speak, and it makes you more flexible as you can just pick up the melody and join in at any point in time.

Tyler Clotfelter

I am a high school student, an avid saxophonist, and play video games on occasion, though not very often. I have one brother and in the little free time I get I choose to practice saxophone.