Music is ultimately about what you are hearing isn't it? A ton of people forget this and spend too long focused on sheet music and actually I think if you are too focused on the page in front of you, a lot of musicians forget to craft the tone/volume and character of their playing. Maybe start off with a specific scale and then eventually graduate to the chromatic scale. This is easier if you have someone to play with who can give you notes. You can sit down at an instrument, give your self a "baseline" note (like play a C) and then play random notes without looking and try to figure out what they are. I recommend listening to music and practicing to pick out the chord changes and melodic lines. The fact is that most music is very simple harmonically, so once you have decent ability to hear chord changes, you can jump in on like 90% of stuff that might be played in "pop" music (pop in the big tent sense). But personally I find great enjoyment out of playing by ear and I think it's very helpful in terms of learning songs quickly and being able to jump in and improvise in any situation. Is playing music in general important? There are probably some great musicians out there who don't have great ear training skills and just play by reading sheet music. Whether it's important or not is up to you to decide. If you figure out you're in A# major and you're on the B string you should know how to play the A# major across all 6 strings. Is it the WWH or the And then you should know how to play that in a shape you are comfortable with. Does this sound like the tonic? If so try to play a major scale (WWhIf it was a whole step, similar process. If the half step works you know this was either 3 to 4 or 7 to 1. The major scale formula is WWh If it is consonant great! Try going up a half step if it's wrong go up another half step. And if you know that there's a half step between the 3rd+4th and 7th+1st notes. If you play a wrong note you are only a half step away from a right note. How does one get to that point? How do you practice ear training? I'm also curious to hear from people who haven't developed this skill, do you feel like it's holding you back? Can you manage well without it? I've asked them how they got to that point, and it's always a shrug and something like "it just takes practice" I don't even have to tell them what I'm playing half the time, they can just match it. I have a few jam partners that are like that. I've gotten by so far this way, but not gonna lie, I'm a bit jealous of people who can plug into anything just by ear. But if my bandmates play a chord, I can't figure out what they're playing unless I look at their hands or they tell me which one it is. I can hear if I'm not playing the right note. However, sometimes I feel that my lack of ear training is holding me back. I have an intermediate knowledge of music theory, I'm fairly confident in my abilities as a musician, I have a band and friends who say that I have a talent for music.
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