Great “How to” List for Learning Ear Training

6 min readMay 11, 2022

1st Question: What is Your Objective?

Now, more often than not, when people pursuit piano, it’s usually for the sake of actually learning how to play. And while in this case, that IS part of our objective, however, our main objective is to grow your general musicianship and marketability. For instance, if you plan to attend, or already attended music school to acquire a college degree you know that you’re going to have to take basic piano classes for the same reason you’re reading this blog, because it’s simply part of the job, or requirement to pass all the courses you’re going to take.

So, we know learning ear training is a key factor in developing your skill set as a marketable professional on any instrument so you can be versatile enough to play with anyone you want to. It’s a lot like learning different languages so you can communicate with lots of different types of people. Actually, ear training is probably one of the key goals for learning piano essentials because it opens and sets up incredible opportunities for other musicians to be aware of you and your skill sets.

Find a Mentor, Not Just a Babysitter

Finding a mentor in any of life’s serious pursuits is a great idea. It can save you untold amounts of time and headache. Even better, it can provide a great friendship over time. Piano teachers are a dime a dozen, so you need to make sure you find a teacher that’s going to suit your purpose. I don’t mean any disrespect, but there are several critical questions you need answers to in this particular situation.

You need to make sure they can play and teach you all different types of music, and not just “play at” it. For instance, the great majority of piano teachers don’t have a clue about playing jazz or blues. It’s pornography to them. What’s worse? Most of them couldn’t play by ear if their life depended on it. Being able to read music is a wonderful skill, but if you can’t play by ear 60% of the time, you’re going to lose huge opportunities.

Reading Music is Like Reading a Map

Look at it this way. Let’s say you just moved to a brand new town, and you’ve never been there. You have a new job, and you have to find your way from your home to your office. Of course, the first few times you make that drive you’re going to have to peek at the map. However, if you’re still using that map after a month you’re liable to kill you and maybe someone else if you don’t watch where you’re going. Well, that’s a lot how reading music is. It’s like a means of communication to figure out all the twists and turns the first few times you play it. After that, glance at it every now and then, but there’s a ton of communication going on between you and the rest of the band.

What Methods Are They Going to Use to Teach You

There are five primary methods for teaching piano. We don’t have time to discuss all five of the methods right now, but for this situation I would strongly suggest using a loose version of the Suzuki Method, which is based highly on using your ear. For example, when you’re a baby you learn to listen to speech before you learn to speak. Then, you learn to speak before you learn to read. And when you learn to read you quickly learn to read in phrases, instead of slowly spelling the word, then slowly reading each word until you have a sentence.

Let’s Start Hagglin’

As far as how long your lessons might last, and how much they’ll cost, your instructor is quite likely to already have a schedule in place for new students based on the what the local freight will bear. However, if you’re already an aspiring musician you may want to approach that conversation a bit differently since your objective is a tad different. So, I would begin the interview this way.

Most instructors start new students out at 30 mins. per lesson just because their attention span is likely shorter. Another factor you may have to consider if funds are tight is some kind of arrangement that doesn’t put either of you out, and keeps you on respectable terms. For instance, you may consider offering them $50 whenever you can afford it. Just tell them you want to be very respectful of their time and skill set, and you don’t want to commit to something that may put them in a bind. After all, every musician has been poor at some point or another. They can relate, and they will very much appreciate you empathizing to think that far ahead of time. So, just be respectful, and you can work something out.

Let’s Talk About Your Objectives

Tell them your objective is more along the lines of ear training and theory, and not so much on finger dexterity. Specifically, tell them you want to learn how to hear the differences between common chord progressions in pop and jazz. What makes this chord progression sound this way, and that progression sound that way? What’s the theory behind that? If you’re a guitarist already familiar with some of these concepts it will be fascinating to see how those voicings on piano contrast with what you’re playing on guitar. Also, tell them one of the main reasons you’re pursuing that path is so you can be a more marketable musician than your peers.

YouTube is Your Best Friend

There are tons of great resources online to learn theory and ear training from, but personally, I prefer YouTube if for no other reason than it’s so easily searchable, and it’s resources are so huge. My favorite is Rick Beato. He also has an incredible amount of training videos on using effects. Oh! And don’t worry, I’m NOT getting paid to recommend him. So, I would suggest watching as many of these tutorials, wherever you find them, and take copious notes and ask your private instructor about them.

What’s the Key to the Keyboard?

What TYPE of keyboard to buy. It’s been my experience that, even though, piano isn’t my principal instrument, I’ve always found that if at all possible, spend the money to get 88 fully-weighted keys, if for no other reason than it’s going to feel much closer to what your teacher is going to provide. Next, if you plan to record any of your ideas on MIDI so you can show other musicians your ideas, you’ll probably want to invite a real keyboard player to play that part, and you certainly want them to be able to play their best performance when they use yours. Another long term advantage to this approach is you probably won’t have to upgrade this piece for a very long time; so after this purchase you can always spend your spare change on upgrading your sound library.

The other question to consider is do you put all your money on a boss controller (which means it comes with no onboard sounds) with all the bells and whistles, and use your PC to generate the sounds. OR…OR you can buy something that comes with onboard sounds, which is fine. My only advice on that is make sure you absolutely LOVE the sounds. This doesn’t mean you can’t use the same library I mentioned above, it just means the cost of the onboard sounds, and speakers can’t go to maybe very useful controller features.

In Closing….

So, if you can’t find a satisfactory warm body to teach you check out this product that I’ve heard is getting rave reviews from thousands of musicians from all over. Just apply steady patience, commitment, and passion. You’ll get where you want to go faster than you think. It covers every aspect of mastering piano at a reasonable price. I must warn you, however, never practice more than 2 hours at any sitting. Be patient. Come back the next day and that lick will flow like water.

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Originally published at https://musiciansmeans.com on May 11, 2022.