The Play-by-Ear and Sight-Reading Divide

I attended this talk with two burning questions: Does one need to have perfect pitch in order to play by ear? Will someone with innate hearing loss be able to play by ear?

This is a very informative talk and I gained a lot of insight into the topic of Playing-by-Ear vs Sight-Reading.

Right from the start, Zensen (whose excellent presentation last week can be found  in my previous post  https://loveinanotherlanguage.wordpress.com/2024/05/08/what- determines-music-beauty) made it clear that everything boils down to one’s objectives and purpose of playing music. He expounded on the definitions and various objectives and benefits for both sight reading and playing by ear. I did take down a fair bit of notes (all from Zensen’s excellent PowerPoint slides), but which I will not reproduce here.

However, mention must be made of the contribution of his good friends and fellow “partners in crime”: Albert Chan (the unofficial photographer), Elouise Liew (who played the Nokia ringtone during a Demo), Ashley Huyen Van (who played the scored  Yirumi’s Kiss The Rain in another Demo while Zensen showed the play-by-ear version), Christopher Khoo (who shared quite a bit about his experiences in formal music training – hence the ability to play classical music by Bach and other composers – , and the advantages of being able to play popular songs by ear when taking requests from the public as the resident pianist at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital), Gee Yong (referred to as GY Teo in my previous post), Siew Tin, May Chung, and many other friends and relatives there to lend support. Zensen also played both the scored version of Richard Clayderman’s Ballade Pour Adeline and the play-by-ear version.  It was standing room only.

Of the three books recommended, I hope to be able to get hold of Andrew Yau’s How to Play Pop Music by Ear, which is only available from WRL. I’m a dinosaur, so I won’t be looking for the other two as one is available only as an e-book and the other is only available for reference at the LKC library.

There was lively discussion during the Q&A with participants asking about which method is easier, when one should use a dominant 7th or passing chord, whether one needs to play in tempo when playing by ear, whether online learning Apps are good or useful, whether one needs to have knowledge of music theory to play by ear, and how one can find the key of a song when playing by ear.

It is an afternoon well-spent. Both engaging and stimulating, it has made me want to travel all the way to WRL to borrow the only print copy of the recommended book even though it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be any good at playing anything by ear and have to content myself with whatever scores I have.