Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Has anyone ever...

..learned a classical piece, of intermediate or higher difficulty, entirely by ear? For the record, I haven't but I'm thinking about doing it for fun.

Maple Leaf Rag (if it counts). This was before I could read music.

Sorta kinda, but not completely and not well -- and it's not really a classical piece.

It was how I first 'learned' Horowitz's "Stars and Stripes." I was only able to do about the first half of it, and I wasn't really "doing" even that. But I had no other way to do it, because no score was available -- until it was.


I think it would be a neat exercise -- even with a piece below "intermediate." While I've never done it, I can imagine that I'd make mistakes even with many simple pieces, because with just about every great composer's piece I learn, there are places where I'm consciously like "hey, I never would have known those were the notes" (especially with inner voices and stuff like an added 6th).

One of the Chopin preludes would make a good candidate, plenty of people here to point out the mistakes.

Not what I had in mind, but I suppose it counts. I think you posted a recording of it, didn't you? Have you since looked at the sheet music?

No. But plenty of pop songs and movie scores! Some years ago I totally fell in love with the opening flourish of Korngold's 'Kings Row', and simply had to work that out at the piano.

No actually I haven't. I don't really play ragtime anymore, but I still acknowledge Scott Joplin's genius. I don't think enough classical listeners give him proper credit.

Not classical piano pieces, but I sometimes play classical orchestra pieces on the piano, by ear. Because there I can choose what notes to leave out, and it does not always sound like the original.

Examples: Smetana's "Moldau", Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony".

I was really smitten with the Medtner Second Concerto the first time I heard it, and I spent some time working it out by ear while I was waiting for the score on order from Zimerman in Germany. The actual piano part turned out to be very different than the way I imagined it!

I figured I might see a few answers like this. I play a lot of classic rock, professionally, and learning it by ear is usually the most accurate method. I've purchased a couple of those "note for note" books by Hal Leonard and they aren't note for note, and they don't usually have the work I'm after.
I'm a little surprised with myself that I haven't yet tried it with something classical. I imagine making some subtle omissions and wondering if I would be caught. I guess it mostly depends on the popularity of the piece.

Well perhaps not very surprising, Damon. Elderly classical works are available on IMSLP, and later, copyrighted classical works would probably be beyond my modest abilities to learn by ear.

You will love this: when I was about 12, my mother introduced me to Light My Fire, it certainly lit MY fire, and I worked it out at the piano in about 12 minutes.

The day before, I learned Petula Clark's Downtown. Helps to have a mum who lived through the era, albeit on the tail end. But the only thing I could figure out at the piano on After Bathing at Baxter's was 'rejoyce'. The rest of the album was too sophisticated, and to this day, I think it one of the greatest albums ever recorded, leagues ahead of what anyone else -including the Fab Four- were doing at the time.

I've always thought that being able to play ragtime and the classics would cover all the bases....or should I have said basis?

rada

Anyone with a good ear could likely pick out a simple Chopin nocturne with time, but I'd really like to see someone pick out his first scherzo, or the coda to the fourth ballade.

I am very good at playing by ear, but I've never done a note-for-note classical work.
I do think that good aural skills/playing by ear is a vital skill for a well-rounded musician, just like sight-reading well is.

I used to have fun with this before I started studying (and reading) music.

Mozart has. (He famously learned Gregorio Allegri's Miserere, the setting to music of the fiftieth psalm, just by listening to it in the Sistine Chapel, and he copied it down from memory when he returned home). But I don't think this is what you had in mind?

My party piece off-the-cuff is playing the first two measures of the Moonlight ... at which point I strategically break off with the audience baying for more ... but that’s all they get ... as I shut the lid of the piano ...and get myself a drink (brandy and soda) .

They’ll never discover that I don’t know the rest.

Sorry about that chaps ... but you asked for it.

Picking things up by ear is really great for the learning process, as long as you pick pieces that aren't beyond your capacities. About ten years ago or so I was so fond of Keith Jarrett's improvisations that I decided to transcribe some - I obviously picked a slower one, and figured that if you start by separating all of the different layers - bass line, chords, melody - and focus on just one at a time, you can get a lot of stuff done. Initially, if you try grasping everything at once, you easily become overloaded with information. Separating things in the beginning, until you become more fluent, is the way to go, I think.

But I haven't done much of this lately - tried a bit with some Chopin nocturnes that I've mostly just listened to...

Well no, because he is dead and not a member of this forum.

Mozart....dead?????