Happy Ear Day

Try This…

Play ‘Happy Birthday’ or any other tune you know from childhood.

If you can’t play it straight away without any mistakes, then what are you doing when you’re soloing?

Why are you dithering about with the altered scale and triad pairs if you can’t even do that?

Get that connection happening where you can play simple tunes that you’ve known from infancy, starting anywhere on your instrument.

Unless the first thing you heard was Pierrot Lunaire, then I’ll let you off.

Comments on Happy Ear Day

  1. Mike Outram says:

    Illuminating is how I see it :) If you know a tune really well in your mind, then trying to play it lets you know what you need to work on to be able to do that.
    The playing while not quite knowing thing is ok. I do that, too. Some say, ‘play what you hear’. I say, ‘play what you imagine’. Some things that I can imagine, I can’t hear. Many things actually. That’s fine by me. What I want to avoid is not being connected to intent.

  2. It’s flippin’ hard. I take the point though. I have to admit to sometimes (maybe often?) playing whilst not quite knowing what’s going to come out. Then if it sounds good, I go for some repetition based on what I’ve just heard. It’s a tricky one for sure.

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