How to Play and Recognize Melodies by Ear

ear training play by ear Aug 04, 2021

In this post, I explain how you can recognize and play melodies by ear so that as soon as you hear a melody, you can instantly play it on your instrument or transcribe it in whatever form you like. Everything you're going to read will also apply when you have a melody in your head and you want to transcribe it or play it on your instrument. Absolutely everyone can learn to do this. There are no superhuman skills involved and you can learn this independently from your age or current level of skills.

Let me premise that the approaches I'm going to suggest won't require thinking of any intervals or anything like that.

Indeed, I don't suggest approaching ear training using the interval method at all. The interval method is an atonal approach (it doesn't take the context into account at all) and basically, every atonal (non-contextual) approach has been proven to be totally ineffective by the scientific literature.

That's because our perception of musical pitch is totally context-dependent and that has been clearly shown by multiple scientific studies, especially by the work done by C. Krumhansl, published by the Oxford University Press.

I know that maybe these are just a bunch of words that don't make sense to you right now, but I've made a very thorough video on that. In this video, I explain the results of the most important scientific studies as well as providing you the links to them, and explaining why intervals are the worst approach to ear training.

The 3 Perceptual Mechanisms of Note Recognition Skills

There are three main approaches we can adopt to effectively recognize and play melodies by ear. All of them are based on recognizing the scale degree that the notes assume within the key.

I call these three approaches the three perceptual mechanisms of note recognition skills:

1st mechanism: Recognizing the key's color of the note.
2nd mechanism: Recognizing the note by thinking of the scale.
3rd mechanism: Recognizing multiple notes at the same time by referring to higher-order familiar patterns.

Let's see them in detail:

1st Mechanism of Note Recognition

The first mechanism of note recognition is directly recognizing the note by feeling its "key's color" - the sensation of tension or resolution that it assumes inside the key.

This mechanism is fast, so once you're properly trained, you can be very quick at recognizing the sensation of the note (also known as its "key's color"). Once you recognize it, you already know which degree of the key it is.

This is really like recognizing a visual color: when you see "blue" or "red" you immediately know "that's blue" or "that's red", you don't have to think at all in order to distinguish those visual colors, right?

The same can be developed in recognizing musical notes. Of course, most people need a bit of training in order to develop this skill, but you can acquire it without many problems by practicing according to how our perception of musical pitch works and develops.

Check out this video on the "key's colors" in order to understand more about this topic

2nd Mechanism of Note Recognition

The second perceptual mechanism of note recognition skills is slower than the first, but it's easier to apply since you only need very basic skills.

The second mechanism of note recognition is recognizing the note by thinking of the scale. Basically, you can recognize the note by singing the scale in your head (or with your voice) and figure out which degree of the scale the note is.

Of course, you need to be able to understand the key of the melody in order to be able to sing the scale, but finding the key is not a very difficult skill to develop (if you adopt a correct approach). In our course, we totally cover this topic, if you're interested in that you're going to find a very thorough step-by-step path including a lot of exercises and explanations regarding how to properly develop "tonic recognition skills" and also how to recognize chords and melodies.

The positive aspect about the 2nd mechanism of note recognition is that by using it, not only you'll get a lot faster at it, but you're also going to indirectly develop the 1st mechanism too.

3rd Mechanism of Note Recognition

The third mechanism of note recognition skills is the fastest approach in recognizing melodies but it requires more training.

I also call the third mechanism "referring to higher-order familiar patterns".

So what does referring to a higher-order familiar pattern mean?

Basically, we can recognize PORTIONS of melodies (multiple notes at the same time) by recognizing a part of the melody as a portion of "something else".

What that "something else" can be in this case? It can be whatever pattern, whatever portion of another melody we have in our head.

For example, if we hear a melody that includes a portion of the major scale (and there are lots of melodies that include portions of the scale) we can easily recognize that.

So for example we can recognize: "that's a portion of the scale that goes from the second degree of scale to the sixth degree of the scale". In this case, we simultaneously recognized 6 notes by using the third mechanism. In this example, we just referred to the scale as a higher-order familiar pattern. But higher order familiar patterns can be of many different kinds; for example, they can be portions of familiar melodies we have in our head, triads or portions of triads, etc. So you see how you can apply the third mechanism in almost an endless number of different ways. Many musicians are adopting this mechanism without knowing that they are doing that. So it's really the way in which our mind naturally works but it can't be immediately developed if you're just starting out as a beginner, it needs a strong internalization of the "key's colors" and the tonal framework. This is definitely a more advanced skill that you can only develop after you've already developed a basic musical vocabulary.

Practical Examples

Here you can watch a few practical examples for each of these 3 perceptual mechanisms, so you better know how to use them when recognizing real melodies.

Ineffective Approaches in Recognizing Melodies by Ear

The last thing I want to talk about in this post is the two most common mistakes that people make when recognizing melodies by ear.

The Trial & Error Approach

The first most common approach that won't allow you to improve your ability to recognize melodies by ear is the "trial and error approach".

The trial and error approach occurs when a musician helps himself with an instrument and play plays random notes on his instrument until he finds the note that matches the one that is played in the melody. This is a very slow and painful process that doesn't allow you to develop instantaneous and effortless recognition skills.

People commonly think that they can improve a lot by using this approach whereas it's evident that this kind of activity only trains a very basic skill in ear training that's called "pitch matching" and, that won't help you get any further than that. There are lots of other aspects and skills to train If you want to develop the tonal vocabulary required to have an intuitive connection with music.

For this reason, it's much better to use one of the approaches explained earlier. Even though, in the beginning, it will seem that they take a lot more effort. The three perceptual mechanisms outlined above will help you develop the tonal vocabulary, so that you will get faster, and faster at recognizing notes till it will become second nature.

The Interval Approach

Another ineffective approach in recognizing melodies by ear is thinking of intervals. Again, I suggest you carefully watch this video where I explain everything about why intervals are ineffective as well as showing you the most important scientific researches about that topic.

Short-Term Musical Memory & Note Recognition Skills

That being said, there's a last big component in recognizing and playing melodies by ear, which is short-term musical memory. This is not a specific post on musical memory but since it's really really important, we made a video about that, you can find it here. I highly recommend you watch it in order for you to have a more accurate perspective on how melodic recognition skills work.

What if a melody includes non-diatonic notes?

First of all, it's important to notice that non-diatonic notes are not very common in most popular music nowadays. Of course, if you play jazz or classical music you have a high chance of facing contexts including non-diatonic notes but other musicians won't experience those contexts that often.

Anyway, you can use the 3 perceptual mechanisms described earlier also in recognizing a melody that includes non-diatonic notes. Indeed, you can familiarize yourself with the sound that all the 12 notes assume in relation to the tonal center. That will allow you to develop the ability to figure out any non-diatonic note that can be played.

Pay attention, this is a very advanced skill and you must be very proficient at more basic ear training tasks before attempting to improve in this one. For example, it's absolutely required that you have strong retention of the tonal center because, by working simultaneously on all the 12 pitches, your perception of the tonal center will get blurrier and you'll easily forget about it. Great short-term musical memory skills are also necessary in order to face these more advanced harmonic contexts. These skills will gradually develop over time by practicing in a tonal way, as I suggest you do.

Conclusion

Great musicians use these 3 mechanisms all the time in order to be able to effortlessly play or transcribe melodies by ear instantaneously, just by using their relative pitch skills.

If you're interested in learning how to do that, don't forget to check out

I hope you found this article helpful. Don't forget to check out the use your ear workshop. This is a free 3-hour workshop packed with actionable content and proven exercises that you won’t get anywhere else!

In this free 3-hour long workshop, you will:

Discover a science-based model that reveals the secrets great musicians use, without even knowing it, to recognize music on the fly ... secrets that anyone can harness to quickly develop a pro-caliber musical ear.

Preview our step-by-step method to develop relative pitch faster and easier than you ever imagined. See first-hand how our students get results quickly, experiencing music on a much deeper level in a matter of weeks — no more tedious mental math on intervals.

Practice multiple exercises during the workshop. You’ll discover the right way to recognize melodies and chords, so you walk away with practical direction based on your own skill level and sticking points. You will know how to improve, instead of just guessing.

Learn which exercises to avoid at all costs — ineffective exercises, prescribed by generations of well-meaning music teachers, that doom 99.9% of promising musicians to failure — so you can avoid years of frustration and lack of progress.

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Lastly, if you're interested in developing these skills ASAP, let me tell you that, in our full Use Your Ear Relative Pitch Video Course, I outline a very gradual and systematic approach in order to develop these kinds of skills. So that you're going to develop the first, second, and third mechanism without wasting time on practicing ineffective exercises that will only cause you to feel stuck and frustrated.

In the course, you're going to find very clear benchmarks in order for you to evaluate whether a particular topic or exercise is appropriate to your current level of skills or not. If it's not appropriate, the benchmarks will also tell you what exercises you need to practice and what areas you need to improve in. I suggest you check it out here because that might be interesting to you.

You can watch our youtube video on how to play and recognize melodies by ear