Comments for How to Play Melodies by Ear with More the 5 Notes?

How to know which notes to press when playing piano by ear
by: David from www.piano-play-it.com

Hi C.

That's a good question. I'll be happy to answer that one.

If you'll take a look at the Pdf's in the "play piano by ear page", you'll see that all the melodies in there have five or six notes.

All the songs are set to a certain hand position.
That means that you have to place you right hand thumb on middle C and place the rest of the fingers respectively.

Bottom line, we stick to the white keys.
Why? Because all melodies are based on the C major scale.

Now, if you don't know what a C Major Scale is, just keep following the piano course and you'll get there soon enough.

But in case you're really curious... A musical scale is actually a formula of whole tones and half tones (A half tone is the distance between one key and its neighbor key whether it's a black or a white one).

C major scale is based on this formula

1 - 1 - 1/2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1/2

Try to play it and you'll realize you're playing the white keys.

So that's the secret behind playing melodies by ear.

As you move to a new note you're basically asked to play the melody in a new scale.

But you know what? This scale would be a major scale as well. So it will have the same formula, but since it starts from a different location it will involve different keys on the piano.

However, what's so great about playing melodies by ear is that you don't have to know all of that.
If you'll have the patience to listen to the difference in the pitches of the notes it will grow in to you.

For more information on piano scales visit my Piano Scales Page.

It will help you for sure.

This page about Piano Chord Theory will help you along the way as well.

If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask me. I'd be happy to answer.

Best regards

David from www.piano-play-it.com

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