THE METHOD
How To Play Songs By Ear
Using Relative Pitch

To play a song by ear in the truest sense means to play any song melody that's running in your head,
     • accurately and in REAL TIME, as the notes are going by,
     • without looking at any printed music,
     • with little or no preparation,
     • a song you've never played before

When you play by ear in this manner, there's no guesswork and (preferably!) no mistakes - no stops and starts.

I assume that you already know how to play your musical instrument, and if you are given a note name, you can quickly play that note. So, the challenge here is to identify the notes that you hear in the song - the notes that you will play.


NOTES AND INTERVALS

There are basically 12 notes in music. Each note has a PITCH which is a measure of how high or how low the note sounds. The 12 notes are listed here in an upward pitch sequence, from bottom to top:

The 12 notes encompass one OCTAVE. The dots indicate that the 12-note sequence repeats as you go upward or downward in pitch.

Notice that there are five notes that have two names (the black keys on a piano keyboard). For example, the note A♯ (A sharp) has the same pitch as B♭ (B flat); the note C♯ is the same note as D♭, etc. Either name can be used. Sharps and flats are called ACCIDENTALS.

A musical INTERVAL is the distance or spacing between two notes.

The smallest interval, the interval between any two adjacent notes in the above list or between adjacent keys on a piano keyboard, is one HALF-STEP (HS) or SEMITONE. Two half-steps make a WHOLE-STEP (WS).

12 half-steps make one OCTAVE where the note sequence then repeats as you continue upward or downward in pitch.


RELATIVE PITCH

The Relative Pitch method makes use of a fundamental property of popular music:

If you want to use relative pitch to identify a note in a song melody, you must first identify the note's pitch position relative to the tonic. Then, if you know the tonic and you've memorized the note sequence that goes with the tonic, it's a simple matter to identify the note you are hearing.

You're probably wondering, How could anyone possibly learn to do all this?? And do it quickly??

We can learn to easily do this because the notes in all song melodies generally lie in one simple pattern that we can learn to hear and identify.

THE SEVEN-NOTE PATTERN - THE MAJOR SCALE

The common pattern of notes in song melodies is the second property of popular music:

The simplest example of the seven-note pattern is this note sequence:

where the note C is the tonic.

This sequence of seven notes, beginning with the tonic, is called a MAJOR SCALE.

Another example is

where D is the tonic.

Major scales are named by their tonic note - so these two major scales are the C major scale and the D major scale.

Often major scales are written with the octave note at the end. Thus, the C major scale can be written as this eight-note sequence:

The sequence of intervals between adjacent notes in a major scale is

where W is whole step, and H is half-step. This interval sequence defines the major scale, as illustrated here with the C and D major scales:

EXERCISE:
Play both scales on your instrument. The notes in the D major scale have a higher pitch, but can you hear that the two scales have a similar sound quality? This is because within each scale the notes have the same pitch relationships.


12 MAJOR SCALES

There are 12 possible tonic notes and thus 12 major scales.

The notes in the 12 major scales are listed in Table 1.

Table 1 - The 12 Major Scales

[Note: There is also a F♯ major scale - not shown here - which is equivalent to the G♭ major scale, but the notes are written using sharps instead of flats. For example, the second note in the scale is G♯ instead of A♭.]


EXERCISE:

Play all 12 major scales on your instrument. Even though each scale has a different group of notes, can you hear that all the scales have a similar sound quality?

It's important that you learn to recognize the characteristic sound of the major scale when you hear it. You will learn to do this in the Ear Training module.



KEYS

The Key is a shorthand method of describing both the tonic and the type of scale used in a song. Thus, a song in the Key of E♭ major means that the tonic is E♭ and the melody notes are from the E♭ major scale.
[NOTE: There are other types of scales, but they are irrelevant for playing by ear using relative pitch and will not be discussed here.]

EXAMPLE:
To illustrate, let's look at the opening phrase of the children's song, "Mary Had a Little Lamb", in the Keys of C major (tonic C, C major scale) and D major (tonic D, D major scale):

Play these two note sequences on your instrument. Do they both sound like Mary Had a Little Lamb? They should!

Table 2 lists 18 popular songs along with the major Keys and melody notes chosen for the commercial recordings that we have grown accustomed to hearing.

Table 2 - 18 Popular Songs, Keys and Notes

(Although the vast majority of popular songs are in major Keys, some songs are in MINOR keys. However, the notes in song melodies in minor also generally lie within MAJOR scales - thus they can be analyzed in a similar manner. We'll discuss minor Keys in the third module.)


SCALE DEGREES

In the "Mary Had a Little Lamb" example, we found the notes in the opening phrase in two different Keys - C major and D major:

In D major the notes are higher in pitch, but in each Key the relationship between the notes is the same - i.e., in each Key the note sequence pattern can be described as:

This description is awkward and is not useful for playing by ear, but it can be made useful if we simplify it by introducing a new musical term - SCALE DEGREE.

Using scale degrees, the opening note sequence in "Mary Had a Little Lamb", in any Key, can be written simply as

The actual notes in the sequence are determined by the Key of the song as was illustrated above in the Keys of C major and D major.

Table 3 lists the notes and their scale degrees in all 12 major Keys.

Table 3. Major Keys, Notes and Numeric Scale Degrees

HEARING AND IDENTIFYING THE SCALE DEGREES

Ok, so how do you make use of scale degrees to identify the notes in a song you are listening to, so that you can play it by ear?

This is where the magic comes in . . .

This is awesome!

It may sound crazy difficult,

But, it's not!

Because we humans have been listening to tonal music for hundreds (thousands?) of years, the major scale note pattern is subconsciously very familiar to us, even if we can't identify it when we hear it!

But, with the proper EAR TRAINING, you can LEARN to recognize the major scale note pattern and identify which note is the tonic and which are each of the other scale degrees.

You will learn to do this in the second module, Ear Training.

When you have a trained ear, you will hear song melodies as a sequence of scale degrees.

For example,

and so forth, for other song melodies.


PLAYING BY EAR

If you have a trained ear and can hear and identify the scale degree of an incoming note, and you know the major Key of the song, then from Table 3, you can identify the actual note. The Key specifies the row in the table (the major scale); the scale degree specifies the column (the particular note in the scale).

So, for example, in the Key of E♭ major, scale degree 3 is the note G.
If you've memorized the notes and scale degrees in the "E♭ major" row of the table, then you can do this quickly for each incoming note in that Key.

In other Keys it’s the same process, using other rows in the table.

For example, using Table 3 in the Keys E♭ major, A major, and B♭ major, the three scale degree sequences described above result in these note sequences:

Voila!

So, what have we learned?

Then, if you are listening to a song melody in that particular Key, you can quickly identify each scale degree and note that you hear - and play it on your instrument.

This is playing by ear!


SOLFEGE SCALE DEGREES

Thus far we've been using numbers to name the seven scale degrees. They can also be named using the Solfeggio system (also called Solfege or Solfa). Here I will call them SOLFEGE syllables.

The seven scale degrees can also be named using the seven Solfege syllables: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti (pronounced doh, ray, mee, fah, so, lah, tee).

Thus, in the Key of C major for example, the notes and scale degrees are:

Table 4 is a reproduction of Table 3 with the Solfege scale degree names included.

In the future, refer to this table when playing a song by ear.

Table 4. Major Keys and Numeric & Solfege Scale Degrees

You may use either the numbers or the solfege syllables to name the scale degrees. Each system has its merits, and each has many followers.

The number system, sometimes called the "Nashville number system", is more intuitive since you immediately know where any particular scale degree fits within the major scale sequence. For example, you immediately know that the pitch of a note in scale degree 4 is above the pitch in scale degree 3 and below the pitch in scale degree 5.

On the other hand, in the process of training your ears - ear training - you will learn to sing the scale degrees, and the solfege syllables are easier to sing, and they sound more pleasing to the ear.

I personally prefer the solfege syllables, but I will use both systems here and let you make the choice for yourself. You may want to try each system for a short while so that you can get a better idea of how each one feels for you, but it's best if you soon choose one system and stick with it, or else you may become confused.



PLAYING “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” BY EAR

Let's suppose that the “Happy Birthday” song is running in your head and you want to play it by ear.

If 1) you have trained your ears to identify the scale degrees of notes that you hear in songs, and 2) you've memorized the notes corresponding to the scale degrees in the Keys which you like to play in, then there's only one thing left to do - choose the Key in which you will play this song.

Choosing the Key

You don’t know the Key of the Happy Birthday song that you are hearing., so what do you do then?

You can identify the tonic note of the major Key using your instrument. The tonic is scale degree 1. If you're able to hear and identify scale degrees, then simply sing the note corresponding to scale degree 1. To identify that note, using your ear and trial & error, find the note on your instrument that matches that pitch. Suppose you do this and find that the tonic note is E. So, now you know you are hearing the Happy Birthday song in the key of E major.


Playing “Happy Birthday” in E Major

If you're comfortable playing your instrument in this Key, E major, and you’ve memorized the notes that go with the scale degrees in this Key - i.e., the notes in the E major row of Table 4 - then you can proceed to play the melody by ear.

These steps go very quickly if you’ve trained your ears to hear scale degrees and you’ve memorized the notes that go with the scale degrees in E major.


Hearing the song in another Key

But what if you aren’t comfortable playing your instrument in E major? Ideally, you would be comfortable playing your instrument in any Key, and you would have memorized the notes vs scale degrees in all 12 Keys, in which case you would play the melody in the same Key that you are hearing it - whatever the Key may be.

But, this is not usually the case. All musicians have their favorite Keys to play on their instrument. And there are some Keys that almost no one likes - like F♯ major or B for example - Keys with several accidentals (sharps or flats) in the major scale. What if the song melody in your head is in one of those Keys?

Let’s suppose you would prefer playing the song in the key of G major. That’s OK, but you must remember that the basic rule of playing by ear is:

You must play the song in the same Key that you are hearing it - otherwise your ear will become terribly confused.

So, if you want to play the song in G major, then you must first learn to HEAR the song in G major.

The best way to do this is to sing the melody in the new Key a couple of times, until your ear becomes acclimated to the Key.

But some people have difficulty singing a melody in different Keys. It can be tricky. To test yourself, play any note on your instrument and try to sing Mary Had A Little Lamb with that note as the tonic (the last note in the melody). It's especially tricky with this song because the melody doesn't begin with the tonic note - it begins on scale degree 3.

When you sing the starting note, and your ear is attuned to the new Key, you will quickly recognize the melody and be able to sing it. Sing the melody until it is internalized.

Once you are hearing the melody in the new Key, G major, then you can play it by ear just as was explained above in the Key of E major.

The general two-step method is: For each melody note, 1) identify its scale degree (using your trained ear), and 2) in the Key of the song, play the (memorized) note associated with that scale degree.

Using this method you can play all song melodies in the same Key if you wish - good if there is only one Key that you feel comfortable with on your instrument.

However, it's advantageous if you can (comfortably) play your instrument in more than one Key. Then the song melody in your head is more likely to be in one of your "comfortable" Keys - in which case you won't need to change the Key.


SUMMARY/REVIEW

Now we're home!
As soon as you 1) develop a musical ear and can hear and identify scale degrees, and 2) memorize the notes that go with the scale degrees in at least one Key, then you'll be ready to play a song melody by ear.

Let's review the steps - there are three parts: