Good Playing. Ear for music.

I decided to remind you about the existence of an ear for music in the last article of this cycle. But in fact, it is the main factor without which you will never be able to play anything well. When you are selected to study music, there is no other way to determine if you are good for it or not, other than to test your ear for music.

For gifted children, the age of selection is varied between 2 and 5 years. Of course, it can be later for a number of reasons. At this age, gifted children mostly do not play yet (especially at the lower age limit with some exceptions), but they are capable of singing any sound accurately.

The testing of an ear for music includes guessing (singing) of separate sounds, intervals, melodically played chords and whole melodies. For a gifted child, it is not a trial but a pleasant game. He sings everything accurately and at once, not only in pitch but also rhythmically! It shows that you cannot hide a talent and everything is unambiguous here and with no conditions. Developing their gift, those children will never play anything inaccurate. All bends will be perfect as well as all vibrato and any technique. Their ear will not allow them to make technical mistakes. The more developed will become a child, the clearer will become for what exactly his ear for music is good for.

Remember!!! You cannot study music without an ear for music! However, if you lack it and still trying to play, disappointment is the only thing you can expect from that!

Of course, there are people who lack not only an ear for music but some other things as well! They will never get distressed by such “trivia” as playing out of tune. They will think that everything is excellent with them! It is beyond the power of anyone to explain to them, that they have got everything except good playing.

But you have to know that playing with your ear only is not acceptable as well. And we are not even talking about work, that has to be done in the correct institution, or the love for music. Ear for music has its own nuances. I grew up with children having perfect pitch. There are quite many of those people and you cannot play certain instruments without having this kind of an ear. When we were just at the beginning, those children looked much more promising than the majority of others. But time has put everything in its place. Many of those having a perfect pitch are not musicians now. They are connected with music, but not in the way they were thinking at the time they started to study it.

For instance, some of them do piano tuning while others work as sound engineers. Both the former and the later occupation requires musicality and an ear for music. You cannot tune the piano of an outstanding virtuoso pianist with any tools (and nobody else’s at all). As well as you cannot find a location to place microphones with any devices. Their ear is good for very important things but few of them dreamed through childhood about walking around halls with microphones or tuning the piano strings with a wrench. (There are other uses for this kind of ear — these are just the most common options). But their ear did not prove useful to what they were dreaming of. Namely to become outstanding soloists. And that with perfect pitch!

However, it is extremely rare that you can find a person with perfect pitch in pop, rock, and other entertainment genres. If it is required (it is indeed required) a good musical education in addition to that, it becomes even rarer. And a good taste on top of that… everything is driving towards zero. As I wrote a bit earlier, you cannot explain anything to musically deaf. When a deaf person plays, if you say to him very mildly that not everything is perfect in his performance, he will reply that you do not understand what he is doing and everyone can have their own opinion. He has got, you see, freedom of self-expression. Naturally, When there is no reference point, there is a lot of room for “individuality” and any nonsense can be interpreted as an opinion and self-expression.

Will there be the same thing if we talk about maths, physics, medicine, any science where a person lacking the base knowledge suddenly starts to have an “opinion” and begins to express himself freely? Of course not. Lyman is a layman, and nobody wants to hear what he talks about.

For good technical playing, an ear for music is absolutely essential! It is not a fact that by having it you will achieve perfectness in playing, but without it, your performance will 100% be ugly devoid of any musical meaning!