Over the years I have met quite a number of people that play the piano by ear. I must admit that I am somewhat envious of people who can play the piano by ear because I have never done it – it certainly is not natural to me at all. As it is a skill set that I do not have, I have always been curious about people that I have met that none of them read music.
Rightly or wrongly I have formed the opinion that playing the piano falls into two distinct categories – those that play by ear and those who read music. I think that there are very few people that are successful at doing both.
Here’s what I think: people that play by ear do not need to read music. If your brain is wired to be able to hear a piece of music and then go replicate it on the piano without any help from a teacher or printed sheet music, then doesn’t that make reading music kind of obsolete?
Recently I have realized a similar yet different analogy in my own experience. My husband, when he was at school learned to touch type, which wasn’t common back then, unless you wanted to become a secretary. I never learned to touch type. My husband work requires him to be using a laptop most of his working day, so his touch typing comes in very handy. From time to time he has suggested that I learn to touch type. I have never been that motivated but I have tried a few times before giving up. I am not saying that it is impossible for me, I’m just saying that I don’t actually need to learn because I can type quite quickly even though I do not touch type – how I type is quite suitable for my needs. If you could touch type yourself and you were to watch me type, you would probably say that the way I type doesn’t look elegant and you may even argue that the way I type is inefficient, but my own style works well enough for me.
So I think that a lot of people that play the piano by ear could probably learn to read music if they truly wanted to and had enough motivation. Because playing by ear gives them enough personal satisfaction, they really don’t have a need to actually learn to read music at all and therefore tend to avoid learning it altogether.
Despite what natural tendencies we have, I think it would be useful if people who played the piano by ear could learn to read some basic piano music and people who read music well learn to play by ear a little. I know that I would love to pick up some skills of learning to play the piano by ear – maybe that will have to wait until I retire.