Songs That You Learned By Ear

[TheSnowStorm]

What were some of the songs you first learn to play by ear instead of just using sheet music. What sense of emotion ran through you when you had learn the song without using sheet music or somebody telling you the notes. What songs are you currently trying to play by ear right now? (Well, not right at this moment.)

The first song that I learned by ear was Terra(Tina)'s Theme from Final Fantasy VI. My friend was playing the song on the piano and during the time, so I was just sitting down with my violin trying to figure out the notes. Took me about an hour to figure out the whole theme.

Currently, I'm trying to learn "Fourtune's Theme" (Metal Gear Solid 2) "Hymn of Saturn/Evil Hotaru's Theme"(Sailor Moon) and The Metal Gear Solid 2 theme.

I'm doing pretty will with Hymn of Saturn (the melody of it. I don't really care for the harmory) but there's a gap I need to fill.

Now Fourtune's Theme . . . let's say I have gotten down a good 10 seconds of the song down, but everything eles is sloppy.

I'm also thinking of learning to play Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" on the violin, as well as Tupac's "Californa Love".

[Lancer]

"Hymn of Saturn/Evil Hotaru's Theme"(Sailor Moon)

Are you doing this by viola like the Terra theme or vocals? I know the orignal had a lot of vocals in it. None the less, it would be nice to see a cover of it.

I've got some songs that I can hum or get clicked into my mind, but its just hard to get down onto something like Anvil Studio. Unfortuantly, the only instument I can play basicly is the spoons.

[DarkeSword]

Pretty much every song?

[chrono26]

dude just keeping on practicing on eventually you'll be able to play nearly anything by ear in a matter of moments. when you figure out the first note you can then figure the chord and then the progression which makes the rest of it easy, all of this subconsciously of course. the first song i learned was tetris and then level 4 from super double dragon i think.

[Makai]

Song of Time, lol.

[The wingless]

Every single video game song I learned by ear.

And, if I may take a moment to rant.

When people ask for the sheet music to a very simple song, it fucking burns my shit up. It's not hard to play by ear. In fact, it's almost criminally easy to duplicate music note by note. For me, sitting down and plodding through notes and translating that rosetta stone take an intolerable amount of time. I realize not everyone processes music the same way but come on, you can't fucking play There Was a Hole Here by rote? Fuck you dood. Go to an Irish hell.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I tend to agree. The only videogame songs I've ever had to learn via sheet music on my guitars is complicated stuff(see Sight of Spira), as well as piano stuff since I'm currently learning the instrument along with the violin(which is helluva lot easier than I thought).

But yeah, find the keys that a song is being played on for your instrument, and bam, it's easy.

[Crazyonr1]

The first song I really tried to play by ear (more than once, and it sounded decent) was the Password screen from Megaman 3, from there it really went to the Super Mario theme, and currently I'm working out the castle theme from Super Mario World, all on the piano

[BluefoxIcy]

What were some of the songs you first learn to play by ear instead of just using sheet music.

I could never do the 2 hand thing on the piano, else if I want to play a single melody line of something I basically just have to touch the instrument, fumble around the first 2-3 bars a little, and then it starts rolling.

Guitar is starting to get the same way. There's phrases of things I just can't get at all; there's phrases I fool around with; and then there's shit I just sit down and roll off like I've known the instrument my whole life. The first thing I recall actually straight-up firing off with no tab was the intro to Welcome to the Jungle, right after playing it on Guitar Hero 3; I was like, "Hell I can do that" and just picked the thing up and played it (with horrible timing).

It's weird with guitar because I've actually studied scales some, so when I start playing by ear I'm like, "Wait this wouldn't make sense in scale, it has to be wrong, this is close enough" and turns out my first guess was actually right... I must not know enough scales. Or I'm doing something wrong. More practice would help.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I can't read sheet music. Every single song I can play I learned by ear.

[BluefoxIcy]

I can't read sheet music. Every single song I can play I learned by ear.

I can't really glance at the guitar to get the notes, but I can do sheet music.

If you care, the treble cleft (G cleft, the curly & shaped thing) the LINES are EGBDF and when you see a note below with a line through the head and no lines between it's a C (C, blank space is D, then E on the bottom line, then F, then G on the next line... etc)

The bass cleft (a C cleft, a really stupid looking swizzle thing with 2 dots) has FACE for the spaces between the lines, from bottom to top.

You can figure it out from there; it's work even when you know it though. It's great for piano but I prefer tabs for guitar. SERIOUSLY. Not only do they carry stuff like BEND and VIBRATO; but the basic staff is for one instrument (or hand, in the case of piano) per staff, and it's barely over an octave wide; you play WAY wider than that when you play guitar. Can't speak for any other instrument.

[DarkeSword]

I can't really glance at the guitar to get the notes, but I can do sheet music.

If you care, the treble cleft (G cleft, the curly & shaped thing) the LINES are EGBDF and when you see a note below with a line through the head and no lines between it's a C (C, blank space is D, then E on the bottom line, then F, then G on the next line... etc)

The bass cleft (a C cleft, a really stupid looking swizzle thing with 2 dots) has FACE for the spaces between the lines, from bottom to top.

There is SO MUCH WRONG WITH THIS.

1) Clef. Not Cleft. CLEF.

3) The bass clef is an F clef because the line between the dots is an F.

3) The spaces in the bass clef do NOT spell FACE. That's the treble clef. The bass clef is ACEG.

4) A C clef is completely different; it's a movable clef.

IN SUM: Please don't write stuff when you have no idea what you're talking about. ALSO! None of this has anything to do with training your ear to play things by ear. Stay on topic.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Real men can read sheet music.

Tabs is for grandpas and pussies.

I thinks you know about it.

[BluefoxIcy]

IN SUM: Please don't write stuff when you have no idea what you're talking about.

Hey I did originally learn to play piano by reading sheet music. I'm just a little rusty. :/

But points taken.

[Monobrow]

When I was around 16 (an entire decade ago ahhhh), I learned video game muzaks on the piano by ear all the time. I'm not a very good piano player, but it was one of my favorite things to do.

Playing by ear isn't very hard for me at all... Reading music however, has been a struggle, especially sight reading. I can't do it that well for piano at all. For clarinet however, yeah not so hard... considering it's one note. IS THERE A DIFFRENECEECE Where is Yoda to teach me piano?

[JH Sounds]

Every single video game song I learned by ear.

That's how I get my remix ideas. It's much easier to interpret something if it isn't literally written in front of my face.

[deadmetal]

Now that I think about it, the first song I managed to learn to play by ear was Chrono Trigger, on the ol' trumpet when I was in high school. T'was pretty awesome, especially since a goodly number of my fellow band geeks knew the song, and occasionally joined in. Getting the Jazz Band going with World Revolution (also CT, for any who might wonder) was also quite the fun time.

Apart from those, the usual fare - Super Mario Bros. 1-1 and 1-2, plus the underwater theme. Haven't done much of it since high school, now that I think about it. Too many things to do, too many instruments around to pick one to play, and too many goddamn noise-nazi neighbors. Hard to blast some SNES goodness on the brass when anything over 90db pisses off the guys around you.

[The Coop]

Let's see...

Altered Beast- Rise From Your Grave (Level 1)

Master of Monsters- BGM 6 + Land select theme

Castlevania II- Ending theme

Thunder Force III- The Grubby Dark Blue

Thunder Fox (Atari XE game)- Opening tune

Ghouls 'N Ghosts- Level 1 theme

Phantasy Star III- Shop theme

Sword of Vermillion- Light Song

I think there are others, but I can't remember at the moment.

[Darklink42]

I'm the same as Taucer, I play everything by ear. I can read a little bit of music, but it doesn't translate into my head unless I'm playing it on the keyboard.

As for the songs themselves, pretty much anything from Ocarina of Time, and a couple of other bits here and there.

[Chiwalker]

Does it count if you wrote your own sheet music?

[Shadow Wolf]

I play everything by ear because I suck and I don't read music well at ALL. I mean, I CAN read it, but since I don't play anything, it's a lot like a steering wheel with no car. I just piano roll that shit in FLStudio. But as far as what I'm proud of? The Castle Courtyard Theme from Gauntlet Dark Legacy. I transcribed the entire thing note for note, by ear. I also found out that because Joe Hisaishi is a sloppy composer, His timing was just slightly off during that whole song. Not that the music isn't good, but that soundtrack is just SLOPPY.

[TheSnowStorm]

Are you doing this by viola like the Terra theme or vocals? I know the orignal had a lot of vocals in it. None the less, it would be nice to see a cover of it.

On Hymn of Saturn:

Umm, I play violin (but sometimes the viola, but it's been a while). With Hymn of Saturn/Mistress 9's Theme, I match the tone of the singer' [vocals] voice to each note. So when she was singing ("La . . La . . LaLaLa . . . . .) The first "La" was an A, the second was a "B", third C# and so on.

With the insturmental (which I believe is some type of a woodwind instument) I basically did the same thing. However, I still trying to figure this out. I know it could be "A E E E E" then I start to struggle.

Once I'll get everything down, I plan on doing a cover. All I need to do is just work on my vibrato to get that singing sound. Without it, it just sound painfully dull.

Maybe I might do a Jazz melody and remake of all of Hotaru's themes for AnimeRemix. I'm learning jazz chords right now.

On Terra's Theme

I think I heard a vocal verison of her theme. I do not know if it's offical or a fan remake. I seen a video of it from the PSX Final Fantasy VI, so it could be offical.

When people ask for the sheet music to a very simple song, it fucking burns my shit up. It's not hard to play by ear. In fact, it's almost criminally easy to duplicate music note by note.

Agreed. I just fucking agree with that. I won't lie, but when I was younger, I use to use sheet music for video game music. But now, I just find it stupid as I mature. It's more fun to sit down, listen to the song over and over and over, then play my violin to figure out the notes. I'm cool if somebody gives me the first three notes, but then let me figure the rest out.

Learning by ear than just reading somebody's eles crap is just more fun. It gives me a chacne to help my hearing and figure out different pitches.

Honestly, the only time I use sheet music is for the hard shit like Final Fantasy VIII's "Fated Children" , the choir's vocals and the insturmetals.

Songs that I'm planning to learn by ear:

"Never Gonna Give You Up"- Rick Astley

"Californa Love"- Tupac

"Rapper's Delight"- SugarHillGang

"Fourtune's Theme"- Metal Gear Solid 2

"The Best Has Yet To Come"- Metal Gear Solid 1

And a few jazz chords I might learn by ear.

Hell, I'll kill a man just to learn by ear quicker than rather reading the notes. Just the experince of learning by ear is just fucking fun!

[Devyn]

I can pick off almost any song by ear. This excludes extremely complex music like classical and jazz. But yeah, I can usually figure out your standard rock song in a few minutes. Demanding lead parts generally take a little bit longer. (yes, I'm a guitarist)

[DrumUltimA]

Every piece of video game music I know I learned by ear--except one winged angel.

As a jazz musician and a classical musician, i find it important to balance learning by ear and reading sheet music. Sight reading is just as important of a skill.

[Lancer]

On Hymn of Saturn:

Umm, I play violin (but sometimes the viola, but it's been a while). With Hymn of Saturn/Mistress 9's Theme, I match the tone of the singer' [vocals] voice to each note. So when she was singing ("La . . La . . LaLaLa . . . . .) The first "La" was an A, the second was a "B", third C# and so on.

With the insturmental (which I believe is some type of a woodwind instument) I basically did the same thing. However, I still trying to figure this out. I know it could be "A E E E E" then I start to struggle.

Once I'll get everything down, I plan on doing a cover. All I need to do is just work on my vibrato to get that singing sound. Without it, it just sound painfully dull.

Maybe I might do a Jazz melody and remake of all of Hotaru's themes for AnimeRemix. I'm learning jazz chords right now.

On Terra's Theme

I think I heard a vocal verison of her theme. I do not know if it's offical or a fan remake. I seen a video of it from the PSX Final Fantasy VI, so it could be offical.

Oh, sorry, I ment Violin, not Viola. But after reading what you said for the La, La, Lalala's, I'm interested to hear a cover/remix on it like you mentioned.