The great thing about learning piano as an adult is that you get to pick what you play. That means that I avoided nursery rhymes when I first started off. Or so I thought.
A few weeks ago I was chatting with the garden writer and part-time singer Lia Leendertz about music. I was showing off my piano playing at her house, but was saying that I don’t yet class myself as a musician. The reason for this is because I am still heavily reliant on sheet music. I see loads of videos by people performing their covers of popular tunes that they have worked out by ear. This is a skill I’d love to have. At a recent lesson I asked my teacher if this is something that we can work on. So we decided to tackle a relatively simple song. Which is why a 36 year-old man spent 20 minutes trying to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I picked the key of A major at random and then had to work out how the tune went. It didn’t get off to a good start as I couldn’t find even the first 2 notes. Poking and hoping eventually got me started, and once I got going I found it relatively easy. Well the right hand that is. Next came the left. I had no idea how to start with this. The trick apparently is to work out the 1st, 4th and 5th chords of the key signature. In A major, these are 1st: A, 4th: D and 5th: E7 which is E G♯ B. Armed with these 3 it is just a case of trail and error to work out which chords go with which notes of the melody to sound good.
After the lesson I decided to pick a relatively simple song to try on my own. I wanted something that I actually licked to listen to so I picked I Cant Make You Love Me. This is a beautiful track that I’ve loved ever since I first heard it.
My first attempt saw me pick the wrong timing (3/4 instead of 4/4). I scribbled the notes down in pencil as I worked them out then wrote them up properly in the free to download: Musescore.
My first, incorrect attempt at I can’t Make You Love Me
I didn’t get all the way to the end of the piece before my next lesson. Where my piano teacher pointed out that my crotchets should be quavers. After listening to the original track she also felt that I hadn’t quite got the chords right, so she recommended that I download the actual sheet music. Then start again on my own but using the chords only, from the original, and fill in the melody myself. So next time you see this piece again I’ll hopefully be playing my own version of it. But don’t hold your breath as with all the other stuff going on at the moment it might take some time to get to it.
pianolearner 
one of my very favorite songs. Looking forward to the video of you playing it 🙂
It may take some time 🙂
Wishing you good luck in your endeavors … keep going 🙂
continue to have fun with it ….
Thank you 🙂
Gosh, ages since I’ve listened to Bonnie Raitt, thanks for that. Playing by ear is such a great skill – my son is able to do it whether on piano or guitar; he just listens to a song then starts to pick out the notes … the rest of my family generally follow sheet music. I just wish I’d kept up the lessons when I was younger…
Its never too late to pick it up again 😉
Actually there is a Mozart variations of the twinkle twinkle little star tune called “Ah, vous dirai-je maman”, so it originally wasn’t such a nursery rhyme then. 🙂 And yes, I’ve played it. I also admire people that can play without the sheet music, I struggle to learn pieces off by heart without looking.
I didn’t know that about the french tune or the later variations of it. Thanks 🙂
I can so relate to what you’re saying – I’m heavily reliant on sheet music too. Take them away and I can barely play anything. I think you’re right in that we should start off learning simple one-page songs in order to build up our playing by ear skills. I heard listening carefully and focusing on each note that we play helps a lot too 🙂
For some it comes naturally. but Its something I really need to work on.
I started learning to play piano as a child, I only got to Grade 1 before giving it up. I also learnt the recorder at school, but for me, I found reading music harder than learning to play something by ear. My daughter has singing lessons, but she’s taught herself bits on the keyboard and guitar and she’s taking GCSE music. It’s a wonderful skill to be able to sit down and play something, I wish I’d kept my piano lessons up now.
I’ve been wanting to learn this and every week ask my piano teacher if he’s prepared it for me! I’m hoping he’ll get so sick of me asking that he’ll just do it one of these days!
What an interesting journey of weaning yourself off sheet music. When I got back into singing in the choir, I realized my sight reading skills had diminished to almost nothing. It was Musescore that saved me! I painstakingly entered the notes from my music setting the “alto” channel to be louder. Is that how you’re entering your music?
I just manually type the notes in. It takes some time, but I have tried in the past to convert a recording to midi and then input the midi, but could not get it to work. so manually typing the notes in seemed the best way.