DIY Play by Ear course
“You took us from beginners to Mozart in just a couple of hours!”
“And we did it all by ear!”
Those were the comments after I presented a workshop for the BC Recorder Society about how to play by ear. It was during the COVID pandemic, so we worked together on line. You can’t really play together at the same time on a video call, so we did some careful listening and took turns echoing each other. In this way we worked from Hot Cross Buns up to the beginning of Come Lovely May by Mozart over the course of a very enjoyable afternoon, and we did it all by ear.
Many of the attendees had never played anything by ear before (or so they claimed - at least they had never done so when anyone else was listening to them). Everyone had a good time and surprised themselves over how much they were able to accomplish.
After the workshop, many of the participants wanted to continue with me for private lessons. I didn’t have time in my schedule to accommodate everyone, so I started to think about how to provide instruction asynchronously, using pre-recorded videos. The students already knew how to play an instrument, it was just the playing by ear part that they needed help with. This opened the instruction to any instrument. The question and answer format of the original workshop lent itself to this approach very well, with the added advantage of unlimited pauses, rewinds, repetitions and fast-forwarding of the videos as people worked though the material at their own pace. The self-guided videos also removed the audience! So those who were a bit nervous about trying things in front of other people could now work in the privacy of their own home.
I added a scheduled online live coaching session where participants could get a short lesson on a problem spot or just check in to make sure they were on the right track, and the Online Play by Ear course was born.
If you are interested in checking out this course, here is link to the first few lessons:
https://schoen-duo.ca/education-3/play-by-ear-online-course/
If you are a teacher, and want to learn how to provide this experience for your own students, there is a Certificate program in Teaching Beginner Music by Ear that we are offering through University of Alberta Continuing Education, also in an online format:
https://schoen-duo.ca/education-3/teaching-elementary-music-by-ear/
And if you know anyone who might be interested in this approach to teaching and learning music, please share this with them. Thanks!
