Learning tunes by ear is often valorised in jazz circles as the ‘authentic’ way to learn. However, learning by ear can be just as rigid and limiting as learning from the written music. Or not. It depends on how you approach it. Merely copying something by ear is not necessarily evidence of a well-developed ear at all.
If you learn by rote and treat the music you learnt by ear as inviolate, unchangeable and ‘set in stone’, then you will still struggle to play the tune. Let’s unpack what that means and what you should do.
You need to remember that jazz is a way of playing music that is done in the here and now. The way that even your favourite famous musician plays a particular tune will be different every time they play it. The recording you listen to is just a snapshot of how they played the tune that time, in that place, for that recording session or performance. To take that snapshot as the ‘correct’ way of playing it is a mistake. It isn’t.
Imagine you want to learn how to play chess. You study a famous game and memorise each move. But then, to your dismay and confusion, when you go to play a game yourself, you are immediately thrown when your opponent plays a different opening that wasn’t in the game you memorised. ‘But wait, that’s not how you play chess, that’s not how it goes’, you think, as you crash to a humiliating defeat.
Chess unfolds in the moment. Many moves are possible, and there are countless responses a player can make to each move. You can’t memorise one game and think that you know chess. In the same way, you can’t memorise one performance of a jazz tune and think that that is how it goes. You get locked in to one way of playing it, one tempo, one approach, one variation among the probably infinite possible variations. Even classical music permits different interpretations by performers or conductors. In jazz, personal and in-the-moment interpretations are routine. You are expected to change things. So, then what should you do?
- Learn how to play tunes and ‘jazz’ them without first hearing them played by someone else. You should be able to look at a lead sheet and imagine a fully realised jazz version of the tune, rather than needing a recording to show you how it should sound. It is essential to develop an aural imagination – the ability to imagine the music and hear it in your head. You also need to practise playing the music the way you hear it.
- Absolutely listen to recordings of the tune by good players. Listen to several different versions, not just one.
- Practise and get used to playing the tune at different speeds, with different interpretations, and even in different styles (swing, bossa, samba, rock, etc).
These three steps will go a long way to helping you avoid becoming too locked-in to one specific way of playing a tune. It will help you better fit in with bands or jam sessions you play with, to play in time with others and match different interpretations of tunes you play. You don’t want to be thrown into confusion each time other people play a tune in a way that’s different to the way you memorised it. Remember, the idea of learning by ear is not for straightforward rote learning. People recommend it as a way of developing your ears, but if you go about it the wrong way it can end up being very unhelpful.
Learn to be flexible and to hear flexibly and respond to variations as you play, in real time.
