How to Play by Ear - A Primer
Feb 19 '07 (Updated Feb 23 '07)
The Bottom Line Play! You'll love it.
I have never done anything like this before, so I'll have to ask you to bear with me. I intend for this to be a primer to playing music by ear. There might be a problem, though, in the fact that I ONLY play by ear. I have my own way of looking at the music, and I hate to force a system on someone that I've just made up for myself. Still, I think you'll be able to get some useful info from all this.
----Note: This has been moved from the Writer's Corner, as it was suggested that I place it here----
What is Playing by Ear?
To me, playing by ear is playing notes that are not expressly assigned by a sheet of music. This can be making up an entire piece, or simply choosing which G-flat you're going to play on your guitar. Playing by ear will open up your options for playing alone, but you'll see the most benefit when playing in a group. It allows flexibility and creativity, and can be learned as a primary means of playing or as a supplement to formal training.
Conventions
Okay. This can get really confusing. There are going to numbers and letters running all over the place and I don't want to lose you by being unclear. Let's take a second and establish some conventions/patterns so you'll know what I'm talking about. Most people have played or at least seen a piano, so let's visualize that for a moment. I recommend you not close your eyes, as it will make reading the essay much more difficult! When you go from one note to the closest note in either direction, it's called a half-step. A full-step is two actual notes in either direction. If you "flat" a note, you go down a half-step from that note. If you "sharp" a note, you go up half a step. A flat is denoted with "b" and a sharp is denoted by "#". The notes are labeled with letters and possibly sharp or flat signs. Here are your 12 basic notes.
A - [ A# or Bb ] - B - C - [ C# or Db ] - D - [ D# or Eb ] - E - F -[ F# or Gb ] - G - [ G# or Ab ]
To simplify, let's just use either a sharp or a flat. Here's what I use:
A - Bb - B - C - C# - D - Eb - E - F - F# - G - Ab
You may notice that there is no flat or sharp between B or C or between E and F. This is because of the way the notes are labeled. If you flat a C, you get a B. Why is this? First, you have to understand the pattern that makes up a scale.
Scales
A scale can be thought of as a pattern of half-steps and full-steps. This is that pattern, and I ask that you bear with me. This will make more sense in a second:
Starting Note - Full - Full - Half - Full - Full - Full -Half (Ending Note)
Let's look at what this actually means. Let's apply this pattern to our notes starting on an A. Each full-step is two notes, remember? We start with A and our full-step takes us up to B, skipping Bb. Another full-step takes us up to C#, skipping C. Next comes a half-step, which takes us to D, skipping nothing. Continuing by further applying our scale pattern to A results in this:
A -- Bb -- B-- C -- C# - D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A
A - skip - B - skip - C# - D - skip - E - skip - F# - skip - Ab - A
A - B - C# - D - E - F# - Ab - A
The Full Steps caused us to skip over 5 notes. The most common scale is the C scale. Knowing that the pattern on a piano repeats, you can infer that the pattern of the notes repeats, too. So we can write a C scale by extending our scale out and we get:
C -- C# - D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A -- Bb -- B -- C
C - skip - D - skip - E - F - skip - G - skip - A - skip - B - C
C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
See how there are no flats or sharps? This makes an awfully convenient scale. A scale like this that starts and ends on the same note (as they always do) makes up an octave. On a piano, these notes without flats or sharps are the white keys, while the black keys are the ones that do have sharps and flats. To say it another way, all the white keys are the C scale, and all the black keys are not in the C scale.
Alright... let's take a deep breath and reiterate. You have a lot of different notes (12, actually) and they repeat themselves again and again as you move along. You can make a scale that starts on any of these notes, but a scale doesn't include every note. It skips some notes based on the pattern of half-steps and full-steps. It should be noted that this is a major scale. If you have different patterns of steps, you can make different scales. For our purposes, we'll just stick with the major scale.
So if you're looking at a piano or guitar or any other instrument, you ought to be able to find a major scale. Just pick out any starting note you want, and then move up in half-steps and full-steps according to the pattern. Some scales will have more sharps and flats than others. C is the only scale with none. To test this one last time, let's confirm my claim: the only flat or sharp a G scale has is F#.
G -- Ab -- A -- Bb -- B-- C -- C# - D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G
G - skip - A - skip - B - C - skip - D - skip - E - skip - F# - G
G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G
As you can see, this can go on and on, and we'll still only have F#. On a guitar, this might not make a huge difference. They're just labels, right? On a piano, this tells you that you won't play any black notes in the key of C and that your only black note in the key of G is F#. What do I mean by key? The key is the note that your scale is based on. If you write a scale based on the pattern starting on Eb, you're left with your 8-note Eb scale. The same is true of any other note.
Checkpoint: At this point, you should be able to choose any note and figure out its major scale. This is done by applying the major scale pattern (full-steps and half-steps) to the notes.
Remember: Each scale is unique to its key. A scale based on G is different than a scale based on C.
Playing by Numbers
Okay, so this is all nice and fine, but how does this help us play? Well, music is all about patterns. You start with 12 (or 13 if you include the first note at the end), whittle it down to 7 (or 8 if you include the first note at the end), and then whittle it down even further to make most of the sounds you'll be making. Now, I could show you some specifics, but it's better to do those as examples of the general concept. We'll start by establishing a number system. Let's go back to the friendly ol' C scale. All white notes, no sharps/flats, so on and so forth... Okay, so a number system is convenient because it can be applied to any scale. Basically, you give your first note a number 1, and you number the notes in the scale up to 8, which will be the same as number 1. Let's see this in action for a C scale:
C - 1
D - 2
E - 3
F - 4
G - 5
A - 6
B - 7
C - 8
Major Chords
We'll come back to that. Now, a major chord is constructed with the following: [starting note], [2 full-steps], [1 full-step and one half-step]. Let's find a C-major chord, shall we?
C --- C# --- D --- Eb --- E --- F --- F# --- G --- A --- B --- C
C - skip - skip - skip - E - skip - skip - G - --- - --- ----
C - E - G
See, the first full-step would give you D, but you have to do another full-step, which gives you E. Then, a full-step gets you to F#, but you have to do a half-step to get you to G. We can do the same thing to get a G chord:
G --- Ab --- A --- Bb --- B--- C --- C# --- D
G - skip - skip - skip - B - skip - skip - D
G - B - D
If you sit down with a piece of music that says to play a "D" chord, it's talking about a D-major chord. When I first started playing, I'd actually count. I'd say to myself, "okay... D chord. Now I start on D and go up 4 to... F# !! and go up 3 more to.... A! Okay, so a D-major chord is D-F#-A." Now this seems slow, but how else are you gonna do it? A major chord is simply a pattern of notes out of the scale that sound good together. Different patterns make different chords, and we'll discuss some of the other chords you can construct very soon! As you count out chords, you'll start to memorize them quickly.
Checkpoint: At this point, you should be able to construct a major chord based on any note. Confirm that an F-major chord is F - A - C and that an A chord is A - C# - E
Let's look back at our C scale number system. Instead of saying that a C chord is made up of C - E - G, we could say that it's made using the 1-3-5. Do you see that in the scale? The C is 1, the E is 3, and the G is 5 from our chart. No matter what key you are playing in, the basic chord is 1-3-5, but it is unique to your scale. For example, 1-3-5 in the key of G will give you a G-chord (G-B-D... see above). Okay, I'm not trying to give you a whole lot of theory here. I want you to go out an play. That's what playing by ear is all about, right? So even if you didn't understand most of what I already said, stick with me here. The next part is geared towards trying this out on piano. We're gonna play in the key of C. You need to find the notes on the piano. If you don't know them, search for a chart online.
Alright, try a 1-3-5 in the C scale. This is C-major chord, remember? It can also be said - try a C - E - G. Refer back to the number chart if you need to. If you hit the 1 - 3 - 5 together, you'll find that it makes a very pleasant sound. If it doesn't, count out your notes again. Are you skipping 3 notes between 1 and 3 and skipping 2 more between 3 and 5? Again, this is because these numbers (1, 3, and 5) apply to your scale and not to all the notes. You have to find your 8 note scale first, and then number them.
So 1-3-5 (C - E - G) should sound nice. Again, 1-3-5 will only equal C - E - G in the key of C. 1 always corresponds to whatever key you're in. Ready to try something else? How about 4-6-8 (F - A - C). Ooohhh... Pretty right? Try going back and forth and see how it just sounds kinda natural. If you try replacing one of those notes with a sharp or flat, you'll immediately notice that it doesn't sound as smooth. What's so special about 4-6-8? Well, it's just a pattern we are used to hearing. Remember that F is made of F - A - C. Now, look in our C scale, and you'll see that all the notes are in our C-scale! That means that the F-major chord is in the C-scale. The same is true of a G-major chord, which is constructed of G - B - D. Both of these are major chords that can be made using notes in the key of C, so you'll play these chords a lot while you're playing in C.
Now, what happens if you look at an E-major chord? You'll see that it's made of E - Ab - B. As you can see, there's no Ab in our number scale for C. Does this mean we can never ever play an E-major chord when we're playing in the key of C? No. There are a lot of times when you'll leave the scale for some neat contrasting sounds and disonnance, but it's not your usual stuff. I'll give some examples of stuff you can try a little later. So is there a way to use the number system to describe E - Ab - B since there is no Ab on our C number scale? Sure! I just use flat and sharps on number like on notes. I would write is as 3 - 6b - 7. Would you want to? Maybe you would if you were trying to describe the chord to someone else. It's an option, for sure!
Checkpoint: By making a numeric scale and figuring out the 1-3-5, 4-6-8, 5-7-2, you should be able to find the three major chords most commonly used in any key. Try this out by confirming that the common chords for the key of G are G ( G - B - D ), C ( C - E - G ), and D ( D - F# - A )
Minor Chords
Now would be a good time to talk about minor chords. If you'll recall, a major chord is made by [starting note], [2 full-steps], [1 full-step and 1 half-step]. A minor chord is similar and is made with the following construction: [starting note], [1 full-step and 1 half-step], [2 full-steps]. Because they are made differently, they'll obviously sound differently. Minor chords tend to be a little darker and can be quite sad sounding. So how would we make a C-minor chord?
Like this:
C --- C# --- D --- Eb --- E --- F --- F# --- G
C - skip - skip - Eb - skip - skip - skip - G
C - Eb - G
Uh-oh! As you can see, Eb is in C-minor chord, but it's not in the C scale. This tells you that you won't usually play a C-minor chord when you're playing the C-major scale. Minor notes are usually denoted with a small "m" after the Chord. So, if the music says to play a "C", they mean the C-major chord. If it says to play a "Cm", they mean the C-minor chord. Now, let's apply this minor pattern to the E we were looking at earlier. If you do, you'll find that Em is E - G - B. These are all in our C-major scale! So, Em (E - G - B) can be written as 3-5-7. You'll also find that Dm is D - F - A or 2 - 4 - 6. Now look what we have! We have a whole set of chords we can play in the key of C:
C - Cmajor - [1 - 3 - 5] - [ C - E - G]
F - Fmajor - [4 - 6 - 8] - [F - A - C]
Dm - Dminor - [2 - 4 -6] - [D - F - A]
Em - Eminor - [3 - 5 - 7] - [E - G - B]
Take a moment and confirm that G also fits in this scale. G (G-major, remember) is made up of G - B - D which can be written 5 - 7 - 2. Also, you'll see that Am (Aminor) is A - C - E or 6 - 8 - 3. That brings the list of common chords for C-major to this: C, F, G, Dm, Em, and Am.
Let's recap how we found these chords. It'd be hard to guess a chord that fits into key. I helped out because I already knew which chords would fit. I knew to recommend Am instead of A, for example. The important thing now, though, is to look at these numbers combinations:
[ 1 - 3 - 5 ]
[ 4 - 6 - 8 ]
[ 2 - 4 -6 ]
[ 3 - 5 - 7 ]
[ 5 -7 - 2 ]
[ 6 - 8 - 3 ]
Why do these matter? Because you can use this same pattern in any key!!! If you want to play in the key of G, for example, just make yourself a chart to figure out which notes correspond to what letters. Then you can get the chords for playing in G. In fact, try that! The numbers above will correspond to these notes in the key of G.
Remember: The notes and chords using the number system will be different for each key, because the numbers are based on what key you chose.
G - B - D ( G )
C - E - G ( C )
A - C - E (Am)
B - D - F# (Bm)
D - F# - A (D)
E - G - B (Em)
As you can see G, C, Am, and Em are used in both the key of C and G, but the key of C uses Dm while the key of G uses a D chord.
Checkpoint: At this point, you should be able to construct a both a major chord and minor chord. Confirm the following: B is B - Eb - F# and Bm is B - D - F#
Alright... so we got back into theory, didn't we? Back to practical, then. Let's look back at what patterns we've made (rearranged):
[ 1 - 3 - 5 ]
[ 2 - 4 -6 ]
[ 3 - 5 - 7 ]
[ 4 - 6 - 8 ]
[ 5 -7 - 2 ]
[ 6 - 8 - 3 ]
All of the common chord constructions are in the base note 2 2 structure. See? 135, 246, 357, 468, 572, 683. This is cool, because you don't have to say "play me a 4 6 8 chord." Instead, just call it a 4, because 6 and 8 are implied. Also, look back over those numbers and how we derived them. We find that the following is always true when using the major scale:
[ 1 - 3 - 5 ] - Major Chord
[ 2 - 4 -6 ] - Minor Chord
[ 3 - 5 - 7 ] - Minor Chord
[ 4 - 6 - 8 ] - Major Chord
[ 5 -7 - 2 ] - Major Chord
[ 6 - 8 - 3 ] - Minor Chord
So to make things easy to write, we'll use our shorthand of just calling them the first note instead of the 3 notes. This, like I said, shortens the 1 - 3 -5 chord to a 1 chord, because 3 and 5 are implied. Now, I don't want you to get confused by me calling chords by a number and notes by a number, so if I write [1], I mean the chord and if I just write 1, I mean the note. In fact, I'll start doing the same thing with letter notes. A [C] now refers to the chord, while a C refers to the note. To avoid confusion, we often include what kind of chord it is (major, minor, etc.) when discussing. That way, the above list becomes:
[1]
[2m]
[3m]
[4]
[5]
[6m]
Alright, so what in the world am I doing, right? I just keep talking about numbers and letters and different ways to describe what we're doing. It all comes back to patterns. 80% of songs are made up of the chords I just listed. If you want to figure out a song or write your own, these would be a great place to start. Here are some common keys, and their associated chords. These are pulled by finding the scale for the key, applying the number system so all the notes in the scale are numbered, and then using the chord pattern.
Key of C - [C], [Dm], [Em], [F], [G], [Am]
Key of G - [G], [Am], [Bm], [C], [D], [Em]
Key of E - [E], [F#m], [Abm], [A], [B], [C#m]
Still not sure how I knew what was a major and what was a minor? Let's look at it again from this new perspective. Let's say you are playing in C and hit the 2-4-6. You know this sounds right, but you don't know what note it actually is.
First, you number your notes and find out that 2-4-6 is [ D - F - A ]. Now you know that this is some sort of [D] chord, but you don't know which one, right? Well, try them! Start with the major and minor constructions:
[D]
D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A
D - skip - skip - skip - F# - skip - skip - A
D - F# - A
[Dm]
D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A
D - skip - skip - F - skip - skip - skip - A
D - F - A
Now you can see immediately that your 2 - 4 - 6 [ D - F - A ] correlates with a [Dm]. So let's play for a bit! You have 6 different chords you can play for each key you try. Try playing these Chords. If you don't know which three notes make up the chords, use the patterns I've given you.
[C], [F], [G] (repeat ?? times)
[G], [C], [D] (repeat ?? times)
Remember that each of these is a chord, so you should really be playing:
[ C - E - G ], [ F - A - C], [ G - B - D} (repeat ?? times)
[ G - B - D ], [ C - E - G ], [ D - F# - A] (repeat ?? times)
Do you hear how both of these sound kinda similar? That's because they both follow the [1], [4], [5] pattern! Patterns, patterns, patterns. In the key of C, 1 is C, 4 is F, 5 is G. In the key of G, 1 is G, 4 is C, and 5 is D, so the previous exercise could have been written:
Key of C - [1], [4], [5] (repeat ?? times)
Key of G - [1], [4], [5] (repeat ?? times)
Other Chords
Back to notes, there are some chord constructions that will be a little harder to understand. Suspended refers to a chord that has had its 4 added to it. Remember how any major chord in its own scale is 1 - 3 - 5? Well, any suspended chord in it's own scale is 1 - 3 - 4 - 5. Let's look at [Dsus] (D suspended)
D Scale
D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A -- Bb -- B -- C -- C#
D - skip - E - skip - F# - G - skip - A --skip - B - skip - C# - D
D - E - F# - G - A - B - C# - D
D - 1
E - 2
F# - 3
G - 4
A - 5
B - 6
C# - 7
D - 8
[Dsus] = [ 1 - 3 - 4 - 5 ] = [ D - F# - G - A ]
Now, you may have noticed the emphasis on "its". This is because you have to use the "4" that's associated with its own key. If you were playing in the key of C, for example, the 4 note would be an F. Adding F to [D] does not make it [Dsus]. You must find the scale for D, first. Then your 4 is G, which is the proper note to add to D to make it suspended. Make sense? If you want to find a chord, start by describing the scale of the chord in numbers. Because suspended is made by adding a the 4, another possible notation is just adding a 4. Another similar notation is a 2. A two tells you to add, obviously enough, the two. So again using the example again, a [D2] would be [ 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 ] or [ D - E - F# - A ]. What do these different chords sound like? Well, you should try them for yourselves. For now, just know that a suspended sounds unresolved and a 2 sounds pretty.
Two other types of chords you need to know about are the maj7 and the 7. A major 7 adds the 7, so a Dmaj7 would be [ 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 ] or [ D - F# - A - C# ]. Strangely, a 7 adds the flat 7 (7b). I know this might not make much sense, but it's true. As you can see, the 7b is a C, which is not on the scale. Like I said earlier, though, this is okay. It just means that you will hear something with a little disonnance. So, a D7 would be [ 1 - 3 - 5 - 7b ] or [ D - F# - A - C ]. It's interesting to note that the C is not in the D scale, but ALL the notes in the D7 are in the G scale. This makes it fit into a song played in the key of G very smoothly.
Have all those, now? Let's recap. We haven't written the minor in numeric form, but you'll recall that the pattern is similar to a major pattern only the second note moved down a half-step, remember? So let's list them all for reference here:
1 - 3 - 5 (Major)
1 - 3b - 5 (Minor)
1 - 2 - 3 - 5 (2)
1 - 3 - 4 - 5 (4 or suspended)
1 - 3 - 5 - 7 (maj7)
1 - 3 - 5 - 7b (7)
Applying this to, say, F, we get this:
F scale: F - G - A - Bb - C - D - E - F
F - A - C [F]
F - Ab - C [Fm]
F - G - A - C [F2]
F - A - Bb - C [Fsus or F4]
F - A - C - E [Fmaj7]
F - A - C - Eb [F7]
And these can be combined, too! For example, a [Fm7] is and [Fm] plus the 7b so [ 1 - 3b - 5 - 7b]. This one is popular.
Checkpoint: By now, you should be able to construct the major, minor, 2nd, suspended, maj7th, and 7th version of any chord.
Application
Okay. Now it's really time to play! Since I'm writing this essay, I get to choose your first piece of music, deal? I'll take you through the process. As you do this, you will be able to eliminate steps.
[G]-------------------[Bm]-----[C]------------ [G]
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
-------------[C]----------------[G]----[Em]
And frolicked in the autumn mist
--------[A7]--------------------[D]
In a land called Honah-Lee
[G]---------------[Bm]----[C]------------------[G]
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
------------[C]----------------------------[G]----[Em]
And brought his strings and sealing wax
----------[A7]--- [D]----[G]
And other fancy stuff.
Now, you may not know where to start, so I'll help you. You need to figure out how to play each of the notes. We'll start with [G], [C], and [D] because these are our majors. Majors are 1 - 3 - 5, remember? I'll start with complete detail, and then shorten the process as you get comfortable with it (hopefully).
G scale determination:
G -- Ab -- A -- Bb -- B-- C -- C# - D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G
G - skip - A - skip - B - C - skip - D - skip - E - skip - F# - G
G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G
G Numeric Chart:
G - 1
A - 2
B - 3
C - 4
D - 5
E - 6
F - 7
G - 8
[G] is 1 - 3 - 5, so it is G - B - D
C scale determination:
C -- C# - D -- Eb -- E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A -- Bb -- B -- C
C - skip - D - skip - E - F - skip - G - skip - A - skip - B - C
C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
C Numeric Chart:
C - 1
D - 2
E - 3
F - 4
G - 5
A - 6
B - 7
C - 8
[C] is 1 - 3 - 5, so it is C - E - G
Do D scale and D Numeric Chart
[D] is 1 - 3 - 5, so it is D - F# - A
Congratulations! You just found how to play all the major chords in a piece of music. Next we'll do minors ([Em] and [Bm]).
E Scale Determintion:
E -- F -- F# -- G -- Ab -- A -- Bb -- B -- C -- C# -- D -- Eb -- E
E - skip - F# - skip - Ab - A - skip - B - skip - C# - skip - Eb - E
E - F# - Ab - A - B - C# - Eb - E
E Numeric Chart:
E - 1
F# - 2
Ab - 3
A - 4
B - 5
C# - 6
Eb - 7
E - 8
[Em] is 1 - 3b - 5, so it is E - G - B
Do B scale and B Numeric Chart
[Bm] is B - D - F#
Awesome! We now have all the major chords and all the minor chords. All that's left is the 7th.
Do the A scale and A Numeric Chart
[A7] is 1 - 3 - 5 - 7b, so it is A - C# - E - G
Now you have everything you need. Let's recap, and then go back to the song and write in what we've found out.
[G] is GBD
[C] is CEG
[D] is DF#A
[Em] is EGB
[Bm] is BDF#
[A7] is AC#EG
[G]-------------------[Bm]-----[C]------------ [G]
GBD---------------BDF#---CEG-----------GBD
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
------------[C]----------------[G]----[Em]
-----------CEG---------------GBD--EGB
And frolicked in the autumn mist
-------[A7]--------------------[D]
------AC#EG----------------DF#A
In a land called Honah-Lee
[G]---------------[Bm]----[C]------------------[G]
GBD----------BDF#----CEG---------------GBD
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
-----------[C]----------------------------[G]----[Em]
----------CEG--------------------------GBD---EGB
And brought his strings and sealing wax
---------[A7]--- [D]----[G]
-------AC#EG--DF#A--GBD
And other fancy stuff.
Got it? You can keep up with these chords so you'll never need to go through the steps again! You'll also find that you memorize them very quickly. Once you play a C major, you'll never forget how to play it. Even now, I sometimes have to learn new chords. You can go over to a piano right now and play this song. Want a different song? I found this by just searching "Puff the Magic Dragon Chords." Try your favorite songs. You won't enjoy playing if you don't like the song.
So now you can play. You can get a piece of music and hit all the chords. Once you get comfortable with that, try playing the chords with your left hand while you play the melody (the part you sing) with your right hand. Also, let's look at one last thing. Remember how I gave you this list as common chords?
[1]
[2m]
[3m]
[4]
[5]
[6m]
Resulting in these chords for these keys?
C - [C], [Dm], [Em], [F], [G], [Am]
G - [G], [Am], [Bm], [C], [D], [Em]
E - [E], [F#m], [Abm], [A], [B], [C#m]
So let's look at the song we just did. If you look close, you'll see that all of the chords except [A7] are in the list for the key of G. Well, it turns out that this song is written here in G. Let me expand this list a little for you. There are a few other chords you'll see commonly.
[1]
[2m]
[27]
[3m]
[37]
[4]
[5]
[6m]
[7b]
Resulting in these chords for these keys:
C - [C], [Dm], [D7], [Em], [E7], [F], [G], [Am], [Bb]
G - [G], [Am], [A7], [Bm], [B7], [C], [D], [Em], [F]
Now all the chords in the song are on the common chord list for the key of G. As you play more, you'll get better at recognizing the key. If you can't figure out what the key is, try playing the song. Whatever note you end on is probably the key (assuming you end on a major chord and it sounds like the song is complete).
Want to make up your own stuff? Play with different chord combinations. Try some of these for fun, and then try your own. These are written in numeric form and then translated to the key of G in case you want to play it there. Remember, these are chords, so you'll need to figure out what notes makes up each chord. You can repeat these one at a time or mix them up. Whatever you want to do!
[6m][5][4][37] - [Em], [D], [C], [B7]
[1][7b][4] - [G], [F], [C]
[6m][2m][3m][6m] - [Em], [Am], [Bm], [Em]
If you want to add your own melody lines, you'll usually be safe playing almost anything in the scale. Sometimes you might want to deviate, so feel free to experiment! Also, you might find that a suspended chord sounds a little muddy. I always think it does, so consider taking the 3 out of the chord. Instead of playing 1 - 3 - 4 - 5 (Like D - F# - G - A), try just playing 1 - 4 - 5 (Like D - G - A).
One final thing, once we know that our song "Puff" is written in G, we can easily convert all the chords to numbers, right? It'd change to this:
[1]------------------[3m]----[4]----------- [1]
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
------------[4]---------------[1]---[6m]
And frolicked in the autumn mist
-------[27]-------------------[5]
In a land called Honah-Lee
[1]--------------[3m]---[4]-----------------[1]
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
-----------[4]---------------------------[1]---[6m]
And brought his strings and sealing wax
---------[27]-- [5]---[1]
And other fancy stuff.
This would be played exactly the same if you chose the key of G, but you could also change it to C, making all the chords different. Why would you do this? Well, it'd be the same song but in a different key, so it could really help if your vocal range doesn't fit well with the song as it's already written.
There is much more to playing by ear than what is contained here, and most of it can't be taught. There are some other chord constructions that I didn't mention (diminished chords, augmented chords, etc). This is a primer, remember? Most of playing by ear is loving to play and allowing yourself to be creative and make mistakes on the instrument. You'll find it more gratifying, and you'll find that you go from the mechanics of figuring out chords into real creation faster than you think.
As a disclaimer, this is definitely geared towards trying this on piano. Most instruments will need other instruction on how to adapt it to that instrument, and I haven't written that yet. :)
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