Piano Tricks

Melody

The first thing you need to work on to play piano by ear is the melody. Find a song you like that has a simple melody, then sit down at the piano and try to pick it out. This will be easier if you work on recognizing intervals. An interval is simply the distance between two notes. If you can recognize intervals easily, you will be able to pick out a melody much faster.

Chords

After picking out the melody, the next step to play piano by ear is to harmonize the melody with chords. If you're a beginner, you will be happy to know that you only need to know three chords in order to harmonize any melody. These three chords are based on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale in whatever key you're playing in. In the key of C, the three chords would be C, F, and G chords. These three chords include every note in the key of C.

Chord Voicing

The last thing you need to know to play piano by ear is chord voicing. Chord voicing is when you play a chord in any position other than root position. Let's take a C chord for example. In root position, you will play a C, E, and G in that order. To voice the chord differently, you could play the E on the bottom, followed by a G and C. You could also play the G on the bottom, with the C and E played above it. When you play piano by ear, you could play all chords in root position, but you could vary your sound by using different chord voicing.

Learning how to play piano by ear is not that difficult. Once you have the melody figured out, all you have to do is harmonize it with chords. After that, you could experiment with different chord voicing to vary the sound. After practicing for a while, you will know how to play piano by ear with ease.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Learn-How-to-Play-Piano-by-Ear-Easily&id=568045