Many musicians debate whether teaching students to play by ear can negatively impact their ability to read music. We are familiar with anecdotes of students who first learned to play by ear and who subsequently failed to learn to read. In contrast, many music educators and researchers believe that strong aural skills can enable students to learn to read more quickly. In the world of popular music (also referred to as "rock music," "pop music," or "vernacular music"), musicians rely heavily on aural music skills; however, they often do not need the music reading skills that classical musicians must have. Should a music educator encourage students to play by ear? Through a brief review of both correlational and experimental studies, as well as a consideration of teaching methods within the popular music world, it can be shown that teaching students to play by ear, when done in correct sequence, does not hinder and may improve students' ability to read. At the same time learning to play by ear provides students with additional useful aural music learning skills.

Research Suggests Playing by Ear Supports Music Reading

McPherson (1995) studied correlations between secondary school students' abilities in different types of performance including sight reading, performing rehearsed music, playing from memory, playing by ear, and improvising. He found a moderate positive correlation between ability to play by ear and ability to sight read. This is an important finding because it implies that students with stronger ear playing skills will have stronger sight reading skills, rather than weaker reading skills.

This finding also reflects what we inherently know about language reading in that children are fluent speakers before they begin to read. According to Gordon (2003), it is after children have developed relatively extensive listening and speaking vocabularies along with a concept of appropriate syntax that they are taught to read and write. It follows that it is natural for music students to develop listening and playing/singing vocabularies and a sense appropriate musical syntax in order to make sense of the music notation they read.

Can a music educators use playing by ear to support learning to read music? Bernhard (2006) conducted research in which two sixth grade band classes received instruction from a traditional beginning method book. The experimental group learned to play each melody using what researchers termed "tonal training." This consisted of: 1) listening to the researcher sing the melody on a neutral syllable, 2) singing the melody with neutral syllable, 3) listening to the researcher sing the melody with solfege, 4) singing the melody with solfege, 5) performing the melody by ear on their instruments, and 6) performing the melody instrumentally while looking at notation. The control group used a traditional method of instruction consisting of: 1) visually identifying pitch letter names of notes in melody, 2) visually identifying the fingering or slide position for each note, and 3) performing the melody by sight. Compared with the control group, the experimental group had greater improvements in their ability to play by ear, and made similar improvements in sight reading ability. Bernhard wrote that this suggests tonal training will improve students' abilities to play by ear without negatively affecting their sight reading abilities. It is especially important to note that even though the experimental group of students spent very little time actually reading music compared to the amount of time the control group spent reading music, the experimental group still developed equally strong music reading skills. Bernhard also found that the experimental group had developed stronger ear playing skills.

Musco (2007) compared middle school band students who learned to play melodies by ear with those who practiced technical exercises from notation. Both groups learned pieces in Bb, a key with which they were already familiar, and learned pieces in G and Db, keys in which they had not played before. The group which played by ear did no reading of music notation, and the group which practiced technical exercises only learned from notation. Musco found that both groups improved in sight reading ability while only the ear-playing group improved in ability to play by ear. Interestingly, the ear-playing group improved reading in the new keys even though they had never experienced reading in those keys.

In addition, results of an attitude survey showed that only students in the ear- playing group perceived that they had made improvements in their playing ability, although in reality both groups improved in reading ability. Musco suggested that a possible cause for the difference in perceived learning could be due to the level of higher order thinking skills used by students. The students in the ear-playing group were required to use higher level thinking skills, including problem solving and reflection, when playing by ear. However, Musco used a traditional instructional format with the group who learned exercises through notation, which did not require students to use higher order thinking skills.

Based on these findings, music teachers can be confident that teaching students to play by ear will be beneficial. Students who spend time learning to play by ear while spending less time reading music still learn to read just as well, and they also develop a greater ability to play by ear.

Popular Musicians' Music Learning Practices

Musicians who perform popular music often use different techniques than classical musicians to learn music. Campbell (1995) analyzed the ways music is taught and learned during rock band rehearsals by interviewing and observing nine musicians, aged 14 to 16, from two rock bands. She found that the musicians focused on several skill sets, but most strongly on aural skills. When rock band musicians are listening analytically to music in order to copy it, they focus on its melody and words, chordal progressions and strumming, the percussion accompaniment, the form, lead guitar riffs, and stylistic nuances.

Green (2001) analyzed the skills that musicians of popular music use by interviewing both professionals and children who were learning to perform popular music. She also found that aural skills were heavily relied upon. The most common way of learning music was listening to recordings and copying them. Often, this listening was systematic and goal-directed, as they went through the process of listening to the recording, memorizing a section, and then figuring out how to play it on the instrument. They would then play along with the recording. However, they also learned to play in a given style and to approximate copies of songs by listening passively. Notation, or partial notation like chord symbols, was used for learning and transcribing, but it was secondary to learning by listening.

Classically trained musicians can benefit from learning aural skills used by popular musicians. The following study highlights the superior abilities of classically trained musicians who have had experience learning through playing by ear as well as through reading notation. Woody and Lehmann (2010) asked musicians with only classical music experience and musicians with both classical and popular music experience to perform back melodies after hearing them. Musicians either played or sang back the melodies. Singers required fewer listen-then-perform cycles than instrumentalists, and musicians with popular music experience required fewer cycles than classically trained musicians. Classically trained singers required over six attempts but singers with popular music experience required only three. Instrumentalists with only classical training required over ten attempts, but instrumentalists with popular music experience required less than four.

Based on participants' reports, musicians with popular music experience had a more sophisticated knowledge base to refer to when encoding the melodies, but classical musicians used less efficient strategies. Classical instrumentalists devoted more conscious attention to physically producing the melodies, but popular musicians were able to physically produce the melodies on their instruments more automatically. In this study, all participants, including popular musicians, were music majors; therefore, all had classical training. Musicians with popular music experience were much more likely to report that the melody was predictable and were much more likely to think about chords or harmonic structure of the melody. Classically trained musicians were more likely to think about intervals or scale degrees and were much more likely to think about fingerings on instruments.

Considering the successes of school music students in the previous studies who played by ear while learning to read music notation, as well as the superior skills of the musicians with popular music experience in Woody and Lehmann's study, music educators cannot doubt the importance of including playing by ear in their curricula.

Including Playing by Ear in Traditional School Music Curricula

How can a music educator best go about incorporating principles of playing by ear into his or her music literacy and reading curriculum? Using the sequence outlined by Bernhard (2004), teachers can easily incorporate playing by ear at the elementary and secondary levels. His sequence consisted of students first learning to sing the melody on a neutral syllable, then listening to a teacher sing the melody with solfege while learning themselves to sing the melody with solfege, then performing the melody by ear on their instruments, and finally performing the melody instrumentally while looking at music notation. Music educators at the elementary level may choose to teach classroom music such as folk songs in this way, later transferring the melody to instruments such as pitched percussion or recorders. At the secondary level, instrumental music educators may opt to introduce sections of new literature in this way, before giving students the score.

Teachers should also consider using current popular music and other common melodies students are familiar with as a means of introducing the process of learning to play by ear. In fact, learning to play music by ear is the most common method of learning music for the majority of popular musicians, as well as musics of most of the world's non-Western cultures (Green, 2001). Therefore, it is not surprising that students enjoy learning to play popular music in this way.

When teachers who have previously been teaching music reading in a more traditional way begin to introduce playing by ear as a stepping stone in the process to reading, they may be surprised to discover which students thrive in this new alternative learning environment and which students struggle. Some students will be dismayed because they are now expected to figure out which notes to play for themselves, while others may blossom because they find it a very natural way to learn. A teacher may consider putting students in pairs at first when working out playing by ear so that students with stronger aural skills can assist those who are just beginning to develop aural skills.

Given the findings from research on playing by ear, music teachers can assume that the experience of learning music by ear will be an excellent activity for students, functioning as a preparatory step in learning to read music, as long as teachers also introduce music reading at the appropriate time. Students will develop the ability to play by ear as well as sight read, all while improving their musicianship.

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