Introduction to playing by ear

Interactive webinar replay

$40 CAD
(approx. $30 USD)

Playing along with your favourite songs is one of the best and most enjoyable ways to learn piano! If you’d like to grow your skills in translating the music in your life into music at your piano, then you’re invited to a replay of this interactive webinar where a community of musicians learned and practiced the craft of playing music by ear.

What to expect

We start by talking about some of the music fundamentals you’ll need in order to discern the key, chords, and rhythm of your favourite music. This helps to streamline your process of playing by ear so you’re not just hammering away at random notes :)

But then, and most importantly, we spend the majority of our time actually listening to music together and practicing how to find their notes and chords on the piano. Song selections were taken from workshop attendees’ own suggestions, including The Beatles, Fats Domino, and Mötley Crüe. You’ll have the opportunity to participate in the listening exercises, follow along the participants’ questions, and maybe pick up a new favourite song or two :)

What skill level do I need to participate?

This workshop is meant for piano beginners, and you’ll only need a basic knowledge of the piano to be able to participate fully. You’ll need to know how to identify note names on the piano. It would be helpful if you could identify notes on the staff, too (treble clef only). It would also be very helpful if you knew how to play a basic rhythm such as my favourite rhythm pattern for piano beginners so that your chords can sound like music right away!

If these criteria feel like a stretch for you but you really want to learn to play by ear, you’re still welcome to join us! You can learn a lot just by listening to people talk about their piano journey, even if you’re not ready to play yourself. You can even get a head start on your own piano journey by learning where to start if you want to play by ear!

What you get with your purchase

When you purchase the webinar replay, you will get immediate access to a PDF document that includes:

• a private link to the 75-minute webinar

• all my presentation slides so you can follow along with my explanations and activities!

Here’s what participants had to say:

I have been very impressed with Sarah’s YouTube videos. I thought I would give her webinar a chance and was not disappointed. She hits the right balance in her teaching. Plus the webinar was light and fun. I will definitely attend more webinars in the future.

Jason Kennedy

Sarah, your videos on YouTube have been an inspiration to me for the last several months. This Ear Training Workshop gave me the needed practice and study habits to achieve my goals in several ways I would not have thought of.

D.F.

Great webinar! I had a chance to implement the steps right away and make progress with my ear training. What I liked so much are the insight nuggets — like, how most of 20th century music is guitar based — and not to worry too much about sounding the same on Piano. “Arrange, don’t copy” — loved it! These insights put things into context and take out the unintended mental blocks.

V.P.

If you have any questions about this workshop, please reach out using the Contact page.

Hope you’ll join us!