This is a story of how I started my music journey.
When I was about 4 or 5 ish, I started piano lessons. . .I never was very good by music standards, I could not read music. Literally no matter how hard I tried, I could not read music. I became pretty good at pretending though. I learned to play by ear, what the song should sound like. It was not hard for me to sit down and play a song. I even managed to trick my piano teacher at one point.
As I got older I could not pretend to read music anymore and this frustrated me. I could not read music or play piano and this frustrated me.
So I decided that I was going to teach myself to play. I knew that reading music was not my thing. My guess is because I’m not good at math (and music has a LOT of math) I am not good at reading music. I decided that I was going to learn to play by ear, which was a hundred times easier for me.
My husband got me the little keyboard in the picture one year for Christmas and I started practicing.
Shortly after I decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar.
I had an Amazon gift card, so I bought this cheap acoustic. It was a cheap nylon guitar, but it was the guitar I first learned to play on.
I started during Covid. It was a bit of a quarentine hobby. Now I have been playing for about 2 years, and I’m far from an expert, but I have a lot of fun.
Surprise surprise, I can not read sheet music with my guitar either (I can read guitar tabs though obviously) It was a matter of finding a method that worked for me and a lot of practice.
When people say they can play by ear, more than likely they got that way because of a lot of practice. Music is not easy no matter how you do it, but I keep practicing and improving every day.
It Seemed Like A Good Idea At Three Am 