play by ear and improvise
Lots of people think that playing by ear and improvising are musical gifts which are the domain of the talented. Actually, they're just musical skills which can be learned/taught!
‘Most of my music teachers taught me that the role of a musician was to bring a written musical text to life. But one of my teachers intervened one day and gently pushed me off the page in the direction of a terrain I had never known existed. Whilst I continued to play so-called ‘classical music’, I became aware, from that moment on, of another dimension of music-making called improvisation.’
‘In the same way that we can speak our thoughts in the very moment they come to us, playing by ear is about connecting your instrument to your mind so that what you hear, you can play.’
My TedX talk about what is missing from the
ways we teach musical instruments!
From melody into improvisation on
a well-known nursery rhyme.
Playing flute on 'Chega da Saudade' at
JazzDock in Prague back in 2017.
From melody into improvisation on a
well-known jazz standard.