what does it mean to have a good ear? like for piano?

Question

my piano teacher says I have a good ear. Does that mean that I am able to copy what he plays or memorize music? and does that mean I have a good ear for something else like learning languages or is that only applied to music?

Answer 1

A good ear means you hear the differences in the tones better than most. You could more than likely hear something played a couple of times and mock it. I have the same "good ear". It's a gift and a talent. Be thankful! Oh, and yes it is only applied to music in this case. But you never know, you may have an ability to learn languages just easily. Hope this helped and have fun learning the piano!

Answer 2

If you have a good ear for music it means you're able to listen to something and sing or play it almost instantaneously. It's more of a copy-cat type of thing, but many great musicians play entirely by ear. As for whether that talent could be applied to learning languages, that's a coin-toss because learning a language is more complicated than repeating what you hear, especially when you get into verb tenses and prepositions and conjugating sentences and all that fun stuff.

Answer 3

Well, the meaning of that phrase ("a good ear") can vary.

I don't think that a classically-trained musician (and I'm assuming your teacher is one) would use that phrase to mean that you are good at "playing by ear," since playing by ear generally implies that someone relies very little on formal training. It IS possible to be formally trained and still be able to play by ear...but I'm thinking that since you're taking lessons you're relying more on the training part of it. (Also, I think he probably would have told you that you were "good at playing by ear" since the two phrases have slightly different connotations.)

For a pianist it probably means what a lot of people have already said--that you have a good sense of what sounds "good" or "right," or that you have a good sense of relative pitch (the intervals between notes, etc.--see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_pitch ). When I was little my piano teacher told me the same thing--and she meant it in the context that I could always tell when I hit a wrong note.

For other instruments or for a vocalist, it could also mean that someone has a good sense of intonation (i.e. being in tune).

As for helping in learning languages...who knows? It might help with learning inflection--if you have a good sense of pitch, you may be able to imitate the nuances of a language better. But like someone else mentioned above, there are a lot of other things involved in language (verb tenses, masculine/feminine forms in many, etc.).

My answer was probably overkill, but I hope it helped in clearing some things up! Good luck with the piano :)

Answer 4

it means you put your ear on the piano and wiggle it to play.... just kidding. to play by ear means you can hear a song then play it without seeing sheet music, it is a skilled developed after a good amount of musical training (1-2 years for moderate ability, 6-10 years for a high degree of skill)

Answer 5

Good ear for music means that u r able to distinguish the various notes and the variances in them...

it means that u r not tone deaf...

Answer 6

it prolly means u are able to hear what note he is using and u can tell when something sounds good and not bad in music.. i dont know about other languages.

Answer 7

It means you can 'feel' the music and know the chord changes..It is more of a feeling thing....