About Joseph
Playing by ear became part of how I make music.
I’ve been playing violin since I was nine. Along the way, I spent countless hours putting on recordings and working out what I was hearing on the instrument. I still do. And now it’s something I teach.
How it started
I spent a lot of time playing along with music.
I started violin when I was nine. I had instruction: lessons, practice, all of it. But outside of that, I kept coming back to the same thing on my own: putting on recordings of music I liked and working out what I was hearing on the violin.
Not once or twice. Hours.
After enough of that, the connection between hearing something and finding it on the instrument became more natural.
Playing by ear doesn’t replace musicianship. It expands it.
Why I teach it
Hearing it and playing it are two different things.
A melody can feel completely familiar (you’ve heard it a hundred times, you could hum it right now) and still be surprisingly hard to find on your instrument.
Hearing a melody and locating it are connected, but they’re not automatically the same skill. The connection can be practiced, and it gets stronger.
This is something I work on with my students: building that connection between what they hear and what they can find on the instrument.
How I think about it
Three things, every time.
Whatever the song, the work comes back to the same three moves: hear it, find it, play it.
Hear the shape.
Start by listening for movement. Where does it rise? Where does it fall? What repeats? What changes? Follow the shape of the phrase as you hear it.
Find the sound.
Take what you heard to the instrument. Find a starting point, follow the movement, listen and adjust. Over time, the connection between your ear and your hands gets more natural.
Play the phrase.
Reproduce it. Then everything you’ve built as a musician (technique, timing, phrasing) goes into how you play it.
Violin is my instrument. The skill goes beyond it.
Playing by ear isn’t unique to violin. Musicians build this connection on guitar, piano, bass, saxophone, voice, and other instruments too. Violin is where I have the most experience, and it’s where my teaching starts. I’ve also had musicians on other instruments interested in learning this approach.
- Violin
- Guitar
- Piano
- Bass
- Saxophone
- Voice