Im New: Playing By Ear....How To Start

[Blackwiz]

My name is Tee. Im in the process of learning to play church music. I just learned how to play "I Love You Lord Today" a week ago. But I want to know how to play gospel music by ear. I want to be able to hear someone playing a song or a simple congretional song and pick it up easily.

Now, i must stress I am a beginner. I guess you'll prolly tell me something like learn the major 7th chord and dominant or wateva, but that's where im confused. What are those chords. Where can i learn those chords. How to i play those chords. I really need help.


thanks

[lordluvr]

Hi Tee.  Welcome to the site.

I'm relatively new myself and what I found extremely helpful to learning to play by ear is learning theory- how to build chords from triads to extended chords;  chord progressions; the circle of fifths, etc.  This site is a good place to learn a lot of it.

I also purchased a book from Jermaine Griggs.  I think it's called "How to play piano by ear".  It's 300 pages full of theory and exercises geared toward teaching you to play by ear.  You can find out more at www.hearandplay.com.  This is how I started about 1 1/2 years ago.  I'm not totally there yet, but that's mostly because I don't have a lot of time to practice.  I feel like I can play any song by ear, though I'm still learning runs, riffs and things like that.  

I hope this helps.