I’ve always thought of myself as someone who learns best by listening. In school, I thrived in lecture-based classes, especially when the professor was a gifted storyteller. If I could hear an idea explained, I was much more likely to remember it than if I simply read it on a page. Music, however, has always been different. Despite spending countless hours listening to recordings as I prepare a piece or study a score, I still feel most comfortable with printed music in front of me. That may be the product of my classical training, where nearly every musical decision is written on the page. Listening has always been an essential part of my process, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it learning by ear. Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if I need to expand my definition of what learning by ear really means.
As I’ve reflected on this, I’ve started noticing the same patterns in my students. When I ask them to learn something without music in front of them, I often hear hesitation before the first note is even played. Sometimes the uncertainty leads to what feels like groupthink: if one student plays confidently enough, everyone else follows, even if the notes are wrong. It reminds me of the phrase I’ve heard countless times over the years: “Wrong but strong.” Learning by ear can feel vulnerable because it asks us to trust our listening more than our eyes. Yet once we move beyond that initial discomfort, every musician learns by ear to some degree. The question isn’t whether we learn by ear or from notation, but how much we rely on one alongside the other. Many of the jazz musicians I work with seem to absorb melodies, harmonies, and rhythms almost effortlessly through listening, while many of my classical colleagues are understandably drawn first to what’s written on the page. Neither approach is inherently better, but each develops a different set of musical instincts. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if part of my job is teaching students to become fluent in both.
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