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5 ways of playing music

In my experiences of choir singing and a year of beginner training in Classical Piano, I have listed out with 5 common methods of how humans beings, prefer to play music. It may be playing it with the volin, piano, singing, etc etc.

This credit also goes to the PhD Choir teacher who also shared her views. Read more about my profile on the link at the top of the page.

These are the 5 methods we usually prefer starting off with the most uncommon:
 

1) Perfect Pitch
This is where a musician listens to the music, and is able to immediately recognize the notes, the scale, its rythem, dynamics and any harmonization that were involved. This requires a very high level of talent, practise, and music proficient to perform this. For example, an orchaestral conductors.

 
2) Photographic view of music scores
The musician or performer must be of certain level of music proficiency, in order to use this method. He or she should be able to picture an imaginary view of the scores, including all the minor details printed on the score like dynamics, rythem and any special ornaments. For example my choir teacher, who can capture all details without referring to the scores.

 
3) By ear
In this method, the performer is able to “remember” the music and then try to play a similar set of music, that may or not be identical to the original piece. Some improvisations may be use here, but it depends on how the musician or performer interpret the music. For example, any pop or jazz piano musicians, including myself.

 
4) Sight read
This is also probably the next harder way after the 5th. The performer will have to read ahead on the score to play or sing the music out. He or she needs to have a good sense of pitches, and fast sight reading skills. It would be very hard at first, but after some reading, the performer should be prepared on how it should be played, especially long and difficult pieces.

 
5) Memorising music
This is the most common among classical piano pieces, where the music produced must be identical to the printed scores. The performer memorizes the music, by repeatly playing the same pieces, till it reaches a point of muscle memory. This means the fingering of it is so fixed, that it no longer requries ear and sight read, just pure mechanicalized method of playing music.

In Singing, we have lyrics in songs, and we only sing 1 melody, that makes singing easier. As for Piano, it is slightly harder as it requires both hands to play.
 
 
So…

For a very long piece of music, some musicians or performers prefer to memorise, and some would like to sight read, depending on each person’s abilities. Sometimes, a mixture of abilities are used for a piece, but I have never used the first 2 methods, probably it is not my preferred way of doing music.

I am sure it is good to be able to do any of the 5 methods, perhaps there are even more ways in music, which is what I will discovery along this journey.

Hope to hear your valuable comments !

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