Ask HN: What does it feel like to master playing an instrument by ear?

yes I think developing a sense of relative pitch is somewhat necessary for what the OP asks, otherwise you will be stuck in trial and error forever

I'll echo what most have already said - it feels like singing your favorite song after you've learned all the words and you've memorized all the pauses and breaths and long runs. It feels like driving home after not being there for years; those familiar roads from your childhood never leaving your mind.

The intuition will come, after countless hours getting to know your instrument and your music. The easiest way for me to start was to practice with songs that I already knew. It's easier to train your fingers when you aren't worried about training your ears at the same time. Learning a new song on top of a new instrument is double the work for a beginner.

I'll also highly recommend trying to learn scales and arpeggios by ear. Scales being your "do re mi fa sol la ti do", and arpeggios being the thirds of those scales. There are lots of youtube videos of musicians playing scales and arpeggios, look those up and try on your own instrument. This will help you build muscle memory and allow your brain to make more intuitive aural decisions. No one LIKES practicing the basics, but there is a reason why they are drilled into musicians at even the highest of level of conservatories.

As you play songs you know, you will start to notice things like the "steps" between notes, and what those "steps" sound like. Oh those notes sound just like the notes from that other song, I'll bet this is a 5th too. This melody is just a drawn out descending scale, I know how to play that.

Lastly, have fun. It is normal to get frustrated or have "off" days when practicing. Mistakes are NORMAL, and mistakes can be good! Try to push through those moments and end your practice sessions on a high note (heh). Come down off of a particularly difficult practice session by going through scales again, or playing a song that you know. We want POSITIVE associations with music, not grumpy ones. If you are having an off day, don't force it. Come back the next day ready to bang out some tunes.

Yeah, but this ain’t The Matrix where you just pull it up, and now you know kung fu. You still need to practice that Cm pentatonic, or you’re just going to fumble around on the fly. For instance, as an experienced musician, I think to myself, “oh, C pentatonic, flat the third”. Live, on the fly, and I’ll probably play a few natural thirds, but hey, we’re jammin’, who cares?

Back to the original question, almost everything music-related comes down to “practice”. In this case practice discerning intervals between notes (there are mobile apps). Practice scales. Practice scales with interval jumps (first to third to fifth, or whatever). Practice scales starting on (say) the third.

But first and foremost, as already mentioned here, get a teacher. Show them this post. They can set you on the start of your journey. Be forewarned, it will be a multi-year process of consistent practice. Getting in a hurry will be your biggest enemy.

How long does it take, OP asks? Depends on how hard and how well you practice. There probably is some ethereal quality we call “talent” that plays a small part, but if decades of playing music has taught me anything, it is that your level of dedication to the instrument is a larger factor than “talent”. Because the most “talented” musicians I know coincidentally play a lot. :-)

Talent can only get your foot in the door I feel. You see a lot of talented people pick up a topic, do exceedingly well at the basics then just walk away. It's time, dedication and practice that take you from the clever kid destined for great things to a capable musician/crafstman/artisan/programmer.

There parallels between software and music proficiency are pretty strong in this regard. There is a big difference between a clever person who can learn quickly and an experienced programmer with niche domain knowledge earned over years. In the same way musicianship is more than being able to play an instrument.

Learning to play the instrument by ear is a completely different thing from learning to play a song by ear. My bachelor's is in classical guitar performance, but I've been playing all sorts of instruments my whole life. If I hear something "new" and play it by ear it's because it sounds similar to another thing that I've learned to play before. Learn a whole bunch of songs, and eventually you'll hear something "new" and say, "wait a minute that's not new to me, that's only a little different from the last song I learned."

I recommend that you learn using every resource available to you, build a vocabulary of music you can draw on while you're at the harmonium, and then go about discovering music by ear. Forcing yourself to learn the skill of harmonium playing only by trial and error is an unnecessary constraint, and it will take you much longer to play fluently by ear.