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May 31, 2023Liked by Edward Scott Pearlman

Well - I concur 100% having tried everything mentioned but once the tune is solid in my ears I have a much accelerated learning curve. Little gotchas get worked out pretty quickly when I loop one or two bars in a lesson. Thanks again for your clear writing. ♪♫

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This is excellent, Ed. I will refer people to your article as I explain to them why, for me at least, playing by ear is a BRIDGE to playing by note. Fifty years ago in music school, hearing a piece before you tried to play it from sheet music was broadly considered "cheating" and suggested that you were weak at reading music. That makes about as much sense to me as saying that it is cheating for a child to hear their native language before they are taught to read.

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Really nice synthesis of your observations, Ed! I love this framing. My only quibble is that most of what you attribute to the "ear" is also happening in the brain -- it's in auditory working memory (auditory cortex) rather than sequence memory (possibly hippocampus?). Ditto "muscles" -- that's motor learning in motor cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum. But brain-brain-brain vs. brain-brain-brain isn't quite as enlightening...

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