Editing Playing by ear (section)

=== In the West ===
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Historically, the [[Western Classical Music|Western classical music]] tradition has been based on the process of learning new pieces from [[musical notation]], and hence playing by ear has a lower importance in musical training. Before the widespread use of sheet music, much early medieval Western music was learnt by ear, particularly in monasteries.

However, many teaching methods in this tradition incorporate playing by ear in some form. For instance, "[[ear training]]" courses are a standard part of [[music school|conservatory]] or college music programs (including use of [[Solfège]]), and the [[Suzuki method]], which incorporates a highly developed focus on playing by ear from a very young age.

In the [[western world|West]], learning by ear is also used heavily in the genres of [[folk music]], [[blues]], [[rock music|rock]], [[pop music|pop]], [[funk music|funk]], [[reggae]], and [[jazz]]. While most professional musicians currently active in these genres are capable of reading musical notation, playing by ear is still widely practiced for a number of reasons. Among those are ease and speed of learning songs, flexibility while [[Musical improvisation|improvising]] and playing variations, and working around the limitations of [[Musical notation|western musical notation]]. 

Since western musical notation was developed for [[classical music]], musicians sometimes run into issues when [[Musical expression|musical expressions]] are commonly used in the genre they are performing but not in classical music. Examples of this are [[Percussion instrument|percussion instruments]] in [[Music of African heritage in Cuba|Afro-Cuban music]], where different strokes and techniques are used to produce different tones and timbres,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Notation - Afro-Cuban Percussion Workbook|url=https://sites.google.com/site/afrocubanpercussionworkbook/excerpts-from-afro-cuban-percussion-workbook/notations|access-date=2021-02-17|website=sites.google.com}}</ref> or improvised music like jazz and classical Indian music, where large parts of the composition consists of guidelines for improvisation. Western musical notation can be ill-suited for these situations, and although supplements to musical notation can be invented to try to accommodate this, playing by ear and oral learning are often preferred because of readability, ease, and tradition.{{citation needed|reason=Teaching Western Music primarily by sight-reading pieces may be a 20th century practice. Improvisation was widespread in classical before the 20th c. None of the paragraphs cite any sources for the claims made.|date=January 2023}}