Key of C and Learning by Ear?

Q. K, I just bought a full size piano, and it's old, I know it's not in tune. (please don't tell me to tune it, I'm going to get it tuned soon)

I am learning from scratch, and me and my father haven't talked about music lessons yet (yes, I'm fourteen :p) and I don't know how to read sheet music.

I want to learn some songs by ear, but apparently I should know where the key of C is first, but I have no idea how to locate it on anything but a keyboard. In fact, I don't know how to find it at all.

Can anyone give me tips on learning by ear, and how to find the key of C?

I am trying to play:
To Zanarkand & Morning Glow from FFX.
I don't know where on the keyboard it is so please tell me where to look for it, not giving me a webpage with sounds -.-'

A. Wow - you'll have a lot of fun. There is nothing wrong with trying to play by ear. Music is great - but you'll find that there will be some "musical snobs" - people who'll tell you that if it isn't Mozart isn't worth learning, if it isn't written then it isn't worth knowing and so on. Then there will be people on the other end who will take foolish pride in never knowing how to read a note. Neither makes sense to me. It is better to do both - to know how to play be ear and to learn how to play what is written. It makes you more versatile. And no, playing by ear isn't harder; it is just that a lot of people don't practice it so it seems harder. I have a friend who only learned to play be ear after years of lessons because she wasn't encouraged to do it. When she got into situations where she needed to be able to "flow" move into different songs - she was stuck. But eventually she learned.

So go ahead - play around with the piano, have fun, try to see if you can play the melodies and chords that you hear. Try to play Zanarkand and Morning Glow by ear. Play different notes together - do you like how it sounds? Which are pleasing and which are not? Just enjoy it. At the same time, get lessons. The things that you'll learn will be invaluable especially if you end up writing music. Or if one day you are able to find Zanarkand and Morning Glow as sheet music. Or if you want to play songs that you've never heard. I still use music theory to help me when I'm composing songs or singing. I hope to take lessons again one day.

Here are a nice collection of videos that should help you to get started. Start with the Beginner's #1 Video:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=cmaonlinenet&p=r

And to answer your question, the key of C (the C major scale) are the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C with no sharps or flats (you only play white keys, no black keys, and you start with the note named "C"). The video should help you find it.

All the best!

C

Original Question

Title : Key of C and Learning by Ear?
Description : Q. K, I just bought a full size piano, and it's old, I know it's not in tune. (please don't tell me to tune it, I'm going t...