186 - Expression: To Play It By Ear
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Hi, everybody. My name is Shawna, and this is the American English Podcast. My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States. Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful, and interesting. Let's do it.

Hello, hello! Welcome back. I hope you're having a nice day. In today's lesson, we're going to go over the very common English idiom to play it by ear. As usual, we'll start with a joke. We'll go through the origin or etymology of the expression to understand where it came from.

And then you'll hear three stories using this expression, regular situations, so that you get a clear idea of how to use it in different contexts. At the very end, we'll do a pronunciation exercise. In part two of today's episode, we'll be talking about a real social experiment called the violinist in the metro.

It's a story that'll make you think about perception and value and the beauty that we sometimes overlook in everyday life. So don't miss that episode. It'll be posted shortly.

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All right, let's go ahead and begin with today's joke. Are you ready? What do you get when a piano falls down a mine shaft? Any guesses? A flat minor. Let's explain the wordplay here. In music, A flat minor, M-I-N-O-R, is the name of a musical key.

And it's a combination of notes used to create a certain sound or mood. But in this joke, we're actually imagining a miner, M-I-N-E-R, which is someone who works underground in a mine. So that's an area where you excavate or dig for things like coal or gold.

Do you remember Snow White and the Seven Dwarves? The Seven Dwarves were miners. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go. You get the point. So if a piano falls down a mine shaft and lands on a miner, well, he'd be flat. Flattened like a pancake. Ouch.

So the joke plays on the sound of the musical term, a flat minor, and of course turns it into this silly image of a minor, the person working in the mine, being flat. A flat minor. It's a pun. In other words, it's wordplay. So different meanings with words that have the same sound. Let's hear it one more time.

What do you get when a piano falls down a mineshaft? A flat minor. Poor guy. Hopefully he was wearing a hard hat. Now let's go ahead and talk about the expression to play it by ear. What does that mean? To play it by ear means to improvise or to make decisions as the situation happens without a detailed plan.

right? So this expression actually comes from music. Musicians who play something by ear don't use written sheet music. Instead, they listen and play based on what they hear. That's how my husband plays music. He can't read it. However, he can listen to a melody and he can recreate it on piano, guitar, whatever. He can play it by ear.

Now, over time, that musical idea became a metaphor for handling any situation without planning every step in advance. By the mid-20th century, this idiom had become common in American English.

actually the first recorded use of it, had to do with the Brooklyn Dodgers, the baseball team. A 1934 article in the Coshocton Tribune refers to the Brooklyn Dodgers as the young men who play it by ear, indicating a spontaneous or unplanned approach to their actions. I wouldn't necessarily take this as a compliment,

if your game or your sport is based on strategy. So yeah, today we use this expression all the time in casual speech. Sometimes we want to have plans. We have a very organized routine for the day. Other times we just want to play it by ear. We just want to wing it. In other words, we want to do something without preparation. We want to wing it. We want to improvise.

Maybe we just want to go with the flow. I think this is a really good synonym for to play it by ear. It means to be flexible and to adapt to the circumstances.

So if you're walking through a city and you don't want to have any plans, you just might hop into a coffee shop or maybe you go to the park all of a sudden. You do what you want to do in the moment. You are going with the flow or you are playing it by ear.

So let's go through some common ways to use play it by ear in conversation. The first one we have is talking about a day trip. So imagine you're planning a weekend getaway with your friends. And one of them asks, what time should we leave the hotel and start sightseeing? You, if you don't want to have any set schedule,

might say, let's just play it by ear. If we're tired, we can sleep in. If we're up early, maybe we can hit a museum or grab brunch. In this case, you're saying, hey, let's make the decision in the moment. Let's get a feel for how we feel and then go with the flow. We'll take it as it comes. We'll wing it. We'll play it by ear. The second example has to do with a job interview.

So your friend is nervous about a job interview, and she asks, what if they ask me about salary expectations? You can say, well, you can prepare a range. For example, maybe you say, oh, I want to earn between $50,000 and $70,000 annually. But if it feels uncomfortable, just play it by ear.

In other words, feel the situation out. Don't stress about it or have a perfect script. Respond naturally based on how the conversation is going. Just play it by ear. Don't plan.

Just do it. Just go with the flow and take it as it comes. Embrace the chaos with Fanatic Sportsbook. This is the only sportsbook that gives you up to 10% fan cash back on every bet, win or lose. On top of that, new customers get up to $300 in bonus bets. Embrace the chaos all tournament long with Fanatic Sportsbook. Example number three, a family dinner.

So, you're visiting your in-laws, and your spouse asks, should we stay for dinner or just stop by? You might say, let's play it by ear. In other words, if there's a good vibe and they offer to have a stay, then we'll stay. If not, we can head out. In other words, we can leave.

So by saying let's play it by ear, you're not committing to a yes or a no. You're staying flexible and waiting to see how the night unfolds. Let's just go with the flow. Let's not have any fixed plans. Let's just play it by ear. Out of curiosity, are you the type of person that likes to go with the flow?

If you go on vacation, do you plan every day out with a schedule, knowing where you're going to eat, where you're going to go, or do you play it by ear? I have to admit, I'm a schedule person, especially on vacation, because I have a case of FOMO. F-O-M-O. Do you know what FOMO is? It's an acronym that means a fear of missing out.

I'm afraid that if I'm in a certain place that's new and there's the best croissant or the best museum or the best park and I don't schedule it somehow, then I'm going to miss it. And then I'll think about it afterwards. Hmm, I wonder what the best croissant tasted like. Hmm, I should have visited the best museum.

I just don't like to have regrets. And so I don't often play it by ear. My husband likes to a little bit more than me. But I always admire people that are really peaceful and easygoing and kind of live life in the moment. They kind of sway with the wind. There's actually a fancy French loan word that we use in English. Not everybody, but flaneur.

I wouldn't say it's a common word, but I do remember learning about it in English literature in college. And a flaneur is someone that kind of sways with the wind. It's someone maybe who walks aimlessly through a city, taking in the environment, and really going with the flow.

So here's an example of this. On weekends, she becomes a true flunner, wandering the city streets with a coffee in hand, notebook in her bag, and no particular destination. So if you want to sound fancy, you can use that French loan word, which does exist in English. It's much more advanced. Yeah, let's keep building that vocab.

So once again, a flaneur is someone who doesn't necessarily make plans. They just play it by ear. They take life as it comes. They go with the flow. Let's go ahead and practice pronunciation with a full sentence. I don't want to plan. Let's play it by ear. Repeat after me. I don't want. I don't want to plan. I don't want to plan. Let's play it by ear. We can actually reduce want to to wanna.

So, I don't want a plan. Let's play it by ear. Play it by ear also sounds somewhat reduced. Play it by ear. Play it by ear. It sounds like one word. I don't want a plan. Let's play it by ear. Let's go through the conjugation. We'll do the past tense. Repeat after me. I played it by ear. You played it by ear. She played it by ear. He played it by ear. It played it by ear.

We played it by ear. They played it by ear. Great job! I always find it fun to practice pronunciation just a little bit in these episodes.

I know that a lot of you probably speak very well at this point, but just these slight alterations to the way that we pronounce things, whether that's reducing or linking, can help not only with the way that you speak and your quickness, your speed, but also with listening comprehension because native speakers link and reduce in the same way.

So it's good to pay attention to the pronunciation section of these expression episodes. I do think it can really help. Remember, next week's episode will be really fun. The story raises big questions about beauty, time, and how we perceive value. If you've never heard of It, the violinist in the metro will be really fun.

And yeah, that's it for today's episode. If you want the transcript, quiz, or premium materials for this episode, you can visit the episode notes. So just scroll down on your podcast platform where you are listening to this podcast and you'll see the link for season four or premium content.

And yes, there's a bunch of fun material to help you dive deeper into the episodes in season four and all other seasons. Check them out. It's all there. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, when life doesn't go as planned, just play it by ear. Talk to you next time. Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the American English Podcast. Remember, it's my goal here to not only help you improve your listening comprehension, but to show you how to speak like someone from the States. If you want to receive the full transcript for this episode, or you just want to support this podcast, make sure to sign up to premium content on AmericanEnglishPodcast.com. Thanks and hope to see you soon.

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