playing by ear is not just a trick to impress those who have to read the part to learn it, it's closely related to improvisation in any genre which involves im

playing by ear is not just a trick to impress those who have to read the part to learn it, it's closely related to improvisation in any genre which involves improvising with other musicians, it is hard to do that if you can't follow by ear what they are doing all the music theory knowledge in the world won't help you in that situation if you can't hear what the other players are playing