Is it better to learn to play the piano with sheet music or by ear?
It’s best to learn to do both. I was classically trained as a pianist. I had to learn everything by note which was great cuz there’s a lot of sheet music out there. You also get a lot of basic to intermediate music theory when you read music. But as a singer/songwriter, I had to start learning to do things by ear. I depend on my ears to choose my chords and the melody I wanted. Or if I was learning a cover song, when I learn something by ear, I’m more open to interpretting the music and personalizing it. My reasoning is that if I wanted to perform a song the exact way it was played before, then I’d just put on a juke box.
