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Description:
CAHSEE ELA 3.2 Fluency. What is the best way to describe the meaning of play it by ear in the previous sentence?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your shmoop du jour... Merrill wasn't sure when water polo practice
- 00:07
would be over, so he didn't want to buy movie tickets in advance; he told Ben they should
- 00:12
play it by ear instead. What is the BEST way to describe the meaning
- 00:16
of play it by ear in the previous sentence?
- 00:19
And here are the potential answers:
Full Transcript
- 00:25
What does "play it by ear" mean?
- 00:26
Ok, some ancient history. Not that ancient.
- 00:30
In the old days, when saloons had piano players instead of stereo speakers and iTunes playlists,
- 00:35
music was shared on sheet music.
- 00:39
But the best piano players could just HEAR the music and then play it -- that is, play it by ear.
- 00:44
Yeah, not this way.
- 00:46
This way.
- 00:48
The question is really about what's allegory and what's literal -- i.e. what's a phrase
- 00:52
that's a symbol for something else -- like play it by ear --
- 00:55
...meaning that we wait for each note to come and then... play it -- spontaneously.
- 01:01
Versus literal - which would be, yeah this.
- 01:06
When you play it by ear, you just play it as you feel it and see what comes.
- 01:11
Answer: A.
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