ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour... Merrill wasn't sure when water polo practice

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would be over, so he didn't want to buy movie tickets in advance; he told Ben they should

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play it by ear instead. What is the BEST way to describe the meaning

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of play it by ear in the previous sentence?

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And here are the potential answers:

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What does "play it by ear" mean?

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Ok, some ancient history. Not that ancient.

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In the old days, when saloons had piano players instead of stereo speakers and iTunes playlists,

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music was shared on sheet music.

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But the best piano players could just HEAR the music and then play it -- that is, play it by ear.

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Yeah, not this way.

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This way.

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The question is really about what's allegory and what's literal -- i.e. what's a phrase

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that's a symbol for something else -- like play it by ear --

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...meaning that we wait for each note to come and then... play it -- spontaneously.

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Versus literal - which would be, yeah this.

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When you play it by ear, you just play it as you feel it and see what comes.

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Answer: A.

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