improvise vs play by ear

improvise

verb
  • To make something up or invent it as one goes on; to proceed guided only by imagination, intuition, and guesswork rather than by a careful plan. 

play by ear

verb
  • To do by guessing, intuition, or trial and error; to react to events as they occur; improvise 

  • To play guided by one's musical ear, rather than from a written score. 

How often have the words improvise and play by ear occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )