play by ear vs wing it

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. 

wing it

verb
  • To improvise; to make things up or figure things out as one goes; to perform with little or no preparation. 

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