Ear training for a beginner

I've been looking at the free online ear training programmes as I see them as being superficial. I realise I was never really 'listeing' to music , rather just hearing it.

So I have been working on intervals, mainly Major 3rd, Perfect 4th and 5th and Octave.

I have trouble with the Maj 3rd and Perf 4th .

Do many people use these ear programmes ?

If yes how did you go about it? As in did you study intervals for along time then move onto chords ?

I have tried listening to songs on the radio to see if I could recognise any intervals Ive been studying but the songs go by so fast.

PitchCoachX is good and free - though only Mac

If you reaaaally want this, get Transcribe! and import an mp3. Loop 4 bars at a time and write the melody down, then bassline, then figure out the chords. I'm talking about a britney Spears popsong or something.

I have had training with a teacher for 9 years up until last year. After 1 year I got Earmaster which is a fantastic tool for both windows and mac. After I started transcribing music, eartraining has become obsolete

Here is the site of a dutch conseratory with some eartraining exercises (it's in english):

http://www3.artez.nl/musictools/auditief/index_eng.html

There is another page from that website which has some additional exercises, but that one is in dutch.

My teachers just taught me using songs that presented different intervals. Like, a major 3rd is the first two notes of Kumbaya, My Lord. Perfect 4th is, Oh Christmas Tree. Perfect 5th is the opening notes for main Star Wars theme.

Wikipedia has a good resource for this here.

Another option is a program called Aquallegro. It's a pretty deep ear training program that can train you with figuring out chords as well. It's Mac as well, but maybe you have a Mac! http://andyvn.ath.cx/downloads/aquallegro/aquallegro_5.1.zip

Hope that helps!

-John

My teachers just taught me using songs that presented different intervals. Like, a major 3rd is the first two notes of Kumbaya, My Lord. Perfect 4th is, Oh Christmas Tree. Perfect 5th is the opening notes for main Star Wars theme.

This is one of the biggest clogs in learning fluent ear training. I strongly advice AGAINST this method

I've a pretty decent relative pitch and a good pitch memory. I've heard it called "relatively perfect pitch" or "practically perfect pitch."

No programs, just a lot of mind games I've been playing for about 9 years now. I don't recommend memorizing intervals, however, because it isn't nearly as important or practical as learning the pitches or learning relativity to a tonic. Not to mention difficult to develop alone without a computer program or a music theory teacher at a piano to drill you.

Game 1: Eb any time, any place.

Let's say you're a pianist. Take a pitch of your choice (for pianists, A or C would probably be good ones). Take a piece that begins with that exact note, how about Bach's Prelude no.1 in C major. Imagine playing the beginning of the piece, then play the first couple bars, then sing the FIRST pitch, then play it again. Repeat a few times, then take a break and do it again later. The next day, do it again only this time, imagine playing it and then sing the pitch first before actually playing it, then hold the note you're singing and begin playing it. Do the drill a few times. Should only take half a minute per session.

As you get better at these games, push it further with a piece like Fur Elise. Starts on E (first pitch) but is in the key of A. Memorize the entire first line and you basically have E and A memorized because 1 and 5 are both very powerful notes in the ear.

This is an almost fool-proof way to develop a good pitch memory. Not only will your list of memorized pitches (1?) increase, but you get better at retaining the exact pitch of songs that you hear. :santa:

Extend this to a handful of pitches. All twelve would be ideal, but not really necessary. Once you get several distantly related pitches firmly engrained in your head and get the hang of rudimentary solfege, you can figure out pretty quickly what any given sound's pitch is.

Game 2: Solfege everything you hear.

Self-explanatory. Learn to solfege. A great way to exercise your solfege chops is simply to improvise on a major scale in solfege. Once you're pretty comfortable using solfege, then practice solfeging everything you hear (tunes on radio, pieces, etc). Focus at first on either the bass or the melody. It doesn't have to be out loud and you start simple: identify at LEAST "sol" and "do" in what you are listening to. Have access to a piano or something so you can check whether or not your solfege was right. Quite frankly, the best way to develop this is to join a choir for a while. Less menial work, more fun, and more effective in general provided you aren't just memorizing how the songs go.

As you get better, identify the pitch of 'do' once you've established it by singing through your memorized pitches: pick out which one lies in the scale system of the song, climb up and down the solfege ladder till you hit 'do' and now you know what key the song is in without a doubt. This is true "relative pitch." The more you practice, the faster you get to where you don't even think about the steps, you just kinda know what a Db sounds "like."

Game 3: Transcribe

'Nuff said. Listen, put it on a loop like bryla mentioned and transcribe cadenzas, solos, whatever.

Just like any ability, it takes practice. There really isn't a secret.

YMMV. :wave:

-Peter

PS

Learn the chromatic scale on your instrument. Sing along while you play it. Once you can do that second nature, you can find the pitch of any note by memorizing one pitch, though it takes longer than knowing solfege and the risk of forgetting your pitch is much higher. It helps mainly when you consistently get pretty close with your first guess.

This is one of the biggest clogs in learning fluent ear training. I strongly advice AGAINST this method

Why is this one of the biggest clogs? It's an easy way to differentiate the pitches when you're just starting out.

I may suggest you Earmaster, a software. Do a little search on web about it.

Other suggestions of mine would be learning how to sight-read and sing, solfege, as said. It would be great if you find accompaniment. But in addition to that, don't rely on strict, or let's say scale based solfege. Sing in tri-chords, tetra-chords and pentatonic scales, and improvise. Don't use accompaniment with that, though. Sing for 3-4 measures and stop. Then play the last note you sang on piano, to check if you are out of tune. Singing Bach chorales are really educating too. If you decide to sing chorales, on the other hand, first, sing for yourself, then sing it with a record of it. Then, with the record, swap the parts you are reading, say, if you are reading the bass part swap to the tenor part suddenly. And when you sing it, think about and hear all the parts.

Finally, I'm not that against thinking about the music you know to recall notes and intervals. But I think it brings more burden. It forces you to first remember the song, not the note and that is not freedom. (We learn colors with objects first, like apple is red or green, but do we really have to? We imagine the colors almost instantly when we think about one, and we don't need to imagine about the apple first. We remember colors much more faster because we encounter them and exchange information with them way more than sounds. Try to recall notes like that.) You may want to press notes at will on piano, first only the white keys, then you may add some black keys too. Press them and name them right after hearing them. Do it everyday for 10 minutes and after one month, you'll get the hang of it.

I hope it was informative.

If you play an instrument, take a piece that you can play (from memory) and imagine playing it on your instrument. Close your eyes and image that you are playing the piece on your instrument. And try to hear the music that comes from it. Don't try to make up a sound, but try to actually remember what it sounded like the last time you played it. If you can, you should be able to hear it vividly in your mind, and have the sense that you just know you are hearing it correctly and at the correct pitch. If you can't, don't worry, you will get better as you keep trying. Play the first few bars on your instrument, and close your eyes and imagine playing it again, but this time you will be able to remember what it sounded like, because you just heard it and the sound is still fresh in your short term memory. If you do this a lot you should get better at it and eventually be able to hear it anytime you want. Do it with all your pieces before you start to play them. It will help your perfect pitch and relative pitch. After you get good at that, go to your instrument and play random notes and try to guess what they are using all the music that is in your memory. Do the same thing for intervals and chords. This is what I do and it works great for me!

Ooh... a hidden gem in ear training books is Lars Edlunds Modus Novus or Novus Modus - can't remember... We used it at the conservatory - it's worth every penny!