The unspoken topic

[Mark]

I might have this all wrong but ear training is the topic that never gets much talk yet it is extremely important. My son has being doing piano lessons for a few years and there isn't any real effort by his teachers to provide ear training.

I still do "wedge" exercises, which is to say I sing arpeggios and intervals to try and keep on top of my aural ability.

Learning guitar/music is very technique based but I can't but help think the technique training without the ear training is setting the student up to hit a brick wall later on.

Any thoughts on aural training and what works?

I have found a couple of apps which are very good. Easy ear training has a free app which is a good starter, the better ears beginner free apps is very thorough and you'd be on top of it if you can master the beginner app.

Any thoughts on this one?

[tubeswell]

Learn to hum the tune to yourself as pitch perfectly as you can (in a way that no-one else can hear

[xtian]

I constantly have music playing in my head. I find that it typically plays at the correct pitch in my imagination (when I'm recalling some song from my library for example). So, in the morning, after hours of dreaming, and not listening to any real audio, I try to recall a familiar tune, or imagine hitting an open A chord on guitar, and then hum that note to myself, and then go to the piano and see if I'm right. I'm slowly getting better and better at that. This is the beginnings of perfect pitch, and it's exciting.

Recognizing intervals is very useful, and definitely should be part of musical training. We were watching an episode of The Americans, about Russian spies, and the sound track was "America the Beautiful" but sung in Russian by a male choir, using a lot of minor chord subs, and some dissonant seconds thrown in. Disturbing and powerful.

[martin manning]

I think most music teachers will agree learning to recognizing intervals (relative pitch) is much more important than recognizing absolute pitch. A very common method for learning intervals is to have a mental list of songs in which a particular interval is prominently featured, like this: https://flypaper.soundfly.com/tips/inte ... intervals/

[telentubes]

Ear training is so important and I agree that it isn't emphasized enough in musical training.
I knew a singer who studied voice at Berklee in Boston. She told me one of the instructor's favorite devices was to take the class out on to the streets and have them sing the intervals on license plates. You know... 528439 etc. Always thought that was pretty clever.

[Reeltarded]

I used AM radio. I played with every next thing that came on every station. Relative pitch is all that is important, perfect pitch is going to happen about a song. I can tune within a cent or two of perfect with my memory of a certain Zeppelin tune.

The easy ones are a perfect fifth and a major third. That's two down. Minor third is very simple after that. The four is simple then. A six is not a 5th or a 7th.. the 7th sounds like old people.. a second is too close.. it's a game sort of like describing spices in a stew.

The humming thing is the way to express it for sure and also becomes a tool for writing it. It's a fairly easy language if you ever learned to speak English.

When writing songs, my favorite writers start with a hum track over something to keep time, then they mouth all the parts, then we replace all that with other instruments.

My opinion is that most teachers now... well, they really don't. Most students also do not apply themselves. It's very important to be obsessed with something and drown in it. The difference in my ignorance and the average modern ignorance of the progression of the culture of music is that I notice it exists, the music culture.

Doo dee doo. Be the trumpet.

There is a Leonard Bernstein series at Harvard called "The Unanswered Question". It's on youtube now. Every musical person should have their lives changed by watching him describe how to drown in it. BRB

[Reeltarded]

Phonemic expressions. The waters. So deep.




Syntax.. what? These sounds have a meaning?




Ahhh... I hear what you mean.




Disambiguation; Say what you mean.




hah! And you thought it was lines at petrol stations?




It can be profound.. that it can be profane? Yes. It can be cynical and loving and it can make everyone, everyone, everyone.. laugh about the same thing. It describes every character you ever knew. It's the action of falling. It's the bitterness and the charm that we all hold. It's the most powerful language and it's Universal to all humanity. It's important. It's very important. Let's drown.

[Reeltarded]

I constantly have music playing in my head. I find that it typically plays at the correct pitch in my imagination (when I'm recalling some song from my library for example). So, in the morning, after hours of dreaming, and not listening to any real audio, I try to recall a familiar tune, or imagine hitting an open A chord on guitar, and then hum that note to myself, and then go to the piano and see if I'm right. I'm slowly getting better and better at that. This is the beginnings of perfect pitch, and it's exciting.

Recognizing intervals is very useful, and definitely should be part of musical training. We were watching an episode of The Americans, about Russian spies, and the sound track was "America the Beautiful" but sung in Russian by a male choir, using a lot of minor chord subs, and some dissonant seconds thrown in. Disturbing and powerful.

I cheat. I have chromesthesia. I wasn't aware that everyone didn't see sounds like I did until I was teaching. That thing about you recalling pitch is how I experience memories of music. I honestly rarely listen to music. It's distractive in some ways.

I produce music that the production grows from my memories of other music. I might direct someone by reminding them of the heart of another song, the feeling.. the way it touches us with timbre.. attitude or sharpness.. immediacy.. they often say YES! LETS LISTEN TO THAT RIGHT NOW! and I tell them HELL NO WE WONT!! WE WILL REMEMBER THAT AND GO FORWARD!!

The rappers call me Tidewater, but my best friends call me A. M. Gold. lol

The Russian version of America the Beautiful sounds like a fantastic thing. I need to hear that.

[xtian]

The Russian version of America the Beautiful sounds like a fantastic thing. I need to hear that.

And here you go:

[erwin_ve]

I teach for 25 yrs, have my own guitar school. When it comes to theory and ear training most students quit within a few months, they just wanna play and look bored when bringing up the subject. However small pieces of technique and sequences found in songs can secretly bring some ear training.

But for those who are interested there are several ways:
1.Learn naming intervals on guitar, that is relative easy.
2.When hearing a melody try to imagine how you would play the first 2 notes on your instruments, then check. When being succesful at that point move on to 1 more note etc. (this part is most of the times a succefull approach to students who seem to be unmotivated for any kind of ear training).
3.Combine the first 2
4. Identify chords, start with simple major, minor
5. Use apps, programs: for Android: Ear training, For PC, Mac: GNU Solfège

Above is all relative pitch, for perfect pitch I believe you have to be born with it.

Reeltarded: chromesthesia; I recently read a book "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks and he sums up several kinds experiences with tone/music. Hearing a note and having a taste in your mouth is one of them. People who have unlocked musical abilities after a stroke/ or music unlocks several abilities that were gone after a stroke. Interesting stuff our brain isn''t it?

Jaws movie; which interval?

Erwin

[martin manning]

Jaws movie; which interval?

The scary minor second! SO many resources... Anywhere anytime I can pull out my phone and have a little keyboard to play on! I can remember as a child immediately associating colors with the notes played on a piano. These are fascinating topics. Here's another good read: "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" by D. J. Levitin.

[Phil_S]

I submit the digital tuner is the enemy of ear training. If you tune by numbers and never learn how to tune by ear, you will never train your ear. I was a 'cello student back in the 60's, You'd think those friction peg instruments are difficult to tune. They aren't if you know how to listen. I really was quite good at it.

I still don't have a digital tuner. However, now that I'm old and lazy, I think I want one

[martin manning]

Got a phone? https://www.petersontuners.com/products/istrobosoft/

[telentubes]

Everything Miles said.
I have an old friend who is a career studio multi instrumentalest in LA and he says he works on his ear more than anything.

Check out Dylan Beato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkx64H0F9Rk

[ER]

I was always afraid to sing because of an asshole voice teacher I had in high school that humiliated me in front of the whole class.

I kept noticing I would have a sore throat after band practice, turns out I was humming and singing along with every note I played I just couldn't hear it with the amp up loud. The whole George Benson thing became really easy after that. I still can't play a wah wah without moving my mouth and making funny faces.