Intervals

[M0ses]

Alright so I'm taking an online music course. Just me and the piano (which I'm pathetically bad at)
and of course I have to be able to sing intervals by ear. Now training yourself to do that is bad enough. And I'm trying to practice that as much as I can, because I know that's the only way I'll be able to master it. But here's the problem: I'm having a lot of TROUBLE practicing it.

The exersize goes, I am given a root note of a major scale, and I have to sing a specified degree of the scale. For instance, I am given C, I have to sing the 6th, or A. Now, that of course is difficult enough, but with practice I am getting better. The real problem is, once they give me the next root note, I can't hear it as a root note. As in, I am given an E and asked to sing the 4th of E, but I can't get the C out of my head, and all I hear is that the note played, E, is the 3rd of C. I can't get anywhere from there! I am COMPLETELY unable to get the interval at all until I either play the interval, or wait until I have "forgotten" what pitch C is and listen to E.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get past this?

[kesslari]

If it's not a timed test, here's a thought.
In good restaurants they often serve a "palette cleanser" between courses - a little lemon sorbet. It gets the taste of the last course out of your mouth so you can move on and really taste the next one.
You might listen to a few bars of something else and see if that helps. Something pretty atonal like Sun Ra might be just the ticket.

[JoZac21]

Remember songs that start w. a particular interval... like how the melodies of "All Blues" or "The Days of Wine and Roses" start w. a minor 6th... that should help... if you have a tune in mind, it'll be easier to recall the root.

[somegeezer]

Learn intervals using various scales. Try humming the root to start you off too. That's about it. Practise is all it takes.

[Chris K]

Originally Posted by JoZac21

Remember songs that start w. a particular interval... like how the melodies of "All Blues" or "The Days of Wine and Roses" start w. a minor 6th... that should help... if you have a tune in mind, it'll be easier to recall the root.

Exactly how we got certain fellow students (not necessarily bad musicians!) through their solfege exams

[JoZac21]

Originally Posted by Chris K

Exactly how we got certain fellow students (not necessarily bad musicians!) through their solfege exams

I had a teacher at Berklee who taught us that neat little trick... helped me pass some Ear Training finals I otherwise wouldn't have... I hated ET

[Chris K]

Oops, only now I notice that you called the first interval of All Blues (and A day...) a minor 6th. It's a natural 6th.
For minor 6th I'd go for Bei mir bist du schön

[JimmyM]

the C is still stuck in your head? good! make it work for you! using your example, if you still have the C in your head, think of the E as the 3rd of C and not the root. then once you get the E in your head, you can make it your new root to sing the 4th of E. and if you still get stuck on the C after that, just keep relating whatever new notes she asks you to sing to the note she started you off with.

also, owning a keyboard and knowing what the notes are on it will help you immensely. you'll be able to play these intervals for yourself and see the relationships. if you can do it on a bass, that's ok too, but nothing helps you understand and practice interval ear training like a keyboard. even if it's a cheapo casio from walmart, it'll help.

[Ed Fuqua]

AUNTIE M - part two I agree with, part 1 I don't. Tricks like that may get you through an ear training test but that's not the goal, right? The goal is to hear something, either on the stand or on a recording or whatever, and have immediate clarity as to what you're hearing; if you are not hearing things clearly enough to hear the root of the chord as the root, that calls for more work. Not tricks.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

AUNTIE M - part two I agree with, part 1 I don't. Tricks like that may get you through an ear training test but that's not the goal, right? The goal is to hear something, either on the stand or on a recording or whatever, and have immediate clarity as to what you're hearing; if you are not hearing things clearly enough to hear the root of the chord as the root, that calls for more work. Not tricks.

i spoke to a guy from a guitar institute type place who said that they had to be able to play back passages note for note after hearing them played once at speed,with all the nuances,bends,gliss' etc.

seems to me that practice material of that kind would be a great thing to find and include from early on.....thoughts?

[longfinger]

The 4th of E is a 6th of A... that's good to know too! :-)

I would not try to 'get past' this, it's good to know.

There are two things to learn implied in your post.
-Intervals
-Scale Degrees

We need both.. but perhaps it's best to focus on learning them one at a time...
Intervals: select an interval and then sing all of them that your voice can allow, up and down and with good spelling.
ie. Major 3rd.
C-E, E-C, C#-E#, E#-C#, D-F#, F#-D etc... coming down use flats.. Gb-Ebb, Ebb-Gb, F-Db-Db-F etc.
Spend a few days with an interval and then move on the the next..

Scale degrees: start with the major scale..
Play and sing through the numbers.. 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1, 5-6-7-8-7-6-5, 1-3-5-6-5-7-8, 1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5-1-6-1-7-1-8 etc... emphasize the tendency of tones, 4-3, 7-1, 6-5, 6-7-1, 2-3-2-1 etc..

It takes time...

some things to try:
steps
1:Play the piano, then sing.
2: play the piano and sing at the same time
3: sing, then play the piano only to check.
4: trying singing 20 or so intervals/scale-degrees linked together, then check only at the end. Hard to do, but a cappella singers do it all the time.

[Ed Fuqua]

Originally Posted by Jim Campbell

i spoke to a guy from a guitar institute type place who said that they had to be able to play back passages note for note after hearing them played once at speed,with all the nuances,bends,gliss' etc.

seems to me that practice material of that kind would be a great thing to find and include from early on.....thoughts?

There's two things going on here - concrete and abstract. Let's look at roundball as an analogy - you want to seriously pursue basketball and you're starting from scratch, you don't just jump out on the court. You assess your strengths and work to make them stronger and assess your weaknesses and turn them into strengths. You work on ball control in dribbling, in passing, in possession. You work on strong hand shots standing still, you work from shooting while moving etc etc etc.

Sure, at the end of the day, the idea is to hear an idea well enough to regurgitate it (because if you can do that with someone else's line, you can do it with a line that you hear in your own imagination). But you have to do the abstract work of hearing a root as a root and the interval above it as a specific relationship. I again refer to my post on ear training as the methodology that has worked well (and is still kicking my ass) for me.

To the original poster, I would say that the problem stems form not laying a good foundation down prior to this exercise. Yes, moving bass note is harder than singing against a stationary "home" pitch. But singing/identifying an interval from a given root should not be contingent on using only one pitch on the bottom. For me, that was indicating that I really didn't own signing a specific interval when I used a fixed pitch at bottom. So more work there.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

AUNTIE M - part two I agree with, part 1 I don't. Tricks like that may get you through an ear training test but that's not the goal, right? The goal is to hear something, either on the stand or on a recording or whatever, and have immediate clarity as to what you're hearing; if you are not hearing things clearly enough to hear the root of the chord as the root, that calls for more work. Not tricks.

eddie baby, ultimately you're right, no doubt about it. but when the pressure's on and you're drawing a blank, you'll resort to cheap tricks. and it is a cheap trick, but it can work in a pinch. and i've always believed that if you realize you're using a cheap trick and it helps you achieve a short term goal, maybe it'll give you a little more confidence to bypass the cheap trick and trust yourself more to get it right the hard way.

but again, there is never any substitute for hard work and i will fully agree that hard work is better than cheap trick. unless you're this guy:

[Ed Fuqua]

What, no Bun E Carlos?

[JimmyM]

should have seen what i had to go through just to find a good picture of rick!

[Ed Fuqua]

Lazy ****ing bastidge....

[JimmyM]

i love bun e. ever since i and my buddy joey first met him. they came outside before a show in st. pete in 79, and they were in this fenced-in area. joey sticks his hand through the fence to shake hands with bun e. and says, "hey bun e!" really loud. bun e takes his lighter and burns his fingers with it.

ever since then he was my hero.

[JoZac21]

Originally Posted by Chris K

Oops, only now I notice that you called the first interval of All Blues (and A day...) a minor 6th. It's a natural 6th.
For minor 6th I'd go for Bei mir bist du schön

Good call... but that's what happens when you talk music theory after a bottle of wine lol.