I absolutely suck at ear training.

[Old_Noob]

Interval recognition training is probably the worst way to get theory in your ear.
I went through interval recognition quizzes in my college theory class, and it was only daily drills that got past it.
I can think of 2 superior alternatives to interval drills:

#1 singing solfege




Singing solfedge is probably the best way to get intervals in your ear.

I used the Chrodbot app on my phone to generate a looping C major chord and practiced singing these while driving. The key is to reduce the number of notes you are trying to tackle, stick to variations of a single note combination, every day for a week. train yourself to sing just those 2 or 3 notes in various combinations:

Week 1: perfect fifth: Do So, So Do
Week 2: Add Mi for a major arpeggio: Do Mi So Mi Do, Mi Do Mi So Mi, So Do So Mi So
Week 3: Add Re
Week 4: Add La to build major pentatonic
...

#2 Learning the sound of common chord progressions

recognizing chord pressions is much easier than intervals in a vaccum
You can easily google common chord progressions and get examples of songs that use them
Most blues tunes follow I, IV, V
Listen to Stand by Me and then Every breath You Take (verse) : I vi IV V
Look up the Axis of Awesome's "Four chords" video
Look up the rhythm changes

I grew up listening to The Ramones....so I got I-IV-V progressions pretty good in a major key

 

[Old_Noob]

Thanks for all the advice and words on encouragement....this forum rocks.

 

[And I]

Try using the association method. Find eleven songs that use the different intervals for the first two notes and memorize them. One each from minor second to major seventh. When you need to identify an interval match it up against your song list until you find a match. Hope this helps.

4 examples

The "omg shark!" music from Jaws is a minor second
"Here comes the bride" is a perfect fourth
First two notes in "The Simpsons" is a flat 5th / augmented 4th.
The old "NBC" theme, the first two notes are a major 6th

If you can hum those tunes, you can identify intervals.

 

[Wood and Wire]

I'm highly motivated to learn the intervals that make up my favorite songs! For example I'm a huge John Williams fan, and find that his movie themes are great for ear training. For example both "Star Wars" and "Superman" feature 5ths and octaves.

Everyone knows the 5 note motif from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

In that movie, they literally talk through, and explain the intervals.


I agree, learning your favourite songs is one of the most valuable learning tools, in so many areas of playing / writing.

When you first learn how to tune your bass by ear, you learn relative pitch - so straight off the bat, you've learned the intervals between 4 (or 5) notes of the open strings, and 3 (or 4) harmonics.

You can instantly double, or triple that, just simply adding the octaves.

You really only need to commit 1 note to memory, in terms of perfect pitch - and that's easier than you might realise.

For example, how many times have you heard a single note - either sung, or on the radio etc, and known exactly which song it is, hearing the whole thing in your minds eye (ear)?

Just flip that on its head, and take a song that you know really well, and commit the first note of the bass line to memory (it doesn't even have to be an open string, but that can be helpful).

Once you can reliably hold that note in your mind, and tune your instrument to that pitch, you only need to use relative pitch to get the whole instrument in tune.

 

[And I]

THANK YOU! I try to explain to people that "Here Comes The Bride" isn't a perfect 4th, and they look at me like I'm crazy. But I know you get it.

the interval--and we're talking intervals here--is a perfect 4th.

 

[And I]

Absolutely wrong. It's a 5 and a b7.

Relatively correct...but not a good idea to train your brain to reference what is actually a 5-b7 in order to know what a 1-b3 is. You don't need to know what intervals sound like in a vacuum. You need to know them within the context of a composition. So use something that is actually 1-b3 as your cheat.

If you need a heavy metal riff, use the first two notes of "Smoke on the Water" instead.

Personally, I find it impossible to hear the first two notes of "Whole Lotta Love" as anything other than a 5 and a b7. It's so etched into my brain that it's on its way to a resolution (i.e seeking the 1), as opposed to starting out with a statement of key (i.e. starting on the 1 then moving away from it).

intervals are entirely relative. we're not talking chord tones. we're talking intervals. 5th and b7 chord tones absolutely do form a minor 3rd interval. no one asked "what key is the song in". they ask "what is the difference between these two notes".

 

[Hahaha]

I wasted a whole year on ear training before someone pointed out to me that it has nothing to do with learning how to wiggle you ears.

 

[Mushroo]

the interval--and we're talking intervals here--is a perfect 4th.

I agree, which is why I think intervals are a terrible way to study ear training. It took me years to unlearn that stuff.

The student isn't stupid, and the student isn't tone deaf. So the student can hear that "Here Comes The Bride" sounds very different than going from 1 to 4. But when they mention this to the teacher, the teacher is insistent that "Here Comes the Bride is a perfect 4th." So the student gets frustrated, that what they're hearing doesn't match what the teacher is saying, and they think they're stupid and their ears are broken.

Teachers are so good at the subject, they sometimes forget what it feels like to be a beginner and struggle with something. They get this smug and patronizing "stick with it and you'll get it eventually" attitude. Whereas I think beginners are smarter than the teacher realizes, and actually ask some good questions. For example a beginner might ask "How come the minor 3rd at the beginning of 'Star Spangled Banner' doesn't sound like a minor 3rd to me?" which is a really good question, but an unsympathetic teacher might brush it aside and say "a minor 3rd is a minor 3rd is a minor 3rd and you'll get there someday, my young apprentice."

 

[BarfanyShart]

My tip: if traditional ear training doesn't work for you, try devoting a little time every day to picking out bass lines and melodies from whatever pop/rock/r&b music you are already listening to. That's very simple, bite-sized transcription, you don't even have to write it down. If you do it a bit every day you'll just get better at it in an organic, practical way - then one day you'll just find yourself easily identifying chords and intervals in songs you're listening to without even applying effort.

 

[coyote1]

Perfect pitch is NOT a myth.
1 in about 10,000 people can identify notes without a relative note. And it is biological, people who can do it were born that way. Many aren’t even musicians.
My niece has perfect pitch. When she was 2 years old, she screamed at my mom, who was singing the ABC song, “Grandma, you’re singing it WRONG!!!” Lol

That's incorrect.

....people with truly perfect pitch can't handle listening to anything other than specific classical music or similar where....

It's real. I don't quite have it, but I'm very close, and have a better ear than most people I work with. But coming up against someone with perfect pitch, the real thing, is just a real "ear" opener.

Listen to the following. which is the ‘correct’ triad?

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Incidentally, anyone with a guitar laying round can demonstrate that current tuning for keyboards and chordal instrument such as guitar cannot be ‘perfect’ in pitch. Tune using the harmonics. Start at the E-A, then A-D, etc. Skip the B string, and tune the high E from the 5th fret harmonic of the low E.

Now try to tune your B string against either of the surrounding strings. Are you gonna match the open B string to the G string, 4th fret? Or are you gonna match the B string, 5th fret to the open E?

You can do one or the other. You cannot do both.

 

[glocke1]

As I mentioned in other threads, I am a failed music major trying to use bass to reconnect with music 25 years later. I love playing bass, but I find myself flashbacking to the hours spent at the music center in college utterly failing at every ear training exercise. I think I just downright suck at it. I have been at it for four weeks doing interval training with various apps. I started at 2/30 correct. Four weeks later I moved up to 3/30 correct on the first attempt. Is there a biological component to this? I can only hear 4 and 5s ...and not even on the first try always.

This is so frustrating. The reason I dropped my music major in college was because I would spend hours and hours using an ear training program, and after 6 months, was not appreciably better, and failing all my tests. Intervals were guesswork at best and chords were just impossible.

Now I find myself repeating this, and I am just getting angry and frustrated.

What is the secret to this? I can memorize notes, scales, modes, patterns......but I can’t friggen HEAR intervals.

I sometimes try and “play by ear”...but its an exercise in futility. I always wind up having to go to a chart/tab.

Sorry for the rant.....but this is making me want to give up again.

I've gotten better over the years at this.

I haven't read over the whole thread, and Im sure its been suggested but if you don't have a piano get one or a get a keyboard that has a piano mode and sit down and play different intervals and sing them.

Frankly sing everything. Running through your scales on bass (Or your new piano/keyboard?), sing them.

Go through and just play Major 3rds on your bass/piano and sing those. Than do the opposite, sing the interval and play it to see how close you get it.



Those of us not born with perfect pitch or even good relative pitch have to work very hard to become competent or even mediocre at this. It will come, it will just take a lot of time and a lot of hard work.

Also, get with a teacher.

 

[nilorius]

Are You shure You have musical hearing ?

 

[And I]

I agree, which is why I think intervals are a terrible way to study ear training. It took me years to unlearn that stuff.

The student isn't stupid, and the student isn't tone deaf. So the student can hear that "Here Comes The Bride" sounds very different than going from 1 to 4. But when they mention this to the teacher, the teacher is insistent that "Here Comes the Bride is a perfect 4th." So the student gets frustrated, that what they're hearing doesn't match what the teacher is saying, and they think they're stupid and their ears are broken.

I'm not sure which teacher you're describing but they are the worst teacher i've ever heard of! Which teacher would not give a straight correct answer but just misdirect?! The ones who taught me were quite clear that we were learning how to measure the interval between two notes, and if here comes the bride doesn't sound like a perfect 4th, then... well perhaps the student is tone deaf. We are not talking about here comes the bride as a piece of music, nor is the key that the song is in nor the pitches of the first two notes of the melody in relation to the key of the song relevant.

Intervals are the first building block. When you know your intervals and can hear / sing them with ease, being able to figure out chord structures and that the first note of here comes the bride is the 5th in the key of the song becomes much easier. Learning intervals, chord tones, and how chords work inside of keys are not mutually exclusive.

 

[glocke1]

Are You shure You have musical hearing ?

I think everyone has musical hearing. For some, it just requires a lot of hard work to get it "activated".

There are things I do now at 53 that I've never been able to do before thanks to a teacher who has provided some solid instruction the past year.

 

[And I]

one more argument for why intervals are great for learning how to play by ear. you're listening to a song, you identify the groove starts on the note A by playing notes until you hear the one that matches. then you hear the bassist play a different note later in the bassline. what note is it? if you can hear the interval between each note and the note that comes after it, you can learn the song.

 

[Mushroo]

I'm not sure which teacher you're describing but the ones who taught me were quite clear that we were learning how to measure the interval between two notes, and if here comes the bride doesn't sound like a perfect 4th, then... well perhaps the student is tone deaf. We are not talking about here comes the bride as a piece of music, nor is the key that the song is in nor the pitches of the first two notes of the melody in relation to the key of the song relevant.

Intervals are the first building block. When you know your intervals and can hear / sing them with ease, being able to figure out chord structures and that the first note of here comes the bride is the 5th in the key of the song becomes much easier. Learning intervals, chord tones, and how chords work inside of keys are not mutually exclusive.

I agree with you completely, I'm just saying that (for me) intervals were a completely ineffective way to learn ear training. We all have different learning styles (visual, auditory, spatial, etc.) and the "measure the interval between two pitches" method never worked for me, with my learning style. I'm not tone deaf, and I tried really hard for 5 years, it just didn't click, it was like banging my head against a wall. Then I got a new teacher, with a different approach (based on singing and transcription) and I had that "light bulb moment" in my mind.

 

[And I]

I agree with you completely, I'm just saying that (for me) intervals were a completely ineffective way to learn ear training. We all have different learning styles (visual, auditory, spatial, etc.) and the "measure the interval between two pitches" method never worked for me, with my learning style. I'm not tone deaf, and I tried really hard for 5 years, it just didn't click.

yes on this we totally agree: each student is unique and not everyone learns the same way. but if your brain is wired to always hear the tonic, then identifying the interval between two notes out of the context of a piece of recognizable music, just decide the first note is the tonic. easy!

 

[Mushroo]

yes on this we totally agree: each student is unique and not everyone learns the same way. but if your brain is wired to always hear the tonic, then identifying the interval between two notes out of the context of a piece of recognizable music, just decide the first note is the tonic. easy!

Well sure, both methods have their pros and cons. For identifying two notes out of context, interval training is indispensable, as you say.

The main thing I didn't like about an interval-based approach is that, if I get one interval wrong, then everything that comes after is going to be wrong, too. Whereas with a harmonic/tonality based approach, I can get one note wrong, but then it's easy for me to get back on track.

 

[nilorius]

I think everyone has musical hearing. For some, it just requires a lot of hard work to get it "activated".

There are things I do now at 53 that I've never been able to do before thanks to a teacher who has provided some solid instruction the past year.

No, not everybody. If You have, keep on slow training on heard note recognition with help of Your instrument. Keep on fighting and it will becoume easy.

 

[InNoRush]

I highly recommend that you read "The Music Lesson" by Victor Wooten.

Ha, coincidentally ordered this earlier today (the CD/book bundle). Looking forward to it.