Tell me about your ear skills!

[Bass Ape]

What?

 

[KellyC]

If this guy's ear is equivalent to a functioning adult, I am a preverbal toddler.

 

[petermwright]

I have conflicting opinions on my own ear skills...
I can't for the sake of me learn to recognize chords and intervals by ears I have always been bad at this, so in the last couple of years I have been practicing every now and then with some ear training apps but I don't seem to make any progress. I improved a little only in recognising intervals when they are played as separate notes, but not when played as 2 simultaneous notes, and even worse with chords. I am ashamed that I even mistake minor with major chords, and constantly mix up 7th chords... a monkey choosing randomly would be only slightly more often wrong than me . These apps are already the best tool I can think about, as they can play intervals and chords for you to identify, and you can narrow down the options to keep it simpler (like 2 chords only to choose from), so I don't know what else I can do.

I'm a bit late to this thread, I know.

With chords, if it helps at all, mixing up major and minor chords is really really common. I'd say virtually every piano pupil I've ever looked at this with does the same thing. I'll put on a song, and ask them to work out a particular chord, they follow their ear to find the bass note, then I ask if it's major or minor. They always start by playing a major chord and seeing if it sounds right, and then switching to minor if not.

With regard to intervals, the best thing I can say to you is this: don't focus too much on identifying intervals in isolation. Almost all ear training seems to do this - but in real life, this isn't how someone with a really good ear transcribes melodies. Even if you don't have a good ear, you don't perceive melodies as a sequence of intervals. Your brain subconsciously 'remembers' the root, and you mostly perceive pitches in relation to that. Each note of the scale has a particular quality, when you compare it to the root. Even if you're not hearing the root in between each pair of notes, it still has that quality. For instance, if I play C E G F D (all in the same octave), that last D still has the quality of sounding like the 2nd, even though I heard a bunch of other notes after the C and before the D. Learning to identify this quality is what will get you transcribing melodies super quick - and in your head, without needing an instrument.

Because our brain remembers the root, learning the sound of intervals in isolation doesn't really do the job, because the same interval sounds kind of different depending on the context. For instance, if you play a chord of C major (just to get that tonality implanted), then play a C and then up to G, it would sound like a perfect 5th. Great. However, play the C chord again, then play E up to B. It's still a perfect 5th, but has a different quality. If you try and listen to it in isolation (i.e. trying to forget that you have that C major tonality implanted in your head), then it still sounds like a perfect 5th. But when you hear it in the context of C major, what you're hearing is the 3rd and the major 7th. You might not recognise it as such, but it is that quality that you first notice. The fact that it is a perfect 5th is secondary to the fact that it is the 3rd and the 7th in the current key.

When you learn the sounds of intervals in isolation, your brain will be likely hearing the first note as the root (it might not always perceive the first note as the root, but in any case, you will be subconsciously forming an idea of what the root is, based on the notes you hear). However, in the wild, intervals you hear in melodies will mostly not start on the root.

As most others have said, getting a keyboard is a great thing to do. Playing lots of chords, trying to work out songs by ear. Play melodies, and consider which degrees of the scale they consist of, not which intervals they consist of.

What is your own situation with ear skills, and what have you successfully used to improve them?

My situation is that I played piano from the age of 9 or so, and I wanted to learn to play pieces/songs I liked. Fortunately for me, my dad has a great ear, and he modelled and normalised working out melodies and chords by ear. I saw him do it, and tried to do it myself, and to begin with, I was terrible. But every time I tried to work out a chord and couldn't find it, and then asked my dad to listen and tell me what it was, I learned something. Each chord change I hadn't been able to hear, then was shown, I was then able to add to my internal library of chord change sounds. Over the years it got to the point where I didn't need to ask him any more.

What I say to pupils who want to develop the skill is that they should just work out lots of songs by ear, and as they do so, consider what the notes and the chords are in relation to the key of the song. So, you've figured out a melody - but now think in terms of scale degrees, which one does it start one, and which ones does it go to after that? Same with chords. Work out the chords themselves whichever way works - which might well mean looking for root movement in the bass, and just trying every chord that contains that note, and see which sounds right (sometimes of course the chord won't contain the bass note). Then, think about what chord this is in the context of the key - is it I, IV, V, VI, etc. It might well be pain and suffering to begin with, trying to figure out the chords, but it does get easier.

My experience with this is that to do it, you will need motivation. I was very motivated as a teenager to work out all these songs. A teacher can guide you, but no-one can really teach it to you - you need to spend the hours doing it. If you're motivated to, you will, if not, you won't.

 

[Shenron]

One year later...

But, it's something you really gotta practice if you want to get better. It's a very different skill from playing, different parts of the brain or whatever. Spend 20-30 minutes a day working on stuff, and you'll start seeing an improvement.

Last year I decided that the cost/benefits ratio of even half an hour every single day was too high, considering that interval/chord recognition skills did not align strongly enough with my music purposes. In simpler words, I better spent any extra 20 minutes improving other musical skills that were immediately more useful to me.

However, a few months ago an idea came to my mind. If anything, I am ashamed I hadn't thought of it before... While casually picking up the ear training app, I realized how the minor 3rd interval sounded like the beginning of the vocals in The Beatles' "Happiness is a warm gun". Since that realization came to my mind, I almost never got that interval wrong, so a few days later I started searching for songs which I am familiar with and which start (at verse, chorus or solo) with each of the 12 possible intervals in an octave, either ascending or descending. I compiled my reference list, even though I am still missing some songs (of course I found examples online, but they are not songs I am familiar enough with, to resonate quickly):

Interval Ascending / Descending
Minor 2nd: Theme from "Jaws" / Für Elise
Major 2nd: Happy Birthday / Yesterday
Minor 3rd: Happiness is a Warm Gun / Hey Jude
Major 3rd: Watermark / Summertime
Perfect 4th: The Wedding March / Under Pressure
Tritone: ? / YYZ
Perfect 5th: Top Gun Theme / Don't You Forget About Me
Minor 6th: In My Life / ?
Major 6th: Two of Us / The Neverending Story
Minor 7th: Shine on you Crazy Diamond / Lady Jane
Major 7th: Take on me / ?
Octave: Over the Rainbow / Theme from "My Wife is a Witch"

So the thing is, in a few weeks of still using the app only a few minutes here and there and not even daily, I went from ~30% to ~90% success rate at recognizing intervals (I am still weak on large descending intervals, but my rate is also now competing with my speed, as I am setting myself only a couple of seconds to guess the intervals). This proves that there ARE methods (ofter regarded offensively as "shortcuts") to improve at something radically faster than just doing a massive amount of dumb repetitions. The key is to find out what methods exists and which ones actually work for you.

Now let's see if I can use the same method also with recognizing chords, or if I need to discover something else!

 

[SteveCS]

One year later...



Last year I decided that the cost/benefits ratio of even half an hour every single day was too high, considering that interval/chord recognition skills did not align strongly enough with my music purposes. In simpler words, I better spent any extra 20 minutes improving other musical skills that were immediately more useful to me.

However, a few months ago an idea came to my mind. If anything, I am ashamed I hadn't thought of it before... While casually picking up the ear training app, I realized how the minor 3rd interval sounded like the beginning of the vocals in The Beatles' "Happiness is a warm gun". Since that realization came to my mind, I almost never got that interval wrong, so a few days later I started searching for songs which I am familiar with and which start (at verse, chorus or solo) with each of the 12 possible intervals in an octave, either ascending or descending. I compiled my reference list, even though I am still missing some songs (of course I found examples online, but they are not songs I am familiar enough with, to resonate quickly):

Interval Ascending / Descending
Minor 2nd: Theme from "Jaws" / Für Elise
Major 2nd: Happy Birthday / Yesterday
Minor 3rd: Happiness is a Warm Gun / Hey Jude
Major 3rd: Watermark / Summertime
Perfect 4th: The Wedding March / Under Pressure
Tritone: ? / YYZ
Perfect 5th: Top Gun Theme / Don't You Forget About Me
Minor 6th: In My Life / ?
Major 6th: Two of Us / The Neverending Story
Minor 7th: Shine on you Crazy Diamond / Lady Jane
Major 7th: Take on me / ?
Octave: Over the Rainbow / Theme from "My Wife is a Witch"

So the thing is, in a few weeks of still using the app only a few minutes here and there and not even daily, I went from ~30% to ~90% success rate at recognizing intervals (I am still weak on large descending intervals, but my rate is also now competing with my speed, as I am setting myself only a couple of seconds to guess the intervals). This proves that there ARE methods (ofter regarded offensively as "shortcuts") to improve at something radically faster than just doing a massive amount of dumb repetitions. The key is to find out what methods exists and which ones actually work for you.

Now let's see if I can use the same method also with recognizing chords, or if I need to discover something else!

The bottom line is that music is an aural medium - what better way to learn it (not 'about' it) than by listening and hearing it!

 

[Michedelic]

I have conflicting opinions on my own ear skills...

First the good part.

Generally speaking I think I've always been quite good at transcribing by ear, note-by-note. Already when I was a beginner guitarist (long ago) my guitar teacher was impressed that I was able to transcribe guitar pieces like Yes' Mood for a Day in a couple of hours at most. I regularly use Rocksmith to try out new songs on bass, and I can generally spot mistakes on bass transcriptions in custom-made songs on the first or second play at most. Yesterday I surprised myself when I checked my guitar's octaves, which I have had the feeling for years they needed an adjustment: I first checked by ears by comparing the pitch of 12 frets vs half-string harmonics and concluded in a matter of seconds that the low E and A string were too low and high E was to high, then checked with a digital tuner which told me I was right and those strings were off-pitch by the smallest possible deviation the tuner could register.

Now enough bragging and let's move to the bad part.

I can't for the sake of me learn to recognize chords and intervals by ears I have always been bad at this, so in the last couple of years I have been practicing every now and then with some ear training apps but I don't seem to make any progress. I improved a little only in recognising intervals when they are played as separate notes, but not when played as 2 simultaneous notes, and even worse with chords. I am ashamed that I even mistake minor with major chords, and constantly mix up 7th chords... a monkey choosing randomly would be only slightly more often wrong than me . These apps are already the best tool I can think about, as they can play intervals and chords for you to identify, and you can narrow down the options to keep it simpler (like 2 chords only to choose from), so I don't know what else I can do.

What is your own situation with ear skills, and what have you successfully used to improve them?

First of all, if the examples I use are ancient, never-heard-it-before tunes, sorry, it was what I had available, but they do illustrate the point.
I started out on bass(well, I had a guitar, but didn't get far with it, chords baffled me..then the top E and B strings broke, and I found myself thumping notes on the bottom strings). It was the era of bluesy riff rock anyway, so eventually things fell into place. Even though these songs were kind of old news even to me, I learned that the bassline to the Yardbirds' "Over Under Sideways Down" was essentially the classic boogie-woogie/blues riff, and it outlined a major chord, with a minor/blues 7th on top. Related was Elvis' "Hound Dog", which was just half of it. Take that, play it along with I to V changes, and you have the verse to "Midnight Hour" and chorus of "Tell Mama".
Then, as far as minor was concerned, there was "Green Onions", with root, minor third, and fourth. Breaking it down even further, the "Spoonful" riff is just the core root and minor third, repeatedly drilled into my skull. You have a billion examples/variations of I-IV-V changes, but the straightforward groundfloor linear example is "Louie Louie"(with a minor V), followed by "La Bomba", "Good Lovin'", "Hang On Sloopy", and so on. Octave down to root is "Gimmie Some Lovin'", root up to octave is "My Sharona".
I could go on for days with this, but essentially it's just a system to use what you're familiar with to grasp what you're not. You have to hear this stuff(whatever song works for you)in your head.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I have conflicting opinions on my own ear skills...

First the good part.

Generally speaking I think I've always been quite good at transcribing by ear, note-by-note. Already when I was a beginner guitarist (long ago) my guitar teacher was impressed that I was able to transcribe guitar pieces like Yes' Mood for a Day in a couple of hours at most. I regularly use Rocksmith to try out new songs on bass, and I can generally spot mistakes on bass transcriptions in custom-made songs on the first or second play at most. Yesterday I surprised myself when I checked my guitar's octaves, which I have had the feeling for years they needed an adjustment: I first checked by ears by comparing the pitch of 12 frets vs half-string harmonics and concluded in a matter of seconds that the low E and A string were too low and high E was to high, then checked with a digital tuner which told me I was right and those strings were off-pitch by the smallest possible deviation the tuner could register.

Now enough bragging and let's move to the bad part.

I can't for the sake of me learn to recognize chords and intervals by ears I have always been bad at this, so in the last couple of years I have been practicing every now and then with some ear training apps but I don't seem to make any progress. I improved a little only in recognising intervals when they are played as separate notes, but not when played as 2 simultaneous notes, and even worse with chords. I am ashamed that I even mistake minor with major chords, and constantly mix up 7th chords... a monkey choosing randomly would be only slightly more often wrong than me . These apps are already the best tool I can think about, as they can play intervals and chords for you to identify, and you can narrow down the options to keep it simpler (like 2 chords only to choose from), so I don't know what else I can do.

What is your own situation with ear skills, and what have you successfully used to improve them?

You want to learn chords, start playing guitar. Or if your really want to work at it, piano.