Source
r/musictheory•
rapterbone

Is this a good way of going about ear training?

Question

I basically cycle through songs in my spotify and try to play the melodies. I feel like I have a tendency to just guess and check, which I don't think is helping much, so I've been trying to slow down and consciously decide which notes to play. I hear that humming the notes helps, too, which I've been doing. I consistently hit intervals with those training apps, but I kind of abandoned them after months of practice due to not having much to show for it.

Hitting chords is a whole other story... I can workout the basic notes and quality (major/minor at times).

Posted May 20, 2022, 12:37 AM UTC

212
grouchymusicteacher•

That’s not a bad approach at all. A small adjustment might help:

Pause after hearing just a small chunk of the melody. If you’re listening to popular music, one lyric line is probably a perfect amount.

Sing that bit back.

THEN find it on your instrument.

As you do, strive to be conscious of what you’re singing/playing in terms of intervals. If you guess wrong try and figure out why/pay special attention to those sounds; keep your ears open for them in the future.

When you work with small bits of melody at a time you get to make these guesses and corrections in a meaningful way; over time you’ll see patterns (realizing you’re bad at hearing descending minor sixths or w/e) and just being conscious of that you’ll improve a lot.

Beyond that, composing and improvising are both great because you have to really hear what you want to play clearly. Nothing fancy, just writing melodies or harmonizing bass lines (or basic counterpoint exercises) will do a lot. Or pick an interval or two and do short improvisations with only that, making sure you’re really hearing the next note before you play it.

For harmonies, improvise over a drone and be very conscious of the sound of each harmony-again, try to hear into the future and be honest with yourself about whether you’re playing what you hear/hearing what you play.

If you do enough volume of this kind of work with enough different songs, it pays off big time. Just keep at it for a few years somewhat obsessively and you’ll be rewarded.

9
Nicholas-Hawksmoor•

I agree, this is a small adjustment that will make a huge difference.

I would add that most people find the learning process much faster if they stick with playing everything in a single key during ear training, so they are able to associate scale degrees with exact notes, instead of trying to wrap their mind around a different scale each time. Once relative pitch is mastered, the learner is ready to practice playing in other keys.

I know this last opinion is controversial for some, but I've had great success teaching students using this method, compared with the other.

2
grouchymusicteacher•

I agree 100% actually; I have students work on hearing harmonies in one key first. The ideal (if they’re amenable to it) is to learn all the church modes really well in one key. Once they get REALLY comfortable with the relationships of tones to a tonic and each other and know them inside and out, transposing is generally pretty natural (aside from extreme registers or certain confusing textures but that’s just a matter of time and experience to work through).

2
Nicholas-Hawksmoor•

There's nothing wrong with your approach, but you might be able to speed up your process significantly by trying a few adjustments. Let's do this in 3 steps:

  1. First, pick one key on your instrument and play everything in that key. The skill you are targeting is relative pitch, so trying to learn transposition at the same time will only make things more confusing. It doesn't matter which key you choose as long as you stick with it until you have good relative pitch. Also note that, contrary to popular opinion, C is not necessarily the easiest key for beginners.
  2. Next, listen to songs that you think are within your level of ability. But instead of trying to play them while you listen, imagine that you are playing it on your instrument, in your favorite key. Visualize each note in the song, and how it looks on the instrument.
  3. Finally, go to your instrument and play the song as you imagined it, checking if you visualized it correctly

In my experience, this method is much more efficient and will give you much faster results than a simple trial-and-error approach.

3
mirak1234•

I learned to play by hear, so mostly doing trial and error like what you do.

But the most efficient for me was learning to sight sing using solfegio.

It sort of removed the trial and error, because I figure what I hear before even attempting to play it.

2
kamomil•

The more you guess, the better you will get. Over time, you will get quicker and more accurate. If you make it fun, you will stick at it for longer than if it feels like work. This is how I developed my ear, by myself, playing along with music. I took piano lessons but never needed the ear training

1
Nicholas-Hawksmoor•

It's true that you will get better with time, but simple trial-and-error is a really slow learning process. Using u/grouchymusicteacher's adjustment will make the process much faster.

1
kamomil•

Well I also would hum through the scale until I found the note, that's not really trial and error. I was always aware of the relationship between the tonic and the note I was trying to figure out

1
Nicholas-Hawksmoor•

Thanks for clarifying. Understanding the relationship to the tonic is the key (no pun intended).

A lot of people practice the same thing over and over hoping that they will improve, but some methods are much more effective than others.

2
kamomil•

I would add to be mindful of the chord progressions as well of whatever you're learning by ear.

I guess I was kind of "rest of the owl" about this, I learned it on my own pretty early

1
grouchymusicteacher•

It is ultimately a slow process, though; that’s why I really like OP’s approach. Like kamomil (and probably you too?) I started early and my ears developed over a long period of time being drenched in the music I wanted to understand and hear clearly; i don’t think there are any shortcuts really so I just encourage people to do it a lot and pay close attention to their experience of listening. It’s one of those things we just have to grind out but luckily all you’re doing is listening to music and trying to play along which is pretty much the funnest thing ever (except when it’s terrifying, but even then)…

1
quocketman•

YES to grouchymusicteacher and mirak1234, especially the ideas about singing it back (or humming) BEFORE trying to play it on the instrument. Trial and error doesn't move the needle on mastery. I like to think of "savoring" the tones in the melody so you can really ingest them into your deep memory. Practicing intervals is ok, singing intervals within a scale using solfege is even better!

1