Developing Ear Training Skills Without Determining Notes

Developing Ear Training Skills Without Determining Notes?

I’m wondering whether you think I might just listen to the ear training exercises without guessing the notes for a while, because I feel like all my incorrect guesses as this stage may be reinforcing the wrong stuff. Do you think this might help, or would it hinder my progress with developing ear training skills?

Q: I’ve bought the following courses in a desperate bid for developing ear training skills!

• Contextual Ear Training
• Ear Training One Note Complete
• Fanatic’s Guide to Sight Singing and Ear Training

Well, not surprising as it’s only a week or so in, I’m floundering.

I’ve started with Ear Training One Note Complete, doing the exercises 4-5 times a day for about 15 minutes. Off the bat I seem to be ok with listening for the root and the note G, but the rest seems random. I’m wondering whether you think I might just try listening to the exercises without guessing the notes for a while, because I feel like all my incorrect guesses as this stage may be reinforcing the wrong stuff. Do you think this might help, or would it hinder my progress with developing ear training?

Amazing concept in your training by the way.

A: Thanks for your purchases and nice to hear from you. There are a couple of things I would recommend to help you improve with developing ear training skills. First for the listening exercise in Ear Training One Note Complete If you want to limit the number of notes you are working on that is OK but make sure to listen to all notes at least once a day. I would also recommend that you repeat any listening exercise that you miss at least a few times or more to help your mind remember the sound. That will also help you not to reinforce the wrong answers.

For the Contextual Ear Training it’s important to sing the note as quickly as possible. If you are wrong then repeat the listening exercise until you can sing the note correctly then move on. Just some additional information on how to organize the Contextual Ear Training singing exercise. First make a play list and load all MP3s onto an ipod. Then make another playlist and only load the root, i.e. the 1st degree of every major and minor key. For example loading the C major, C minor, and F minor mp3 tracks onto your device.

When you get 80% correct with the “1″ degree, add in notes in the following order 1,3,5,7,2,4,6,b2,b6,b3,b5,b7

Please note that you should put in the Major 3rd for the Major Keys and the Minor 3rd for the Minor Keys when you work with the “3rd.”

For Fanatic’s Guide to Sight Singing and Ear Training I would try to prehear each note for the “one note” exercise. In this case you can sit and think about what the note sounds like then try to sing the note you hear in your head. If you are wrong repeat the same exercise until you are hearing the correct note and then move on.

For the Music Theory Workbook for Guitar Video Course I would recommend doing one page of listening exercises a week for developing ear training skills further. More if you can but at least one page. The videos will help you understand Music Theory in a more complete way and the it will give you ideas on how to apply the information especially when you get to the actual chord exercises. If you want to apply these chords to real progressions I would recommend the Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume One. This book contains all the chord voicings for all the chords you are learning and has 36 chord progressions in the back that will help you apply all the chords in the Music Theory Workbook for Guitar Video Course. If you are doing any practicing on the guitar let me know what you are doing and I can offer you some ideas on how to add ear training into your instrument practice schedule and also give you some tips on how to be more productive.

I would also highly recommend you get started with the Scale Analysis course. The overall idea of this course is to teach you how this ear training works when you have a chord progressions. Basically Scale Analysis teaches you how you will hear the scales that go over a chord progression. There are two sides to this course. One is filling in the worksheets and the other is doing the ear training exercises that accompany the course. If you could get started filling in the worksheets now and in 6 months or so start the ear training exercises when you get better at the “one note” ear training that would be the best approach. I’d like you to do one worksheet a week which will take about 20 minutes to fill out. There are 36 worksheet to complete in the course so that will take 36 weeks or 9 months to complete. If you can get to the point that you intellectual understand how this ear training works it will help you see what you are working towards and you will also start processing chord/scale relationships in the right way.

Speak to you soon,

Bruce

It is also recommended that you read Bruce Arnold’s Blog at his artist site. It contains more discussion of the musical topics found in these FAQs as well as other subjects of interest. You will also find the “Music Education Genealogy Chart” located here which shows you the historic significance of the music education products found on the Muse Eek Publishing Company Website.