"Ear Training" and Pitch Perception

Harmony & Theory
#13

Here’s an idea, just something that might be fun to try. Think of a song you know. Try to audiate the melody and sing the first note. Check if you’re in key, or if you’ve naturally transposed.

Let some time pass (enough that you lose the tonic), maybe listen to other music. Then think of that same song but try not to audiate. Instead, try to think about how the melody makes you feel, it’s meaning to you and the character which makes it unique to you. Sing the first not and check if you’re in key, or if you’ve naturally transposed.

I would guess that these are very different mental processes.

Here’s an example of a case I found particularly interesting. Some time ago I decided to learn Holding Back the Years by Simply Red (Mick Hucknall is one of my favourite singers). Listening to it, I thought it would be easy enough to do. It’s a simple enough melody, and most of the song is just a II-V vamp.

I could not determine the key. Sometimes it sounded like it was D minor, other times like Eb minor. It doesn’t modulate, but it felt like a “blend” of those keys. It turns out that the recording isn’t in concert tune, and the tonic is somewhere between D and Eb. When I shifted the tuning to concert in Transcribe!, whether I shifted to D or Eb the song just felt completely wrong.

I learned it in Dm, because that seems to be the key it’s usually transcribed in. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it all felt so wrong to me.

When I associated characters and feelings to each concert pitch recently, I felt that D somehow wanted change, while Eb had a softer character, that it somehow had accepted what it was. It’s hard to capture in words.

Thinking of the specific emotion of that song now, it’s something between those for me. There’s regret, a wishing for things to change and be have been different, but also a softening, an acceptance that those painful memories have become part of us, and so we keep holding on.

That’s interesting that you were explicity told to focus on identifying and retaining the tonic and knowing how the other scale degrees sounded relative to it. I definitely agree that keeping a melody in our short term memory is another important task, and it’s something the Use Your Ear method has a deliberate focus upon.

I remember learning the intervals in this way also, but I was never really able to apply it practically.

I’m well aware of this, he’s just the most well known proponent of that position. I had read that absolute pitch couldn’t be developed in adulthood for years before Rick was making YouTube videos.

Many take his videos on the subject as authoritive. From my reading, it seems that there really isn’t a scientific consensus on what absolute pitch actually is or by what mechanism it operates. The position that it cannot be learned in later life seems to be in contention.

The reason I’m unconvinced that my recent experiences aren’t simply due to an improvement in my relative pitch based upon some memorized reference tone or tones is the following. In the moments where I can sing a tone accurately without reference, there is no audiation. I don’t audiate an internal reference tone and try to determine what the pitch is.

Instead, I simply allow myself to embrace the feeling I associated to the note, and when I sing it’s somehow automatically the correct note. I can’t do it with every note and it’s not 100% accurate yet, but it is improving. If I try to audiate the pitch, or audiate a reference pitch and apply relative pitch, it’s more difficult and less accurate.

I don’t understand how this can be explained by simply having improved my relative pitch. My subjective experience of this is completely different.

I think this is understandable to some degree. Interestingly, the course by Burge says that the domains of perfect pitch and relative pitch are completely different. In some sense, that absolute pitch is akin to the colour in an image, but relative pitch is the focus.

If the choice is colour without focus, or focus without colour, I would choose the latter. I would choose relative pitch.

Burge also claims that perfect pitch is like being able to identify the individual letters in a word, but

W-E_D-O-N-’-T_R-E-A-D_L-I-K-E_T-H-I-S

He claims that relative pitch is what allows us to recognise the words of music, rather than the individual letters.

#14

Is the useyourear course well structured?

#15

I’m still working theough the early units, but I would say it’s very well structured so far.

#16

The central conceit of George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept is that the Lydian scale should be treated as our parent scale.

#17

Dang i just checked the site. Theres no way to watch the free webinar on your own time? You have to watch it at one of the scheduled time slots?

I happened to do some perusing on internet and came across this reddit post. Obviously take with a grain of salt, but seems like the course is just a solfège approach?

#18

I watched at a scheduled time, but I didn’t know that you can’t watch it on your own time. I just chose a time that I knew I would be free the next day.

Also, the method is definitely more than “just a solfège approach.” Singing tones to internalise the scale degree is an important element of the method, and you are encouraged to used solfège syllables and movable Do (unless you live in a country with fixed Do), but it’s much more than that. Honestly, I think that to describe it as “just a solfège approach” is extremely reductive.

Solfège really isn’t a method. It’s really little more than a set of syllables for scale degrees and the principle that the best way to internalize their characters is by singing them. There’s no system of progression, no heirarchy of skill development. Solfège doesn’t address the development of short term musical memory or the analysis of chord progressions. It doesn’t tell you what to practice or how to practice it.

Again, I’m not in any way affiliated with this program, I get nothing for recommending it. Maybe the realisation that ear training should be studied in a tonal context is not revolutionary for some people. Good for them, for me it was revelatory. Maybe others would be happy to take that starting point and try to learn everything for themselves. Good for them, I would prefer having a clear structured method.

I genuinely dislike the clickbaity style of advertisement. I can totally understand how this appears like a “scam” to some people, but it isn’t.

Honestly, I think UYE is like the CTC of ear training.

#19

Really interesting thread; getting those ears together is important for sure! I might check out that UYE and see what it’s about!

I too am a music school grad (1995) and while my picking blows (Don’t worry, I’ll get it) , there’s a lot of tools at my disposal due to that education that more than make up for the inability to play alternate picked 16ths at 300bpm or wherever the kids are at these days. The schooling I took revolved around eartraining, then harmony, and then arranging with instrumental studies feeling almost secondary. The emphasis was on reading, and chord studies - not one grade or bonus point was received for being able to play 16ths past 120bpm.

It sounds to me from what I have read in this thread that you are well on your way to getting what you want out of your ears, so keep on keeping on!

Eartraining at the school I went to was an hour long class, 3x a week and about 2hrs (minimum) practice every day. We followed the Berklee sightsinging book, and would have a full chapter of melodies and rhythms that would be practiced each week, and then tested at the end of the week. So you had to a) sing each example and conduct to keep time, b) transcribe any of the practiced melodies and rhythms c) guess pitches after he played a quick 1451 cadence (relative pitch) - he’d play it 3x. So a written and a singing test. less than 80% was a fail, attendance was mandatory. Fail eartraining and you were kicked out of school basically.

The difficulty grew from simple major melodies and triad chords to modal and polytonal melodies, key and time/tempo changes, simple rhythms to polyrhythms and odd time. It was pretty tough, but that experience really helped my growth as a musician, even now.

I think that because the curriculum at the school was geared to have you eartraining the concepts learned in harmony and arranging class, and then you play that stuff on your instrument one ends up internalizing the pitch, and then analyzing it, and then outputting the information.

A big part of it, for me anyways, was realizing that mistakes and failures are important too, so you have to learn to leverage those as well as your successes. I would confuse Re and Te sometimes and it was a big victory for me to understand why I was confusing them and sort of devise a mental trick to convert and understand that perception if that makes any sense.

PS modes are just not a big deal - I perceive them in a few ways 1) as an “inverted” parent scale - major, Melodic Minor and Harmonic minor 2) As a distinct tonality using a “parent” key signature. 3) Polychords ie Dmaj/Cmaj gives CEG DF#A (Do Mi Sol Re Fi La) Which just screams Lydian sound. I don’t ever “practice” modes as fingerings because, well all you are really doing is practicing a parent scale starting on a note that isn’t the root. Melodies just don’t work that way, so it’s better in my opinion to be super familiar with the harmony and intervallic structure and then improvise with said scale with a chord that ISN’T the tonic. For instance, use your Cmajor scale fingerings and all of the diatonic chord arpeggio harmony, but play that stuff over Emin7 and then you are actually playing Phrygian and hearing it, doing it in context. Loopers and recording software make this a great way to practice guoitar stuff AND burn a concept like modes into your ears.

Anyways, just some opinions. I love talking about this sort of thing so I’m sorry if I rambled a bit. Good luck in your quest, I know you’ll get it!

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#20

That is hard-core!

Wow that is way more in depth than anything we had to do. Definitely great for growth tho, as you said.

Oh stop it lol! Your picking is awesome!

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#21

Yeah, it was a pretty intense program actually. I am still working on that stuff to this day, you find new ways to hear it and express it over time. Funny story, TAB confuses the crap out of me sometimes, so standard notation is my favourite; makes it a lot easier to solfege… I think that the other thing was the environment - you’re around a whole bunch of other people working super hard on the same thing and you really get to work off of each other. Positive competition maybe?

(No, my picking is not so good - but I’m working hard and hoping to level it up a bit, open up some new creative options hopefully!)

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#22

I started the free webinar and was able to match pitch and sing the major scale! Random question here… I’ve had a few ppl in the past tell me they’re tone deaf; one who actually said she played piano her whole life and I think played some concerts. Is tone deaf an actual thing or just inconsistency in ear skill with a negative label?

#23

My understanding (I’m not an expert) is that there’s a very rare condition called amusia which is involves a genuine inability to hear tones and recognise music. People with amusia do not appreciate music, they have no interest in it.

For most people, “tone deaf” is much more likely to just be a very poor internal representation of pitch with a negative label.

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#24

From the rest of the post, I think it’s fair to say that it would be of little value to you. The UYE seminar video (3 hours) gives a pretty good account of who they feel the course is suitable for, and they mention that people with skills as developed as yours are unlikely to benefit.

Speaking as a student though, the approach and methodology has been fantastic for me. If I ever teach ear training to guitar students in future when my aural skills are more improved, I would likely base much of what I would teach on this method.

Thanks, I’m very excited by the recent progress and very excited to continue.

#25

Just a devil’s advocate question for you @Tom_Gilroy - is there a reason you think you need to get better at eartraining/relative pitch? Meaning, is there some situation you’ll need it, where you currently feel crippled? I think any serious musician needs a decent amount of aural proficiency, but you’re far in excess of what I’d consider to be the bare minimum. The fact that you can transcribe Eric Johnson and Holdsworth puts you head and shoulders above the average. To level up from where you are (better relative pitch etc), I’d consider the following scenarios actually needing this:

  • Director’s of music programs where the musicians are amateurs. It would be very common for a middle school band director to need to “sing” the part that the tuba player is messing up. Being able to just look at the score and “sight sing” it immediately would be critical. Trotting over to the piano and playing it would waste everyone’s time
  • Someone who sings a lot of choral music, particularly alto’s and tenors as they get the less ‘tuneful’ parts. Sight singing again here is a really valuable skill
  • Someone who composes music, and wants the freedom to do so whether or not they have an instrument handy
    • Probably a thing of the past. Everyone has a phone where you can hum and record a neat idea that comes to mind if you fear you’ll lose it
  • Faster transcriptions, no need to check your instrument to make sure you actually heard a Db
    • Might not apply to you because you are into very elite players and often times there’s only one way to play the passage. Even if you know the note, you’ll need your instrument to make sure you’re choosing a playable fingering

Now, if you’re anything like me, none of that even matters :slight_smile: I really enjoy the process of getting better at just about anything related to music…or event not getting better lol! The whole experience is always enjoyable for me, success or failure along the way doesn’t even factor into it. And it sounds like you’re enjoying what’s happening in your recent success with ear training.

I know you’re much too level headed to go chasing after some checklist-of-things-good-musicians-ought-to-do, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to throw in the above.

#26

I don’t feel that I need greater aural skills.

I’m not a professional musician. My situation personally and professionally is has now stabilized, and I do intend to intgrate with local musicians, but I wouldn’t have any ambitions beyond playing in a semi-professional covers band at this stage, and the primary motivation would be fun, not fame or fortune.

I am teaching now, but my lessons are usually with experienced players and are focused on optimising their technique. That’s my niche as a teacher and I’m happy with it. Outside of my young cousin (my only in-person student), I’m not teaching songs.

I can, but it doesn’t mean that I can do it as quickly or as easily as I would like, and I’ve experienced almost no improvements in this area in a long time.

Any single-note lead playing is manageable for me, including Johnson or Holdsworth. Slow to medium speed passages aren’t a problem. Faster passages can always be slowed down in Transcribe! if I need it.

Chordal parts are harder. I can usually work out Johnson’s chordal playing provided I can clearly hear the parts in the mix, I’m familiar with a lot of his voicings and I understand the progressions theoretically. Holdsworth’s chordal playing is often beyond my aural skills, I would often need to study performance videos to do this. I don’t think there’s any shame in that (it’s Allan fucking Holdsworth), but I’d rather not need to rely upon it.

I think that many times, this is the larger battle. Also, it really has nothing to do with ear training at all. Being able to map the notes to the freboard to make the passages playable comes from understanding the players’ mechanics and the organisational structures they use on the fretboard. I’d actually argue that understanding these aspects often get you further toward making a favourite player manifest as a recognisable influence in your playing.

However, there’s still the task of just getting all the right notes first. Being able to to this more quickly would leave me more time for determining fingerings and actually practicing them.

These kinds of transcription are a labour of love for me. I just want it to be less laborious.

I think much of my interest in improving in this area was just wanting prove to myself that I could continue to improve, and that the plateau I’ve experienced for so long wasn’t the result of me being somehow “less musical” or than others. I wanted to know that the problem wasn’t me, but my approaches and methods.

I didn’t need better aural skills. I also didn’t need to be able to pick like Shawn Lane.

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#27

Hmm yeah that stuff is hard for me too. Hearing all the inner voicings, even if it’s not terribly complex, is much harder than single note leads, for me. For example, I’d always ace the “melodic dictation” tests in college. Now, if instead the instructor would have played a series of four voice chords and required we write down the notes exactly as he voiced them, I’d probably fail. Treble and bass would be no problem, and the chord ‘quality’ itself would be no problem. I’m confident I would have flubbed the inner voices though. Sure, I could probably reverse engineer a solution knowing he’d have been playing using classical voice leading rules, but still…I’d need unlimited hearings, not just 3 passes like he’d do.

So in all this, if you find yourself getting better at identifying complex chord voices, I’d love to know how you got there :slight_smile: I think that may be where the absolute pitch folks really shine. Rick Beato’s son, Dylan, for example. Rick can play really complex polychords and Dylan can call out the pitches without issue. My professor would always tell us stories of one student he had in his entire career with absolute pitch and he had this ability as well. He said the student could be on his way out the door, he’d tell the guy to wait, jump over to his piano and play some crazy dissonant jazz chord on the piano and this student could just read back the pitches from low to high as he continued walking out the door. Pretty amazing. I guess if you hear pitches as ‘colors’, this makes some sense though.

Anyway, all good! Thanks for the replies. Sounds like as per the usual, you know exactly what you’re doing :wink: Best of luck with your continued progress!

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#28

I just want to be able to go into a majority of musical situations and if i hear something new or not familiar to me, i want to be able create a riff, rhythm, melody harmony etc… just one thing amongst more but ultimately just to get a deeper connection to music and better understanding

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#29

Hey @Tom_Gilroy , cool stuff. Glad my framework was at all helpful in assessing your skill level with these things.

UYE sounds a lot like how I teach ear training, though obviously I haven’t fleshed out a full course and marketable product.

Hearing things related to a tonal center is definitely ‘where it’s at’ and pure interval recognition is not useless, just nowhere near as important and useful.

I have not looked into many of the apps and courses out there, so I was surprised to hear the report that the key-based approach seemed to be less common in the marketplace. I don’t have data on which sources use which approach. Honestly I’m a little sad that UYE felt like such a find, as I would have hoped that most stand-alone ear training courses would have had a similar approach to how you describe UYE.

A last thing about marketing…it is interesting how the heavy handed sales thing, every now and again they’re actually pushing a product that works well. Sometimes we have to take the gamble!

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#30

Hi @JakeEstner! Yes, your gradation of skill levels helped to understand where I was at and where I wanted to get to with my aural skills. Thank you for your contributions in related threads in the forum history.

That’s really cool to hear, it’s nice to know you feel that this is the right approach.

There may be some other courses out there focusing on internalization to the key, but I couldn’t them. Whenever I looked into a course or an app, it always seemed to amount some variation of the interval method.

This approach might be the obvious “best” approach to people who naturally developed great ears, but for me this shift in foundation has been a revelation.

Absolutely.

I really do have to stress that I found the marketing and presentation for the course to very off-putting initially. Had I anything more important to do that day, or had I not been intent on improving my relative pitch, I might not have given the course a chance at all.

There is a definite reluctance among guitarists to pay for instructional materials that I’ve never really understood. So many of us are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on pieces of gear that we don’t really need, but we’re unwilling to invest in our learning how to be better musicians.

UYE is expensive, but I’ve spent more on delay pedals that sit around and gather dust.

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#31

I’ve found there’s something about the personalities that are attracted to excelling at guitar…reluctance to acknowledge gaps in knowledge/ability/awareness, OR justification of the lack of a skill by then insisting that that skill can’t possibly be important.

Maybe it’s the sample size of those that are most vocal or post on forums. Shrug.

It’s a bit like that cliche of the guy that won’t hire a plumber because he “can do it himself” and we know how that can go

To your point about gear, I think most guitarists can admit they aren’t good at manufacturing their own effects pedals or amps. That’s a clearcut assessment to make. But it’s much more complex and vague to assess one’s own skill level in different areas, as well as knowing how to prioritize different skills reasonably in relation to the individual’s goals/style.

There’s of course the opposite extreme where some of us have a tough time recognizing any progress or skill that has already been built because we’re so fixated on all the things we can’t do. I’ve found that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to purchasing things…more so just depression “LOL”

Related observation, sorry to veer a bit off topic, but I use to spend time on a jazz musicians forum where analysis, practice, performance skills etc were discussed. Then unfortunately that forum - which was great - ‘closed’ and I found myself spending time on a large forum that was specifically for jazz guitarists, as opposed to open to any instrument.

It really struck me how the guitarist forum was so much less collaborative and communal in its discussions. It was much more rare that somebody thanked somebody else for sharing a good idea, or that people were humble when asking for help. In the guitarist’s group, it was more like each comment in a thread was its own little “solo,” eg “my turn to give the ‘real’ right answer here” whereas in the other group there was more of an “ensemble” vibe of people exploring a topic together and sharing observations/experiences.

Anyway, it seems there are no shortage of guitar-educational products on the market, so someone must be buying…

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#32

i am not even half way through and i feel ya, going to finish reading but this hits home big time. i do know having studied over at the rosenberg academy and learning 6 solos so far of stochelos playing that i can definitely hear his phrasing more clearly when he solos over anything. however i have to hear it much slower than his speed say 60ish percent if i listen i can pick up on it possibly maybe not. but i feel like the more solos i learn the more i kinda peak into his combinational trick bag of how he might arrange licks due to the progressions. one of those solos was all ear no cheating and it helps knowing how to play everything another great improviser has done as your ear can pick up on it when he improvises something different.