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!)
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?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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 Best of luck with your continued progress!
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
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!
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.
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…
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.
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.
Best of luck with your continued progress!