What is ear training?
One definition is as follows:
"Ear training or aural skills is a skill by which
musicians learn to identify, solely by hearing,
pitches,
intervals,
melody,
chords,
rhythms, and other basic elements of
music. The application of this skill is analogous to taking dictation in written/spoken language. Ear training may be contrasted with
sight-singing, which is analogous to reading aloud in language. Ear-training is typically a component of formal musical training.
Functional pitch recognition involves identifying the function or role of a single pitch in the context of an established
tonic. Once a tonic has been established, each subsequent pitch may be classified without direct reference to accompanying pitches. For example, once the tonic G has been established, listeners may recognize that the pitch D plays the role of the dominant in the key of G. No reference to any other pitch is required to establish this fact.
Many musicians use functional pitch recognition in order to identify, understand, and appreciate the roles and meanings of pitches within a key. To this end, scale-degree numbers or movable-do
solmization (do, re, mi, etc.) can be quite helpful. Using such systems, pitches with identical functions (the key note or tonic, for example) are associated with identical labels (1 or do, for example).
Functional pitch recognition is not the same as fixed-do
solfège, e.g. do, re, mi, etc. Functional pitch recognition emphasizes the role of a pitch with respect to the tonic, while fixed-do solfège symbols are labels for absolute pitch values (do=C, re=D, etc., in any key). In the fixed-do system (used in the conservatories of the Romance language nations, e.g. Paris, Madrid, Rome, as well as the
Juilliard School and the
Curtis Institute in the USA), solfège symbols do not describe the role of pitches relative to a tonic, but rather actual pitches. In the movable-do system, there happens to be a correspondence between the solfège symbol and a pitch's role. However there is no requirement that musicians associate the solfège symbols with the scale degrees. In fact, musicians may utilize the movable-do system to label pitches while mentally tracking intervals to determine the sequence of solfège symbols.
Functional pitch recognition has several strengths. Since a large body of music is tonal, the technique is widely applicable. Since reference pitches are not required, music may be broken up by complex and difficult to analyze pitch clusters, for example, a percussion sequence, and pitch analysis may resume immediately once an easier to identify pitch is played, for example, by a trumpet—no need to keep track of the last note of the previous line or solo nor any need to keep track of a series of intervals going back all the way to the start of a piece. Since the function of pitch classes is a key element, the problem of compound intervals with interval recognition is not an issue—whether the notes in a melody are played within a single octave or over many octaves is irrelevant.
Functional pitch recognition has some weaknesses. Music with no tonic or ambiguous tonality
[1] does not provide the frame of reference necessary for this type of analysis. When dealing with key changes, a student must know how to account for pitch function recognition after the key changes: retain the original tonic or change the frame of reference to the new tonic. This last aspect in particular, requires an ongoing real-time (even anticipatory) analysis of the music that is complicated by modulations and is the chief detriment to the movable-do system.
Interval recognition is also a useful skill for musicians: in order to determine the notes in a
melody, a musician must have some ability to recognize intervals. Some music teachers teach their students relative pitch by having them associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song.
[2] However, others have shown that such familiar-melody associations are quite limited in scope, applicable only to the specific scale-degrees found in each melody.
[3] "
The original article which explains this in depth has a lot of good references as to example intervals. You can read it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_trainingNow that this first post has defined ear training, how do you develop it? I will discuss this in a future post. But even with a fine tuned ear you need to understand the fundamentals of music.
Where do you start?
Click here for a good solid course!! When you do sign up for it please let me know how your progress goes.
