Become a better musician through ear training
If you have any intention of becoming a better musician then at some point you will need to focus on ear training in order be able to judge relative pitch and eventually perfect pitch. It’s strange that so little attention is paid to ear training when it is obvious that how we listen to music is the most important aspect of playing music.
There are many different ways you can train your ear. You can learn to recognize different pitches and achieve so called perfect pitch or you can learn to recognize different intervals and harmony. Once you’ve trained your ears you’ll start noticing the benefits in a number of ways. You’ll be able to write better songs, transcribe songs by ear and learn songs much quicker. There are many different kinds of exercises you can do to improve your ear and in the rest of this article you’ll be given some introductory exercises.
A good exercise to start with is an interval recognition exercise. Write down a list of all the interval names from Minor 2nd all the way to an Octave. Then look up examples of those intervals in popular pieces of music. For example the Minor 2nd interval is the same as the the famous theme from the film Jaws. Now randomly choose different intervals and sing or hum the two notes that make up the interval. This will train your ear to recognize the interval. Recognizing intervals is one of the most important skills you can have as a musician.
Another great exercise is a chord recognition exercise. Write out a number of chords that you’d like to recognize. For example Major, Minor, 7th and sus4 chords. Then play them in random order and see if you can tell how they sound differently. Start listening to some of your favorite music and see if you can hear any of those chords being used.
A good way to make the most of these exercises is by making a recording of random intervals and chords so that you can test yourself. Another way is to practice with a friend so that you can keep challenging each other.
There are many more ear training exercises you can do in order to help yourself recognize intervals, chords, harmony and different pitches. If you have trouble coming up with your own exercises or want want help and guidance to make sure that you are learning all that is necessary in order to become a better musician then check out the Pitch Master Pro
