Hi everyone. I've been playing guitar for a while and i am also trying to learn some music theory. But i really want to train my ears. How can i get started in ear training? By just tuning the guitar and playing individual notes on each string? How can i train my ears to recogonize notes, chords and eventually songs? Thanks

Repetitious disciplines can train just about any1 2 develop a musical ear.

The memory retains everything that has ever been heard.

It may take practice 2 learn 2 tap such a vast momory source, but it's all there.

Most of us can hear music in our minds, being played or reproduced in an outside source.

We can learn 2 use our musical memory like a tape recorder, putting it in rewind or fast forward position.

The ear continues ti function in sleep.

We cajn even work on music in our dreams.

A precise pitch can be memorized.

Any pitch can be raised or lowered slightly wit out becoming another note altogether.

Precise pitch (intonation).

By association, the ear can memorize infinitesimal differences in tone quality between one note & another, each related 2 a corresponding pitch.

Once the ars are trained 2 hear the quality differences & associate those qualities with particular pitches &/or fingerings, the player can beging 2 understand spontaneously what pitches the ear is hearing, even create new phrases, but always sure of the fingering & pitch.

The ear can hear quality-pitch association on additional instruments and learning quality-pitch association on one instrument does not mean that you will not be able to develop the same ability on a related or unrelated instrument.

The ear's memorization of quality is so exact that fingering can be determined even when pitch is faulty.

The ear can be trained to quickly recognize any musical device that is widely used and heard often.

If I play a major triad or a major scale, for example, for a group of students, nearly everyone will recognize the device by ear without having to re-hear and study it for several minutes.

It is an example of quick recognition.

The same can apply to many other devices, as long as an effort is made.

Such a list would include intervals, chords, scales, inversions of chords, progressions, key shifts, chord spacing or voicings, patterns, familiar motifs, chord function, note-of-chord function, melody-to-key relationships, diatonicism, and chromaticism.

[Edited 11/17/11 16:15pm]

The ear can be trained to pre-hear phrases, counterpoint, & harmonies that have not yet been played or written.

Composers will often use this ability to "audition" music in the mind before it is committed to paper.

The effect is complete, & w/o needing to go to, say, a piano, he/she knows what the phrase will sound like.

He/she can even project the sounds of the instrumentation used in their orchestration.

It is VITAL in developing a muscial ear by CONSTANT TRAINING.

It is safe 2 say that any really good musician is made, not born.

I hope some of this information has helped you in learning 2 develop your musical ear.

I've been playing guitar ever since I was 5 but I've always used tab. I've always had a guitar teacher too. Steve's the man! You should ask some one you know who plays by ear. It's a great skill to have, so keep on training yourself.

[Edited 11/18/11 17:15pm]

Whatsinit4me said:

The ear can be trained to pre-hear phrases, counterpoint, & harmonies that have not yet been played or written.

Composers will often use this ability to "audition" music in the mind before it is committed to paper.

The effect is complete, & w/o needing to go to, say, a piano, he/she knows what the phrase will sound like.

He/she can even project the sounds of the instrumentation used in their orchestration.

It is VITAL in developing a muscial ear by CONSTANT TRAINING.

It is safe 2 say that any really good musician is made, not born.

I hope some of this information has helped you in learning 2 develop your musical ear.

thank you for your advice, i have started training already, simply by recogonising the individual notes one by one. I have no problem with constant training, i practice 4-6 hours a day these days and still have some time left for ear training. Hopefully i'll have devoloped a good ear in 5 years time or so.

You are welcome.

Don't forget to learn the terminology of musical analysis.

With which you can verbalize, compare, and think about solos.

It can lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of all solos, including your own.

Here is a partial glossary of such terminology:

AUGMENTATION- increase in note durations, usually doubling those durations, causing the musical phrase to last longer without actually changing the tempo.

BLUE NOTES- the three notes commonly associated with the blues idiom, which are the lowered third, fifith, and seventh intervals above the keynote.

CHANGE-RUNNING- arpeggiation of each chord in a progression (change is a skang expression for chords).

COMPING- rhythms played by a chording instrument such as piano, guitar, or organ.

CONTOURS- the shapes of phrases as determined by their motion up and down in pitch and the durations of the pitches.

DENSITY- thickness of the music, primarily determined by the number of notes involved.

DIMINUTION- antonym of augmentation, achieved by shortening the durations of notes, usually by half, causing phrases to last shorter length of time w/o changing tempo.

ECONOMY- the quality of using as few pitches as possible w/o sacrificing meaning.

EMBELLISHMENTS- pitches added for decoration.

EXTENSION- (melodic) gradual lengthening of phrases by adding notes to the end of them. (Harmonic) the use of added chord tones, such as ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths.

FRAGMENTATION- development of a musical line by focusing on brief segments of a given melody, usually resulting in a fair number of repeats and permutations of the fragments.

INTENSITY- a measurement of strength, relentlessness, and tension as brought about by a variety of musical practices, such as volume, accents, tempo, density, tone, articulation.

GETTING OUTSIDE- slang expression for deliberately (usually) moving away from order, consonance, and simplicity.

JAZZ INTONATION- a deliberate distortion or reorganization of the tuning temperament of this hemisphere, in evidence especially on blue notes.

LINEAR- a musical line in which the melody can seldom be divided into smaller phrases. Phrase endings are largely absent nd the rhythmic values are relatively constant, such as long, unbroken chain of eighth-notes.

POLYCHORDS- incidence of two or more chords simultaneously.

RHYTHMIC (or METRIC) SHIFTS- entrance of a repeated phrase on another beat of the measure rather than in the initial phrase.

SIMPLICATION- removal of extraneous notes from a phrase, leaving only the essential or skeletal notes.

SUSTAINED TENSION- generally unrelieved dissonance.

TRUNCATION- shortening of a musical phrase by removing notes from the end of the phrase. The phrase is usually repeated a number of times; more notes are removed with each repeat.

Learn lots of songs, and remember the chord names, then translate those chords into the numbers based on scale positions.

You will have to look up what this means, but basically what you'lll notice after a while is that the blues always uses 1, 4, and 5 chords (I IV and V is how it is notated).

So more than just remembering the names of the chords G, C, and D, you will learn how they relate to each other, that if G is I, then C is IV, and D is V. If C is I, then F is IV and G is V.

I know that probably makes no sense but learning to hear I IV and V is the key to identifying chords by ear.

i think i sort of understand what you are saying

For example if i construct the C major scale:

C-W-W-H-W-W-W-H

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

That means the chords are C major, D minor, E minor, F Major, G major, A minor, B Diminished and C

Therefore the I IV V progression is C maj, F maj and G maj. If i am not wrong you can put them in any order, for example G-C-F . I am not entirely sure because while i have a teacher, we only learn songs and scales togethar, i try to tech myself theory from reading on the internet.

Exactly, then to transpose to the key of D Major, you can simply think in terms of I IV and V again, which would be D major, G Major, and A Major chords.

You'll still have to learn the letter names of the chords, but the numbers will put them into a structural context which you'll learn to hear and recognize.

Especially on guitar, once you learn bar (or barre?) chords, the chord shapes are the same all up and down the neck, and the system of numbers makes a lot of sense.

Thanks NRDU. I am still a little confused though, what about the F major scale? It goes F-G-A-A#-C-D-E-F

That means the I IV V progression is F, A# and C. The chords for that should be F major, Bb and C major. I don't get how a Bb chord is constructed and it seems so different from the other scales. And are there any songs that you recommend to help with ear training, easy ones?

http://www.youtube.com/wa...Q_JAgHxR14

Right now i am learning this one.

An F scale goes F, G, A, Bb...not A#. It's the same note, it's just how you look at it. So yes the I IV and V are F, Bb, and C

I recommend listening to blues, you'll start to hear the similarities in the progression. It won't take long.

But it doesn't matter that much, if you keep learning songs, you'll get there eventually, no matter what kind they are. Zeppelin is always good, though sometimes Jimmy Page uses weird tunings.

[Edited 11/23/11 0:02am]

thanks again. I will see how it goes over the next 6 months or so.