Harmony Cloud App

[pamosmusic]

Stefon Harris's ear training app.

Anyone else into this monstrosity?

harmony-cloud-app — Stefon Harris

[AllanAllen]

Are you? Hearing harmony is a weak spot for me.

[pamosmusic]

Are you? Hearing harmony is a weak spot for me.

Yeah I’ve had it for a while. Jordan K had told me about it because Stefon was working on it when he was studying with him. And I was like cool … but then I met this (killer) high school vibraphonist recently and she mentioned it so I downloaded it. Played with it for a while but just recently started really trying to use it.

[AllanAllen]

Alright I’ll give it a shot

[pamosmusic]

Alright I’ll give it a shot

Youll want to go into the settings to limit the number of chords that it’s using … the default setting is ………


………. challenging

[AllanAllen]

I'll take G, C, D7 and feel good about myself for $100, Alex.

[pamosmusic]

I'll take G, C, D7 and feel good about myself for $100, Alex.

my man.

Ive been trying to mirror my one key a day stuff and doing some ear training on the four chord types in the home key.

It starts with major (I IV V), minor (ii, iii, vi), dim (vii, iii, #iv), and sus (I IV V)

You can deselect any of those and start smaller, but you can also enable all or part of relative minor, parallel minor, and some more remote chords. Which inversions you want, etc.

The exercises are identifying the bass, identifying the chord type, identifying the inversion, then identifying the full chord and inversion in one go.

So it’s pretty bananas.

Methinks small bites are best.

[pamosmusic]

For the record just doing a key a day so I have some artificial benchmark to hit before I add some new level of difficulty.

I have a tendency to move through stuff like this too quickly and not really get it.

[Cunamara]

I have had that app on my iPad for years now, but have never delved into it. There always seems to be so much other stuff to do, and then things like that drop off the radar and I forget all about them.

[pamosmusic]

I’ve been using just the primary major key and doing all the exercises each day, rotating through keys. I’m on B today and have been feeling good so I’m tinkering with some of the settings. Went to the setting to boost the bass motion in fourths and fifths. So that was cool. I’ll stick with that then try stepwise and third/sixth at some point

[pamosmusic]

Started back at no sharps or flats but with the relative minor key … it’s waaaaaaayyyyy harder

For C it includes …

everything that was in the major, plus …

B E D A

C#o, G#o, D#o

Do, Ao, Go

E+ A+ B+

Esus Dsus Asus Bsus

I am getting SMOKED

[pamosmusic]

Ended up deciding to stick with major and just add the new major chords and the augmented chords. Take that around the circle and then add some more.

lord

[AllanAllen]

It wanted me to download an app to download the app and that was too many steps. When it's on the app store I'll try it.

[pamosmusic]

hmm. when I search it in the app store, it comes up.

[rpjazzguitar]

I've found that kind of thing to be difficult, frustrating and not all that productive for chords. I might have gotten more out of intervals.

Another thing I've done is taken a standard and worked on playing it in 12 keys without a chart. The idea, if this makes any sense, is to get to the point where I hear the next chord coming up in my mind -- and my fingers go to it without any input from the likes of me. I can do that with a 12 bar blues, why not Embraceable You? This approach just seems more practical.

[Christian Miller]

This app is brutal


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

I've found that kind of thing to be difficult, frustrating and not all that productive for chords. I might have gotten more out of intervals.

Another thing I've done is taken a standard and worked on playing it in 12 keys without a chart. The idea, if this makes any sense, is to get to the point where I hear the next chord coming up in my mind -- and my fingers go to it without any input from the likes of me. I can do that with a 12 bar blues, why not Embraceable You? This approach just seems more practical.

The first thing is that I’ve tinkered with a bunch of ear training apps and there really isn’t one like this.

Of the usual sort, I like Tenuto but they’re all variations on the same kind of thing. Here’s a chord, name it. Here’s another name it. For those, I’d be inclined to agree with you about the harmony.

But this one is truly wild. It plays super long progressions, you can change the instrumentation, it has a bunch of common modulations and chords and inversions within the keys, you can favor certain root movements. It’s no joke.

As for the rest of it, this kind of stuff is obviously no substitute for learning music, but I’m not sure learning tunes in twelve keys is a substitute for deliberate ear training either. I really do work on my tunes in all twelve — twelve days, a key a day — but what it doesn’t cover so much is when I’m listening to Autumn Leaves from Plugged Nickel and I’m like … wtf was that movement Herbie just played on that ii-V.

Thats always been a big weak spot for me, and my tune work hasn’t really actually helped much with that beyond a point.

This app is brutal

Dude. I’m getting wrecked.

[AllanAllen]

I figured it out. I’m struggling with C F G. F sounds like home to me.

[pamosmusic]

I figured it out. I’m struggling with C F G. F sounds like home to me.

have to start somewhere

[AllanAllen]

have to start somewhere

Yeah it’s cool. I could see myself spending 5 minutes on this and coming away happier than social media makes me.

[pamosmusic]

Yeah it’s cool. I could see myself spending 5 minutes on this and coming away happier than social media makes me.

I could also see myself spending five minutes on this and coming away kind of irritated too.

[AllanAllen]

I could also see myself spending five minutes on this and coming away kind of irritated too.

But, more irritated than spending 5 minutes reading about politics?

[pamosmusic]

But, more irritated than spending 5 minutes reading about politics?

Fair point.

Ive been at it for about two weeks now and its frustrating but its also nice to see incremental progress.

[pamosmusic]

I finished my next pass around the circle of fifth. Started back on C and G without adding anything. Wouldn’t say I’m getting smoked anymore, exactly, but it’s slow going.

[AllanAllen]

I've probably only done 30 minutes with the app, but it's helped to give things a focused listening. Was listening to some Chuck Berry over the weekend and thinking about the chords as I was driving.