Ear training - why?

**CGKnight** · 01-05-2011, 07:46 AM

This may seem like a really elementary question, but...

WHY is it necessary?

**kris** · 01-05-2011, 08:33 AM

Ear Training it can be also when you listen music or transcribe solos.
Jazz is music you have to play with another members of band.
If you could not hear what they play how you can play together.
If you are better in Ear Training you will be better muscian.
This is the true:
If you could not see you do no know where to go!!!

**MarkRhodes** · 01-05-2011, 08:49 AM

In one sense, the need for ear training should be a comfort to new musicians because it tells them they are not alone in getting lost! Charlie Parker told the story of his first jam session: he alternated between "Lazy River" and "Honeysuckle Rose" while the band played "Body And Soul." He didn't know about different keys, he didn't know "Body And Soul." He was laughed off the stage and went home where he practiced upwards of eight hours a day for three years. Only *then* did people start calling him a "natural"!

**kris** · 01-05-2011, 08:54 AM

Good story!!

**rabbit** · 01-05-2011, 08:54 AM

A perfect excuse to justify the time-honored tradition
of sitting around drinking and listening to jazz.

**Jake Hanlon** · 01-05-2011, 08:59 AM

Everything you practice, everything you work on is Ear Training. Ear Training is practice.

The goal of practice is to lessen the gap between what you're ears can hear and what your hands can play. Thus, if you don't practice direct ear training, intervals, chords, scales transcription etc etc you're going to have a heck of a time actually playing anything.

**Drumbler** · 01-05-2011, 09:13 AM

**bako** · 01-05-2011, 09:17 AM

Music is an aural art. It is crucial for a musician to be able to both give and receive, each one informs the other.The more you can hear what is being played, the better you know how to play along. The more you can be aware of what is not being played puts you in the best position to decide what sounds to add.

**CGKnight** · 01-05-2011, 09:44 AM

Interesting responses.

I guess, having played only classical so far, I didn't know any of that.

**JakeAcci** · 01-05-2011, 09:44 AM

Man, so much could be said about ear training...

I think that an improviser has to have a relatively good grasp of the sound of what he is about to play before he plays it. Otherwise he's just moving his fingers around.

Without ear training, either formally or informally, you're not really playing music, you're just playing shapes or regurgitating theoretical information.

The ability to 'hear' is an essential part of almost all angles of jazz - comping, soloing, learning new tunes, voicings, developing harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary, etc. Even sight reading requires a lot of hearing ability. And don't forget about 'rhythmic' ear training, it's just as important imo.

**kris** · 01-05-2011, 10:39 AM

EAR TRAINIG= Jazz Practise
"You play what you learn"

advanced level:
"You play what you hear"

**jmthurman** · 01-05-2011, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by CGKnight

Interesting responses.

I guess, having played only classical so far, I didn't know any of that.

Umm... Classical musicians need training in "aural perception," too. Look at ANY music school's degree plan. Can't get through without what we lovingly called "Ear Straining and Sight Screaming."

Yes, it helps to know at once that the sax/clar/viola/trp/trb/fl that has the 3rd of the chord on beat 3 of bar 27 is very sharp.

Without ear training, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Basie, Satchmo, Bird, et al., could not have gotten the music in their minds/hearts into their instruments and onto paper/recordings.

Oh...I hated "Aural Perception" classes, too. They required far more hard work than any other classes...even private lessons...and I'm still working on it 20 years later....

Best!
Michael

**CGKnight** · 01-05-2011, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by jmthurman

Umm... Classical musicians need training in "aural perception," too. Look at ANY music school's degree plan. Can't get through without what we lovingly called "Ear Straining and Sight Screaming."

Yes, it helps to know at once that the sax/clar/viola/trp/trb/fl that has the 3rd of the chord on beat 3 of bar 27 is very sharp.

Without ear training, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Basie, Satchmo, Bird, et al., could not have gotten the music in their minds/hearts into their instruments and onto paper/recordings.

Oh...I hated "Aural Perception" classes, too. They required far more hard work than any other classes...even private lessons...and I'm still working on it 20 years later....

Best!
Michael

Well, it wasn't stressed much in my studies so far, but recently I met this big league teacher who knows jazz as well as classical - he asked me about what I had learned so far - and he said that I didn't mention ear training at all.

That's what bought about the thread...as a solo classical guitarist, I never really even felt the need - I can just identify some basic intervals, tell if a chord is a major, minor, or 'dominant', and if I sit down for 5 minutes I can tell the inversion. And said teacher bought the level up a notch by telling me to learn to identify chord progressions - heh, a major jump, but loving it.

**fep** · 01-05-2011, 11:33 AM

I think you could be a really good classical guitarist without ear training. So, I think your question is valid.

Ear training is not the magic pill that I was hoping it would be. I've worked hard on it for a couple of years and I'm not sure how much it's actually helped my playing. I'm sure it's help a bit, but certainly no magic pill.

I went thru the four semesters of ear training in college, finishing in the fall of 2009. I did well, I enjoy sight singing wish has helped my sight reading, my speed of transcription has definately improved and I can do some of what I'm transcritioning without using my instrument as a reference etc.

But where I want to be... hearing the common changes in jazz tunes and playing them by ear. Like those musicians I know that can play literally a couple thousand tunes without using sheet music. That's what I want to do and that's what a good ear can do for you. That's my best answer to your question.

All I can figure is it takes a lot of work and time. It's something that I need to practice daily. The first thing I do every day is sight read on the guitar, the second thing I do every day is sight sing.

And, some have a lot more aptitude for it than others. My college ear training class had forty seats available, in semester 1 the class started full with a handful of students wanting seats that weren't available. Halfway thru the semester we were down to about 20 students. By the forth semester of the orginal 40 students only 7 students remained. The teacher was good, the tests were difficult, most had to work hard or fail. For me, it may have been the hardest class I've ever taken. However there was 3 students that didn't have to work nearly as hard as the class was pretty easy for them (one was Korean, and like so many raised in Korea she had perfect pitch before she started).

**kris** · 01-05-2011, 12:02 PM

perfect pitch ...?
I know jazz muscians with perfect pitch and I know better playing jazz without perfect pitch.
Do not forget about your feel, swing,heart,individuality,experience,power,creativ e,atmoshere you can create in the band...etc

**fep** · 01-05-2011, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by kris

perfect pitch ...?
I know jazz muscians with perfect pitch and I know better playing jazz without perfect pitch.
Do not forget about your feel, swing,heart,individuality,experience,power,creativ e,atmoshere you can create in the band...etc

Yeah you can have perfect pitch and just be a beginer at music.

But do you know of great composers or great directors of major orchestras that don't have pitch?

I read that virtually all of the great classical composers had perfect pitch. And, while only about 1 in 10,000 of the general population has perfect pitch in the U.S. ... about 30% of the musicians in major orchestras have perfect pitch.

I'll never have perfect pitch, so this is all academic to me... I wish I had it though.

**patskywriter** · 01-05-2011, 12:32 PM

perfect pitch comes in handy when you're sitting in without benefit of sheet music. you can pounce on the tune immediately without that 'sliding around' that some guitarists do when trying to figure out the key.

having perfect pitch, however, has nothing to do with your ability to play music. i have perfect pitch and came to realize that one of my friends has it as well. she likes music, but doesn't play it and has no desire to. too bad her perfect-pitch ability can't be transferred to someone who could put it to good use.

**CGKnight** · 01-05-2011, 01:04 PM

Off topic, but isn't perfect pitch a cultivatable thing? O_o

**mr. beaumont** · 01-05-2011, 01:34 PM

I dunno about perfect pitch, but relative pitch is. That's more important anyway.

As for ear training, I'd argue it's the single most important thing for a jazz musician. Like kris said, the goal is to hear what you want to play and then be able to play it. It is the root of good melodic improvisation that isn't just "running changes."

**kris** · 01-05-2011, 02:00 PM

I know that most of big names in jazz have very good perfect pitch.This is fact.I can hear this in thier music.
Perfect pitch is from nature but music it's not only for the people with perfect pitch.

**CGKnight** · 01-05-2011, 02:12 PM

Edit - Sorry kris, I misread your post. x_x

Mr. Beaumont - I read somewhere perfect pitch can be learned by anyone, takes a lot of time (years) to cultivate completely, and that relative pitch is roughly a prerequisite for it.

Original point -

Like kris said, the goal is to hear what you want to play and then be able to play it. It is the root of good melodic improvisation that isn't just "running changes."

...that seems to be the gist of it.

**kris** · 01-05-2011, 02:17 PM

I understand exactly the same way.

**rabbit** · 01-05-2011, 02:19 PM

Apparently no one sits around listening to tunes & getting intoxicated
(by tunes & substances) in a group setting.

This explains the decline & fall of western civilization.

**matt.guitarteacher** · 01-06-2011, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by fep

The teacher was good, the tests were difficult, most had to work hard or fail. For me, it may have been the hardest class I've ever taken. However there was 3 students that didn't have to work nearly as hard as the class was pretty easy for them (one was Korean, and like so many raised in Korea she had perfect pitch before she started).

That is so funny! I had a Korean guy in my sight singing class almost 20 years ago. He could sing anything on movable or fixed 'do'. It was absolutely amazing! They sightsing all the way through their education over their. What an incredible advantage.

I must say, from teaching sightsinging in choral music for a few years, that there is a big difference between knowing what a major 3rd sounds like and being able to just 'hear' MI from anywhere in the scale. Solfegio is good stuff!

**Silence** · 01-13-2011, 12:04 PM

It is necessary in the same way that you NEED strings to actually play a guitar.

Your question is kind of like "why are my eyes necessary if I want to paint a pretty picture?"

O_o