Simple scale patterns for ear training and fretboard knowledge

[JakeAcci]

Hi all

I just made this for a student today, I thought I would share it here because I think it's extremely useful to practice these a bit when you are first trying to get the hang of all the keys on the fretboard, as well as basic ear training, connecting sounds in your head (and your voice) with positions on the fretboard. Keep in mind I've posted this in the "getting started" section. Try them with all the major scale fingerings you know. For a more "advanced" exercise, one could try singing them all without the guitar, or doing them with an unusual scale.

Scale Patterns

Try all both forward and backward. To train your ear, sing the solfege along as you play. The goal is to play them with a consistent rhythm - all quarter notes or all eighth notes, no rests. Also try to get all the notes to be at an equal volume.

- 123, 234, 345, etc (do re mi, re mi fa, mi fa so, etc)

- 1234, 2345, 3456, etc (do re mi fa, re mi fa so, mi fa so la, etc)

- 12, 13, 14, 15, etc (do re, do mi, do fa, do so, etc.)

- 13, 24, 35, 46, etc (do mi, re fa, mi so, fa la, etc)

- 16, 27, 38, etc (do la, re ti, mi to a higher do, etc.) Because of the larger intervals, this pattern will quickly span multiple octaves.

- 135, 246, 357, etc (do mi so, re fa la, mi so ti, etc.) This pattern spells out the triads of the scale.

- 1357, 2468, 3579, etc. This pattern spells out the seventh chords of the scale.

Make up your own! You can also adapt these patterns to other scales besides the major scale and the same principles of dexterity, fretboard knowledge, and ear training still apply.

[FatJeff]

These look good. I personally find solfege to be more of a barrier to hearing than any help, but other than that, this looks to be a great way to internalize the sound of different scales (I'm assuming these are meant to be generic and applied to any given scale, not just the major scale).

[JonnyPac]

These look good. I personally find solfege to be more of a barrier to hearing than any help, but other than that, this looks to be a great way to internalize the sound of different scales.

+1

[Shadow of the Sun]

To those that don't like solfege, would you suggest just singing the notes along with the scale patterns as a way to get your ears in gear?

[fep]

I'm not sure why Jeff doesn't like solfege, but the reason I don't like it is that in jazz we are used to using numbers to describe scale degrees and chord progression.

I hear all the time someone say, "I VI II V I", I don't hear them say, "Do La Re Sol Do".

So it just makes sense to use numbers instead of solfege. Unless, you already have solfege imprinted in your brain.

I took the four semesters of college ear training and in those classes we used numbers instead of solfege.

[JonnyPac]

I'm numbers based too. Why translate when numbers go along with everyday jazz theory.

[oldskoolchop]

jakeacci thanks for this, this will help me with some much needed ear training

fep and jonnypac i dont like the do ra me fo do toe either but, and this is a question take no offense, would you only be recognizing intervals (which is good as well) by using numbers, for me if i was to hear a song or melody i might could recognize that it went from a I to a V, but I still might not be able to say in which key, or i am i going in the wrong direction with this

s o t s i like using the notes, that will also help to drive into my memory what notes are actually in a scale

[JakeAcci]

I love 'moveable do' solfege. Let me try to make a case for it:

First of all, it's been a method of teaching ear training for hundreds of years, so that's a pretty heavy consideration. To my knowledge, solfege is still taught at most high level college ear training programs. Students have to pass solfege-based exams.

I personally only got serious about it a couple of years ago, so my ears were already fairly proficient before I started with it. I've found it indispensable as an organizational method for myself and a teaching tool to use with my students, especially my very young/beginner students.

Here's my thinking:

'Moveable do' solfege provides single syllables to sing and associate with all twelve tones against a given tonal center. You can look at a piece of music and sing the entire piece in time using solfege syllables. You can't sight-sing and say "flat seventh" or "augmented fifth" simply for the reason that a single note lasts one beat but those terms last multiple beats. Having a monosyllabic system is a huge convenience.

It's simply a language to assign to relative intervals, and it's not hard to learn to use - do is 1, re is 2, mi is 3, fa is 4, so is 5, la is 6, ti is 7. All raised intervals get an "eee" sound - #1 is di, #2 is ri, #4 is fi, #5 is si, #6 is li, and all flatted intervals except for b2 get an "aye" sound - b2 is ra, b3 is me, b5 is se, b6 is le, b7 is te. So it's seventeen syllables to memorize but if you memorize the diatonic seven memorizing the other ten is pretty simple.

The way I see it relating to these patterns:
You could just practice the patterns, which is good for learning scale fingerings and gaining some intervallic flexibility, but doesn't do a ton, directly, for aural skills.
You could practice the patterns while singing or humming along, which will be helpful for aural skills than not singing at all, but there may not be a very blunt association created between scale degrees, fingering, and sound.
You could practice the patterns while singing the scale degrees as numbers, which is better than the above two options except that all sorts of rhythmic difficulties are presented by the fact that the number-names of the intervals last more than one beat. So...you can't sing along in time.
All these problems are solved by taking a few days to memorize the solfege syllables. As I said, with solfege, if you are adept with it, you can basically sing anything in time while simultaneously cementing your aural understanding of the different scale degrees.

I feel confident that my ears are relatively advanced, that's what they tell me at least, and I've found solfege very helpful both with my beginning students and with pushing my own ears further. Whenever I'm really trying to hear a new concept I try to solfege it now, and actually as a sight singing exercise I was trying to solfege all the Monk heads in the Steve Cardenas Monk book. That was brutal, I had to go quite slow, but talk about cementing the twelve tones, yeesh! Interestingly, when I'm trying to wrap my ears around something, I often (but not always) find it easier to sing with solfege than without it! I think that really speaks to how powerful the associations become, and I haven't even spent that much time on it...

Is it essential? Definitely not, I'm sure there are a billion brilliants musicians with amazing ears who haven't worked on solfege at all. I didn't bother with it for years, even though when I was in seventh grade one of my teachers tried to get me into it. I've just been really been psyched on how much of an awesome tool it is that I'd encourage everybody to give it a try, especially if they've been having ear-trouble!

[JakeAcci]

I took the four semesters of college ear training and in those classes we used numbers instead of solfege.

I have heard that some schools use numbers, but most of the schools I'm familiar with use movable do solfege. ::shrug::

[JakeAcci]

more late night posting from jake, sometimes parts of my brain stop working, so forgive me...

[oldskoolchop]

allright you convinced me enough to give it a try

[fep]

You can't sight-sing and say "flat seventh" or "augmented fifth" simply for the reason that a single note lasts one beat but those terms last multiple beats. Having a monosyllabic system is a huge convenience.

In the classes I took, we wouldn't sing 'augmented fifth', we'd just sing 5 regardless of whether it was a b5 a 5 or a #5. We would think #5, sing the pitch that corresponds with a #5, but just sing the word 5. The same can be said for all the altered pitches. So seven was the only word that had two syllables and if you slur them together... we had no problem singing rhythmically with the system, we had to do it every class and on tests.

In the spirit of full disclosure we did use solfege I'd say about 10% of the time and numbers the rest, both movable systems. There were certain exercises that solfege just worked better for, like I said that was maybe only 10% of the time. For example we would cycle through chord qualities using solfege (this whole thing is one long exercise, if I get this right only one note should change at a time):

||: Do Mi Sol Ti Sol Mi Do :|| (major)

||: Do Mi Si Ti Si Mi Do :|| (augmented)

||: Do Mi Sol Ti Sol Mi Do :|| (major)

||: Do Mi Sol Te Sol Mi Do :|| (dominant)

||: Do Me Sol Te Sol Me Do :|| (minor 7)

||: Do Me Sol Ti Sol Me Do :|| (minor maj7)

||: Do Me Sol Te Sol Me Do :|| (minor 7)

||: Do Me Se Te Se Me Do :|| (minor 7 b5)

||: Do Me Se La Se Me Do :|| (diminished 7, this is the way we did it with a La)

||: Do Me Se Te Se Me Do :|| (minor 7 b5)

||: Do Me Sol Te Sol Me Do :|| (minor 7)

||: Do Me Sol Ti Sol Me Do :|| (minor maj7)

||: Do Me Sol Te Sol Me Do :|| (minor 7)

||: Do Mi Sol Te Sol Mi Do :|| (dominant)

||: Do Mi Sol Ti Sol Mi Do :|| (major)

||: Do Mi Si Ti Si Mi Do :|| (augmented)

||: Do Mi Sol Ti Sol Mi Do :|| (major)

[JakeAcci]

Neat stuff, thanks Fep.

[SlowFingers]

GIven this is posted in "getting started"....
What is solfege?

Appreciate the posting....Exercises look good to a new recruit....

THanks
Jeff

[JakeAcci]

Hey slowfingers, sorry if that wasn't clear - solfege is a system of associating syllables with scale degrees. So you can sing melodies but vocalize the specific syllables for each scale degree.

So if you were to sing a major scale from root to octave and back with solfege you'd sing do re mi fa so la ti do, do ti la so fa mi re do. If you were to sing the 1 3 5 of the major scale, you'd sing do mi so.

[SlowFingers]

Thanks Jake....I was in the neighborhood... but thanks and also for the original post which I am printing out at the moment to work on....

[JakeAcci]

this looks to be a great way to internalize the sound of different scales (I'm assuming these are meant to be generic and applied to any given scale, not just the major scale).

Actually I think to start, spending quite a lot of time on just the major scale is wise. The aural part of it is more about internalizing each degree against the tonal center, which I guess is also internalizing the sound of the scale, but I just personally think the distinction of the focus on each individual note rather than the pool of seven notes is useful, if that makes any sense.

The non-aural part is about dexterity and getting familiar with different intervals on the guitar. For one, most beginning improvisers on guitar tend to play a lot of step-wise motion. Hopefully some of these patterns can bring a player out of that rut.

I think once a player has an extremely firm grasp on all this stuff for the major scale, applying it to modes is pretty simple, and then of course melodic minor, harmonic minor, and maybe harmonic major, though I'll admit I haven't yet spent a lot of time with harmonic major.

And patterns in general are great...I really like Bergonzi's approach to pentatonic patterns in his pentatonic book. We can always invent sequences and patterns and apply them to pentatonics, hexatonics...or make up our own scales...it's kind of a limitless affair, and there's a lot of useful material within.

But anyway, like I said, I think a firm grasp on the major scale is really key...thanks to Mr. B for making that pedagogical point to me a long time ago, that the major scale really is an essential foundation for the beginner to then understand everything else.

[JakeAcci]

Thanks Jake....I was in the neighborhood... but thanks and also for the original post which I am printing out at the moment to work on....

awesome, I hope you find it useful.