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Actually...it's a Reg-ism
Originally Posted by nick1994
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01-05-2016 09:55 PM
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That assumes I'm good enough to imitate those I'D like to imitate. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
Well maybe he's in his imitating phase.
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I chuckled at the title of this thread, and can certainly relate.
BUT - "the ear" is really just the mind.
Training the mind and body are necessities of life. When you quit them, they quit you.Last edited by fumblefingers; 01-06-2016 at 12:28 AM.
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I get it though. I graduated from Berklee and taught remedial ear training as part of my Masters program, but gigging tons and having to learn tunes off CD's that kids would bring to guitar lessons is what worked best for my ears. I think some approaches to teaching/learning are too clinical for some. I think some people learn best by being thrown into the deep end of the pool and learn to swim that way. Some are more comfortable watching others swim first and sort of analyse how to do it and go about learning to swim that way. For me at earlier stages in my development I spent a lot of time jumping through hoops that now look completely unnecessary though at the time I was convinced of their neccesity. I know all I have done has brought me to where I am now but I can't help but think I might have wasted some time and energy on material that didn't really help me hear or play better. To that end for me, the most organic, complete brain way to learn tunes is to listen and sing them with and without my guitar. If I can sing it I can play it. If I can't sing it I can't hear it I can't play it. Being able to name the intervals or inversions is great but it is equally great to relate an interval to a song,(perfect 4th, here comes the bride etc.). I think there are as many unique paths to jazz guitar nirvana as there are jazz guitarists. What works for some dosn't for others. Some are geniuses great at math and memorising and all manner of minute detail. Some are just super creative left handed so to speak. Some just love it so much they are obsessed beyond reason. Main thing to me is that we all are striving to achieve our own unique vision of jazz guitar artistry. Jazz to me is a public performance art, all of the shedding is fun and great but the art of it is what do you do when it's your turn to play and the audience awaits. I dare say it,in that moment, is all about the tunes.
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Great words of wisdom Eddy B.... I think sometimes the balance of school formulas and jumping in the deep end can be quite separate..but if one gets to have a balance of the two ..There seems to be a pleasant result in one's music journey.. It's like getting a good balance of Left brain ,,,right brain... Joe Diorio's ideas on right brain are very rewarding... and Dr. Seuss's ideas on left brain are rewarding..
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The title of this thread is misleading. This could lead some people down the wrong path. Not everyone was born with great ears. Some of us need to step away from the music and hit the lab to understand what's going on... that's what I needed to do. That's not to say you will not be transcribing and playing music for yourself and others while the lab work is taking place.
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Exactly. That said, a lot of musicians learn this stuff at a very early age, and sometimes can't recall having learned it at all. But they will have practiced it. We don't remember learning to walk, but we did a lot of practice and made a lot of mistakes... I still would rate my walking abilities as below the median ;-) Originally Posted by smokinguit
I have to say it is super impressive to see someone with a very developed ear (my missus) taking up the guitar. She has a strong background in sight singing, which is essentially the best ear training (along with transcription.) And she has a very good ear for detail in melodies etc which I lack. She was taught how to do this in a very ordered, schooled way and worked on it herself in her late teens. She wasn't born with it.
And good sight singers always seem to say the same thing - don't work on intervals, work on tonic solfege. Intervals can wait....
So she's kind of training me!
In a more holistic way. One fun thing we do (we are strange pair) is to sit around on our guitar (or sometimes she plays cello) and just busk tunes together. Stupid stuff - whatever pops into our heads. It's good fun... If you do this with someone else, you can't break tempo and go over mistakes...
For me, a mix of approaches work best... I do think there is value in isolating certain things and finding a way to work on them. This is always hard work, but worth it.
Professionally - some musicians have really amazing ears. Like fantastic. Working with them is an education. And it isn't just perfect pitch people... If you've ever worked with Hungarian musicians, for example (who use relative not absolute pitch training), you'll see how far its possible to go with relative pitch.Last edited by christianm77; 01-06-2016 at 09:24 AM.
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That's my take as well. Originally Posted by christianm77
I'm trying to hold to my new year's resolution to work more of the "conversational solfege" type thing as I drive. Last night I recorded a couple of takes of Stella with guitar just using my phone and a very basic voice recorder app, first, a track of melody on solfege, then, a track of the root movements. I then loop 4 bar sections in my Audipo app on my phone without having to edit the track at all. I can even record a few takes and just loop the one I want, with this app. I know you iphone folks have all kinds of cool apps, but for Android, this is probably the most useful app I've ever seen. A lot of work can be done with spare moment away from computer or guitar. I can fire up a looped section of a tune in seconds, while I'm "in between" other events in my daily schedule. Fantastic app.
Again, I don't really consider this heavy duty "ear training". It's rote reps, but then, it's there later, mentally, for me to "work on", without the track. Even from very little work with it, I'm really thinking you can allow the subconscious to do a lot of work in the background on all of this stuff. I mean we already know all of the "spacial" musical elements of the melodies we've learned in a lifetime. This just allows you to assign "places" to the pitches you're aware of (in a subconscious way), and gives you a verbal/symbolic reference (in the conscious, verbal/symbolic, note-recognition part) for identifying them. You can, then, connect disparate musical content in new ways.
For example, doing Stella today, there's a Fi-La-So (#4-6-5) enclosure line that's pretty cool. Singing over it without the backing, I start hearing other melodies, like Mona Lisa, that use this element and messing around with them. The cool thing is, Mona Lisa uses it in the context of a major chord and Stella over a minor. Now, when I sing that line, practicing Stella, I can "hear" the minor Stella chord, and at the same time, hear the major of the different tune. I guess, I didn't know that was even possible. All of this is because of what you're talking about above: the sense of "place" you get when using syllables vs. just thinking intervals.
Here's the app I was talking about:
Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 01-06-2016 at 12:49 PM.
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The free ear training app I've been using lately that is based on newer method many are (selling) using is called Functional Ear Trainer. It plays a cadence then you guess the note by what it is in the key.
Software
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this is still great stuff - thanks everyone!
one point that seems to be going missing is that a very great deal of repetition is involved - the 150th time you play 'i love you'; 'its you or no one'; 'without a song'; 'i let a song go out of my hear'; 'indian summer' etc. etc. (assuming you played it without a book the first time) things happen to your ear organically and naturally (and without effort).
i think its pretty crucial that you play the tunes with guys who can already really play - otherwise the true melodic juice doesn't get to irrigate the tender shoot of your musicality. if you're playing the tunes in the way that most student-players will (without authority or clarity - or something) then you will keep undermining the shape of the whole melody with fluffs, failures of memory, bits of musical bs of one kind or another. if that keeps happening then the melody will not really do the magical musicalizing work it can do. it also matter hugely if you've got good bass playing happening all the time or not. if the chordal movements are presented well in the bass and the melody is played with confidence and clarity and authority (that doesn't mean played 'straight' by any means) and you're in the middle - exposed to the musical facts - it can have a deeply musicalizing affect on you (that's a stupid word - forgive me).
if you've managed to internalize the 32bar shape so you're not freaking out about what the changes basically are - then exposure to the tunes and the bass/chords gradually makes families of chord movement familiar to you etc. etc. etc. it makes it likelier and likelier that you will do all sorts of things on the bandstand without quite understanding why or how you're doing them - just because its obvious to you that you can play this ... here - or this ... - or this ... etc. etc.
one point is - i think - of great general significance. its important not to confuse what you need if you are to learn how to describe the music (to say what is happening over 32 bars etc. etc.) with what you need if you are to be able to play the music. it is possible for someone to be unable to understand what 'its a bar of Bb7 and then a bar of Eb7' means - but entirely able to play the total shit out of that change on a musical instrument. we all know that this is possible - what could louis armstrong say about the music when he was 7 years old and had spent the last 2 years singing in small groups on street corners?
so we all know that. the issue of learning how to describe a piece of music becomes important when you want to tell someone how to play a piece of music when you can't play it to them - or when you want to group different pieces of music together because you're interested in music for some reason.
mozart could have sung all the parts to the members of the orchestra and they could have learned it all by ear and repetition (and - incidentally - its not crazy to think that if he had done it this way the orchestra would have played it a whole lot better). (parker often sung his heads to his friends at the recording studios where he 'composed' them). errol garner. etc. etc. etc. etc.
the only really good reason we - as jazz musicians - could have to be interested in the laborious business of learning how to talk about music - to say what the harmony or rhythm or melody of a piece of music is - is that we believe that learning to say what is going on in a piece of music is a good way of learning how to play it well. it does not seem crazy to believe that learning how to think about music - how to identify and re-identify chord progressions across different pieces of music for example - can reasonably be thought to help when it comes to the truly important thing, which is learning how to do it.
but i think the most intuitive take on how and to what extent this verbal and intellectual challenge might help the musician - is that the very best way to learn how to play music is to play as much of it as you can with as many people who are really good at it as you can. if you're into music this strategy will have a deep appeal - there's just nothing like playing music with people who are really good at it - and that's what we, as musicians, all most want to be doing.
of course the whole deal is that so few of us happen to be in a position that allows us to hang out playing music with good musicians all the time. the sons and daughters of really good musicians seem to have a bit of an advantage here - the bastards. but other than that - and this is where all the glorious stories of new orleans and new york at certain fabulous times play their part - the music of the golden age totally requires a golden age of getting to hang out and play music endlessly with good musicians. all the great players emerge from musically propitious social settings (the bastards).
but this of course is why i have to love things like ear training and scale practice and everything else - because i have to make up for all the time i'm not spending getting to play in different sorts of musical setting with a range of really good musicians.
that's kind of right. but the point is that - in the end - this way of getting to the music by learning how to describe it and then how, in principle, to assemble it out of its constituent parts (rhythm, harmony, melody etc.) - is fraught with danger. it simply cannot substitute for exposure to musical reality and time spent making music.
incidentally i am not rejecting the very idea of practice here - just a certain conception of what the best way to do it is.
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This is kind of typical of guitar approaches, it's either this or that, or a combination of etc... but doesn't it really depend on where you are in life, how much you know about yourself etc... and then where you want to go.
There are lots of one liners... but generally once you get past that age of innocence, you know what you need to work on and what works for you. At that point you could use the help of more experienced??? whatever. The school tend to work for the down the middle people........... what jazz player is close to down the middle. And then most schools are just part of the capitalistic process now... I believe in education... beyond believe etc... but the education need to function for the student.
And I don't many working musicians who get to play 5 or 6 night gigs anymore. Unless you hit the pits or whatever those shows, musicals etc... use for a venue. And then of course... your playing more in the written tradition. Which is what it is... a job.
I also believe in ear training.... but unless your going to be a vocalist, it doesn't do you any performance good... unless you can play your instrument. So yea... you need to get yourself together... and you need ear training... get it together.
You also need applications for that ear training to work. If you can't hear what other musicians hear... you better be able to mechanically get it together at least until you can hear it.
I mean... it not complicated... you have difficulty with any aspect of playing your instrument, hearing music... understanding music ... whatever you need to be able to cover.... you usually can't fool yourself for very long.
If your in the world of academia... you can fool yourself for a little longer, maybe ever for ever, I don't know... I do know that when you begin playing jazz gigs... not memorized performances of jazz tunes... playing live music... it becomes very obvious what you have or don't have.
Jazz... as someone posted above, and has been said forever... is a performance tradition. And there are many ways to pull it off.
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That seems pretty cool... and for jazz approaches, where there is always a target, a tonal target... sounds useful. Originally Posted by docbop
Of course you do get that by playing tunes in different styles and tonal references.
At some of the regular jazz gigs I play... we'll changes tunes tonally around... if a section is in maj and bridge is in relative Minor or visaversa... we'll flip around. The head can get a little trashed... but once we.... hear... use our ears to decide on what... for example minor or major reference we're going to use. Most melodies are just patterns, it's like transposing. If your reading change the sig. Think of St Thomas... change the key Signature... from C to Eb and adjust the changes to work with C- ...
So you have...ear training with theory and instrument technical skill practice...at least it can be...
Hey Groynaid... I read your post after I posted mine... no references towards you or your post. I dig your view etc... very thoughtful.Last edited by Reg; 01-06-2016 at 03:27 PM.
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so e.g.
the best way to learn to sing stella or laura or blue in green or i concentrate on you is by learning to sing i got rhythm, i can't believe that you're in love with me, this can't be love, autumn leaves, the saints, secret love
the best way to learn to sing advanced tunes is to learn to sing simple tunes (not to learn to sing e.g. a flat seventh interval or a minor second)
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But learning to sing intervals can only help one sing more complex melodies. As one who was very fortunate to have my first teacher include solfege as part of the lessons, the advantage one gains in sight-reading rhythms as well as hearing intervals actually saves dozens or even hundreds of hours in terms of repeated practicing. Learning the "grammar" of music will never hurt your playing. Originally Posted by Groyniad
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One thing that has helped me a lot, despite still the very modest level of my achievement, is that being unable to play a lot with really good musicians, I've immersed myself for 25 years is listening to the music. I have it playing in the bathroom while I shave, in the car while I drive. If I'm alone in my office, which is a lot, it's playing. When I jog or mow the lawn or feed the horses or clean out stalls, I'm listening to it. Like a language, hearing it spoken well by a lot of different speakers talking about a lot of different things is vital to creating an inner mental culture. The nice thing is that I'm listening at times when I can't play the guitar, so it's like I'm forcing myself to imagine how it works on the guitar. Of course there are more than guitarists to listen to, but at 61, I'm not doing a lot of "learning this by detouring over and learning that." I'm a guitarist, so that's what I listen to, think about, and try to learn.
I am surprised at how many players I meet who haven't really listened to as much music as I'd have thought. Sometimes for me it's not even listening to figure out how to play it. It's just taking it in. Forming a kind of worldview (?).
I wish I could tell you now I can play like Joe Pass on steroids, but alas, I can't. I have limited actual talent and gifting for this, I forget things, lose my place, and honestly struggle with breaking out of my own limited range. That, I'm sure, is where playing a lot with good musicians would help me. But lacking that, I listen a lot, I play tunes I know, I try to learn new tunes, and play with backing tracks.
Few other options present themselves when there aren't musicians around to play with, or if the good ones are not really interested in having a novice sit in.
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Groyniad, between this and the super nice valuable guitars you have - I must come hear you play ! When are you playing next in Edinburgh / Glasgow? Love to come check it out !
Last edited by AndrewPat; 01-07-2016 at 07:45 AM.
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Good thread. I think "pointless" is a little strong, but the pro-ear-training side has gotten a lot of talk lately, and pretty strongly. I'd think you have to think about return on (time) investment with ear-training or transcription or anything else. Seems like lately it's been implied that the more time away from the instrument working on ear-training the better. There has to be a point of diminishing returns, but I don't think you could say that zero ear-training is just as good.
In all fairness, I'll disclose that I'm about to go conduct a choir rehearsal. I am a singer and 20-year director of choral groups. So, I've got that bias and will admit to geeking out on this stuff in a way that isn't only about ROI for jazz guitar playing.
Still, it's dangerous to play guitar while driving. I'll probably continue singing... :-)
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I had four quarters of it and also feel for me, it was not very helpful. I have stated this before on the forum. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
It's so much easier and better to just be able to recognize... those are "Rhytym Changes" or whatever chord progression fragment you are hearing ... at least for me.Last edited by fep; 01-06-2016 at 10:47 PM.
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when i talk about exposure to the music i'm thinking of two sorts of listening - standard listening, when you put a django record on and listen to it; playing-listening when you listen to what the others - and yourself - are playing when you're playing it. you can sort of turn standard listening into playing listening by singing along. (and you can make playing-listening into bionic-playing-listening by singing what you play when you are playing it. this works because its just a way of increasing your exposure to the music)
its pretty obvious to me that the endless hours i spent listening to parker tunes and solos and learning to sing EVERYTHING (heads and solos) is the most important 'practice' i've ever done. it involved at least as much exposure to the music as the gigging did. if you listen to the solo 100 times in a month or 2 - then it will become really easy to sing it along with the soloist. (the best single soloist to listen to if you want to play modern jazz is - on my reckoning - by 100 miles - charlie parker. its hard to find playing that is as rewarding after you've spent a year or so with bird - but for me - early sonny rollins and all of bill evans works well. but even now its only parker solos i try to learn on the guitar - it takes so much time and effort and it really has to be worth it).
if you can totally relax and sing through a parker solo - then you've made it your solo in every meaningful way. learning to do it on the instrument is nothing like as musically significant as learning how to sing it in the first place.
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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01-07-2016, 09:28 AM #45destinytot Guest
I've been working on both 'independent' and 'interactive' listening as discrete skills for a while (though I've only just begun using a guitar fretboard - in addition to a keyboard - for reference
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The way I see it, the point of ear training by means of independent listening skills building/development is to cut out half-guessing.
And similarly, the way I see it, the point of ear training by means of interactive listening skills building/development is to groove.
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Originally Posted by AndrewPat
Andrew - i appreciate the enthusiasm - thanks. after coming back from Louisiana 3 years ago - where i was teaching philosophy full time and playing jazz part time - i have become almost completely immersed in the world of pre-school child care. i have two little boys and i look after them every day from 7 am ish to 6 pm ish (when my wife gets home from work). this leaves me more used-up than i ever thought possible (those people who have not had children will simply not understand this). i plan to start playing again full time when my younger boy starts primary in a couple of years time.
having said that i'll tell you when the next gig comes up - i'll pm you. if you want a lesson we could arrange that too.
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01-07-2016, 10:56 AM #47destinytot Guest
For anyone with an interest in ear training, I've found these videos useful.
EDIT: I daresay the first is pretty simple - but the second demonstrates the system devised by Chalie Banacos (with whom Dave Frank studied) and applies it to standards.
Re. the OP, I basically agree - but I find ear training essential (as preparatory, consolidation and remedial work) because I'm not ready...yet.
Last edited by destinytot; 01-07-2016 at 11:12 AM. Reason: addition
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The right tool for the right job.
If you're out gigging 6-7 nights a week playing the Great American Songbook, and want to sound like Lester Young, it's true, you probably don't need formal ear training. Pretty hard to pull off in 2016, but nice work if you can get it.
I don't think professional, top level jazz musicians in a good scene like NY, Chicago, or New Orleans were necessarily better or worse in the 1940's vs. today -- it's very hard to compare. But in my experience, the top tier musicians of today are very well prepared. Great technique, great theoretical knowledge, superb ears, can sight-read challenging material, good understanding of the repertoire, and the ability to handle a lot of things that get thrown at them (odd-meters, modal and post-Wayne Shorter compositions, etc).
It's not better or worse than any other time, just different. Gigs are scarce, competition is fierce, it's hard to keep working bands together. There's not much "learning on the bandstand" anymore. You need a certain degree of preparation in order to hang.
Things like formal ear-training can help with that. Concentrated studies can help fill in for experiences that earlier generations learned on the job. Maybe it's not as fun, but then you have to decide how badly you want it.
Even guys with really good ears like Stan Getz struggled through tunes like "Dolphin Dance." Nobody is born being able to hear their way through "Inner Urge" and lots of nights playing "Stardust" won't be enough to get you there.
Ears, theory, technique -- all these things have to be part of a coherent whole in order to be useful.
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dasein - what you say is exactly right of course and important too - its an interesting way to start to characterize the differences in the music between now and then
but i think the line about playing like lester young is a bit off
and i'm not talking about doing no practice but just lugging it on the stand
i think you should do as much practice as you can - as long as it doesn't lead you to pass up chances to play with good people
but the practice should stay close to the music - the practice should fall out of the music - you should not be trying to construct the music out of the things you practice
but - in a sense - all this only applies to pre-wayne shorter jazz reality. even pre- love-supreme jazz reality.
if you want to hang with wonderful top tier contemporary jazzers - then nearly everything i say is wrong. (but i do take that to be a kind of critique of post wayne shorter jazz reality).
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Re: Bruce Arnold.
I've had the Bruce Arnold One Note Ear Training on the Back Burner for a few months now, and I now I am reliably getting 80%+ at advanced, time to move on to the next stage. I haven't been super obsessive or anything about this (I generally do it once per day) but it's definitely helped.
I'm now going onto the next course - Two Note Ear Training!
I'm finding this material is effective in combination with real world everyday ear-based learning - learning tunes, solos etc. If the past few months are anything to go by, I'm looking forward to some steady progress and opening up of my ears. It's quite exciting, really.
I'm on jury service from next week, so need some ways to keep my musicianship going.... Back to non-instrumental practice....Last edited by christianm77; 01-09-2016 at 10:18 PM.
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