Schirmer, Transcontinental, GIA, and Shawnee Press. Joel Phillips is professor of music theory and composition at Westminster Choir College of Rider University and recipient of its Distinguished Teaching Award. He holds a Certificate in Dalcroze Eurhythmics from Carnegie Mellon University and has many years' experience as an accompanist for ballet and modern dance. He is author of the Spanish/English edition of General Rules of Accompaniment: José de Torres's Treatise of 1736 and has published articles in Theoria, Studies in Medievalism, The American Dalcroze Journal, and the Journal of Music Teacher Education. We’ll use the song “Under the Boardwalk” by the Drifters as an example of this, singing the root notes in solfege as I play the song.Paul Murphy is associate professor and Chair of music at Muhlenberg College. Picking simple three-chord or four-chord songs and singing the root note of each chord as it passes can help develop your ear to recognize chord progressions. In this first video, I’ll introduce you to some beginner ear training techniques to help you identify chord progressions. This will all become clearer as you develop your inner hearing step by step! Here are a few additional drills you should try once you’ve got a good grasp of the basic concepts of ear training. Music of this type has a key, a tonic, and a meter. Now listen to the chords of “Happy Birthday” played in two different keys: “Happy Birthday” harmony in the key of A “Happy Birthday” harmony in the key of D♭ How Hard is Ear Training?Īnyone can learn relative pitch and rhythm perception, and it’s extremely useful because relative hearing, patterns, and function in the key are how we recognize and perceive the great majority of music we hear: tonal and modal music. Likewise, we recognize these as the same chord progression, played in different keys. We recognize these as the same song, even though the notes are different, because the relationships among the notes are the same. For example, listen to the end of “Happy Birthday” played in two different keys: “Happy Birthday” melody in the key of F “Happy Birthday” melody in the key of A
We generally recognize melodies and chord progressions by hearing the function and interval relationships (distances) between the notes and chords, not by the exact pitches used. We also learn to recognize rhythms by the relative placement and length of the notes in the meter, even though the tempo might change. At any given time, only one note is the tonic, and only one chord is the tonic or I chord, and other notes and chords get their tendencies and energy from their relationship to that tonic note and chord. In pitch (melody and harmony), this is called functional hearing-hearing notes and chords according to their function in the key. The most useful form of inner hearing for most musicians is relative hearing-hearing musical relationships and proportions. With inner hearing, you should be able to recall and recognize the sounds of the basic building blocks of rhythm, melody, and harmony. If you have already taken Ear Training 1, you have likely already built a strong sense of inner hearing. Inner hearing (also called audiation) is a term for our ability to imagine or remember sounds. It is my hope that with the knowledge I share with you, you’ll be one step closer to ear training super power status! I cannot emphasize enough, that just like any musical endeavor, the best way to improve your ear training skills is to practice. My simple theory is, if you can sing it, you can hear it! Once you hear it, you can sing it, and then, write it down! Mastering ear training tools responsibly and with regular practice can lead to a true sense of empowerment within music. Below are some of the ear training exercises that will help you develop skills to become a better musician What is the Ear Training Process? The musicianship skills we gain through training our musical ear and building these connections are essential for making music creatively and expressively as a performer, improviser, accompanist, composer, producer, or teacher. With ear training, we learn to hear what we read, write what we hear, sing what we read, recognize and name what we’re singing or hearing, and play what we sing or hear. The following article on ear training is excerpted from the Berklee Online course Ear Training 2 with supplemental material from Ear Training 1, by Allan Chase and Roberta Radley.Įar training is all about building mental connections-connections among sound, notation, musical terms, our voices, and the keyboard or other instruments.