iamanders Wrote:
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> Why is absolute pitch a way better term than
> perfect pitch?
AP is the scientific term. "Perfect" is not a very scientific adjective! ;-)
> I've only recently started with ear training and
> it's more difficult than I first thought.
> I thought, as a piano player, that I remembered
> the sounds of the different notes but I was too
> wrong.
Sounds like you're talking about absolute pitch, which you needn't be concerned about. Musicians don't need it,and it can actually be a hindrance.
> One of the exercices was figuring out a melody.
> This is obviously more difficult as you need to
> remember all of the notes you just heard being
> played.
Ear training exercises should start simple. For example, in early grades you only need to identify certain broad aspects of the melody, or to identify differences between two performances of the melody (ie the second one with a note changed).
Moving on to identifying each note, you'd start with a melody consisting of just 3 notes, maybe only a couple of bars long, nursery rhyme simple. And you'd be told the first note.
The whole idea is to develop your
relative pitch, being able to identify elements of the music in comparison to a known reference.
So remembering a melody becomes an exercise not in remembering individual notes, but in remembering how high or low each one was relative to the last one.
You should be able to sing a short melody back, without knowing what the notes are. Identifying the notes would then be a process of calculation.
Eg, if someone played you Twinkle Twinkle, you could easily sing it back to them. (Yes?). You wouldn't have to know the names of all the intervals, let alone all the notes. You can hear how it goes, and you can hear when it's wrong.
But a little ear training would enable you to identify the first rising interval as a "perfect 5th".
If they then told you the first note was F, you'd then know (from your musical education!) that the higher note was C.
IOW, you don't have to identify the first note with no reference. But you should know the sound of a perfect 5th, so you can reproduce it either by singing, or on your instrument.
Naturally, it's harder when it's a tune you don't know! But enough repetition of it - if it's simple enough - can still allow you to copy it.
I once attended a "theory" class at a jazz summer school, and it consisted of the tutor playing us a 4-bar lick on saxophone and asking us to play it back to him! Of course our jaws all fell open (wtf, I'm in the wrong class...!). But when the lesson had finished (90 minutes later) we all had it down. He just kept repeating it, section by section. We didn't have to identify notes or intervals verbally, just find them on our instruments. It was like ear training boot camp, and I'd never have thought I'd be able to do it. (I don't have a great ear.)
> It's the same problem with rhythm
> exercices. How do you remember all of what you
> just heard (so that you can write it down after
> hearing it)?
Again, the exercises should start simple. You should start with things you CAN do! Even if that's only a 2-bar rhythm in quarter notes and rests.
And then work up from there.
> And isn't figuring out song by ear a
> also a bit different since you have more things
> going on at the same time?
Sure! You have to isolate the elements you're listening for. The melody, usually, or the rhythm, or maybe a bass line.
For chords, it's often a note-by-note process.
With good relative pitch, you can identify a chord type - say a dominant 7th.
Or you'll be able to hear that a particular chord change is a I-IV. So when you find out the key (by playing along), you only need to identify the I. You can work out the IV from that (and of course check by ear).
> Btw, how much is music
> theory involved in playing songs by ear?
It helps you name what you're hearing - "major 3rd", "dom7 chord", etc - and can also help you predict the chords involved.
Eg, theory will tell you that a minor key usually has a minor iv chord and a major V. So if you manage to identify the key chord as (say) Am, then you can expect to hear a Dm and E somewhere (and probably C and or F too).
I.e., theory gives you a set of ballpark guidelines.
Of course, that cuts both ways! Let's say that A minor key song has a D major chord. Your theory knowledge might prejudice your hearing - you might think "that must be a Dm, there's something wrong with my ears!" Or you'll be sure that it is, in fact, a D, but then you'll be confused because you think that's "wrong", so maybe the key can't be A minor after all?
So you need not to take the theory too seriously. It's like a map of a strange country. Just because a certain landmark doesn't appear on the map doesn't mean the landmark shouldn't be there, or that you're seeing things! It just got left off the map for some reason. (Probably it would appear on a more detailed map... ;-))
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2015 10:00AM by JonR. (
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