Open Your Ears II - Intro to Ear Training

Have you completed Open Your Ears Part I? If you haven’t done so, I want you to complete that lesson on basic aural skills and relative pitch before reading on.

Many people who have perfect pitch hear music in a fashion akin to viewing visual colors with their eyes. The hear music notes in a “spectrum” whereby each different note sort of represents a different color to them. Let’s do a quick trial exercise. Pick up your guitar and play only the 4th string from the open string to the 12th fret chromatically. Play through each of the 12 notes slowly and listen to each note deeply. Do you notice something different about each of the notes that makes each of them unique but on the other hand, you just can’t seem to make out what exactly is the difference between them?

Now, I want you to play through the 12 notes again. This time round I am going to give you a hint. F# sounds bold and vibrant. It has a certain buzzing in the pitch that seems to make it outstanding from all the other notes. We will talk more on this on later lessons.

Once you have developed perfect pitch, you would be able to distinguish each different note just like how your eyes see different colors. (Note that relative pitch is NOT the same as perfect pitch). Do take note that the whole process of ear training to build up aural skills will take some time. Hence, it is important that you stay focused and disciplined.

Ear Training Exercise 3

Let’s carry on the journey towards excellent ears. Recall the exercise from the Open Your Eyes Part I whereby you’ll play an open string and sing out the note? Now, let’s modify the exercise slightly. Without looking at the fretboard, strike any open string at random and name the string that was struck (i.e. E,B,G,D,A,E ). You can get your friend or sibling to help you out with this exercise. Simple? Once you can consistently recognize the open strings, you have subtlety started to develop your musical ear.

Ear Training Exercise 4

For this exercise, we would make use of intervals. Play any Major 3rds / Minor 3rds harmonically (2 notes at the same time) on the guitar. Listen to the notes and try to differentiate between the 2 notes. Then, sing out the 2 notes starting from the lower note to the higher note. Do this exercise all across the fretboard with different strings. Practice these 2 intervals until you can recognize them and correctly sing them out. This exercise will start getting your ears accustomed relative pitch.

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Do not proceed to the next lesson before you are able to do these exercises with near perfection. Each of these lessons in this ear training is linked and if you get impatient and jump ahead, you will not get the desired results.