To all music teachers

[Likui]

I'm wondering how you guys teach your students ear training, for eg if I randomly play a note the student will be able to tell what notes is that just by hearing.
For me I ask the students to sing the notes out. Assign C = do , D = re , E = me, F = fa , G = so , A = la, B = ti so it's easier to sing. So when they play any songs or scales as you play sing the notes of the melody. If you do that over a period of time maybe 1 or 2 yrs the brain will sort of be used to the pitching of the notes. so the brain assigns C to a certain pitch D to a certain pitch and it remembers the note. So when someone plays a note the brain will be able to tell what note it is.

So what you all think? any other ear training method?

 

[firdaus]

hi sir ,i have an ear training method but you need to have two person to play this game, first to start the game with, play only two note in two different pitch one person will play the notes while the other will try to guess what note is it but make sure that both person cannot see each others fret board and can guess all the notes correctly then gradually increase the number of notes and the number of pitches the notes are being played. This is a game that is being taught by martin taylor and i think its kind of interesting hope you like it.........

 

[Likui]

I suppose for this game. I have to do something like this, I play eg. C note then I tell the student this is a C note, then I play D note this is a D note. Because starting the student won't even know how a C or D would sound like. So after that I press any of the notes and don't let the student see the fretboard/keyboard/any instrument. And ask him/her to guess the note. So starting with 2 notes I just play around with it, when the students can identify it then i increase the notes. This game has to be played on a regular basis like everyday so that the students' brain can remember the sounding of the note, because if not 1 week later the student forgot how C and D sounds like. Am I right about how this game works?

 

[Stringcast]

Every note has a unique sound of its own. If your students can recognise that, it is called perfect pitch. Write A to G on a piece of paper. Draw a box next to it. Get 36 or 24 colour pencil. Play the notes one by one and let them choose a colour for the notes and colour the box. Do it everyday.

 

[Cheez]

I'm not sure if there's a "formal" way to train perfect pitch - at least a proven method. There are many more things that are WAY more important for the student to be trained in terms of aural skills than perfect pitching. Get hold of an ABRSM aural test book and you'll see the things that a student SHOULD be trained in (appropriate for their grades). That include things like intervals (which apply relative pitching), rhythm, timing etc.

What you mention in your first thread will not work. C is not "do" and D is not "re". It's only true in the key of C major. Once you move into the key of D major, D becomes "do". Also, what are you going to do with all the flats and sharps?

My advice is forget about training perfect pitching. It's not necessary and the time and effort should be spent on something more useful.

Having said that, I do have perfect pitch. Not sure when I acquired it. I realised I have it when one fine day, my piano teacher decided to try my perfect pitch "just for fun". Some said that it's like hearing a "colour". It's not that simple - it's like colour and texture and every different pitch has a different "character".

There are many threads about perfect pitch discussed in SOFT, some of which are interesting. You can do a search on it...

 

[Stringcast]

What you mention in your first thread will not work. C is not "do" and D is not "re". It's only true in the key of C major. Once you move into the key of D major, D becomes "do". Also, what are you going to do with all the flats and sharps?

You can read up more about solfege in wikipedia.
Do Re Me is called Solfege. For solfege, there is fixed Do & Movable Do.
In fixed Do, the Do is C.
That's why you will see some music titles like Vals en Dur or Re.
For movable Do, Do is the tonic for any scales.

 

[Cheez]

The "wikipedia source" has questionable reliability. One thing they said is correct - that it's very controversial between using fixed or relative solfege. Most of the points stated there has no citation or source.

Training fixed "do, re, mi" to me seems counterproductive to sight-singing/reading. Even for us who have perfect pitch, we NEVER identify the notes by solfege anyway. I use it when doing music harmony esp 4-part, of which I will always sing in relative solfege.

However, if somebody successfully trained a person in absolute pitch using that method, I will retract my comments.

 

[firdaus]

yes sir you are right that is how the the game is played.The other game that you can ask your student to play is something that is called atonal scat singing something that is taught by joe satriani which is taught be lenny tristano
-First ask the student to play example g maj scale in 3 different fingering
-Next ask him to remember the different sound of the notes and their texture
-Next ask him to sing or hum first the notes that he want to play before actually playing it ask your student to do this everyday if he wishes to improve his aural skills

or you can simply teach him or her on how to recognize different intervals example maj second ,maj third ,min third ,perfect fifth etc........

 

[Likui]

The "wikipedia source" has questionable reliability. One thing they said is correct - that it's very controversial between using fixed or relative solfege. Most of the points stated there has no citation or source.

Training fixed "do, re, mi" to me seems counterproductive to sight-singing/reading. Even for us who have perfect pitch, we NEVER identify the notes by solfege anyway. I use it when doing music harmony esp 4-part, of which I will always sing in relative solfege.

However, if somebody successfully trained a person in absolute pitch using that method, I will retract my comments.

ok time to retract your comments lol. Because I'm trained by using the fixed do system and yes u play a note I can tell u what note is that. Yea I do know about the movable do system too. About sharps and flat. Starting everything was based on the C major, I'm very used to that so no sharps no flats, now if I say sing a D major and when I reach the F# when I sing I also sing Fa, for simplicity sake but my brain know's it's F# reason because I know the F sound and it's a little sharper/brighter sounding than it so yea that's F#.
And for graded aural all the way till grade 8 damn it i'm good lol.
Well there's no right or wrong way to train pitching only ways that work for some ppl and some ppl u have to use a different way, so certain ways may not work for you or your students and some ways work for others. This thread is just I want to know the various ways available.

 

[Cheez]

Ok. Statement retracted. I guess you can try this system on your students and see how it goes. I for one am curious how successful this is. If this works, I'll be extremely thrilled for I belong to the group of people who believes absolute pitch can be trained and not necessary born with. That proves it can be trained and conditioned. Excellent!

Interesting that your brain register the white keys and you extrapolate to the black keys. In your example, you first identified F, then ascertain it's F# because it sounded "sharper/brighter" than F. For me, F# is just F#. It's very different from F. The "character" is very different. Just like Ab is Ab. It's absolute. I wonder in your case, the absolute pitch training registers the white keys, then you use relative pitching to identify the black keys as they are a semi-tone apart. Not sure if that's how the training goes, but it's interesting nevertheless.

Do let us know how the training goes with your students. Still, I stand by one thing - it's way more important to train relative pitch hearing than absolute pitch.

 

[centralcatchment]

I was also trained by absolute solfedge and still ended up with perfect pitch. I have no comment on whether perfect pitch can be trained because I simply cannot remember not having it. The ability to listen, I think, is central to music education. That's the only way you can listen to something new and learn what you need to learn from it (ie why did he do this, how did he do it, what effect did it have, etc.)

If I listen to a jazz solo enough times, I will be able to figure out all the notes in it. I can't imagine having to do this without perfect pitch. Would that be possible?

 

[Stringcast]

If I listen to a jazz solo enough times, I will be able to figure out all the notes in it. I can't imagine having to do this without perfect pitch. Would that be possible?

Possible. If dun have perfect pitch, use relative pitch.

 

[centralcatchment]

Never understood the relative pitch thing.

So you can listen to a string of notes, and say: mediant, mediant, subdominant, dominant, dominant, subdominant, mediant, supertonic (ie ode to joy), and then you don't know what the notes actually are because you can't tell what key it is?

What happens when the song modulates to another key? Are you not going to get very confused?

When I go and buy 4D I say 1-8-2-2, I don't say, n-4, n+3, n-3, n-3 and by the way I don't know what n is.

 

[Stringcast]

My advice is forget about training perfect pitching. It's not necessary and the time and effort should be spent on something more useful.

Please do not belittle this ability just because you have it. As music is a hearing art, absolute pitch is the height of hearing. It is the ability that many musicians will die for. Not everyone is fortunate to be trained in an earlier age where this ability can be acquired easily. There are different levels of Absolute Pitch. It is absolutely worth the time to develop it. After all, music is a listening art.
Humans can only create things that are within their imagination.
A scientist can only invent something that they can comprehend.
A chef can only cook well to what they can taste.
A musician can only perform to that standard of what they can hear.

 

[Cheez]

Perhaps I'm a little too strong at my words. Let me try to rephrase it and explain myself.

I'm not trying to belittle perfect pitch. I'm only trying to put it in it's rightful place. The other extreme is to over-glorify it and put it too high up on the pedestal. I've encountered people who wanted it so badly that they spend so much time and overlooked the more important aspects - ie relative pitching and other areas of aural training. They ended up with nothing, and terribly discouraged.

If one already have a good hearing and good foundation in aural skills, then by all means go ahead. If one is still learning aural hearing skills, a prudent teacher will focus on developing the foundation as this will help the student much more. With the foundation established, perfect pitch is not too far away.

 

[Cheez]

Centralcatchment, in your example of Ode to Joy, the person will need to know the key. Without the knowing the key (and without perfect pitch), the person will not know the exact notes except the relative position to the root.

Knowing the key, the person will be able to let you know the exact notes. If the key modulates, all the person needs to do is to apply relative pitch to the root note of the old key to the root note of the new key to find out the new key. And the rest are the same.

 

[kongwee]

One of my friend gain perfect pitch using fix Do too.
However, combine perfect and relative pitch is awesome.
Relative pitch will fail when you come across a series of notes that are not fall within normal chords and scale we used to.

 

[shinobi]

i drink beer during a gig so to hell with pitch, musicianship ftw :mrgreen:

at times you are an artist, at times you are an entertainer, most times you strive to be both. but different situations demand different priorities.

that's not to suggest whether or not i am capable of perfect pitch, which is moot. i'm just saying that in certain times certain factors cause you to do or not to do, or impair you from doing, things in ways that align with your ideals and beliefs.

 

[Likui]

Never understood the relative pitch thing.

So you can listen to a string of notes, and say: mediant, mediant, subdominant, dominant, dominant, subdominant, mediant, supertonic (ie ode to joy), and then you don't know what the notes actually are because you can't tell what key it is?

What happens when the song modulates to another key? Are you not going to get very confused?

When I go and buy 4D I say 1-8-2-2, I don't say, n-4, n+3, n-3, n-3 and by the way I don't know what n is.

ok something like this , a person with relative pitch singing ode to joy he ask u so what is your key u say C then later u go and press F note he will think the F sound is C so he sing everything with ref to F so his 1st note will be A but his brain is thinking his singing E.

then u do this thing to someone who have perfect pitch he will say , ehh u don't think I don't know u say C u press F u want to fake me is it?

 

[Likui]

One of my friend gain perfect pitch using fix Do too.
However, combine perfect and relative pitch is awesome.
Relative pitch will fail when you come across a series of notes that are not fall within normal chords and scale we used to.

relative pitch fails only when u don't know the 1st note.