How to Improve in Ear Training?

In this post, I'm going to talk about how to improve your ear training skills.

Of course, the answer to this question varies dependently on many different factors (your current level of skills, your musical background, the time you can dedicate to practicing ear training, the musical genres you're interested in, etc.) so it doesn't make sense at all to give you a very specific thing to do (an exercise or anything like that) because that's likely to not be adequate to your specific situation.

For this reason, I find it far more useful to talk about the general strategies that I suggest you adopt in order to improve in ear training. These strategies will apply to you for sure and they are the same strategies that our students are applying by following our course and that are generating these results.

In order for you to properly improve in ear training you should:

• Only practice exercises that are adequate to your current level of skills.
• Practice in a tonal and contextual way.
• Figure out in which areas you're the weakest, and focus only on them.
• Connect melody and harmony together in your mind.

Let's see all of these aspects in detail and let's also understand the most common mistakes that people make by not taking them into account. This is necessary for you to be able to properly introduce these strategies in your practicing routine.

Only practice exercises that are adequate to your current level.

The first and most important aspect you should really take into account is "being sure to practice exercises that are adequate to your current level".

I know it will come as a surprise but, unfortunately, the vast majority of musicians make the mistake of insisting on practicing exercises that are far too difficult compared to their current level.

For example, this is really what happens for intermediate or beginner level students that are starting out by practicing interval exercises as a way of improving in ear training.

Besides the fact that the interval method is not a good ear training approach because our perception of musical pitch doesn't work in the way that is suggested by the interval method at all, and I made a specific video on that, where I also quote the most important scientific studies that really show why this happens, you can find the video here.

Other than that intervals exercises are very, very advanced, and they are very difficult to perform because they are atonal exercises, in other words, they don't take the musical context into account. As we're going to see it's really important to take the musical context into account for us to properly develop the fundament of our ear training skills, this is particularly important for beginner and intermediate students that might still have some gaps in basic skills. So it might make sense to practice intervals only if you're a very advanced student who is facing very difficult and advanced harmonic contexts (including lots of atonal playing, modulations, etc.).

That being said interval thinking should never become the primary way of thinking even when you have to deal with those very advanced harmonic contexts. A higher amount of contextual (tonal-based) thinking compared to the amount of interval thinking is always needed for your skills to be intuitive enough so that they can be applied in real-life music.

These are the main reasons why for beginner and intermediate students intervals exercises are by far, the worst way to approach ear training. Indeed, if you don't work contextually in the beginning and you don't internalize how the musical elements (notes, chords, etc.) sound in a simple tonal context, you can't even understand intervals and it will also be impossible for you to understand more complex harmonic contexts, such as atonal music or music that includes lots of complex harmonies. This is to say that, even though you might be strictly interested in understanding complex harmonies only, you still have to master the simple tonal context at first, otherwise it's just like trying to run without being able to walk.

If you really want to understand why I'm saying that intervals are not good (especially for beginners and intermediate students), and what are the main scientific researches that back this up, I really suggest you watch this video.

When it comes to practicing exercises that are adequate to your current level, interval exercises are not the only source of issues, an almost endless number of mistakes can be made when choosing the right exercise to practice at any given time.

That's why we created an entire course that includes a very thorough and detailed step-by-step process that will guide you from zero skills to advanced skills. With this guide, you can stay 100% sure that you're going to avoid this potential issue and only practice exercises that are adequate to your current level of skills. You can check out our course here, but don't forget to continue reading about the other important aspects below.

Practice in a tonal and contextual way.

The second important thing to take into account is to practice in a tonal and contextual way. In other words, it's crucially important to always take into account the harmonic context or the key of the musical piece when practicing ear training.

Scientific researchers (and also practical evidence) really show that our perception of musical pitch is totally dependent on the tonality.

Practicing in a tonal and contextual way is very, very important because that allows us to really familiarize ourselves with the sensation that the notes and the chords assume inside the tonality of the musical piece. So for example, we can recognize that the tonic has a sensation of resolution, that the seventh degree has a sensation of tension, etc. and we can really familiarize ourselves with these sensations to a point in which when we hear a note or a chord, we can recognize them by feeling their sensations.

This way of approaching ear training will really allow us to develop our tonal vocabulary (musical vocabulary) so we can really understand music as a language.

If you think at the way you speak...when we want to say something, you don't think: "Oh, this word is made of this letter is A, C, D. Then okay...so I have to say, A, C, and D, etc."

No, we don't do that, we just think of the meaning we want to convey and then the right words come to us. We can do the same exact thing in music by developing our tonal vocabulary.

The only way that this vocabulary develops is by taking into account the context while practicing and by always thinking in a contextual way.

Unfortunately, some methods such as the interval method, don't take into account the context at all. Intervals are just taught as non-contextual, atonal exercises and they won't allow you to develop a tonal vocabulary nor an intuitive connection to music.

Figure out in which areas you're the weakest, and focus only on them.

The third important aspect is to figure out in which areas you're the weakest, and focus only on them. That's a very efficient strategy to adopt.

The average student always has very specific issues to solve. So for example, you can have issues in tonic recognition skills and this will prevent you to express your full potential in other skills like chord progressions recognition, melodic recognition, and things like that.

So if you solve your lack of tonic recognition skills by focusing on very specific exercises that are purposefully made for developing tonic recognition skills. You'll see that the improvement will be very fast, and will also be broad. That means that other skills than tonic recognition skills will develop too, like chord progressions recognition, melodic recognition, etc.

That's because this lack of tonic recognition skills can literally block the entire relative pitch system and prevent it from expressing its full potential.

The same thing can happen when you have issues in your thought process. This means that you're simply missing some steps and you're not really following the right process to adopt when transcribing a melody or a chord progression.

Another area that can be a source of similar issues is short-term musical memory but the important thing to understand is that by working on specific exercises that are purposefully made to isolate these issues and specifically work on them you can improve a lot faster and without struggling.

Connect melody and harmony together in your mind.

The fourth important aspect is to connect melody and harmony together in your mind. This means that you should practice in a way that really strengthens and reinforces this indissoluble connection between melody and harmony.

Scientific researchers have shown that it's really impossible for us to separate melody from harmony in our minds. In other words, we cannot think of a melody without including it in a very specific harmonic context.

The harmonic context we include the melody in is created subconsciously on an abstract level, by our mind. So it doesn't really matter if you want to include the melody in a harmonic context or not. You cannot separate melody from harmony in your mind, it's independent from your will.

Once you understand this fact (which is the basic reason why non-contextual exercises, such as intervals are ineffective), you can also realize that this is not a bad thing. Indeed, this is a very good thing!!!

The fact that we can't separate melody and harmony in our mind is a very huge advantage because it really opens up the possibilities for us to develop really advanced relative pitch skills.

This explains how some musicians are able to perform unbelievable tasks by only using relative pitch. For example, you can see musicians that are able to improvise chords and melody together at the same time, and really come up with interesting ideas in a very intuitive and effortless way.

This is because they are using this basic advantage that we have, they are connecting melody and harmony together, so they can hear both things at the same time. That's the real key to developing really advanced relative pitch skills and this is not taken into account at all by the most popular ear training methods out there such as the interval method which, on the contrary, will push you to work against this natural mechanism which is built-in in the way we perceive music.

I've recently published a video that talks about triadic colors and connecting melodic and harmonic thought together. Triadic colors are the basic perceptual object that we use to allow students to really develop this connection between melody and harmony, in their thought. That video, which is actually part of a lesson included in our video course, will really show you how this thing is possible and how it will allow you to develop very advanced skills. So I really encourage you to watch it here.

I hope you found this article helpful. 

I hope you found this article helpful. Don't forget to check out the use your ear workshop. This is a free 3-hour workshop packed with actionable content and proven exercises that you won’t get anywhere else!

 In this free 3-hour long workshop, you will:

•  Discover a science-based model that reveals the secrets great musicians use, without even knowing it, to recognize music on the fly ... secrets that anyone can harness to quickly develop a pro-caliber musical ear. 

•  Preview our step-by-step method to develop relative pitch faster and easier than you ever imagined. See first-hand how our students get results quickly, experiencing music on a much deeper level in a matter of weeks — no more tedious mental math on intervals.

•  Practice multiple exercises during the workshop. You’ll discover the right way to recognize melodies and chords, so you walk away with practical direction based on your own skill level and sticking points. You will know how to improve, instead of just guessing.

•  Learn which exercises to avoid at all costs — ineffective exercises, prescribed by generations of well-meaning music teachers, that doom 99.9% of promising musicians to failure — so you can avoid years of frustration and lack of progress.

•  Get TWO GIFTS, available nowhere else, to help you build on the concepts and exercises you learn during the workshop.

Seats are limited, and this free offer won’t last forever.

Register for the use your ear workshop right now.

You can also watch our youtube video related to how to improve in ear training.