![]() ![]() Hearing and reacting to chords and/or groups of notes. The fundamentals are no mystery: Singing, playing, and hearing intervals. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. How do you make the practice environment as crucial, as vital, as the real world? How do you create the real possibility for yourself to make mistakes and learn from them? ![]() So how do you simulate the real moment? The real moment as the crucible of the urgent choice. Separate the idea from the sound and you run the risk of creating a sterile approach that’s just generic enough to be precisely meaningless. Ear training is a sensory practice and can’t be separated from the real world - what we hear in a specific room at a specific and evolving moment in time. GandhiĮar training should not be limited to the usual conservatory definition, though that training, too, is absolutely essential. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. The new challenges have a lot to do with how we hear sound and process it, how we deepen the experience, and how we can push ourselves to more profound levels of expression. And yet, to find satisfaction as musicians - to express ourselves - takes a constant inventing and encountering of new challenges, new ways of keeping the music exciting. Maybe it has nothing at all to do with the reception of the music. What’s more - this topic is almost entirely behind the scenes, off the radar. It’s slow going, as is the attempt to explain it. It’s as simple as focused hearing.Įar training takes a lot of time to master, and it seems like the more you work on it the more you see your own shortcomings. You name it - to be handled fully it has got to be heard deeply and accurately. Basically ear training underlies anything a musician does: melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, form, density, community (who you are playing with), legacy (how you choose to deal, or not deal, with the traditions of music). Playing by ear practice how to#Improvisation puts a musician on the spot in unpredictable ways - you have only your ears to help you learn what’s going on and decide how to respond to events or initiate them. It gets nerdy.Įar training is the most valuable training for any musician, and maybe most of all for an improviser. If you are not interested in this topic, or not interested in putting in some time working with this, skip this post. Text can’t capture that, though I have tried a little bit here. Ear training is about sound in a given place in a given time. In working on this post I realized why I struggle with that. One way or another we’re all striving to find a true expression in sound, one that touches on something universal, and we all have to strive to find our own path, no matter how gifted or challenged we may be.įor the past decade the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music has been offering classes with names like “Ear Training for Improvisers,” and “Applied Ear Training.” About a year ago Rick G at started asking me to write down my thoughts on ear training. Some people have enormous natural talent and ability. You can’t deny the power of raw talent in music, but it is possible there is an even greater strength in the human capacity for self-transformation, growth, and genius. ![]()
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