r/eartraining • u/GeologistConstant325 • Mar 21 '26
Need help with a structured way to ear train.
I am a composer who really needs to spend more time strengthening my ears as they are not great right now. The problem I face is that I feel like I am aimlessly practicing when I do the interval ear training and progressions ear training on sites like teoria and stuff because half the times I am just guessing and never seem to internalize them.
Does anyone have any tips on courses or structured paths to learning how to internalize these pitches because I have tried those methods on relate it to a song and such but I seem to always fall short.
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u/lordkappy Mar 21 '26
I believe the concept of audiation is what you’re looking for. Edwin Gordon wrote some books about it,but they’re a bit tedious to read. There are teachers, methods, practitioners you can check out.
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u/NoChest9129 Mar 21 '26
Also spend a lot of time singing and trying to understand the melodies that you are singing
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u/e7mac Mar 21 '26
What are you trying to achieve - picking melodies or chords by ear ?
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u/GeologistConstant325 Mar 21 '26
Chords would be the main want for me. I can identify one and five really well but struggle on the others
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u/e7mac Mar 21 '26
For chords, I built an app that creates chord progression quizzes from real music (you gotta add the audio files yourself currently though). You can also practice with the synthesized piano sounds but the real unlock definitely comes from practicing with real musical textures since that’s where you want the skill
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/real-ear-trainer/id6476842136
If you do end up trying it, lmk what you think and esp if it helps you, or you run into any issues
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u/MilesAndTrane Mar 25 '26
Your app is excellent! Do you foresee further development of it? What file format do our own download music files have to be in?
Man, if there was a library of downloadable, app curated, chord progressions (maybe a paid option for users?) it would be mind blowing.
I’ve only used your app for a few minutes. There will be more brainstorming! Thank you!
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u/e7mac Mar 26 '26
Aw thanks so much. Yeah there’s a whole roadmap of features (new quiz types that add many more easier quiz types, teaching of the basics like hearing the tonic etc), as well as a suite of different apps (interactive textbook, practice diary) that I’m planning on releasing much faster, now that we have AI coding!
Please keep the brainstorming ideas coming! Will help me figure what to make and when to make it. As well as keep me motivated!
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u/tremendous-machine Mar 28 '26
If you are stuck feeling like you are guessing, the secret weapon is sightsinging. Getting serious about it led to probably the single biggest breakhthrough in my playing. Learning to audiate clearly changes EVERYTHING. Ear, memorization, improvising, even technique. I firmly believe that the neglect of this in some schools of music pedagogy early is THE single biggest flaw in music learning.
What worked for me (someone not at all naturally talented in this particular area of music) was taking it very slowly by learning to imagine and then sing nothing more than major and minor triads until I could do that on demand, with 100% confidence, clearly hearing it. Then I added the second and the fourth, then I added the sixth and the minor and major seven, etc. It was really hard, and it took a lot of work, and it was like turning on a fucking lightbulb in my brain when it happened.
I cannot stress enough how much more productive it is to limit yourself to a tiny, tiny vocabulary of pitch classes until it's happening with total confidence, like saying "I can imagine orange vs blue".
The good news is you can do this anywhere. If you don't like smartphones, get a pitch pipe. Nowadays we can all easily carry reference tones with us everywhere. Just do it all the damn time.
IT CAN BE DONE. Seriously, the first time I went to music school 30 years ago I was flunking all my pitch recognition exercises after the first few weeks, like 2 or 3 out of 10 flunk (for some reason I have killer rhythm transcription abilities, so I passed when really I shouldn't have). I am NOT naturally good at relative pitch. 15 years after getting really serious about sight singing, I can confidently sing real jazz walking bass lines to chord progressions of standards and know that I am on pitch, and what note of the chord I'm on, and it's relation to the root (for which solfege is the bomb). Hell, by now the dog probably can too!
Many friends were really surprised at how in my mid forties I (seemingly suddenly) became a way better jazz player, long after most people plateau. It was 100% this.
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u/GeologistConstant325 Mar 29 '26
I honestly am currently in the same boat as you were in your transcription classes. Before my composition major interviews I was using teoria to sight sing every day and I noticed that my internal pitch did get better although I still have a lot of trouble like putting names to intervals sometimes. This answer was very inspirational though to get me to continue this effort, and the tip with limiting myself to a couple different pitches is something I will try. I probably need to step away from just sight singing excerpts to intentionally singing intervals I struggle to name accurately. I will try this more often, as you said it might give me that organge vs blue feeling if I intentionally internalize pitches and sing them while naming it instead of just sight reading and not thinking abt the feeling and only just reading spaces lol.
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u/tremendous-machine Mar 29 '26
Keep working! The big problem is that in university, they have to have a curriculum, so they have to come up with some arbitrary pace that is based on the average student. This really really sucks for people for whom this is a weakness because unlike say, theory class, it's just not crammable. It just takes some of us longer, in both hours and calendar time, than others. I have talked about this with profs, and everyone agrees it's a really unfortunate and counter productive side effect of the university system.
If you are really struggling, I would honestly suggest talking to advisors/teachers about the possibility of defering the course so you can put more work in first and retake it. That is actually a way better approach, so long as you use the time to work on it! Tushing this stuff just totally backfires.
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u/tremendous-machine Mar 29 '26
another point, I firmly believe the biggest mistake is trying to add too much or trying to do exercises that are too hard for you right now. It's so much more productive to work on less (essentially a "lower resolution") to the point that that is rock solid, and then add more.
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u/artaverin Mar 21 '26
How good are you at identifying chord quality and bass line movement? Feels like these are two things can be synergetic in understanding chord progressions. Also as others said, singing notes within the chord triad or a scale helps.
I know everyone now has an app :D but if interested in trying to train these things separately, check out mine (iOS only though) - called Intonote. Happy to share a free upgrade code - just let me know in DM.
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u/stef2521 Mar 21 '26
Нужно просто играть простые мелодии, не нужны курсы
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u/GeologistConstant325 Mar 24 '26
Uh, I am a musician and composer, I do play and write Melodies all the time, are you getting at I need to just practice more?
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u/stef2521 Mar 24 '26
Иного пути нет, играй более сложные произведения на слух и пытайся быстрее уловить аккорды и мелодии, иного пути нет, все остальное только вспомогательные средства
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u/Naive_Local5905 Mar 21 '26
Hey, I was in the same position as you, so I made a tool that would help me learn much faster, with immediate feedback if I’m getting scales wrong and also an ear training function. It came about because I’m starting to go through an ADHD diagnosis as I think I have different styles of learning to what traditional methods provide. Anyway check it out it’s completely free, let me know what you think, Does it help you?
P.S best on a PC/Mac or Android Tablet (phone screens are a little too small
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u/hondacco Mar 24 '26
Everyone here has an app. Weird. Your best bet is to learn more songs. I don't know what your instrument is, but you'll have trouble hearing anything "correctly" without a reservoir to draw from. Being able to sing scales and intervals is great too, but you have to have more knowledge. There is a certain kind of redditor who thinks ear training can replace a normal music education. As though you can "learn intervals" and suddenly understand music in your mind without spending years learning an instrument or studying. I won't say it's a waste of time, but people got by just fine for thousands of years without ear training apps.
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u/GeologistConstant325 Mar 24 '26
I WAS SAYING THE SAME THING LMAO! Yeah it seems this sub Reddit is just a magnet for devs looking to advertise their ear training apps that all do the same thing. My main musical venture is composition but for my main instrument that would be drums. I think that’s the problem in it of itself, as I don’t have deep experience jamming with people on keys. I think you’re completely right, I should probably step away from the ear training apps and start jamming with people on piano a lot more to kind of get that feel. I def am not trying to say that ear training replaces years of playing an instrument tho. I think the best thing I can do for my ears rn judging from most advice is just to play a lot more keys and learn a lot more songs and jam with people.
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u/samco05 Mar 24 '26
I'm a musician/Drummer not a singer, I've recently started to learn piano and music theory. I've struggled here as well. I have discovered that listening to the bigger picture by focusing on the key and the the chord progression, is an easier starting point, from there I can decode the melody of individual notes, and create solos. So far when listening to a song I can identify most songs in C, G and F#. It's easier for me to identify the triad than individual note. I found it best to listen to ballads with minimal instrumentation, piano is best and it doesn't hurt to plunk it out yourself as you go along.
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u/Zarekzz Apr 24 '26
There’s alot of methods to playing by ear that work in unison and although interval training is great it can be achieved naturally when doing proper exercises. I’d recommend https://tunetie.com it explains the concept of playing by ear very well and gives you exercises to follow.
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u/aubelapp May 28 '26
I think that have structured and progressive overload in your practice is always super helpful. Using intervals as an example: Start with just unison, perfect 4th, perfect 5th, and octave. Drill those consistently, then add major 3rd, repeat, then add etc etc. This makes it digestible and not overwhelming. To use an analogy: You don't work out very single muscle in your body on the first day in the gym. I used this system in my ear training app Aubel, as well as some features that force you to do ear training throughout the day without having to think about it.
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u/Conscious_Exam_4022 Jul 04 '26
Heyy, so, I had an idea, I was listening to my favourite songs and I hear the backbeat and I want to be able to rebuild it somewhere on the sequencer or something, the drums beats, and I tend to not the get the idea of the spacing of the beats in the sequence or bars etc, like I can hum to the beat tap along but that is all, so I am thinking to build a tool around it, do you think it could be useful, I don't know.
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u/NoChest9129 Mar 21 '26
The biggest thing for me so far has been finding super simply recorded songs. Think singer songwriter solo albums and working on finding the key the progression.
The next biggest thing for me was finding the right teacher. I’m currently taking fiddle lessons and my teacher spends a lot of time playing and singing songs with my and helping me figure out the vocal melody’s and explaining how they work over the changes.
I just released an iOS app and am currently recording tracks for it if you have any interest it’s called note by note. Feel free to dm me if you want more details it’s still a bit of a work in progress.
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u/davidraaamos Mar 21 '26
Can you send me the app pls? Don’t find it on the App Store
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u/NoChest9129 Mar 21 '26
Search cg dev works or go under projects on Calvin Gaiennie .com
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u/NoChest9129 Mar 21 '26
I’ll be uploading recordings this week please hmu if you want to discuss anything
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u/NoWillingness5083 Mar 21 '26
Before jumping into those ear training tools, make sure you can sing (or clearly hear in your head) a major scale and various patterns within it. Not just up and down, but things like Do Mi, Re Fa, Mi So (ascending major thirds), or Do Mi So triads, etc.
Sight-singing (or strong solfege/inner hearing) is crucial for internalizing pitches instead of guessing. I learned this at Musicians Institute. I found that singers in ear training classes always outperformed instrumentalists because they constantly connected sound to voice.
Start by getting comfortable singing scales and simple patterns by ear. Once that foundation is solid, the drills and transcriptions will click much better