Open your Ears - Intro to Ear Training

Since this is the first lesson in our musical quest for relative pitch and perfect pitch aural skills, we shall start with something simple. Play a note on the guitar anywhere on the fret board. Now be honest to yourself, can you sing out a note that is the same pitch as that of the played note? Don’t worry if you can’t. It just goes to show that all the more your ears require training.

To get a basic foundation for ear training, the first step is to be able to hear a pitch and sing back the pitch.

Ear Training Exercise 1

Play any open string on the guitar. Close your eyes and listen to the note deeply. After you think you are sure of how the note sounds like, sing it out. Now, I know you will have this question in mind. “How do I know whether I have sung the correct pitch?” For a guide, play the note again and let it ring. Sing out the note. If you are at the same pitch, you will feel a natural resonance in your body. (Feels like your body is vibrating in the same frequency with that of the played note). For those people who might still have difficulties in verifying the correct pitch, simply invest in a digital chromatic tuner (A decent one would cost about USD $20). Any note you sing will be accurately be reflected by the tuner and you can use it to check your pitch. This is a great tool for your ear training practices!

Ear Training Exercise 2

After you are able to consistently hear an open string note and sing at the correct pitch, let’s make things abit more challenging. Now, play the notes of the C major scale in an ascending order. Play the scale first and listen to it. Then, sing out the scale using do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do. Check your pitch and make sure you have got all the intervals correct.

Play the scale in the descending order and sing out the scale using do-ti-la-so-fa-me-re-do

To summarize the exercises in this lesson:

1)      Play any open string and sing out loud the corresponding pitch

2)      Play the C major scale in ascending order and then sing out the scale

3)      Play the C major scale in descending order and then sing out the scale

By putting in 15 minutes of your time to do these exercises, you will see a BIG difference in your music awareness immediately. For people who find these exercises tough, take your time to listen as the ear needs time to condition itself and open up.

Post any queries in the forum and I’ll be happy to help you out in any problems you have. Look out for the next ear training lesson coming soon.