Learning how to recognize intervals.

[Hampus]

I never did the theory bit and it's nothing that comes natural to me either. I don't have any problems learning techniques or how to play certain things but it's getting a bit boring. Sort of like being able to exactly paint a copy of Mona Lisa (I'm not saying I'm even close to playing anything that could be the musical equivalent of Mona lisa) but not being able to produce an original piece. I'd like to try to step it up a notch and be able to hear where I'm going instead of theoretically knowing it. i might be wrong but that seems like a good first step to improvisation.

There are some tips and tricks on the web and there are some really good apps that let you practice hearing intervals, pitch etc. I do twice as good today as I did yesterday so I'm starting to think that I'm not a lost cause after all. My question is really how to best go about this. Just keep listening to different intervals? How does the "hearing memory" compare to muscle memory? Is it like riding a bike, once you got it you never forget? I'd love to hear from others who weren't born with a perfect ear.

/Hampus

 

[Robert]

Start transcribing chords and chord progressions, and solos and licks.

That is how I improved my ear. I would rewind on the tapedeck a million times, playing my guess at the chord each time. You start with one note, then 2 notes (major/minor 3rd), then 3 notes (minor/major 7th), etc. This is a really great thing to do. After some time, you'll actually be able to hear a more advanced chord and know what it is. For example, I can immediately hear a 7b9 chord or Maj7#11, because I've both transcribed and played them a lot. I could not do that after a couple of years of playing heavy metal.... because all I learned back then were power chords!

 

[Hampus]

You played heavy metal? Thanks for the advice. Rewinding the "tape deck" is so much easier today, especially when you can slow things down without changing the pitch.

/Hampus

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[Robert]

I was into heavy metal for sure - Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, etc, when I was a teenager.

 

[PeterPan]

Something that helped me... I drew a table on a big poster board. On the left I put all the intervals from m2 to 9, and then made columns on top for UP and DOWN. In the middle I pencil in song titles whose important melody line (hopefully the 1st 2 notes) reflect the interval. Any time you think of another song with that interval, add it to the table, and just look at it and think about it occasionally. Make sure you enter separate songs for the UP and DOWN because your brain will register them differently. They can be dumb songs from childhood nursery rhymes to classic rock songs (EG: a 5th going up could be "twinkle twinkle little star, Afro Blue, the guitar riff from "Message in a Bottle". Going down a 5th, I think of the the 1st 2 notes in the opening riff to Aqualung). Some will be easier than others. In fact some will almost surely require recalling some old show tune or jazz song, for intervals not often used (b5 going up might me "Maria". a 9th going up, "Moon River". ).

In any case, I look at my table and think about it once in a while, and it does help me reinforce the interval sound in my mind, and at least when playing at moderate speeds where I can still think as I improvise, it does help me "reach" out into new territory.

 

[PeterPan]

Start transcribing chords and chord progressions, and solos and licks.

That is how I improved my ear. I would rewind on the tapedeck a million times, playing my guess at the chord each time. You start with one note, then 2 notes (major/minor 3rd), then 3 notes (minor/major 7th), etc. This is a really great thing to do. After some time, you'll actually be able to hear a more advanced chord and know what it is. For example, I can immediately hear a 7b9 chord or Maj7#11, because I've both transcribed and played them a lot. I could not do that after a couple of years of playing heavy metal.... because all I learned back then were power chords!

Ha! I remember my teacher had me learning some Charlie Parker lines back when you could put the 33rpm record on 16, and drop it to half speed, and of course we didn't have the tools back then to drop speed without affecting pitch. He would make me SING the line, and then transfer it to the guitar note by note, based on my voice. Occasionally this might mean I learn an errant note here and there, but his theory was that we all have been "playing" our voice since birth, and only started playing an instrument later. Therefore, our voice is our most connected tool for training our ear. I think it was a good theory and seemed to work for learning lines and solos without wearing out the record. And as a side benefit, if you ever start actually singing songs, you've already at least trained your voice to follow pitch. sadly, many of these old recordings were not precisely in key, ruining any side benefit of acquiring pitch memory.

For some odd reason, there was never a follow through in these lessons connecting each note transition to an interval! I finally realized the importance of it and started inventing my own exercises (like the table I described). About recognizing chords though... I too have learned to recognize a lot of chords, and at least my favorite inversions, as long as they are played on a guitar. I have a tough time picking out a lot of altered chords, even pretty basic ones, from a piano or keyboard recording.

 

[Robert]

Great tips, Peter!

A simple exercise that helped me a lot, was to practice playing nursery rhymes and similar melodies all over the neck. It's actually both ear training and fretboard training. You learn to "see" what the intervals look like on the fretboard. I can see the Perfect 5th on the fretboard, and hear it in my head before i play it.

The next step is to consistently practice this, using a variety of melodies.

After that, you should practice adding them in the middle of a solo! It's way harder, and it can sound dumb or super cool. The difficulty is going from improvising pentatonic stuff to adding a specific melody, without "missing a beat". You have start and end the melody in a good spot, which can be hard. Charlie Parker did this sometimes, I noticed. He was a true Master of course.