Featured Lesson
Ear Training
This weeks lesson is more a call to
action than a proper guitar lesson. Today I would like to talk about one
of the most neglected parts of a guitarist's technique, his ear.
Now I am quite sure most of you are saying that ear training has nothing
to do with technique.
But think about this for a while. Music is all about hearing and
listening. In its most basic form, it has very little to do with well
trained muscles and tendons, the fastest fingers, or the latest,
greatest piece of equipment.
It all comes down to your hearing
technique, your hearing ability. Your appreciation of what you hear or
play, and your skill at converting what you hear in your head into the
music that comes out of your guitar.
So, train your ear, and train it well. Make ear training a part of your
practice routine. And enjoy listening.
Here are a couple of things to try:
1. Sing your scales. Slow them
down, and sing along as you play them. Don't worry too much about the
octaves you are singing them in, just try to sing the note as closely as
possible.
2. Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe. The Internet has made it
very easy for us to download a tab file for a song instead of us
actually taking the time to figure it out by ear.
3. Give the electronic tuner a rest for a little while, and tune
your guitar by ear. Tune your low "E" with the tuner and use
your ear for the rest.
4. Sing! Apart from learning vocal control, you will also learn
to listen carefully to the notes you create.
5. Learn to recognize intervals from memory. An easy way to do
this is to associate an interval with a melody section of a popular song
you know. A useful exercise is to write down the interval, and then make
a note of a song that uses this interval in a predominant part of the
melody.
Do this for all the intervals, and use tunes that you know well, and you
will have a good grounding in relative pitch training.
I strongly recommend finding some
specialist ear training resources to guide you on this worthwhile
quest.
There are even software applications and courses available on the
internet that assist in ear training.
Until next time, sharpen up that ear!
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