What have you tried?

[Big Ears]

Many years ago, I made my first foray into ear training by buying the David L. Burge Perfect Pitch course. It's largely gathered dust because it really needs a partner with the patience to play tones over and over again. More importantly, it needs a partner who accepts that absolute pitch can be learned.

A few years ago, I picked up a book on relative pitch ear training with an accompanying CD. I got stuck at the major scale for quite a while until I learned the Solfege for the minor and chromatic scales.

Not too long ago, I picked up a gadget from a place in Canada which I'd made little use of until recently - again, the Solfege was an important key in benefiting from it. At the moment, my relative pitch is coming on in leaps and bounds.

What have other people used to advance their ears? Has anyone had any luck developing absolute pitch without a partner?


P.s: Have been non-specific about the most of the tools as I don't know the site's attitude to pointing people to other resources.

[ChristopherS]

Hi Big Ears,

Around here we're very passionate about ear training - not so passionate about anxiously defending ourselves against 'competitor' sites or products

So by all means, name or link to anything you think might be useful to people looking to improve their ears.

I'd be really interested to hear about the gadget you mention!

[Big Ears]

Thanks for that Christopher.

The book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Ear...1438132&sr=8-1

The gadget:

http://www.perfectone.biz/

The two complement each other very well since the focus of the book and it's CD is on internalising the sounds. The focus of the protable ear trainer is on identifying the external sound. The CD works by playing the scales, then the relative pitches. The book sets exercises where a root tone is played on the CD and the user has to sing the indicated interval - say a Maj Third for example.

The ear trainer simply plays the notes/chords/intervals after which the listener has to type in what they are. It uses midi sounds with a wide selection of tones. You can set the tempo and the range of pitches covered as well as the number of notes/intervals/chords to be covered for each exercise. It's very robustly made.

I like it

And despite the name, I have NO connection with this site. I just think it might be useful:

http://www.ossmann.com/bigears/

[bigears]

Ear training is such a personal thing. Every one is different and learns differently.
There are music students who are visual (eyes) learners, others are auditory (ears/language) people and many, especially musicians, absorb knowledge kinaesthetically (through feeling).
This requires a variety of options for ear training and thankfully in today's online world there is a wonderful variety of methods to choose from.
On my Ear Training Review site you can browse many of the most popular methods and also access free tips and audios to help you get started.

http://www.eartraining.whitecirclemusic.com

PS: Absolute pitch is overrated in my opinion. Very few musicians have the gift and I've gotten by with relative pitch very nicely.