Ear training is an integral component of our musical studies. In ear training we are developing our inner ear, the ability to accurately hear and identify musical elements in our head while reading, listening to, and thinking about music. Conservatories, colleges and universities usually require students to take ear training courses as part of their music programs.

Some musicians develop what is called perfect pitch: the ability to accurately hear and identify pitches by name instantaneously. This skill seems to develop naturally especially with piano and string players who start their practice around the age of five or six, but for students that start music later in life, perfect pitch is an extremely difficult skill to learn.

Instead, most musicians develop their relative pitch. Relative pitch is our ability to discern the relative distance between notes, as well as the quality of different types of musical elements like scales and chords. Any music student can train their relative pitch. In fact, anyone who listens to music and can hear the difference between higher and lower notes, has relative pitch – that is to say, everyone.

Can you hear the difference?

Example 1

If you wanted to get started training your relative pitch, a powerful but simple technique is to simply start singing back what you hear. You can try it with the musical example above, as well as the ones that follow.
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In the following articles, we will explore individual topics in ear training in a little more depth. We will develop our study with what I hope is a clear system where each topic builds on the previous one.

With ear training, as with any discipline, it is useful to have a basic methodology or approach in building our skills. We are developing our relative pitch, the ability to discern the distance between notes. We can develop this skill to such a high degree, that we can accurately hear the quality of two or more notes as a kind of color: a major third, is not only bigger than a minor second, it has a different sound quality. Larger collections of notes also have their own sound qualities: a major triad sounds different than a minor one.

In order to discern different types of musical elements like intervals and chords, we need to be able to produce those elements. The first skill we should develop is simply that of matching pitch with our voice. Play the following example and sing back each pitch as you hear it. Its alright if you have to fish around a bit. Now when we are singing, its important for our egos to remember that we are developing our inner ear. The relative goodness or badness of our singing voice is not important. It is more important to simply learn how to match pitch:

Can you sing back each note?

Listen and Sing: Note by Note

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Now that we can sing and identify different scales, and have developed some familiarity with solfege, we can start to study intervals. Remember that a musical interval measures the distance between any two pitches, identifying both its size and quality. We will be working with intervals up to the fifth, and introduce the remaining ones.

We will begin with major thirds. As you discovered at the end of the previous article, you can already produce a major third if you can sing a major scale. To review, the first and third scale degree of a major scale produces a major third. If you use solfege, the syllables are do and mi.

First, give yourself a starting pitch and sing: do re mi, the first three scale degrees of a major scale. Now sing the re silently: do (re) mi. Now just the major third: do mi. You can now sing the interval of a major third, and have a pretty good idea as to its sound quality.

The following exercise has five melodic major thirds. Play the whole example, first listening to the interval then singing in back in time. There will be a pause after each interval:

Major Thirds - do (re) mi

1: Major Thirds - Sing as 'do mi'

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