Ear Training



One of the most challenging but rewarding aspects of learning music, for me, was (and still is) ear training. When I began there seemed to be exercises to help me overcome all other challenges. There were exercises to build my knowledge of scales and chords, exercises to improve my speed and accuracy and exercises to expand my repertoire of techniques and skills etc. But, I never knew exactly how to go about learning ear training, that magical ability some had to hear a song once and know how it was played.

What follows is a method that I have found particularly useful in building my ability to know what scales and chords I am listening to just by listening. At first I thought I would just have to play a certain scale over and over again, drill it into my head by repetition, to really get a feel for how it sounded and recognize it when I heard it.  I quickly found this was extremely boring, and learning guitar was supposed to be fun!!!

After many boring evenings I realized that certain note patterns, sounds, scales etc were already firmly imprinted in my mind anyway! For example, what electric guitarist in the world cannot remember the opening riff to 'Smoke on the water' by Deep Purple? You know the first three notes? Durr Durr Durr......

Fig 1. First three chords (notes) in 'Smoke on the water'.

E--------------------
B--------------------
G----0---3---5-------
D----0---3---5-------
A--------------------
E--------------------

These three chords happen to have their root notes in the first three out of five of the notes in the minor pentatonic scale (often referred to as the blues scale). The tonic or root note, the minor 3rd and the perfect 4th. Now that I know this, it's almost impossible for me not to recognize these intervals (intervals are, roughly speaking, the difference in tone between notes) in just about any song they appear in.

I know!  I'll relate chords and note patterns to pieces of music I'm already familiar with. Now, when ever I'm learning a song and I hear this particular combination of sounds (root, m3rd, perfect 4th), I follow this pattern: 1: Ah those smoke on the water notes !! 2. I know that they are: the root note, the minor 3rd and the perfect 4th. 3. Because I’ve learnt my scales, I know how to play those intervals in the key of ('what ever') I've figured out how to play something with out touching my guitar. Mission accomplished!

Now, I’ve met many amazing guitarists, some of which have an incredible knowledge of music theory as well as their incredible chops. I’ve also met equally amazing guitarists who know extremely little about the names for scales and intervals etc. If you are not a walking encyclopedia of music theory you well ask: ‘how can this method help me when I don’t even know what a minor 3rd is?’ Ok that's cool.  The good thing about this method is that you don’t need to know the technical names for the notes.  You just need to know the shape they take on the guitar fret-board.   Here are examples of how this particular set of intervals can be played, in different keys, on a standard tuned six string guitar.

Fig 2. 'Smoke on the Water notes' in different positions and keys.

E------------------------10--13--15-----------------------------------
B---------------------------------------------------------------------
G-------------------3-----------------------9--11----------9----------
D-------------3--6----------------------11-------------12-------------
A--------------------------------------------------14-----------------
E---0--3--5-----------------------------------------------------------


I hope I've proved my point and all of these 4 note combinations and the first three chords in 'Smoke on the water' sound familiar to you.

I’ll give another example demonstrating how to familiarize yourself with the sound of the Dorian mode. To me, this scale is characterized by the fact that it's a minor scale yet the forth chord is a major chord - try playing D Minor followed by G Major. Very tasty! One song I’ve used to remember the way this scale sounds is 'Another brick in the wall' (Pink Floyd). This is also a very familiar song to many musicians. So anytime I hear that sound in a song I automatically know that it sounds like 'Another Brick in the wall' and know that a Dorian scale will probably sound good with that song. Good to know if you have to improvise a solo on the spur of the moment!

Good luck with your ear training!