Current ear training workout plan

Added a few exercises from my new favorite site to the workout plan:

• 3-note melodic dictation (scale degrees)
• 1-note piano drill

I thought I would try doing the melodic dictation by noting the scale degrees, and I am enjoying the exercise already. I like the thought of connecting the notes to scale degrees, as this helps establish the relation between any note and its tonal center. I seem to be picking up fast as well. Another thing that happens is that I am taking some notes from the Functional Ear Trainer program, which included attempting to hear intervals by how far they sounded from the tonal center. The "middle" is the perfect 5th. I personally would hear a 6th interval as something coming closer to the 8th, than the 1st interval. Where a 2nd sounds as if it has a stronger pull to the 1st interval, than going up towards the 8th. Real tricky to describe, I have to read the directions and clear things up. Meanwhile, you can check it out yourselves in the link above.

And here are other exercises that I am picking from iwasdoingallright:

• Harmonic intervals:
• -minor 3rd (b3)
• -major 3rd (3)
• -perfect 4th (4)
• -tritone (#4/b5)
• -perfect 5th (5)
• -augemented 5th (#5)

I am doing the harmonic interval exercises in order to be able to hear the intervals that make up a triad, as well as quartal chords. I stick to the basic, besides adding quartals just because they are a favorite of mine, so I only practice the intervals that make up these basic triads.

Remember that a major triad has a major 3rd on  top of a minor 3rd, and the root to the 5th is a perfect 5th. Next, the minor triad is made up of a minor 3rd interval stacked onto a major 3rd interval, and the root to the 5th is still a perfect 5th. An augmented chord has two major 3rds stacked, and the root to the 5th is an augmented 5th, or #5. A diminished triad has two stacked minor 3rds, and the root to the 5th is a diminished 5th, also known as a tritone. This tritone is also in dominant chords, the distance is measured from the 3rd of the chord to the b7. Quartal chords are made up of perfect 4th intervals.

I'm not really sure what this will do, besides strengthen my ability to hear the quality of a triad when it is played, which is not a bad skill to have on it's own...especially when transcribing.

Last, but not least, also on iwasdoingallright, a

• 3 note melody exercise. 

I chose to base the melodies from a scale in any key, in a random order. This is just my way of adding difficulty to melodic intervallic practice, by just adding one more note. It is not as easy as it may look. I am taking a tip from Bert Ligon and trying to hear all these intervals in the context of a root, like how tonal music is usually played.


EDIT:

I have removed two exercises from the workout:

• 3-note melodic dictaction
• 1-note piano drill

It's just programmed wrong for each one. For melodic dictation, the pitch and the staves don't match. An A above C is taken as correct whether you notate it either above or below C. Same thing for the piano drill, you can select any key on the keyboard, regardless of the pitch, as long as it's the correct note. I chose these two to practice writing out and playing the notes in the correct position, and that is not what is happening here. I can't lie, with my current workout, it's good to take some exercises out. Matter o' fact, I shouldn't do any of the staves since this problem goes for all of those exercises as well.

Let's look at what we have left:

• 1-note melodic dictation (scale degrees) 15-20mins
• 3-note melodic dictation (scale degrees) 15-20mins
• Harmonic intervals 15-20mins
• Call-and-response: 3-note melodies from major scale in random keys 15-20mins

I added the 1-note melodic dictation in scale degrees to make up for all I've taken out. It doesn't hurt to reinforce thinking in scale degrees as well.

That's all for today, I'll explain more about the current workout plan in an upcoming post. You'll see what I expect to achieve, how I do each exercise, when I do them, and why I chose these exercises.

See you later, happy training.

Time to get the cobwebs out of these ears...

It's been a while since I've posted.

I'm just putting this up as a reminder to myself to not let this baby die another death.

This blog will be an insight to my journey on developing my ear to play the musical ideas inside my head.
My goal is to play what I can hear, and if that is anything like your goal, I know you'll find something in here to help you along as well.

As for my current exercises, I've stumbled upon another bad boy that I'm crazy about. I use it to work melodic dictation, as I am also sightreading. I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone. But don't alert PETA just yet, try it yourself.

After all that crawling, I start my attempts to walk....it's the same exercise, but with 2 more notes in the melody. See how you do here.

After that, I'm done as far as I'm concerned with that site. There is, however, one more level to go with the melodic dictation series. This time, you're going to have a go all out and sprint. 7 notes to follow and write down. I haven't touched that option since the first time I tried it and got spanked. I'm going to wait until I get more comfortable with the other two instead....which reminds me...how exactly do I measure my progress?

My workout looks like this:

Once per day, or every other day

- One-note melodic dictaction: 15 - 20 minutes
- Three-note melodic dictation: 15 - 20 minutes



My current goal is to beat level 6 (the highest level) within 10 minutes. After that, I'll approach the 7-note exercise and see how I do. If the results aren't favorable, I might make another goal of beating level 6 within 5 minutes before trying 7-note again. Sooner or later though, I'm going to suck it up and get on with that exercise. You don't have to be perfect before going to the next level, and I'm certain all this preparation will give me more than enough experience to rough it out with the big boys.

Until then, happy workout.