What is Ear Training?

Ear training is the process for musicians/singers to learn how to recognize certain aspects of music, such as intervals, chords, and rhythms.  As a musician training your ears to recognize these aspects of music, can prove very useful in various environments.  As a church musician, I have encountered many individuals who could not read sheet music, or chord charts.  However, these individuals had a powerful ability to hear a song, once and then play it verbatim.  I have even encountered people who hear a piece of a song, and can predict how the movements within the song, before they hear them.  These encounters are not based upon these individuals having special powers or psychic abilities, but rather a practiced skillset that you can develop as well.

We will take a look at two specific components of music to identify that will  help you be well on your way to playing  any song by ear, called Interval recognition and Chord recognition

Interval recognition is a very useful skill in order to deterime the melody of a song, musicians must have some ability to recognize intervals. The ability to tell how two pitches relate to one another is referred to as “relative pitch”. One very useful method of developing releative pitch, is to associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song.

Chord recognition works in conjunction with interval recognition. Hearing the harmonic structures that support the melody of a song is chord recongition. Musicians often practice hearing different types of chords and their inversions out of context, just to hear the characteristic sound of the chord. They also learn chord progressions to hear how chords relate to each other in the context of a piece of music.