The answer comes in dynamic skill theory. I bring this up again and again because I get a lot of emails from students who are learning how to train their ears and they all have similar challenges. They are not willing to silence their critical “adult” voice and just play with music.

Students will tell me they need a more grounded approach (more mature). Or they will tell me it must be step-by-step (completely abstract). Sometimes they tell me that they won’t gain anything from an exercise after only reading about the exercise (how would they know?).

Just play!

You can’t skip stages of development. You have to begin at the sensorimotor stage, progress through the representational stage, and then you can arrive at the abstract level. It can’t work backwards.

If you’re asking an abstract question when you need to begin from the beginning, I might refer you to this post. Don’t make the mistake of working backwards when learning new skills. It just makes your journey longer and more difficult.

You can find out more about his life and music at his official site and on Wikipedia. His music will be missed but never forgotten.

One of my favorite albums featuring Joe Zawinul as a sideman is Why Am I Treated So Bad? by Cannonball Adderley. The title track features a dirty wurlitzer solo by Joe. To me, the best part is the audience participation. It’s a deep conversation between musician and audience.

Another great track on that album is Mini Mama. The transcription I’m posting below is of Cannonball Adderley’s alto sax solo. This is another soulful blues that gets the audience shouting.

Download the transcription:
Mini Mama Alto Sax Solo

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Table of contents for Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast

1. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
2. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
3. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
4. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
5. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
6. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07
7. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07
8. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-20-07

Topics covered:
The pleasure of finding things out, Richard Feynman, Dr. Kurt Fischer, dynamic skill theory, developmental levels, adult learning, ear training, and much more…

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-20-07

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Table of contents for Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale

1. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 1
2. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 2
3. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 3
4. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 4
5. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 5
6. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 6
7. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 7
8. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 8
9. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 9
10. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 10
11. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 11
12. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 12
13. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 13
14. Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 14

This dominant 7 pentatonic pattern gets tougher again. It has four notes in C and four notes in D flat but they are all spread throughout the bar.

Again, this pattern helps you to get comfortable transposing quickly. And all of these patterns get your ear comfortable with hearing a number of different sounds: the dominant 7 pentatonic scale, the juxtaposition of two neighboring scales, the polytonal sound of consistently playing “outside” the key, and with some of the patterns, the sound of quickly changing melodic motion.

So think of these patterns as tools to increase your musical vocabulary, improve and challenge your ear, and to practice technical peak performance.

Download the full pattern:
Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 5

Table of contents for Solo Transcriptions

1. Solo Transcriptions: Remember Synth Solo

I’ve got dozens and dozens of transcriptions that I’ve done over the years. Some of them have been formatted nicely using either Sibelius or Finale. The other day, as I was listening to the Bryan Adams Anthology, a synth solo caught my ear and I quickly transcribed it. That got me thinking that I would like to share some of them with you. Well, here’s solo transcription number one.

Off Bryan Adams’ 1980 self-titled debut album, Remember is probably the best known song. I’m not sure who played the solo, it could be Gary Breit, Tommy Mandel, or Bill Payne.

Take a listen:

The solo builds in these ways:

• By increasing the octave each pass of the motif.
• By gradually bringing in 16th notes.
• It peaks melodically at the end of bar 12 with the highest note of the solo, B.
• It peaks rhythmically in bars 15 and 16 by a repeating 16th note pattern lasting a full two bars.

What caught my ear when I first heard the solo, besides the sound of the synth, was the 16th note pattern in bar 10. It’s very guitar like and a slick departure from the original motif. It’s also perfectly placed to lead into the beautiful and simple melody in bars 11 and 12.

Download the transcription:
Remember Synth Solo

Table of contents for Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast

1. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
2. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
3. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
4. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
5. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
6. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07
7. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07
8. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-20-07

Topics covered:
Learning absolute pitch, your motives, absolute pitch disinformation, motivation to learn absolute pitch, and more.

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07

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Table of contents for Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast

1. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
2. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
3. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
4. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
5. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
6. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07
7. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07
8. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-20-07

Topics covered:
Singing what you hear, the body/mind connection in music, exercises to improve your musicianship, and more.

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07

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Subscribe by RSS here:

Subscribe by email here:

Most musicians with good relative pitch will notice immediately if a note is out of tune relative to its surroundings. If it bugs you, then there’s a lot of music you probably can’t listen to. If it doesn’t bother you, then you know how someone with absolute pitch is affected by sound. Sounds sound good or bad or somewhere in between based on your personal preference, whether you have absolute pitch or not.

Part of the problem with this myth comes from the sloppy use of language to describe an experience. A single note can be out of tune relative to the surrounding tones. That’s one example of being out of tune. A single instrument can be out of tune relative to the other instruments in an ensemble. That’s another example. But if all the tones or instruments are tuned differently than A440 kHz, it’s not out of tune. It’s just a different tuning.

History tells us that we haven’t always listened to music with the A440 kHz standard. In Mozart’s time, stringed-keyboard music music was meant to be played at a range of around A420 to A430. There are also different tuning systems and temperaments.

If this myth were true, then there would be quite a few people with absolute pitch who couldn’t listen to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which on record was globally tuned a little sharp. And if you don’t like Kind of Blue, it’s got nothing to do with absolute pitch. It just means that you’re crazy!

Today, I decided to open up my thesaurus and see if I could improve my auditory vocabulary. Beginning with the word “sound,” I was led to a synonym “sonance,” which I don’t believe I have ever used before. Drilling down further, I settled on a sound word to explore, “ring.”

Ringing is an adjective in the class of resonance.

resonance
noun
the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating : the resonance of his voice.
Physics: the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object.

Ringing is having or emitting a clear resonant sound. If we think of sound as pictured by a waveform, we can imagine visually seeing the sound’s amplitude moving between a positive and negative extreme, or peaks and valleys. This is a perfect metaphor for visualizing how language interacts with sound. Words that describe sound will have antonyms that describe it’s opposite pole. The word “clear” implies that sound can also be “muffled.” Therefore, with any description of sound, we can put that description somewhere on a continuum.

Clear ← → Muffled
Audible ← → Inaudible

Here’s a list of words to describe the sound quality of ringing:

ringing, pealing, tolling, belling, sounding, chiming; tinkling, tinkly, tingling, jingling, dinging, donging, knelling, clangor, clanking, clanging, clink, tink, ting, ping, chink, clank, clang, jangle, jingle-jangle

Now, take a moment with each word and imagine a sound that has this quality. How does “chink” sound different from “clank”? How does “jingle” sound different than “jangle”?

Taking the time to experience these sounds will help you to memorize the words that describe them which will help you not only communicate a sound to someone else, but to have a more refined experience of sound yourself. Where most people will only hear something ring, you will know that it is actually a ding.

Ear training has often been half-jokingly, half-seriously referred to as “ear straining.” And I can understand why if it’s something that you feel forced to do, like doing sit ups. Why can’t washboard abs just come with the package?

But a listening practice isn’t something you have to motivate yourself to do every morning. It’s something you get to do all the time. It’s the equivalent of eating whatever you want, whenever you want… without gaining weight!

Your ears are always on. All you have to do is start paying attention. The world is filled with sounds for you to soak up. Your musical ears are hungry for stimulation. It’s time to give them what they want.

Here’s just a few things you can do to begin your listening practice.

First, just start listening unconditionally. We all daydream, so make these times of subconscious wandering into conscious sound expeditions. You’ll be amazed at all the different rhythms, counterpoints, and natural symphonies you will hear. If you can, close your eyes and just listen to the world around you and inside of you.

Second, think on media. Keep a few things with you at all times: music manuscript and a pen, a recording device, and a tuning fork of some kind. When you hear a note, figure out what it is. Teach yourself. Write a scale or a pattern and imagine what they sound like as you write them. Record rhythms and intervals and whatever else inspires you in the moment. Take a recess into the playground of sound. It will be fun and you’ll learn new things and reinforce what you already know.

Start a sound catalog. In a sound journal, begin to catalog all the different sounds and textures you hear. This will increase your “aural intelligence.” People who live bland lives have about a dozen different words that they use to describe their daily emotions. If you only have a dozen different words to describe what you hear, then it’s no wonder your musicianship is straining. But if you have a rich database of descriptive words in your musical vocabulary, then your experience of sound will be rich and abundant. Grab a thesaurus and your favorite album and have some fun.

Stop for a moment and think about these two musicians. One musician trains their ear for 15 minutes every day or so. The other musician actively listens all the time. Which is a better musician?

Answer: The musician with more aural experience. Go get some!

Basically, you just copy the text files to your iPod’s notes folder and copy the MP3s to your music library. Then, in the iPod’s notes menu, you navigate to the main iTheory note and you can test intervals, scales, chords, and absolute pitch.

I think I’m going to hack into mine and personalize it a bit more. It’s really cool how you can reference audio in a note. I wish I knew before that you can do that. My mind is racing with ideas to use this trick.

You can practice speed whenever you hear a song on the radio, when you’re at your instrument, or just in your head. The key is to be relaxed, yet alert, and set the intention of your practice session to improve your speed. The most accurate form of measurement would be a stop watch or timer of some sort. You could measure the time it takes to get a single answer right or how long it takes to get a group of answers right. Then try to beat your previous measurements. Do this with intervals, chords, pitches, and anything else musical that you want to be able to identify.

Even though you are focusing on speed, don’t worry about how long it will take to meet your goals. That’s not really the point of this practice. The point is to use whatever level of improvement you’ve gained to make better music. Having goals and setting dates can be important, but don’t lose sight of the big picture.

Practice so that you can make better music.

Table of contents for 2006 Celebrations and Reflections

1. Top Ear Training Articles for 2006
2. Top Songwriting Articles for 2006
3. Top Music Theory Articles for 2006
4. Top Music Hacks for 2006
5. Top Peak Performance Articles for 2006
6. Top Music Business Articles of 2006
7. Top Music Technology Articles for 2006
8. The Best of The Graham English Blog 2006

I hope your ear improved in 2006. I know mine did. Just in case you haven’t been reading my blog all year, here’s my favorite ear training articles for 2006.

• Is Your Ear Suspect?
• Why Singing What You Hear Is Important To Your Ear Training
• Understanding The Art And Craft Of Absolute Pitch Hearing
• Shaolin Ear Training
• Hearing and Consciousness
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
• Naked Pitch
• Ear Training Software and Freeware for Mac and PC
• Why Is Absolute Pitch More Refined Than Relative Pitch?
• The Ear Training You Do Today…
• Quit On A High Point
• Portals Into Absolute Pitch: Silence
• How To Hear Interval Quality Distinctions
• Ear Training With Your Cell Phone Ringtone
• Some Important Absolute Pitch Distinctions
• How To Be An Expert
• Ear Training Hack #3
• Ear Training Hacks 1-2

Table of contents for Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast

1. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
2. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
3. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
4. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
5. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
6. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07
7. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07
8. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-20-07

Topics covered:
The art of sound, aural distinctions, absolute sound, loudness, location, and more.

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06

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Dick Grove has taught music to well over 25,000 musicians! He teaches stuff you won’t get in music school. And he understands how to give you a strong musical foundation so you don’t fall for the dangers of intellectualizing your music… and you can become a truly spontaneous musician.

Watch and learn…

• The six different ears a musician must have
• The “tree” approach to musicianship
• Why you should know at least some piano or keyboard
• The logic to being a spontaneous musician…

Click here to find out more about Dick Grove’s music theory and ear training.

Recognizing that C and F is a perfect fourth is a cognitive exercise. You have to think about it. Maybe only for a split-second, but you still have to translate your physical experience, a verb, into a mental object, a noun.

The experience of C and F is a physical experience. It is a physical vibration traveling through the air and affecting your physical ear. You, who knows the sound of a perfect fourth, and a non-musician, who doesn’t know the name of what they are hearing, still hears the exact same physical vibration coming through the air. That means that the cognitive part of your ear training obviously separates you from the non-musician.

Many musicians only take it that far. They get stuck in their heads. I’m sure you know musicians who seem to know a lot but still don’t have “that feel.”

So naming intervals and understanding music theory is done with the mind while experiencing sound is accomplished by the body. Both are very important.

Take a look at the word emotion. It means, with motion. When we talk about our emotions, we say “I feel…” You feel things in your body. When you sing a tone, you feel the experience in your body. It’s real on the gross level. Whereas the mind experiences things on a more subtle level. If I punch you in the gut, you really feel it. If I insult you, you experience it in a different way. Sometimes that experience will have correlates in the body. So they’re intertwined. But if I punch you, your mind has no choice but to follow your body’s commands. You keel over. If I insult you, you have the choice of ignoring me and directing your mind elsewhere.

If you’re only working on the cognitive, or mind, aspect of ear training and music theory, you’re missing a large chunk of the experience of sound. Singing what you hear brings what you are learning into the body so that you can embody your knowledge of music. It’s not just a theory or skill anymore. It’s part of your identity.

Therefore, you can improve your musicianship by singing, and embodying, everything you learn. Here’s a couple of practical exercises to try.

• Reach out to your instrument and play any two or more tones. Then sing them from the bottom up or top down.
• When you hear sounds that you would like to emulate, try emulating them with your voice first.

Got any exercises of your own to share?

Table of contents for Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast

1. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
2. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
3. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
4. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
5. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
6. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07
7. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07
8. Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-20-07

Topics covered:
The art and craft of absolute pitch hearing.

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06

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The Good News: I can now receive email.

The Bad News: I’m having trouble sending email.

The Good News: I only have 535 email messages left to sort.

The Bad News: I have 535 email messages left to sort.

As much as I love technology and the internet, sometimes it’s a major pain in the ass. So if you sent me an email during the past few days — no telling how many days exactly — then you can’t be sure I received it or will be able to reply. Sorry.