How to Listen by Ear

So I’m sitting here right now, listening to Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” album (‘tallica rules!) and when I listen to an album, I really like to listen. You should too! Maybe I’m a bit more “geeky” about music than most people, but I really think that listening to an album, whatever the band or genre, is comparable to watching a film. I can really listen to a whole album right through from start to finish without any other distractions. This is especially true of a band like Metallica, because there is often so much happening in the music at any one time, but even just a basic acoustic arrangement can have alot of meaning (check out my post on feeling in music for more on that).

Sonic Blindness

Are you suffering from a form of Sonic Blindness? No, I’m not talking about a little blue hedgehog with a blindfold, I’m talking about how much you listen to sound (sonic = of sound, supersonic = above sound etc,). When we are born we don’t really have a preference for any particular sense, although (being human) some of our senses are obviously better than others and understandably, our culture teaches us to use our eyes more than our ears. The problem is that, as musicians, we need to learn to use our ears just as much as our eyes.

Can a blind painter, paint? Now, I know that there are different levels of blindness- some people can’t see at all, some can only make out shapes, and some just need strong glasses. Surely the better a painters eyesight, the more able he is to see what he’s doing, and thus the better he is at his job? So, if that’s the case, being better at listening to music will make you more able to hear what you’re doing, and thus make you better at your job, right? Therefore, you need to develop your ears.

Ear Training

Next time you listen to a song, any song, try and identify what instruments are playing. How many guitars are playing in the chorus? What are the other instruments in the band? Is the drummer using double-pedal (something popular in some styles of metal)? Are there backing/harmony vocals? Once you’re pretty confident at recognising which instruments are playing, listen in to exactly what they are playing- is one guitar playing chords, or are there two guitars playing lead harmonies? Is the drummer playing in a straight or a more swung rhythm? These are all the sorts of questions you should be asking yourself about the music you are hearing.

Next, when (and only when) you’re able to identify which instruments are playing what in a song you want to move to the next stage- transcribing. For this, you might want to start with simple blues progressions. Go and grab your guitar and find the tonic (no, that’s not a sports drink, or something to mix with gin! I mean the “root note” of the song). This’ll normally be the note which fits well with the the song overall- one that you could play through, say, an entire verse would be a good candidate. Now try and play a pentatonic scale starting from this root note, if you can’t yet tell if it’s major or minor first try one, and then the other. If it fits then congratulations, you’ve just figured out the key to the song. To find the chords of a song, listen to to bass (which is likely playing the root notes, or at least chord tones…) and figure that out first.

Singing Intervals

If you want to take this even further you might try singing intervals against your guitar. Play a note on your guitar and try to sing a note, say, 3 frets (a minor third) above it, then play the higher note on your guitar to check you were right. Start with smaller intervals (minimum 2 frets- as one fret is actually very hard!) and gradually work your way up to singing bigger intervals- octaves (12 frets), 9ths (14 frets) or 11ths (17 frets) if your really ambitious…

The rules are that you have to sing the higher note right away and you’re not alowed to “bend” up or down to it. Once you can do that try playing the higher note on your guitar and singing an interval below it (a bit more tricky…).

All this singing will improve your interval and pitch recognition (and, if you’re lucky, your singing ability too!) but remember to always take deep breaths, keep the throat relaxed and never push yourself to sing a note (too high or low) that you either weren’t designed to sing, or aren’t able to sing yet.

Have fun, and if you like my blog, please don’t forget to subscribe.

December 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm | Developing Your Ears, Guitar Technique and Exercises, How to | No comments