Hi people!
Question: does anyone have any tips about how to learn a tune by ear? I have a recording of a tune I really like on my computer and I can stop and start it at different parts. I already know the hint about learning the tune so you can hum it but that doesn’t really seem to help me. So well, hope people can offer advice on this. Just to let you guys know I suck at learning by ear but this is the only way to learn the tune I want to learn! I can not find the sheet music for it anywhere!
Oh by the way, if anyone knows where I can find the sheet music of 3 tunes called The breathing method, The Jaunt & While You Were Sleeping, I would be forever greatful (These are the tunes I am trying to learn by ear, and they are on the Paperboys first CD, if that helps anyone).
Caryn, you could buy books and ear training tapes or even sign up for a course of lessons - but I wouldn’t bother if I were you.
Here are a few thoughts.
Keep at it. It takes time to develop the knack of learning by ear. Almost all of us suck at it at first - I certainly did.
Start developing your skills with tunes that are (a) very easy and (b) very familiar to you. Try nursery rhymes, or Christmas carols. “Three blind mice” and “Silent Night” are good starters.
If you can’t crack a particular tune, it might be too hard for you just now. But keep trying anyway, just for fun. Pop tunes may have “accidentals” (occasional sharps and flats) that are hard to get on the whistle.
If you don’t sing regularly, start now. You don’t have to join a choir - sing to yourself. In the shower, or when you’re walking in a noisy city street, or cycling in the country, or driving your car. But sing!
Try to find opportunities to “jam” with others.
Keep at it. Don’t get discouraged, give yourself time, treat it as a bit of a game.
Keep at it.
If all this fails, you might seek help. But I think it’s better to rely on your own resources - you’ll have more of a sense of achievement.
Have you considered one of the sharewares that slows down cd music so you can hear it played very slowly? Check out ronimusic.com for an example.
Some tunes are very easy to learn by ear. Others may have a particular passage that doesn’t quite click. (Gallowglass Jig had one part that totally fouled me up until I slowed down a Chieftains version.)
When I first started using the “slow speed cd transcriber” (which has been renamed w/ added features by ronimusic) I would slow things way down and pick out each individual note, bar by bar. Now I only slow things down enough to follow along. It’s a very easy way to learn a tune by ear.
Tony
I’ve been working on “Little Stack of Wheat” by ear and I found that if I concentrated on a small section at a time I went much easier. I didn’t worry about getting the next section right until I had the one I was working on down pat. There was a tough part in the middle so I skipped it and got the rest of the song down first, then went back to it.
I think it is extremely important to understand the structure of the music. I used to very impressed by older traditional player who could come across a tune they didn’t have in sessesion, stat picking out the main notes second time around and by third time had the tune. It’s a matter of knowing the phrases, where the tune goes which notes are important and which not, that way and with lots of experience you can actually find yourself playing a tune you have never heard before, just following the session.
On 2001-11-28 03:04, Peter Laban wrote:
I think it is extremely important to understand the structure of the music. I used to very impressed by older traditional player who could come across a tune they didn’t have in sessesion, stat picking out the main notes second time around and by third time had the tune. It’s a matter of knowing the phrases, where the tune goes which notes are important and which not, that way and with lots of experience you can actually find yourself playing a tune you have never heard before, just following the session.
Wow, Peter, I am likewise amazed when someone picks up a tune on only the second or third hearing. Though a musician since grade 4 (recent message thread notwithstanding), I never formally studied music theory. There’s probably a few concepts or principles that govern even folk music.
I hope I can eventually get to the point where I can here a tune, and then play at least its basic line. Until then, I’m stuck with “doodling” the song…over and over and over and over…
Hi caryn,
Another program that I have found helpful in ear training is Karaoke Tablature. You can find it at http://www.sharewaredirect.co.uk/
It translates midi files into tab including whistle tab and them shows each note as it plays the midi file so your ear can associate the note with the sound
Several months ago I had the good
fortune to attend a “learn by ear”
session held by Dr. Chris Smith,
author of “Celtic Back-Up for all
Instrumentalist”. To begin with,
careful listening a must! We learned
two tunes: “Star Above the Garter” and
Pigeon on the Gate" Each tune was
handled in the same manner. First of
all, Chris played the tune through
several times to let us get the overall
“feel” of it. Then he broke it down
into individual measures (sometimes
just a few notes on more difficult
note arraingements). He had us sing
the parts over and over many times
as he played (tenor banjo) or often
times, unaccompanied. Thus, we sang,
played, sang, played, etc. He also
had us hold one hand in front of us,
palm down, and move it up and down
vertically, as we sang. Each hand
position corresponded with each note
and represented the interval between
said notes. Individual measures were
eventually added together to become
phrases, to finally become a Part A,
etc.
Well, here’s one more possibility. You can download the shareware program, AbcMus; this will take abc files and allow you to play them over and over again at the speed of your choice. You can also choose particular passages and set them to play repeatedly, slow or fast. I find it helpful to work, as much as possible, with the entire tune, filling in the details bit by bit. I also find it helpful to get up to full speed as quickly as possible, even before I feel entirely comfortable at a slower speed. You’d be amazed at how your brain can catch up with what’s going on in the music.
On 2001-11-27 20:20, LKtz wrote:
… I already know the hint about learning the tune so you can hum it but that doesn’t really seem to help me.
~Caryn
Caryn: I’m curious: does this not help you because you cannot get to the point where you can hum it? Or because you CAN hum it now but just can’t transfer it to your instrument?
Let’s see, I might get blasted for offering this because it’s the easy out, but if you email me the sound file (jomac@earthlink.net), I’ll be happy to transcribe it for you. Or maybe we can play a little game: if you prefer, I’ll drop hints/answer questions until you’ve figured it out for yourself.
Hear, hear. This knowledge of structure can be on different levels: having a thorough understanding of music theory, for example, or knowing a lot of tunes to the point where you can instantly recognize patterns that crop up. And BTW, the theory/pattern recognition “methods” complement each other very well.
Maybe, as a separate thread, we could list patterns in abc that show up in lots of tunes.
On 2001-11-28 03:04, Peter Laban wrote:
I think it is extremely important to understand the structure of the music. I used to very impressed by older traditional player who could come across a tune they didn’t have in sessesion, stat picking out the main notes second time around and by third time had the tune. It’s a matter of knowing the phrases, where the tune goes which notes are important and which not, that way and with lots of experience you can actually find yourself playing a tune you have never heard before, just following the session.
That is not exactly what I meant, an Irish tuen is made up typically of two parts (sometimes more) of 8 bars. These parts can be broken up in a few smaller phrases, knowing how this works and which are the important notes is essential and knowing music theory actually works against you here, this is something you will have to learn by listening.
jomac,
I would love to get some help from you on the tune. Right now I can’t email it to you because my email is being a pain in the bum and not working. I am going to try to get it up and working tonight when my mom gets home so she can help me. I will try to email it to you ASAP!
To everyone else,
THANKYOU so much for the tips! I love being able to post a question and then get a response almost right away!
In addition to all the good advice that Steve, Tony, avanutria, and all the other have given you, I’ll add one thing that helps me. It sounds like you can read musical notation with no problem. If I’m learning a tune by ear from a CD, I learn short sections at a time as has already been suggested. Instead of trying to keep each section in my head, I write out the section in musical notation before going on to the next. That way I don’t forget what came before and I can concentrate on each new section. I actually use Melody Assistant to transcribe the music, which is a lot easier than writing it out.
Another person might have better luck with a different approach, but how I do it (once the tune is in my head) combines learning intervals with an awareness of where I am in relation to the key I am in. You can learn to recognize that a note is the tonic (or 3rd or 5th or 7th or whatever scale degree) within a key even though you don’t know what note or what key it is (yet).
I approach a tune like this. (You will need to know a little bit of theory to follow this, but not much):
I get the tune in my head so I can sing or hum it confidently. Like StevieJ said, its good to start with really simple tunes you already know well. This step includes understanding the form of the tune, as has been discussed.
Hear whether the key is basically major or minor. (Don’t worry about modes for now - just whether the 3rd note of the scale is a major or minor 3rd from the tonic. This is really easy to hear once you have the idea.) If it’s major, it’s going to fit on a D whistle in the key of either D or G. It it’s minor the tonic will be E, A or B on a D whistle. These are just clues to help get started.
Figure out what scale degree the tune starts on. It’s often the tonic, or the third or the fifth scale degree. Many start with a note that leads to the tonic like 5-1, 7-1, 2-1. There are lots of other possibilities, but if you get used to being aware where you are in relation to the tonic, you can soon recognize the patterns. Once I get that figured out I have a good idea how to start. For example, if it starts on the third scale degree and it’s in a major key, I might decide to try it in G and start on B.
Then I think mostly in terms of intervals. If you get used to what a third, fourth and fifth sound like, you’re most of the way there. You will find a skip of a sixth occasionally, 7ths are rare, and octaves are easy.
Just start will simple stuff and keep at it. Hope this helps.
Okay, i was looking at the slower downer webpage stuff and I downloaded the amazing slower downer. It is a very interesting program-unfortuently it will only let me play the first two songs of a CD. This is kind of making me mad because I want to be able to use it but it is not helping me all that much. So does anyone know of another program like this one for the Mac computer? It seems like a lot of the programs are for PC. So thanks!
I play by ear. When I practice, I don’t use any music; I just play. I’ll just play whatever pops into my head. I might practice scales, arpeggios, a couple old songs, crans, rolls, or something in a slow air, vibrato, whatever. It depends on the day and what I’m in the mood for.
I had a music prof. in college who said that people who read music very well don’t play by ear, and those who play by ear don’t read music very well. Could it be in the genes? My dad and his siblings all played by ear, and they didn’t read music. I have a feeling that my 4 year old daughter will be able to play by ear. She’ll probably be a singer, though. Say, don’t most singers sing by ear? Maybe playing by ear happens only after one knows their instrument well.
JP
[ This Message was edited by: JohnPalmer on 2001-12-01 02:03 ]
Ear training is a life long event. You can lose it if you dodn’t keep up at it. My ear training teacher in college, told us of a study of the inner ear. It has been thought that a more sensitive ear has a denser fiber structure. That being said, you still need to practice. I think the best instrument to practice ear traing on would be the piano, so if you can, spend time on that. It also helps to find a person to practice with, so you can test each other.
Start with song association. That is, use familliar songs to identify the note intervals. The begining of “Hey Jude” is a minor third. The “Jaws” theme starts off with a minor second, and so on. After single intervals start to become comfortable, move on to simple triad (three note chords) and figure out if they are major or minor. Switch up where the root is placed in the triad and figure out where it sits. Do this with the third and fifth as well. It really helps to have a partner play while you listen and solve.
Another good thing to do is, start with a single note. You can do this with any instrument, play the first note, get it in your head and then from there, write out a simple familliar song using only the melody you hear in your head. Transcribing is excellent practice.
The main thing is to keep up at it. It’s not like riding a bike. Eventually it will become like second nature but it takes alot of dedication and time to get to this point.
Unless of course you have a really dense ear.
I have a really dense head, but that doesn’t seem to help me much.
