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Developing Ear Skills

Hey ya’ll!

I'm interested in learning how you all enhance your ear training to hear relative pitch, identify chord progressions, and recognize sharps/flats. I've been using this ear training app called ToneScholar (https://tonescholar.com), which I find effective. It gives intuitive exercises and has really improved my relative pitch, even though it focuses on vocal exercises. I'm not a singer myself, but I'm looking to hear any recs or exercises you may have that are similar to the app.

6 comments

Comments (6)

Elia Lo Monaco

Nov 08

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for me an exercise that works that helps me improving my ear skills is to analyze the harmonies of any song i like, by searching the chords on the internet or by trying to play it by ear (i like this one more because it helps me more to identify a chord) and then playing it on the piano to visualize the chord progression better. Then, after you've listened and played that song many times, you'll be able to recognize that same chord progression in another song. It needs some time of course but for me it always worked and now i can recognize some chord progressions istantly.

I am still poor at identifying individual notes but i am working on it ahahah

Francisco Casarotti

Nov 08

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Replying to

I am still poor at identifying individual notes but i am working on it

interesting! for me it's the opposite. chords are harder for me to identify by ear but i can learn anything note by note using my ears only!

Elia Lo Monaco

Nov 17

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Replying to

yeah it’s harder to identify a chord by ear because that would be doable if we had perfect pitch but it’s not our case unfortunately ahahahah, but it’s easier, at least for me, to identify the relation between two or more chords

Francisco Casarotti

Nov 07

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Mmmhh i'd be interested to know out of curiosity what people think or what advice they can give!

Personally, i always played by ear because i can't read music and never took piano lessons but i've never actually trained them, i guess i was born with good ears 😄 (and no, i dont have perfect pitch)

richardlaurence84

Nov 17

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Replying to

I'm not saying this is the best way about it but it works for me I guess.

Listen to a piece at the piano and try to pick out the melody as you go along. I often do this by randomly stabbing away at a rough area and latching onto any notes which are held for any length of time! (sounds sophisticated I know!)

After that I establish the key from the given few notes I pick out and then figure out the 6 primary chords from the major or minor key that could work with it. I know full well that there will likely be a modulation/key change or some interesting extended chords but it at least gives me the skeleton of the piece.

As everyone hears things slightly differently I tend to play students a cadence or chord progression slowly and ask them how the music feels when the chord changes. Not just happy/sad but more evocative adjectives as I think actually being a bit more precise is helpful here. Sometimes if students struggle to find the word they are looking for I suggest coming up with an image in their head or set it to a story in their heads. Sometimes I suggest using a colour to map that to a feeling.

I know that requires a bit of basic theory about scales and chords but I do think just these little bits of theory can really help remove some the guesswork.

I also use Elia's method of researching the chords from a piece and potentially transposing them into the key I'm in. Again learning about semitones is very helpful for this.

anyway, there's my two cents worth. Hope everyone is doing well, I've finally cracked a way to actually get back onto the forum so hopefully will be here a bit more in the future again.

Francisco Casarotti

Nov 17

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Replying to

Thanks for sharing this! For me, it's always one hand at a time, easier to pick by ear... but sometimes it might be the melody and the next it could be the left hand.. it depends on the piece. i just know i have very good ears but when people ask me for advice i never know what to tell them because i've never actually 'practiced' or 'trained them' ... i've been playing by ear since i was a kid (guitar, drums...).

At the Yamaha piano store where i work as a salesman, very often when the technician is tuning a piano, he plays a random note and as soon as i hear the note i automatically think of a piece without trying and i'm usually right on point. so it's a mix of having good ears and listening to a ton of music i guess haha.