A trained person is necessary for everyone who plays music.

What you hear is what you play and if you have trouble recognizing different types chords, rhythm or melodies, this greatly limits your options.

One day after class with my students, I decided to have a cup of coffee. On the way to the coffee shop, I heard the cry of a bird flying past. Nothing strange, you say. But there is one little thing: I recognized in this sound an interval of a major third. And now, I already have an idea for the next article!

I have been teaching guitar for a long time and I can say that most modern guitarists are very good and too good. A great way to see if you can play by ear is to have a friend play an easy phrase twice and then try to play it yourself.

If you manage to play the phrase without errors the first time, you are on on the right track. If you had to search for the right notes for a long time, it’s time to start ear training. Like playing technique, the ability to recognize and understand musical sounds requires constant practice and effort. Many of my students and comrades have no idea how to train their ears, so I have developed several ways to do this.

How to train your ear

A good idea is to go to your nearest music school and find out if they offer courses in solfeggio and ear development. I myself had no idea about the importance of hearing until I started taking ear training classes at music college. Among other things, they teach you how to recognize. You will also learn how to write down melodies on paper and recognize rhythms.

What if you can already select melodies and you don’t need to be an expert in rhythms and musical notation? Great! Now try explaining your musical idea to the band's keyboard player! Remember: professionalism is not a matter of minutes! Your colleagues will certainly appreciate your attention to detail. Ultimately, the majority music courses are based on the same thing. Try playing and singing the major scale, trying to hit the notes.

To start, choose the key that is easiest for you to sing in. Then you can play and sing the notes of the scale with gaps. For example, in the key of G major, you play and sing the note G, skip the note A and sing the note B. Practice until you feel it comes easy to you. Then try singing that note without the guitar. Achieve maximum accuracy.

Sing the degrees of the scale as follows. The first step is tonic, then the second step, etc. In addition, you can also practice singing, as well as other modes and

If you think that “an elephant has stepped on your ear” and you will never be able to perceive the sounds around you the way people who are gifted with an ear for music from birth perceive them, then you are deeply mistaken. Developing an ear for music is not as difficult as you might think. And today we will give you some tips to help you do this.

First, let's look at the types of hearing. To develop an ear for music, we need to hone:

• Rhythmic hearing. That is, learn to hear and feel the rhythm.
• Melodic ear is the ability to understand the movement and structure of music and hear its subtleties.
• Relative - hearing that allows you to understand the magnitude musical intervals and pitch.
• Inner hearing is the hearing that allows you to clearly imagine music and individual sounds in your thoughts.
• An ear for intonation that allows one to understand the character and tone of music.

Of course, there are many more types of hearing, but we will focus on these five, since they are enough to acquire an ear for music.

So, what do we need to do to train these types of hearing?

1. Musical instrument

The ideal way to “pump up” all types of hearing is to start learning to play an instrument. This way, you'll remember how each note should sound, train your sense of rhythm, and generally begin to understand music better. But since you most likely don't have time to learn how to play a musical instrument, let's move on.

2. Singing

If you don’t have a piano at home, find an online version on the Internet and play scales on it several times every day and sing them along with the piano. As you begin to feel confident with scales, move on to intervals, chords, and simple melodies. The main thing is don't be shy. If you are afraid that someone will hear you, try to train while you are alone at home. But in fact, there is nothing shameful here! Just remember karaoke bars, where people, to put it mildly, without voice or hearing, sing so loudly that they can be heard outside the bar.

3. Meditation

We called this point that because the exercise we are about to tell you about is very similar to meditation practices for beginners. It will help you develop awareness of sounds.

Walk outside without headphones, trying to catch snippets of conversations, the noise of trees, the sound of cars, the sound of heels on the asphalt; the way a dog shuffles its paw on the ground; the way someone shakes out a blanket on the balcony... you will notice that you are surrounded by so many sounds that it’s hard to believe. At home, spend five minutes a day listening to the humming of the refrigerator from the kitchen, the sound of water in the pipes, the conversations of your neighbors, the noise from the street.

4. Voices

When talking to a person, try to remember his voice. You can also watch movies, memorizing the actors' voices, and then listen to parts of the movie and try to name the character based only on his voice.

Try to notice the manner of speaking of your interlocutor, the timbre of his voice; When remembering a conversation with someone, try to pronounce the interlocutor’s phrases in your head in his own voice.

5. Learn to hear music

Of course, it’s very nice to listen to music and not think about anything. But if your goal is to develop an ear for music, then try to delve into the music you listen to. Learn to separate one musical instrument from another; study how a guitar sounds under different “gadgets” so as not to confuse it with other instruments; also learn to distinguish different synthesizer modes from others musical instruments; listen to how real drums and electronic drums sound.

This practice will not only help you develop an ear for music, but will also teach you to hear music more subtly, which in turn will give you even greater pleasure from listening to it. There is one side effect of this practice - most likely later you will not want to listen to what you are listening to now, you will want something more complex and voluminous. And this is great, because isn’t this the main indicator of your progress?

6. Rhythm

There is such a cool thing called a “metronome”. You can buy it for yourself or find an online version on the Internet. Every day, practice with a metronome, tapping with your finger (arm, foot, whatever), the rhythm that it sets for you.

Once you feel comfortable with the metronome, move on to recognizing rhythm in music. Start with music that contains drums; it’s easier to determine the rhythm using them. And then move on to working with music that does not contain noise instruments, allowing you to easily determine the rhythm ( classical music, For example).

Another enjoyable way to improve your sense of rhythm is dancing. Sign up for dance studio or dance at home for your own pleasure.

7. Sound source

If you have a helper for this task, great! Close your eyes and ask someone to walk around you in and outside the room and make sounds (voice, hand clap, ringing a bell, etc.). And every time your assistant makes a sound, you should try to understand from which direction it is coming. A fairly simple task if you and your assistant are in the same room, but once he starts walking around the apartment, you will notice that it becomes more difficult for you to determine where the sound is coming from.

If you don’t have someone who can help you with this, then you can do the following. Go outside, sit on a bench somewhere and listen to the sounds around you, as in the third exercise. Only this time you will also need to understand from which side this sound is coming.

Programs and applications

Of course, there are many programs for development musical ear, and we've collected the best of them.

1. Eartheach

An excellent application containing exercises on scales, chords and intervals. Perfect for those whose ear for music is already more developed. You can also download the PC version.

The principle is very simple - you need to play the melody that you just heard. The application can also be downloaded on Android and iOS.

A simple game that will help you remember notes. Also on the right you can find many more games to develop your ear for music.

It's safe to say that good hearing is the only ability that allows you to become a musician.

Without this nothing can happen.

Of course it is possible to teach how to play musical instrument a person without an ear for music, but his playing will most likely resemble the actions of a robot executing a laid-down program and unable to deviate from it.

When people talk about musicality, they always mean a well-developed ear for music, even if this idea is not voiced.

I think there are many questions related to musical ear, but the most important ones are the following:

• What do you mean by good ear for music?
• What criteria exist to determine it?
• How to develop an ear for music?

Let's start by defining how musical hearing differs from ordinary hearing.

Ear for music- a set of abilities necessary for composing, performing and actively perceiving music. An ear for music, first of all, relies on knowledge and an acquired system of symbols. For example, everyone can sing the melody of the song “A Christmas Tree Was Born in the Forest,” but not everyone can name the intervals and notes that make up it.

On the other hand, if your head has a stable connection between the first intonation of this song and the fact that this is an interval of a major sixth, then when you hear this in any piece of music. You know that this is a major sixth interval and you can play it on the instrument.

The work of hearing in this case is to memorize certain musical structures and endow them with meaning.

As you can see, hearing development is the application of certain knowledge in practice combined with the development of auditory memory.

Lack of understanding of how to relate hearing experience to hearing development can lead people to believe that they are not hearing.

However, there are practically no people without hearing. Most of the problems are associated with poor quality training in the basics, in music schools and other educational institutions.

There are many categories of musical hearing. The most important are:

Absolute pitch- the ability to determine the absolute height of musical sounds without comparing them with a standard. This means that when you hear any note, you can name it.

It is divided into passive (small percentage of note detection, limited application) and active.

Relative hearing- the most important for any musician - defined as the ability to determine and reproduce pitch relationships in melody, chords, intervals, etc.;

Inner hearing- the ability to formulate a clear mental picture (for example, from musical notation or from memory) individual sounds, melodic and harmonious structures, entire musical pieces; very important when learning.

Harmonic hearing- the ability to hear harmonic consonances - chord combinations of sounds and their sequence and reproduce them with the voice in unfolded form or on a musical instrument. In practice, this can be expressed, for example, in selecting an accompaniment to a melody by ear, even without knowing the notes, or singing in a polyphonic choir.

Polyphonic hearing– the ability to listen to all voices in a multi-voice work.

Polyrhythmic hearing– the ability to hear rhythmic figures sounding different sizes and the ability to reproduce these rhythms.

There are several main ways to develop hearing:

Solfage

Solfaging (that is, practice) involves singing intervals, chords, scales, modes, and melodies. This practice strengthens the connection between hearing and the written note, and solfège also forms a specific auditory system.

For example, by singing a major scale, you learn its structure and sound, and gradually it becomes natural and familiar to you, and you will perceive any deviation as an inconvenience. Thus, on the one hand, your hearing is developing, on the other hand, until you master anything else, it will be inaccessible to your perception. This problem can arise, for example, when listening to atonal music.

2. Musical dictation

The process is somewhat opposite to solfege. Here you, relying on the knowledge you have already acquired, write down the melody played by the teacher on notes. For this purpose, various techniques are used (finding stable tonality levels in the melody, recognizing intervals, determining cadences, etc.).

Also musical dictation promotes the development of musical memory.

3. Transcribing (from the English transcribing rewriting) or taking- selection by ear or instrument and recording on
notes of any work.

This can be either taking your instrument or other instruments, or even writing an entire score.

There are various techniques used by transcribers to speed up the transfer process. sounding music on paper (slow recording, tables, analysis, etc.).

4. Auditory analysis– identification by ear of intervals, chords, chord sequences, rhythmic figures, etc.

You can also use various specialized programs (for example, Ear Trainer) to develop your hearing.

Thus, the criterion for good hearing is the ability to hear and reproduce various elementary structural elements, the ability to write down a heard melody with notes, the ability to anticipate a certain sound, the ability to hear music with the eyes, etc.

Musical ear is a person’s ability to perceive musical works and identify any shortcomings in them or, conversely, evaluate the merits of music.

Some people perceive sounds only of a certain origin and do not distinguish the sounds of music at all. And some musicians, who naturally have an ear for music, are not susceptible to extraneous sounds. There are also people who perfectly distinguish sounds of only one kind and do not perceive sounds of another at all. Thus, hearing development has individual differences.

Inattention or “music deafness”

Most cases of “music deafness” are simply inattention. For example, when a person is doing something, he is completely inattentive to sounds. That is, the ear, of course, perceives the sound, but the brain, focused on its main activity, does not record the sound occurring. Naturally, he will not process it as unnecessary.

Hearing needs to be developed, as it can progress better than any other sense. There are special exercises for the development of musical ear, by practicing which you can develop in the perception and identification of musical sounds and more. By adding the necessary care for your musical ear to the exercises, you can achieve certain heights in music. And if you are careless and inattentive, you will damage your hearing. Next, we will consider several exercises for developing musical ear.

First exercise

The first exercise is for attentiveness and interest. While walking down the street, you need to listen to the conversations of passers-by and hold in your head for some time the fragment you heard. Applying this exercise in practice, after some time you will be able to retain several snippets of conversations in your memory at once.

Second exercise

When listening to the conversations of passers-by, try to remember not only the phrase, but also the voices of people, so that the next time you hear a voice, you can remember the phrase spoken by the owner of this voice. When practicing this exercise, pay attention to the fact that each person has a manner of speaking that is unique to him.

Third exercise

This exercise is also based on voice memorization. There is a funny one where several people with whom he is familiar are seated in front of the main participant and they blindfold him. People take turns pronouncing some words, and main character The game must determine who owns the vote. This exercise is very useful for hearing development.

Fourth exercise

The next exercise is to listen to a simple musical composition and then try to sing it. This simple exercise promotes intensive hearing development and attention to musical sounds. First, you can just indulge in songs, memorize its melody the first time, a more difficult and more interesting option is to try to repeat a piece of instrumental music from memory. After some time, you will feel the ease of playing melodies and you will be able to move on to more complex works.

Fifth exercise

This exercise, oddly enough, is based on listening to lectures. So it will be easier for students to develop hearing and attentiveness than for people communicating in a limited circle. The exercise is as follows: after listening to the lecture, you need to try to reproduce not only the memorized information, but also try to repeat it with the same intonation as the teacher.

By repeating the above exercises for developing an ear for music day after day, you can achieve great heights in the development of not only an ear for music, but also attentiveness and interest in the world around you. And this is a new step towards a person’s realization of it creative potential, and with a more professional approach to business.

Let's watch a video that reveals the issues of musical hearing and defines its main types:

Music learning, especially for adults, can be difficult if a person's ear for music is not well developed. That is why most music teachers do not recommend ignoring solfeggio classes, the main task of which is to develop an ear for music in all directions.

What does the concept of “musical ear” actually mean? First, you need to decide what kind of hearing you need to develop. If you are learning to play, you need harmonic hearing, that is, the ability to hear harmony, mode - major or minor, and the color of sound. If you are a vocal student, your goal is to develop an ear for melody that will help you easily remember a melody consisting of individual intervals.

True, these are local tasks; in life, musicians have to be generalists - to sing, to play several instruments, and to teach this to others (playing an instrument through singing and, conversely, singing through playing an instrument). Therefore, most methodologists who talk about how to develop an ear for music agree that both melodic and harmonic hearing should develop simultaneously.

It also happens that a person hears and distinguishes, even notices mistakes in other singers, but he himself cannot sing cleanly and correctly. This happens because hearing (in in this case melodic) is there, but there is no coordination between it and the voice. In this case, regular vocal exercises will help, helping to establish a connection between the voice and hearing.

What determines the purity of singing?

It happens that a person seems to sing purely and according to the notes, but when he starts singing into the microphone, out of nowhere, mistakes and incorrect notes appear. What's the matter? It turns out that simply singing according to the notes is not everything. To sing cleanly, you need to consider some other parameters. Here they are:

1. Vocal position(or vocal yawn or singing yawn) is the position of the palate when singing. If it is not raised enough, it feels like the person is singing uncleanly or, more precisely, “lowering.” In order to eliminate this defect, it is useful to yawn for a few minutes before practicing vocals. If you find it difficult to do this, lift your tongue vertically and push the roof of your mouth until you yawn.
2. Direction of sound. Each person has his own unique voice timbre. Read about the types of voices in the article “”. But the sound (or color of your voice) can be changed depending on the content of the song. For example, no one will sing a lullaby with a dark and strict sound. For such a song to sound better, it needs to be sung in a light, gentle sound.
3. Moving the melody down. There is another peculiarity in music: when the melody moves downward, it must be sung as if its direction is completely opposite. For example, let’s take the famous song “Little Christmas Tree.” Sing the line from this song “...it's cold in winter...”. The melody moves down. The intonation falls; falsehood is possible at this point. Now try to sing the same line, while performing a smooth movement of your hand from bottom to top. Has the color of the sound changed? It became lighter and the intonation was cleaner.
4. Emotional Attunement– another important factor. Therefore, it is necessary to periodically sing for the audience. At least for your family. Stage fright will gradually go away.

What hinders the development of hearing and clear singing?

There are some things that can negatively affect hearing development. You can’t play an out-of-tune instrument and practice with two people in the same room at the same time. Music such as hard rock and rap is unlikely to help you develop your hearing, since it does not contain an expressive melody, and the harmony is most often primitive.

Methods and exercises for hearing development

There are many effective exercises for hearing development. Here are just a few of them:

1. Singing scales. We play the instrument do - re - mi - fa - sol - la - si - do and sing. Then without tools. Then from top to bottom. Again without a tool. Let's check the last sound. If we hit it, very good; if not, we train further.
2. Singing intervals. The simplest option is intervals based on the same C major scale (see previous exercise). We play and sing: do-re, do-mi, do-fa, etc. Then without tools. Then do the same from top to bottom.
3. "Echo". If you don't know how to play, you can develop your hearing as in kindergarten. Play your favorite song on your phone. Let's listen to one line. Press “pause” and repeat. And so the whole song. By the way, a telephone can be an excellent assistant: you can record intervals and scales on it (or ask them to play it for you if you don’t know how to do it yourself), and then listen to it throughout the day.
4. Studying musical notation . Musical ear is thoughts intellectual process, therefore, acquiring even the most basic knowledge about music in itself automatically contributes to the development of hearing. To help you - !
5. Study of classical music. If you are thinking about how to develop your musical ear, then do not forget that classical music is most conducive to ear development due to its expressive melody, rich harmony and orchestral sound. So, start studying this art more actively!

THAT'S NOT ALL!

Do you really want to sing, but don’t sleep at night because you don’t know how to develop an ear for music? Now you know how to get what you've been thinking about these nights! In addition, get a good video lesson on vocals from Elizaveta Bokova - she talks about the “three pillars” of vocals, the basics!