 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2014-02-09 11:04
I need help. Here's the deal:
I failed sight singing and musical dictation twice back when I was in college. The resulting despair was one of the reasons I quit playing. However, we weren't given any instruction whatsoever, so it wasn't all my fault.
In spite of my difficulties I was able to play well. Right now I sing a cappella Russian style music in church and do well. I sing bass. I actually do best if I'm the only one singing my part. I can sing in tune (as long as the choir is mostly in tune), and hit the notes, but the parts are simple an formulaic, and my note is usually in one of the other parts. I have been praised for my voice, and for my "ison" in Byzantine music (a drone held a fourth below the "root" of a modal melody).
I do have intonation problems when playing my instrument by myself and when singing by myself. I have a hard time tuning to pitches more than an octave above myself. If I try to sight sing a simple melody I usually wreck it the first time, but can nail it after a few tries. If I can sing a melody, I can easily transpose it. Sometimes I have a hard time matching a random pitch on the first try. It's like I can't tell what pitch I will come out of my mouth until I actually sing it. I have very little ability to imagine melodies.
I have been doing some ear training, and am making some very slow progress. I'm using a program that plays a I-IV-V-I cadence in a random key, and then plays a note more than an octave above the root, and asks me to identify which step of the scale it is. It's discouraging. Two things are disastrous. When the key changes by a whole step up or down, or when the note to identify in two successive keys is exactly the same pitch. In either case I get lost. I think sometimes the cadence is not in the same inversion and this confuses me, but I'm not sure. I can identify the root reliably, but it requires concentration - I may gravitate to one of the other pitches if it has a strong relation to the previous root and I'm not paying attention. If I have the program stay in C, without changing keys it's easy, but mostly I'm just remembering the exact pitches themselves, not hearing their "relative" pitch.
I think my biggest problem is that I tend to hear the notes in isolation, rather than as related in a key. It is my observation that most people, even with no training or aesthetic taste, can sing popular melodies much more accurately than I can. I know I'm not singing them correctly, but I can't remember exactly how they go.
My question: Have any of you had students with similar problems, and what sort of exercises would you suggest to help me improve?
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2014-02-09 17:39
Matt, your question about sight singing and dictation brought back some old memories, many of them not good! After a lot of practice my sight singing skills really improved, but my grades in harmonic dictation were nothing to brag about, even after spending countless hours practicing it.
Some people can do what you're trying to do very easily. For others, it takes a lot of work.
Do you play piano or a keyboard instrument? Thinking back, piano class (where we spent time adding harmonies to melodies and playing them in different keys) was as helpful or more helpful to me than ear training classes. Perhaps if you played these I-IV-V-I chord progressions in various keys it would help. While playing, you could try to sing the note names in the chords. You could also pick an easy tune, and with the piano as your guide, try singing it in different keys.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-02-09 20:34
I would only offer that drilling from the beginning steps might be helpful and work your way back up slowly. Ear training begins with the identification of simple intervals (not related to key), first ascending and then the trickier descending intervals. Once you have a firm handle on that, the next item is to identify the quality of a random chord, then the inversion (what position is held by each chord member). All this must precede the moving to key centers.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: John Morton
Date: 2014-02-10 03:30
My brother who teaches ear training at a college recommended this:
http://www.good-ear.com/servlet/EarTrainer
It probably overlaps the program you use (or it's the same). I find it best to start at the bottom of a category and work up to where it starts to become difficult. At that level you're having to think about your responses, and repetition helps to internalize the intervals.
John
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Author: FDF
Date: 2014-02-09 22:59
Learn some piano, and along with that: scales and arpeggios. Play simple tunes by ear rather than by music. All of this will help you develop relative pitch and a good ear for playing the clarinet.
Enjoy what you are doing and good luck.
FDF
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Author: brycon
Date: 2014-02-10 21:00
Quote:
I would only offer that drilling from the beginning steps might be helpful and work your way back up slowly. Ear training begins with the identification of simple intervals (not related to key), first ascending and then the trickier descending intervals. Once you have a firm handle on that, the next item is to identify the quality of a random chord, then the inversion (what position is held by each chord member). All this must precede the moving to key centers.
Why must all this precede moving to key centers? Many university theory programs begin learning intervals and triads vis-a-vis scales because of students' familiarity with them. Why not do the same with ear-training?
Matt, a few exercises that might help you are:
1. Sing major and minor (all types) of scales against a tonic drone pitch.
2. Sing triads (all qualities and inversions) against drone pitches.
3. Play a triad at the piano but omit one of the chord tones, sing that missing tone.
4. Sing chord progressions in arpeggiation. For example: sing ii6-V7-I with correct voice-leading between the parts.
5. Sing intervals up and down. Play the first pitch on the piano and sing the second.
6. Play Bach chorales at the piano and sing one of the lines.
Hopefully this gives you a few ideas and will allow you to create and tailor exercises that better fit your goals.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-02-11 03:15
Well my only point is that moving from G down to C is a perfect fifth, but so is moving down from an A to a D but in the key of C, the first fifth move to the tonic, the second does not - harmonic analysis comes with more complex baggage. You need to KNOW a perfect fifth before you can appreciate why you don't want to move in parallel fifths (for example)..........if that makes sense.
................................Paul Aviles
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Author: brycon
Date: 2014-02-12 00:36
Quote:
Well my only point is that moving from G down to C is a perfect fifth, but so is moving down from an A to a D but in the key of C, the first fifth move to the tonic, the second does not - harmonic analysis comes with more complex baggage. You need to KNOW a perfect fifth before you can appreciate why you don't want to move in parallel fifths (for example)..........if that makes sense.
Paul, the issue with your example of parallel fifths is that, divorced of their context, they do not sound bad. In fact, parallel fifths were used extensively in the organum tradition and at many cadential moments in the late medieval period.
The "rule" to avoid parallel fifths and octaves emerged alongside a desire for more traidic harmonies and independent contrapuntal lines, which occurred during the Renaissance. Parallel fifths arrest movement, destroy independence of line, and assert a tonal center. When removed from the contrapuntal and voice-leading context of the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras, however, there is nothing wrong with them.
So in other words, how would being able to recognize a fifth by ear make one aware of its historical contrapuntal/voice-leading considerations?
My only point was that scales can provide students of ear-training an in: it may be easier to think of a fifth as scale degree 1-5, 2-6, etc rather than an abstract span of space.
At the least, I would be more careful about throwing out words like must.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-02-12 01:25
I would be careful about throwing out words like "contrapuntal voice-leading of the Renaissance."
:-)
Gotta crawl before you walk.
..................Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2014-02-11 20:26)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2014-02-13 03:00
Thank you guys. All of that is helpful.
I don't know if it matters, but upon further reflection and trying some other things I think my problem is that I sense the pitches accurately, but that the sensory information doesn't get translated or processed into my understanding, where they are understood or percieved as related to one another.
When I was practicing simple intervals online I tried forcing myself to sing them first. My accuracy improved dramatically. When I first heard them they were only two random pitches, but when I sang them it was immediately clear what their relationships were. After singing the intervals for a while it got easier to recognize them without singing them.
So, I think I'll start at the most basic level and do a lot of singing at the same time. Then, hopefully I will be able to do the same exercises without singing.
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