 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Ashley91489
Date: 2008-10-27 02:18
I'm having difficulty with aural skills training, mainly dictation and certain intervals. I've done ear trainers online for intervals and it has helped some but there are still certain intervals that I don't get as well. Melodic dictations are also very difficult sometimes as I can't easily get the pitches down.
I know this isn't directly related to clarinet playing but I do think it is very important when it comes to playing an instrument to help with tuning and getting the pitches down. I'm hoping to be able to improve with this and hopefully apply it the clarinet playing.
Post Edited (2008-10-27 22:40)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Geirskogul
Date: 2008-10-27 03:18
I play the clarinet specifically because I can't "tune by ear". Electronic tuners ftw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Keith P
Date: 2008-10-27 05:18
If you have access to be in a structured choir I would recommend joining because in choir you use those skills quite frequently. I think that you learn by singing in choir your ability to dictate music and hear intervals will greatly improve.
Although that is only one thing, it sure helped me ;-).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-10-27 17:19
Ashley -
It's important to have a tuner. There are excellent and inexpensive ones, such as the Korg CA-30, which is available for under $20.
While a tuner can give you an A to set the pitch, it's much more valuable in learning intervals. Set the tuner to sound, say, C, and play the basic intervals -- the octave, fifth and fourth -- against it.
That is, set the tuner to C and play C an octave above, learning to hear the interval and play it in tune. Then play the G above, learning to hear and tune the fifth. Do the same with the fourth (C/F), the major third (C/E) and the minor third (C/Eb).
Then do the same with the intervals below the C.
Then set the tuner to D and learn those intervals, and so on.
Learn to hear the beats of an out of tune interval, and train your body to bring each interval in tune.
Go as slowly as you need to. In fact, the slower the better.
This will also teach you to recognize intervals, which will improve your dictation.
You can also use well known music that begins with particular intervals. For example, "There's a Place for Us" from West Side Story begins with a rising minor seventh. To hear the interval, just start the song in your mind.
It will take about 1,000 repetitions to hear and play an interval in tune. You can do that in a couple of weeks if you keep at it.
All advanced players have gone through exactly the process you're now beginning, and all of them have made it. You can too.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2008-10-27 21:15
Ashley, are you taking an ear training class in college? If you are, I feel for you. When I was in college, these classes gave me fits. I did well in my other music classes, but when I finished the required sequence of ear training classes (my grade in the final one was barely passing) I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I agree completely with the advice the others have given you. There is no substitute for lots and lots of practice. I used to spend hours in the ear training listening room with the old reel to reel tapes practicing melodic and harmonic dictation. Little by little you will get better, but it takes time.
For melodic dictation, I'm assuming that your instructor gives you the key, but doesn't tell you the first note. I'm assuming that for the first note your instructor starts on 1, 3, or 5 of the scale, but he/she doesn't tell you what pitch it is. Get familiar with some of the cliche openings, like 5 - 1 (both ascending and descending), 3 - 5 - 1, 1 -3 - 5, etc. Practice playing and singing these patterns in every key. When you have to do dictation, the first time you hear the selection, focus mainly on the opening. If you've got the opening right, that's most of the battle. On subsequent playings, quickly jot down noteheads. Try to dectect the meter. Most of the time, it won't count against you if you write 2/4 and it's 4/4 or vice-versa. You do want to make sure that you can hear for 3/4 and 6/8, and this might require some practice.
Not to scare you, but I remember the final exam in my final ear training class, and the professor played dirty. He started to play "Bethena" by Scott Joplin. We all looked at him, wondering if this was our dictation sample. We didn't think he was serious. Well, he was! It turns out that "Bethena" starts on the 2nd note of the scale, but few of us detected this. I sure bombed that exam, and I don't think I was the only one!
Joining a choir is good advice. Thinking about familiar songs to identify intervals is also good advice. I used to do the same--perfect 4th--"Here Comes the Bride," augmented fourth--"Maria" from West Side Story, perfect 5th--"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," descending major 3rd--opening of "Beethoven's 5th Symphony, descending minor 3rd--beginning of the clarinet solo part in the Mozart clarinet concerto, etc.
Is sight singing part of the class? For me it was. When I started college I was an atrocious singer who couldn't come close to singing on pitch. After a lot of practice, my singing and sight singing really improved.
Keep plugging away, and you'll get it. Good luck!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: stevesklar
Date: 2008-10-27 22:30
I've always used a keyboard set to organ church mode
play a note and duplicate it on clarinet
or play several or a simple song and record it for playback - or have someone help you
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Nessie1
Date: 2008-10-28 18:52
I don't know what's available in the US to suit you but certainly in the UK there are various books that come with CDs with a range of tests that you could try - the one I know mainly is called Aural Matters and is published by Rhinegold. I think you could probably order it direct from them over the internet if you can't get it any other way.
With something like this you could give yourself a few minutes when ever you can (every day would be great but if you can't fit this in a few times a week - I actually used to do it with the CD in a personal CD player on the London Underground on the way to work(!)) working through the book which is intended to be progressive within each section which has different types of test. I'm sure you would soon feel happier about it.
One other suggestion - a bit similar to what I wrote about sightreading on another thread - don't listen to a test until you are really ready to do it properly or you will not be doing it under genuine conditions.
Good luck!
Vanessa.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jkelly32562
Date: 2008-10-29 05:34
David Burge has what I would call the best ear training resource. If you follow his directions and his training method to the letter, perfect pitch can be acquired.
Another resource is an inexpensive program called MacGamut, if you believe that practice makes perfect this would be a great investment.
Jonathan Kelly
jkelly32562@troy.edu
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Pathik
Date: 2008-10-29 09:23
Jkelly32562 wrote:
> David Burge has what I would call the best ear training
> resource. If you follow his directions and his training method
> to the letter, perfect pitch can be acquired.
Have you acquired perfect pitch by using David Burge's ear training program? I came across a short review of David Burge's perfect pitch training program on this web site: http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Top_Free_Ear_Training_Software_232_2006.php I haven't tried his program myself, and don't intend to, because I must say that I find the kind of claims that David Burge makes are quite ridiculous, but who knows, maybe it really does work for some people? That's why I was interested to know if you had actually acquired absolute pitch by following his directions. The web site quoted above is dedicated to short descriptions/reviews of various ear training software, and gives some useful information.
What I tend to use myself is the functional ear trainer, which is designed to improve your sense of relative pitch. It's freeware, and can be found here:
http://www.miles.be/fet.html
In general, I find that singing is a great way to improve my aural skills, and especially so sight singing. There are several good resources out there if you feel drawn to this.
Something else you might want to explore is playing back on your instrument what you hear on a recording, playing back a phrase you're singing, or just playing a tune you know well by ear. I play jazz and find it most useful to learn improvised jazz solos on recordings by ear and then playing them from memory. There's a good online ear training tool along these lines at http://www.iwasdoingallright.com/
It is my experience that aural skills do improve if I keep working at it every day, but don't let anyone fool you to believe that you can have absolute pitch in no time by following some ridiculously expensive "program". Aural training is hard work, often somewhat boring, but very rewarding if you stick to it. I would say that great ears are a must for any musician, and especially so for anyone who is involved in playing any kind of improvised music.
Pathik
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Nessie1
Date: 2008-10-29 09:37
To contribute to this discussion, perfect, or absolute, pitch is not the be all and end all of good aural skills. Many people I know who have it consider it to be an absolute curse. After all, what must it be like if you have perfect pitch and then go somewhere where you have to play with an out-of-tune piano?
Of course, the OP's question was to do with recognising intervals and, if one could develop perfect pitch, it would obviously solve this problem but, as far as the wider application to playing, which is also mentioned, is concerned, it could create new issues.
Vanessa.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2008-10-30 14:25
Incorporate intervals into your daily clarinet practice. Pick one interval and start each practice with it. Play it and then sing it. Do this several times.
Freelance woodwind performer
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mrn
Date: 2008-10-30 15:07
Relative pitch is much more useful than absolute pitch, especially if you play transposing instruments, like we do (which creates a kind of cognitive dissonance with absolute pitch)
I read something interesting the other day, though. Turns out that most people have a kind of limited absolute pitch capability that is really a kind of long-term tonal memory. According to at least one study, if you ask people to sing a tune from memory without giving them a reference starting pitch, a rather significant number of people will start on the right note most of the time.
I tried this myself one day with iTunes, and at least for me, it's true. To my surprise, I found that I can almost always sing the right starting pitch just off the top of my head, even though I may not know the name. Try it--you may surprise yourself!
In fact, if you can remember the note names of the beginning notes to a few tunes, combined with a decent grasp of relative pitch (intervals), you can become your own pitch reference with minimal effort. I'm a bit of a Shostakovich fan, so if I need a B, C, D, or Eb, I just sing the DSCH motive, for instance. Some other ones I find easy to remember are Beethoven's 5th (starts on G), Shostakovich's 7th (starts on C), Rhapsody in Blue (starts F trill, ascends to Bb), Mozart's K622 in A Major (starts on E--concert pitch, mind you), and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor (starts on A).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
