How did you train your aural skills and for how long?

[dontcheeseme]

Been too lazy to work on my interval, notes, chords, and harmonic recognition, worried that it might be necessary someday along my piano journey. It's heavily lagging compared to my other pianistic skills (anything that's non-aural).

[visitor]

this is best developed in the context of related theory. I would look at a junior or community college near you and seek out enrollment or audit their fundamental conservatory track theory and ear training sequence of courses. My school had 5 semesters of theory and 4 semesters of related aural skills courses so we trained all the while from Theory I through IV, then we applied more of those learned skills in our advanced theory V class.

an alternative woudl be to hire a good voice coach and take some singing lessons and work on being able to sight sing/acapella style  and have them work with you on harmony identification. you can do ear transcription on your own a little bit once a sufficient knowledge base is established.

[dontcheeseme]

How about those ear training exercises online? Are those a complete waste of time, or should I consider digging into them?

[quantum]

There are certain aspects of aural training, such as singing, that work best in the presence of a teacher.  I would consider online practice as supplemental work.  Learning sight singing, singing with a group, rhythmic problem solving, and dictation/transcription is much more effective if you work alongside other musicians, just like real music making. 

[keypeg]

Been too lazy to work on my interval, notes, chords, and harmonic recognition, worried that it might be necessary someday along my piano journey. It's heavily lagging compared to my other pianistic skills (anything that's non-aural).

I'm a bit confused.  How can you work on music without working with intervals, notes, chords etc?  That would be like someone learning to paint saying that he ignores colours, or shapes.

Um, given that the instrument is piano, I do sort of get the question.  For me, piano is an aural instrument and I have always related to it as sound.  But I guess you could play the notes on a score without ever hearing what you play.  Is that what you mean?

[dontcheeseme]

What I mean is that being able to recognize or recreate a note, chord, interval, and harmonic progression by ear alone, without the piano. Which I believe is very essential to me, who dreams of being able to compose pieces someday, without hunt-pecking the piano.

[j_tour]

I've been trying for maybe twenty-five years to stick with a "program" of ear-training/sight-singing, but that kind of approach doesn't appeal to me. 

I just got in the habit of sitting down at the keyboard maybe a dozen or twenty times a day and picking out some tune I heard on TV or a movie or a folk tune from memory.

It seems to work, to my limited needs/abilities, but I'm still a terrible sight-singer -- it only works for me when using the keyboard.  No, I don't have absolute pitch, so whatever key I hear in my mind's ear or am copying from a TV show is what I do. 

[avanchnzel]

What I mean is that being able to recognize or recreate a note, chord, interval, and harmonic progression by ear alone, without the piano. Which I believe is very essential to me, who dreams of being able to compose pieces someday, without hunt-pecking the piano.

Perfect pitch is very difficult to train if you're not already born with it. I had a cousin who trained perfect pitch and she still can't tell notes on extreme registers.

Maybe you'll find having relative pitch preferable, which can be acquired more easily after years of musical training. Plenty of musicians have relative pitch. You'll just have to find one note and then you have all the rest.

Perfect pitch is a pain in the neck to have. I really wouldn't advise you to go down that path. As someone who has it, I'd say the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

[quantum]

I just got in the habit of sitting down at the keyboard maybe a dozen or twenty times a day and picking out some tune I heard on TV or a movie or a folk tune from memory.

I did that as well when practicing for undergraduate foundations courses.  Picking out jingles and theme songs from shows.  One of my instructors referenced these frequently when giving examples of modes and harmonic progressions. 

[iansinclair]

I cheated.  I started singing as a boy soprano at age six, and a proper little devil I expect I was... and I've never stopped singing and directing choirs -- and learning! -- ever since!  But seriously, the best training for aural skills is singing.  And singing some more.  Preferably in a choir, preferably with a kindly but somewhat intolerant of mistakes director.  And, preferably, singing music as advanced as you can; it is one thing to sing something like Bach or Sweelinck, but quite another to sing something like Poulenc or Stravinsky!

[ted]

I tried it using a computer program for a few weeks and was soon able to recognise many things. However, as the skill seemed to add nothing to my improvisation I concluded that the ability was unconnected to the creative process and stopped doing it.

[pianoplunker]

Been too lazy to work on my interval, notes, chords, and harmonic recognition, worried that it might be necessary someday along my piano journey. It's heavily lagging compared to my other pianistic skills (anything that's non-aural).

so what you are saying is that you are too lazy to practice piano. It has happened to me many times. Even getting chastised for it a few times. But then something inspires me again and I get back to it

[mrcreosote]

RE:  CHORDS:  Hearing Them:

My aural skills are poor.  But I must ask, how do you "hear" a chord since it is impossible to sing a chord?

I cannot hear individual notes in a chord, so I've been baffled when trying to play pop music by ear.

I've heard "bar" musicians refer to learning the "changes" which does make sense to me.

I suppose notes are letters, then you have words, then sentences - where each is an entity.

I suppose you have to be able to learn each of all the possible 2 chord changes - and then the chord type (9th, 13th, dim 7th, etc.)  Perhaps then the voicings of them.
_________________________

What I've just outlined could be complete hooey so I never gambled spending the time (years) to see if this would work for me.

[dcstudio]

I tried it using a computer program for a few weeks and was soon able to recognise many things. However, as the skill seemed to add nothing to my improvisation I concluded that the ability was unconnected to the creative process and stopped doing it.

Hmm. I think you may have reached that conclusion a bit too hastily. It takes a bit of time for something learned with the ears to find it's way fluidly out of the fingers.  I imagine it added quite a bit to your improv -- you haven't yet realized how.

Ear training is everything.  To say it isn't necessary is...well...blasphemous. just try making music without your ears.  They are more important than your hands.

[jason_sioco]

I train my ear for about 3 hours maximum every single day. Sometimes it's shorter than 3 hours depending on how much I have accomplished with the exercises. When it comes to aural skills, I believe in just small chunks of accomplishments at a time. How do you eat a big elephant? One small bite at a time.

My aural training routine goes like this:

*I go to this website called iwasdoingalright and I do a bunch of exercises with melody recognition. What I like about this website is that it is a call and response type of ear training. A melody plays and I have to respond by playing the same melody that was played. I work from one single note till two notes and sometimes 3 note melodies or more. Then I work with harmonic notes. That means notes played together. I asses myself by using a 7 minute timer on my cellphone. If time runs out and I made only 5 mistakes or less, then I make the exercise a bit more difficult the following day. I play the answers with a piano, while I do this exercise.

*After I finish the exercises with iwasdoingalright, then I learn a tune a day. That means I transcribe one simple to transcribe song every single day. I have been doing this for 40 days straight. This exercise builds the mind, ear, solfege, and finger coordination. How much more if I have done this for 365 days straight. I have my own system for reviewing previous songs that I have transcribe. The songs I have transcribed I keep the titles on an excel file. Right now I am transcribing songs played in the church, because they're simple and diatonic and easy to transcribe. I am at that phase right now. Later on, I will do more complicated music as my ears improve.

*After I learn one tune, then I spend 10-11 minutes with some solfege exercises. I learned these exercises from Ron Gorow's book Hearing and Writing Music and Adam Nitti's ear training exercise.

*Then I work with chord progressions and changes. I play actual chord progressions of a song and I sing along, and I play the changes from memory. This builds my inner internalization of the chord changes and their subtle nuances. I keep the titles of the songs that I have memorized on an excel file. I have my own system for reviewing previous music.

*Then I do some vocal exercises to improve my singing voice.

*Then I work with Chord Identification. There was a professor in my school named Ron Westray, who gave me a chart of every single chord type in the world. With a 20 minute timer on my cellphone and an excel file, I play every single chord. When the time is done, I put a check mark of the chord that I last left off and continue the next day. When I have completed every single chord I go back to Major Triad and play with a different root note other than C like F, Bb, Eb, Ab, etc. With my jazz piano lessons with Amanda Tosoff, I am able to play chord voicings that are used by the pros.

*Then I use this flash card software game called Anki for internalization and familiarization of the piano. I also play guitar so I work the same thing with the guitar too. I put some single notes, Like C4 B5 E2 etc, then I work with harmonic notes, then I work with all the types of piano chords. The Anki software will ask me random questions based on the question that I have placed. Anki is originally used to help us learn languages, but it works for music too.

This takes me a maximum of 2-3 hours every single day. I recently purchased a CD called Play What You Hear by this British Jazz Guitarist named Chris Standring. When it finally arrives at my home, I might end up practicing aural skills for 4 hours with this new method of mine coming up.

[dcstudio]

Geez 3 hours every day? What are your goals musically speaking?