alt Hacker NewsThese are all good exercises that help you build a solid foundation, but they can sometimes cause motivation to dip being somewhat clinical in nature.
So what I usually do is compile a list of melodic hooks from popular songs my students enjoy. Every so often, we’ll play them and let the student try to pick them out on the piano or their instrument of choice. I find that the satisfaction they get from being able to recreate a familiar pop‑culture melody really helps spark their interest in getting better at playing by ear, which in turn motivates them to stick with the exercises.
Shameless plug but I built a unique game specifically to help some of my more classically trained friends get better at playing piano by ear.
It's a free piano game in the style of the old "Simon" toy which presents players with increasingly longer sequences of musical notes and challenges them to reproduce the sequence using either an on-screen piano or connected MIDI keyboard. It also works with acoustic instruments through the mic.
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Nice!
My wish list for this:
1. Even the practice mode has a high bar as it expects me to get the whole thing right in the first shot. It should let me try some before jumping to tell me I got it wrong and automatically playing it again.
2. Show me the first key of the sequence and have me figure only the rest. Why: When I hear the note sequence, I cannot pick the absolute scale, only the intervals. So I practically always get the first key wrong, which then goes to #1 above.
May be there are some settings related to the above. I could not find if there.
> So what I usually do is compile a list of melodic hooks from popular songs my students enjoy. Every so often, we’ll play them and let the student try to pick them out on the piano or their instrument of choice.
As someone who had ongoing formal musical training from childhood through university, I can attest that multiple teachers used a similar technique, focusing on finding a group of commonly-heard melodies such that the first intervals encountered in them cover as much of the set as possible.
Haven't tried the game yet, but looking forward to checking it out later to see if I can offer it to some of my friends who want to learn music better!
First of all, thank you for making it free!
I'm completely new to ear training. Could you give some advice on what a newbie should think while doing this? For example, should I try to sing the thing in solfeges in my head, or it's considered bad practice? And if I do, should I sing the first note as Do?
I remember in jazz class the instructor had a stack of jingles that showcased particular "weird" intervals. The only one I really remember now is the "Alway Coca Cola" jingle and a M6, but this was a _long_ time ago.
This is really simple and great!! Thanks for not stuffing it with ads.
Is there a way to make it work a bit better for phones? On mobile Safari, just tapping to enable sound doesn’t seem to work until I reload and tap again.
This is quite a nice idea and works well, but I think I would rather spend the time listening to and imitating real Miles Davis solos etc.
This is very fun!
I think this is smart. I have never done ear training apps because I just don't like to learn music that way - it doesn't "stick" for me.
I like to learn in the context of a song. Here's what a melody sounds like when you start it over the 1 of a chord. Here's a melody when you start it on the 3 over a chord. But, again, in the context of a known song.
I just don't think "non-musical" exercises have ever moved me forward as a musician, if that makes sense.
Just testing out practice mode, I found what I really wanted was to be able to stay at a certain level until I felt I was getting good at sequences of that length, not immediately get pushed to the next level every time even when it took me 8 tries to get the 4-note sequence right. Give me a chance to feel like I'm improving! Don't just keep giving me harder things when I keep struggling with the existing ones.