The ears are an amazing part of the human body. There are so many tiny parts that have to go together in just the right way in order for us to hear. If we treat our ears right they will in turn treat us with the ability to enjoy so many wonderful sounds.

In music, it is imperative that we train not only our hands, feet, or voice, but that we train our ears to the same standard or even higher. There are many ways to go about ear training and we will go into some of them in this article.

Listening Starts With the Ears.
You probably don’t even realize you’re doing it, but every day when you listen to music, watch TV, even when you are just talking with a friend, you are training your ears. The reason you recognize the sound of your mother’s voice, for instance, is because your ear is trained to that sound. From just hearing one word you know it’s her. It comes from repetition. Hearing her voice over and over etches the sonic fingerprint in your brain and you recognize it immediately.

You can do the same with music. You can teach your brain to recognize notes, intervals, chords, progressions, and all sorts of other things, just by doing that one thing we know we all have to do if we really want to reach a high level of competence in this game of music. That thing, of course, is practice. You need to practice hearing the notes, intervals, chords, and so on. It all comes down to listening and listening with purpose.

Start With the Basics
A good place to start with ear training is by learning to hear pitches. There are great programs such as Auralia 4 by Rising Software and a lot of different apps for iOS that can get you started. The great thing about these programs is that they have simple tests you can take where you can see what level you are at and what you need to work on. A test for the beginner is to just hear two notes and to see if you can tell which one is higher or lower pitched. That, of course, is super basic but you have to start somewhere. Take that to the level of where you can hear intervals or the relationship between two notes. Then get to the advanced stage of hearing chords and learning how they work within scales.

There is a freedom that comes with training your ears to know those things. Imagine you are jamming with your friends playing a blues song — being able to not only play the basic chords of a blues progression but being able to go where ever your mind tells you at the time. You can now improvise and you will start to know what will be coming next. That is a great tool to have in the toolbox; being able to anticipate the changes coming in the song.

Learn as Many Songs as You Can
The rules of music are in the songs we listen to every day. The more songs you learn, the more you learn about music and how to manipulate those rules. On top of that is the giant plus of being able to hear what’s coming next. In the first part of this series, Sitting In, I wrote about listening to what the other musicians around you are playing. As you train your ears you’ll start hearing the changes coming. You will be able to anticipate the chorus and set it up with a nice fill or riff — even if you don’t know the song you are playing. Music, especially modern pop and rock music, has rules that get used over and over again.

What Instrument was That?
Another great way to train your ears is to start recognizing the sounds of different instruments other then your own. Basic as well, but there are more things out there other than the bass, drums, guitar, and keyboards we hear in Western music. This is all about training your ears and brain to recognize things in music so you can have the freedom to really express yourself when you get behind your particular instrument. For example, if you listen to instruments such as the sarod or sitar, which are used mainly in Indian music, but also in some Western music, and you start to learn the different notes and scales they use, those tools will now be there for you to use. Imagine you are sitting in with a band and you are soloing, if you throw in a little bit of those things you learned from listening to those other instruments, you’ll make some heads turn! It’s always great to have someone come up to you after you sit in and say something like “Man, that solo was killer! That Indian kind of thing you put in there was not what I expected. That was great!” This is just one example of where you can get to from this kind of ear training.

Wrap Up
As a musician, there is nothing better then having the freedom to transmit what you hear in your mind onto your instrument without limitations. It all comes from practice and training. When you are in a situation where you get that opportunity and your mind, ears, and body act as one, you will know why you started playing music in the first place.

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How to Listen: Part 2 — Ear Training

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