Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

[Kam]

I've never really been much for learning other people's songs. Apart from a riff here or there, I can't actually remember the last time I learnt to play a song that I haven't written. I do, however, consider having a good ear for pitch to be a vital part of being a musician and it's a skill that is woefully under-developed in my case. So I'd like to dedicate some time to improving that aspect of myself.

Obviously, just like everything else in playing guitar (and possibly even more so) I'm aware that it takes continual practice to improve. I think some tips on where to begin would really help, though.

So, can anyone offer any advice or guidance on this matter? Maybe some exercises to start off with, or some simple songs that are easy to work out for a beginner?

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

I used to spend 5 minutes a day or so practicing on sites like this: http://www.musictheory.net/exercises until stuff started to click for me.

Once you can quickly identify chords that you're listening to, or the interval between one note and the next it's just a matter of time before you can listen to a song and turn it into music. Drilling's boring as hell, but it's effective if you're trying to learn to identify notes.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Try learning someone else's song.

Pick it out without the assistance of tablature.

My favorite song I ever did this with was Tommy Emmanuel's "Mombasa," but that was quite an undertaking.

Another great song to do it with, actually a perfect song to start with is Foo Fighters' "Stranger Things Have Happened."

Pretty basic, 2 note chords, simple rhythm, etc.



So sit down for 15 minutes and pick out that opening phrase. After you do, you will feel empowered, because you will realize that you taught your hands to do something purely from information entering your ears. SORCERY!

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Sing a line, play it on guitar...go from there

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Learn a few cover songs that are outside of your usual listening/ playing styles. Maybe work out the keyboard part from a couple of songs. (I always start by working out the bassline). Maybe work out the lines of a brass section part from some song and work out a way to play them all together on guitar.

Work out some chords that you can strum along with some classical music.

Re-visit some simple old songs to zone right in on some of the slightly unusual chords that maybe you never got and simply played a more regular chord as a substitute. (Stones, Police etc)

Any and all of these things will stretch your ear into areas where you don't usually go and get your fingers working in different ways on the fretboard.

Have some long-term learning projects going at the same time as some shorter, easier ones, and move back and forth between them before you get depressed by struggling with the harder stuff or bored by the easier stuff. As long as you keep working at it, you WILL make forward progress, even at those times when you feel you're not.

This is by no means a definitive method, but they are aspects of improving that you can incorporate with other things that people will suggest. The thing to remember is that there are only a certain number of notes and you can find them. It can be slow at first, but like everything, it gets easier the more you do it.

 

[Khriss Bliss]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

If u practice in the dark, or blindfolded, youll hone your ear. This is great for learning bends on a new type of guitar. It also trains your mind to learn the necksize and positions.

If u cant get perfect pitch than shoot for relative pitch. Ex: detune your guitar and retune it to song in your head. Then play the song on yr music device to see how close you came. If you tagged it, you got perf pitch. But even if you dont, you can teach yourself note intervals, so that you know how to go from the root note to any other note or back. Eventually, youll notice chord formulas, like McCartney goes from root to the fourth chord first, ( much like 12 bar blues). You may also notice that the last chord before going back to root is often the fifth ( much like 12bar blues). If u know some blues chords and scales, then listen to some old jazz and start to pick the notes OUTSIDE the scale and eventually you will have your own language to teach yourself how notes and chords relate to each other i.e. Relative Pitch.

Also, this might help: modal means a song uses a set collection of notes. So the key of C has a relative minor, Am. So whether you use a cmajor scale or an Aminor scale, its all the same notes... And with those seven notes, you can build other chords like F or Eminor, so that would keep the song modal. Once you grasp modal, you start to pick the nonmodal outside chords and enjoy how the greats slip in an extra note or two or three outside the seven notes. Ex: if a song in Cmajor slips in a Dmajor, the F# in that chord adds spice. Youll come to see that alot of songs are either modal, or add nonmodal notes here and there, but in small effective doses.

 

[woemoejack]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

When I took college theory classes, the teacher always tried to relate all visual learning tools to piano keys. I don't play piano... so I had a piece of paper that was basically a fretboard diagram, the kind you see in chord charts and scale books. I laminated it so I could dry-erase marker to map out intervals, modes, etc. It really helped me learn where notes where on a guitar neck. As in, I can see in my head every place that an f# happens on a neck, and if I know where a root note is, I know the modal scale patterns from there.

Learning to aurally identify intervals will help you indefinitely. Like if you hear two notes played in a sequence or at the same time and you know that it is a minor 3rd interval. Major thirds, perfect 4ths and 5ths should be the easiest for you since they occur in common guitar tunings. I would practice by playing random two note simultaneous intervals and really getting a feel and familiarity of how that interval sounds. You'll be amazed how often you can pick out chord shapes in songs you hear once you get used to it. Maybe not knowing that it is a C7, but definitely some kind of 7 chord.

Best of luck. Hope this helps, but I'm drunk so what do I know.

 

[Khriss Bliss]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

+1 what the drunk guy said: intervals are your Rosetta Stone for decoding pitch and theory.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Sing a line, play it on guitar...go from there

this!

Put down your guitar and write a riff in your head.

Now pick up your guitar and figure out how to play it.

Do this enough times and you'll get pretty good at figuring things out by ear.

I know it works because it's pretty much how I've approached music my whole life.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

download a torrent of jamey aebersold's backing tracks.

While doing other things, SCAT improvised solos over the chord changes.

They have tons of blues/standards in there so you shouldn't be too worried about genre limitation.

After building some finesse with being able to sing thru the changes as well as being able to play the arpeggios across the fretboard for all the chord tones in a given bar of the tune, go part by part and do what sososomething suggested. If the first part is Dmin7>Ehalf diminished>G7+5 (a tune im working on now called IDLE MOMENTS, a Henderson tune but the blue note 7 version is killer) play the arpeggios neatly to remind your brain of your options, put the guitar down and sing a cohesive line over the part, then try to play it well.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

download a torrent of jamey aebersold's backing tracks.

While doing other things, SCAT improvised solos over the chord changes.

They have tons of blues/standards in there so you shouldn't be too worried about genre limitation.

After building some finesse with being able to sing thru the changes as well as being able to play the arpeggios across the fretboard for all the chord tones in a given bar of the tune, go part by part and do what sososomething suggested. If the first part is Dmin7>Ehalf diminished>G7+5 (a tune im working on now called IDLE MOMENTS, a Henderson tune but the blue note 7 version is killer) play the arpeggios neatly to remind your brain of your options, put the guitar down and sing a cohesive line over the part, then try to play it well.

Jesus, that's like running a marathon to train for a pitch 'n putt game.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Jesus, that's like running a marathon to train for a pitch 'n putt game.

Yeah, I'm floored by the approaches some people take.

I know I'm just one person and everyone is different and all, but I can't help but feel like... if your approach to practice and playing is like cramming for college finals, maybe rock and roll isn't for you?

 

[Kam]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Wa-holy ****, guys. Some great advice here. I honestly wasn't expecting this much input. Thanks a lot. :beerchug:

I think I'm going to alternate between those exercises that Steve posted and trying to just work out songs on my own. I'll take a swing at that Foos song that I6 posted (great wee song, by the way) and then I figure I'll take a shot at some Rage Against The Machine and Bob Dylan stuff. The RATM because I'm already familiar with how Tom writes and plays and I think that'll give me a headstart and the Dylan because cowboy chords seem like a good place to start with working out more than single note riffs.

Now it's just about finding the time and discipline to sit down and actually work at it. No mean feat...

Sing a line, play it on guitar...go from there

this!

Put down your guitar and write a riff in your head.

Now pick up your guitar and figure out how to play it.

Do this enough times and you'll get pretty good at figuring things out by ear.

I know it works because it's pretty much how I've approached music my whole life.

This is actually what's inspired me to try to improve. I've got stuff in my head that I just can't seem to move to the fretboard. I don't know whether that's because I'm already locked into a certain style and technique and can't move beyond it or whether the stuff I'm imagining is just more complex than I'm used to playing. I'm hearing chord voicings and moods that I just can't bring out of my fingers. So I figure that having a better sense of what sounds like what will help me say what I just can't seem to say, if you know what I mean.

Hope this helps, but I'm drunk so what do I know.

This is my new sig.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

Yeah, I'm floored by the approaches some people take.

I know I'm just one person and everyone is different and all, but I can't help but feel like... if your approach to practice and playing is like cramming for college finals, maybe rock and roll isn't for you?

well, it is like leisure for me. I took 1 semester of jazz performance at a local college and it transformed the way I approach the instrument. I'm not very good at all, sometimes I have my moments, I had a bad run with drugs for a bit and that messed up my 'flow' so to speak so I have to work 10x as hard to not be a huge funk-up on the guitar.

I used to be a purely rock/blues guy who winged it all the time, but no matter how good you are, if you don't do something to keep growing, the ideas will stagnate. I just got hungry for more, bored of doodling, etc. I still suffer from doodling, but now I can 'see' what tones will sound like and I can navigate the fretboard in a far more creative way than when I would just practice by sitting down and doodling for hours mindlessly, despite my currently pickled brain state.

It's not an insane approach or anything. I just turn on a metronome, and look at this sheet.. before I knew it I had all of them memorized. This chart has a special way of 'waking up' your ear and your fingers as to keep you from just running around the fretboard. Visualize your diatonic 7 note scales over these arpeggios and it really transforms your fretboard awareness.
http://www.prismnet.com/~beckerdo/guitars/SeventhArpeggios.png

4 note arpeggios! Just set your metronome to 40 and play them ultra slow, obviously get the major7, minor7, and dom7 down pat before you delve into the minor 7b5 or the dom7+5. It develops your ear like crazy. Between that and getting your melodic minor modes applied to blues, you start to really control the fretboard. I think I would make a much better teacher than a player because I analyze and pontificate crap alot to the point that I waste time and energy, but these simple pointers seem to help people out tremendously. If you JUST practice those 4 note arps and apply them to every song your know, watch the fingers and ideas fly.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

should I make it smaller or just post a link?

 

[lpmarshall]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

If I have a melody in my head, I usually do one of 3 things:

Hum the melody, and try and match it with the guitar.
Figure it by ear on a keyboard.
Loop the chords and figure it out on the guitar.

Lately the latter two have brought me some success. But also keep in mind I don't have the slightest clue on how to play the keys. I just mess around until I have it down. If I need to play a chord I have to look up piano chord charts on the internets

If I have one giant glaring flaw in my music, it's that I barely know any theory. I probably know more than I let on, but I don't talk in musical terms. When working parts out for songs now, I loop the progression and come up with something from there. It's really helped me break out of the pentatonic territory. I told myself "You are not playing any pentatonic patterns on top of this progression" and it led me in another direction.

If you hit a wrong note, you'll know right away. But it's just practice.

I've played in a few cover bands, so picking that stuff out has gotten easier over time. After a lot of practice your ears can easily pick out chords: major, minor, 7th, and so on.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

I like that 'promise' not to play any pentatonic patterns. It's such a huge crutch, it makes playing blues and such into a plug and play type thing which is neat for starters, but it can take some time to outgrow it if one doesn't fight the urge to just chill on the blues forever.

I want to see if that arpeggio chart helps any of you guys out. I've printed out tons of them and handed it out to every fretted instrumentalist I know, some improved exponentially after really being able to flow on those chord tones and select what they want to hear instead of being limited to what they can play/understand. I wish I would have stumbled across that chart 8 years ago when I started guitar, so I throw them around to see if it helps other players out.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

For a guy whose brain is supposedly addled by drug use, you seem pretty on the ball!

 

[SteveAlysis]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

this!

Put down your guitar and write a riff in your head.

Now pick up your guitar and figure out how to play it.

Do this enough times and you'll get pretty good at figuring things out by ear.

I know it works because it's pretty much how I've approached music my whole life.

This is pretty much how I've always played. No lessons or books. Always found myself bored trying to learn others songs. Recently noticed I got too involved in the pedal world and my playing got dramatically worse. Past few weeks or so have been straight into amp putting the songs in my brain together, and ppicking apart the areas I feel could use a certain delay, heavy verb, or whatever works.

THOUGH I have been trying to learn some Guthrie Govan songs and though a pain in the a$$, its fun.

 

[wahwah]

Re: Improving Pitch And Listening Skills

I'm another on the self-taught hack side of things with no formal theory training. Desire and necessity have been my two greatest teachers. As a teenager in the mid 70's, that meant rushing home from school to try to work out another 8 bars of Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin songs by repeatedly lifting the needle on the record player and dropping it back to a rough estimate of the part I was after. I had The Beatles Complete songbook and the Led Zeppelin songbook, complete with box chord charts. In many cases they were horribly inaccurate, presumably pieced together by some half deaf copyist with a degree in that'll be good enough. This forced me to go searching the fretboard for what might really be going on. I can recall spending about two months working out "Over The Hills And Far Away." If I had relied on the songbook, I still wouldn't be able to play it.

I have learnt a lot and developed my ear by being thrown in the deep end. Over the years, I have had to learn many 30 song repertoires for fill in gigs within a matter of days. Initially I would write out simple chordal road map charts, but I found that I became too dependent on them throughout the rehearsal process and didn't ever fully learn the song as an internalised 'knowing.' So I developed a sturdy musical memory by learning the songs in their entirety and committing them to said memory. It's amazing how the skills of chord recognition and intervals develop throughout this process. I would never suggest it for jazz comping or any of the more complex forms, but for simple rock and pop music, it soon becomes apparent that the familiar repetitive themes that form the cliches of chord progressions in the most popular styles become quite predictable and easy to fathom in a very short time.

These methods may seem haphazard to some, and understandably so. For those who travel the formal theory route, they are bound to learn far more information. Application is another matter, and I have seen many trained musicians think their way right out of being able to effectively contribute to a band, despite their knowledge. Done well, and by somebody who balances this knowledge with the many other aspects involved in being a musician, they can be hard to beat. But to those of us who don't choose that path, there are now far more tools available on teh intrawebz to facilitate the accumulation of knowledge in order to teach ourselves. I have replaced my record player and needle skipping technique with the excellent Capo slow downer software for tricky passages, but all these years later, I can pretty much hear a simple song and its arrangement on a couple of listens. There's no way around putting in the time to make this happen.





Cheers.......................................... wahwah