Developing your ears

[pauldil]

I'm always looking for ways to practice away from the guitar, since I'm "guitarless" the vast majority of the day. I saw this and thought it offered some good, simple ideas for developing your ear in your spare time:

Developing your ears

 

Paul

[Museeip]

Thanks for the read. Ear training is so important. I used to cut lawns for a living and I loved it. I walked all day with the hum of the mower as a constant pitch. I would hum intervals all day. I think I learned more about singing harmonies because of that mower than anything else. lol. I was albe to generate a lot of ideas and did a lot of "editing/arranging" too. Music and songwriting away from your instrument provides an interesting perspective.

[Gruupi]

My guitar playing buddies and I used to play a game. Someone would play a chord and you had to guess what type it was. Major, minor, Seventh and so on. It really helped us to quickly recognize those sounds. I know that it wouldn't help you away from the guitar but it was a good tool for us as beginners.

 

What surprised me is that the coloration of a guitar is much easier for me to hear since I am so familiar with it. Intervals on other instruments or computer generated tones take a bit of practice to recognize. I have heard that people with perfect pitch hear alost like most of us see colors and thats how they recognize pitch. I could always use more practice learning the sounds, usually learning songs by ear keeps the skill up.

[Hardtail]

I have the demo of Band in a Box and it had a neat ear training window. Notes, intervals, and chords.

 

Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry book is helping me out a little bit too as I've been doing some experimenting with playing some major and minor triads all across the fretboard.