ear training
 

I was watching this video and then this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKZxLbG-gDg and this one that i was told view here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7p2gMwsPjw and it says basically that if you don't know what notes your singing you never will be able to write the melodies you hear in head or improvise is that true? If when I sing a song and I can't tell what each and every note is I'm singing I will never be able to play by ear / improvise / figure out the melodies to the songs I've written? I can't seem to to figure out when I'm singing a C2 or A4 or Bb3 or what ever the note may be and I can't figure out the melodies to my songs either.

I think ear training and pitch and pattern recognition is a fundamental skill, like rhythm. If you don't develop it, you will be severely limited in your musical progression.

One of the first things I like to do when figuring out a song is finding the melody on my fretboard. Even if I never play the melody, knowing where it is helps me figure out what might go well with it as an accompaniment.

Bonus: every time you find a melody and place it on your guitar, you are increasing your fretboard awareness and muscle memory. Win-win!

Full disclosure, I watched some of one of the videos, not all of both.
But here's what I'd add -> the most important connection (when it comes to ear training) is between your ear and your instrument. Knowing/learning the names of the notes you hear and want to play is really an additional/intermediate step that isn't necessary, but isn't bad either. It varies in it's usefulness to a player, usually depending on how well grounded in theory they are. Theory is basically a language for describing musical ideas - notes, intervals, chords, scales, keys & so on. Many great musicians understand the musical ideas that theory describes, without actually having a very good handle on 'theory'.
Getting back to ear training, I also agree w/Ms. Nolte that using your voice to facilitate your ear learning is a very good idea.

This.

Obviously if you want to write music down, you need to know notes - because "notes" = "notation". But that's nothing to do with ear training.

Sing a note and match it on guitar.
And vice versa, play a note and try to match it with your voice.
As BFD says, it's the connection with the instrument that matters. If you then want to know the notes (eg to write them down) you should know what they are on your instrument (or at least be able to work them out).

The place to start is with a technique called Solfege (or Sight Singing). Learn the intervals (distance) between notes and how to tell how far each not is from the last. This is what they teach you in college ear training courses.

You start by singing solfege to scales (Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do). Then you start skipping around (Do Mi Do, Mi Sol Mi Do). Then you start looking at music and trying to figure out how a written melody would sound based on the solfege. The key is irrelevant. You just pick a tonal center and solfege the intervals.

The idea is that you learn to "hear" the intervals in your head so you end up being able to "hear" the melody as you read it...before you play it. You can also hear the intervals of a chord & know what kind of chord it is (major, minor, 7th, diminished, etc) and it's relation to the key (That's a I chord, that a #IV diminished, etc).

This not only helps with notating what you write, but also helps you learn new music because you don't have to "figure it out"...you know what you're hearing as you listen to it...melody & chords.

It's a powerful skill and any serious musician should develop it. It's not easy. In fact, it feels quite impossible when you first start...but hang in there and you'll amaze yourself as it all clicks and starts to make sense.

Ear training is actually training your ability to memorise sounds, and patterns in sounds, and to associate those sounds , and/or patterns, with positions on your instrument. Knowing the names of those notes is secondary.

Standard music theory will deal with the names of notes. Ear training, for a guitarist, should link ears, memory, fingers and instrument.

100% untrue. I happen to read music and know notes by name, but to learn a melody or develop a solo you certainly don't need to know the notes you're singing or playing.

Case in point: I've been learning to play the melody of Greensleeves by listening to the version on Wyatt the Whale (our baby soothing device), because I really like it. I want to be able to play the song for our baby on my guitar as a lullaby.

I can play the melody note for note and in various keys, but I couldn't tell you what key or what notes I'm playing. Of course, I could figure all that out based on what I know, but just to fool around with the melody and find a good arrangement of this tune, all I really need are my ears.

THE ANSWER!!!

One way to bring any past musical experience to bear is to identify the various intervals contained in songs you know, common classics and/or hit tunes.

Example:

Octave : "Some-where (over the rainbow)"

There's got to be a list somewhere...like this:

https://www.scales-chords.com/articl...Intervals.html

The only question is, How do you pronounce "solfege?" :D

Yeah, you need to listen to someone French saying it. You need ear training for that too... :rolleyes:

You could just say it in English: "sol-fa", or "tonic sol-fa".

I mean, it's Latin originally, except for the "do" at the beginning. It was "ut re mi fa sol la" around 1000 AD; "si" was added much later, then changed to "ti", and someone called Homer Simpsonius suggested "do" instead of "ut".
(That last bit is a lie. Fake news.)

Fun link. Thanks!

When I was studying music theory, the teachers pronounced solfege as "soul" "fege" like "fudge" but with an "eh" sound.

I am reassured to realise that I am not alone in my advocation of sol-fa notation.

In my youth, in the Highlands of Scotland, sol-fa notation was universal ... we had to be able to sight-read psalms and hymns and whichever songs our teacher deemed appropriate to be sung in music class.

From my own point of view, this early exposure to tonic sol-fa has proved incredibly useful. I ended up being able to instantly, in real time, sing any melody in the actual sol-fa notes. My party piece, as I recall, was "The Irish Washerwoman".

Where it has proved beyond valuable is in translating melodies and harmonies onto the fretboard. I never ever think of the chords and the melody as being named notes like in staff notation ... in my head I hear doh, re mi, fa, soh, lah, ti, doh, and the scale positions and the harmonies follow automatically and almost subconsciously.

Obviously you need to know what key you are in and to be able to communicate conventionally with other musicians (very, very, few of whom have any sort of expertise in instant sol-fa btw) but that is simple enough.

I have always been awestruck by musicians who can sight-read staff notation flawlessly ... it is not a skill which I have ever mastered, or even tried to master, but if I had to make a choice between having the ability to sight-read and play a written piece flawlessly, or having the ability to play a heard melody, with correct chords and competent fingerstyle accompaniment after a couple of listenings, I would have to choose the latter.

When I first started ear training, I used Musical-U for a couple of months. They use solfege and their explanations and materials are quite good. It's all about the intervals.

Exactly it. I went through this last fall in a college sight singing ear training course. Very valuable I recommend the course rather than any you tube video. You get feedback and corrections so you don't practice mistakes.

Just an fyi-there are some decent free iphone apps available for ear training