Developing a More Discerning Musical Ear

[musicman1951]

Given the seeming wide disparity on the forum I thought some might find this a useful discussion.

Let's start by saying developing a more discerning ear is absolutely unnecessary for your gig this weekend (or enjoying your guitar at home). It is possibly dangerous for your wallet - you might find it increases your GAS.

I don't have any absolutes, but I'm going to make a few suggestions and I'm sure others will add to the pile (or disagree with some).

I think my first suggestion would be to listen to as wide an array of musical styles as you can fit into your day. Certainly listening to a lot of guitar music makes you more sensitive to guitar tone, but I'm suggesting you listen to lots of instruments.
You might want to listen to the same piano solo played by different people on different instruments. Why do you prefer the version you do? What do you like about the tone of one piano over the other? Violins, oboes, symphonies - lots of instruments out there.

When listening to guitar music you might want to spend just a few minutes ignoring everything but tone.

When playing you might want to experiment with changing the tone you produce through technique and/or changing picks (if you use one). Pick harder/softer, closer to the neck or not, etc.

It's probably a long process, but whatever you do often you do well.

[gfspencer]

I play the bagpipes. So much for a discerning ear.

I agree with you.

The thing that has helped me is to sing in choirs - high school, college, graduate school, and church.

And I have sung all kinds of music from pop to Bach. I listen to all kinds of music from jazz to folk and Irish to Tibetan Buddhist Ritual Music of Himalayan Nepal.

[Goodallboy]

Developing a better “ear” is crucial to becoming a better player. Beyond fingerings and notes is where the real musicianship dwells. Timing, inflection, coaxing and pressuring your wooden friend to deliver the emotion and message comes with hours of practice and reflection.

I’m in the minority with only one acoustic guitar after a long search for that “one”, and having only one I feel I have furthered my journey into communicating with it and eliciting the most from it. I’m always reacquainting myself with each electric guitar I own, which is fun, but not the same.

[FrankHudson]

Of course "musical" and "ear" are very broad things, with a lot of not necessarily co-existent things encompassed.

Your observation/suggestion regarding listening to a wide range of music and instruments is very good one. The guitar taken broadly (everything from "classical guitar" through the varieties of metal-string acoustics and onto fully electric guitars and their panoply of sound modification devices) can imitate the timbre and playing styles of a nearly any instrument.

GAS causing? Doing this has impacted my spending habits over 45 years, by suppressing desire for "the one" and intensifying my search for "not the same."

Folks who take another path: intensely searching for and possibly finding a narrow "beautiful" timbre possibly associated with a small range of musical expression explored deeply have a valid idea too.

[Bluemonk]

Originally Posted by musicman1951

When listening to guitar music you might want to spend just a few minutes ignoring everything but tone.

Maybe we're talking semantics, but to me, developing a discerning musical ear has to do with examining all aspects of musical performance, not just tone. Given that, this suggestion seems a bit counterproductive.

[charles Tauber]

If all you’ve ever eaten is coconuts and bananas, you’ll be unaware of the many other flavours and flavour combinations that are possible. By tasting a large variety of different foods, you expand your knowledge and experience of the sense of taste: you broaden your palette.

Similarly, if all you listen to is, say, three-chord guitar strumming accompaniment to someone singing popular songs, by listening to a wide variety of other instruments and other genres of music, you’ll expand your knowledge and experience of the sense of hearing: you broaden your palette. Doing so expands your musical options.

The old expression, “If all you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails” applies equally to music: if all you know is, for example, three-chord strumming, music largely consists of three chords being strummed on a guitar. There is nothing wrong with a diet consisting of only coconuts and bananas, if that’s what you like, but it doesn’t offer much variety. However, if you offer your diet of coconuts and bananas to someone well versed in a wide variety of flavours, don’t be surprised if he or she finds your offerings rather bland and limited. Ditto for three-chord strumming accompaniment, or similar small subset of music.

[HeyMikey]

I started taking vocal lessons about 9 months ago. An unexpected benefit is that it has really helped my guitar “ear” as well. I’m hearing what I play better than before.

[raysachs]

As someone else noted above, I think you're talking primarily about having an ear for and appreciating subtle differences in tone. Which I don't think is the same thing as a "musical ear". Which may be semantics. I don't think I've got much of a musical ear - I can't sing to save my life, I can't pick out intervals, etc, but I seem to have always had some ear for tone.

Each time I've bought an acoustic guitar (until the last couple of Emeralds, which I bought site unseen, but had listened to every sound clip I could find), I went into a shop, found the five or six guitars in my price range that interested me, and played each of them. And every single time a clear favorite emerged. Over the years, I seem to have a preference for Martins, but I bought a Taylor once doing that same exercise, and ended up in a tie between a Martin and a Breedlove another time - I bought the Martin because nobody ever lost their job buying IBM, or something to that effect.

And I don't think I've gotten better at it over time either. The very first decent acoustic guitar I ever bought was in 1979 when I'd only been playing about a year, just past long enough to know this wasn't a passing fancy. I played several used Guilds, Gibsons, and Martins (I think Taylor may have existed, but they sure weren't on the radar), pretty much all dreads. And within 10 seconds of playing the 1968 Martin D-28, it was all over. I played the others again just to be sure, but it was never really a question after I first played that. I didn't have any kind of developed ear for anything. But that guitar just sounded so perfect. I had it for 25 years and finally sold it because I was playing about 10 minutes per year and that was the wrong guitar for that. But to this day, I've never played a better sounding guitar (although I've played a bunch that play a lot easier). I don't think it was luck - it was a pretty obvious preference, but it sure wasn't based on experience or a practiced ear either.

-Ray

[dspoel]

Listen to classical music! My infatuation with the guitar came about when I heard John Williams play Bach. Once you learn to listen also to more complex music and can ”see through” the complexity you discover more ”music” within the music. Can be almost anything really but to give but one example: my favorite part of Mozarts piano concerto 19 is five seconds of flute in the introduction of the second movement. Find the music inside the music!

[Duck916]

As a beginner I have found that by studying music and learning to play the guitar I have definitely enhanced my enjoyment and understanding of all types of music. I hear things I never did before. I know I have only scratched the surface of this.

Originally Posted by musicman1951

It's probably a long process, but whatever you do often you do well.

Not sure I agree with the latter. There are a lot of things I've done extensively, and still suck at.

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by Bluemonk

Maybe we're talking semantics, but to me, developing a discerning musical ear has to do with examining all aspects of musical performance, not just tone. Given that, this suggestion seems a bit counterproductive.

I think he means this as an example of what you can do.

I was told as a youngster that you should never reject a piece of music until you have listened to it 7 times. (Why 7 and not 6 or 8?) I have found so many pieces that I didn't like at first but after I persisted in listening to them found I changed my mind.

Some music is like peeling an onion. You get off the outer cover only to find there's another under it... and another.. and another - always something new to discover.

[Tycobb73]

When it comes to listening to different styles I find most people don't do it. The only styles i don't like are white supremacist, opera, and smooth jazz. I listen to everything from dukes of dixieland to dillinger escape plan and often get mocked by other musicians because i love Taylor swift. She will go down as a legend. I play guitar, bass, drums, keys, and sing and I played trombone in school. I love it all.

[Deliberate1]

Listening critically to music is a great joy. But it only part of the equation. I am a jazz musician (clarinet/sax) who just started playing guitar. I was classically trained as a kid and played in all manners of ensembles where the focus was on the reading. Regrettably, I never got the theory training that I wish I had. But I did start ear training on my own in college, and that is when the magic began. Now 40 years later, I still do the same thing I did back then, and it has created a circuit between my ears, brain and horn. Put on some music that catches my fancy, and play along. It is very cool to play with Bill Evans, or Sonny Stitt, or Fats Waller, or Dave Brubeck, or whoever. Close your eyes, and you are sharing a stage with the masters. And when you hit the same note at the same time as one of the giants, well, you just made a magical connection. This is the way not just to learn a tune. Or how music goes together. It is the way to learn the vocabulary of your instrument so intuitively that playing becomes like talking. And that is the key to making music, not just playing it. I am just starting to do this with my guitar - putting on some simple tunes and strumming or picking along. I close my eyes and think about where the fingers should go to hit the notes I intuitively want to hear. And sometimes, it happens.

[Pitar]

If you can listen to a piece of music unfamiliar to you and then go home and play it without any eye references like tab or score, then you've developed your ear relative to the finger board. I would think any number of guitar playing enthusiasts would desire to have that ability. I learned by training my ear and now I can do that and, without fail or frustration, can join a jam session and fit right in by ear alone. This is, of course, old school, so I don't quite understand the announcement of not fully training the ear.

[hgw]

Hi, dear Pitar, how do you develop your ears relative to the fingerboard? How did you learn this by training your ears? I have been unable to find an effective method, I hope you can help me. thank you very much!