There the exams are finally over, here comes the replie
Eat, Sleep ,and Play with your guitar ...
ALL the time ... and Jam with your friends as much as possible ... Just have to put your time in ... unless you’re exceptionally gifted , which most of us are not ...
I know a guy here that is a Wonderful guitar player .... he’s a street musician and plays 8 hours a day , every day ... then he goes home and practices ...
No wonder he’s good ...
Haha I try to play as much as possible! But with school, work, social life, exercising... Just not possible timewise..
And none of my mates play guitar, though I have one who can play drums, might be fun to jam with him sometimes... Though jamming isn´t really my forte since I don´t think my playing is up to par to just go and improvise, I really suck at that!
i figured out the piano part to "We Are The Champions" by Queen without needing sheet music or anything else... no idea how i did it, ever since i was a kid i've been able to play by ear, either watching someone else play it and just copying what they play (i learned Fur Elise from my older brother by doing this) or sometimes i'll just fiddle around on the piano and think "hey, that sounds like (song name)" then i'll take it chord by chord and see if i can work out a verse or two
that being said, i can't sight read sheet music very well, i wish i could, but it's something i've never been able to get a grasp of, i know how to read it, i could just never read and play at the same time
My first few years of guitarlessons were like this, I would just watch/listen and then copy. My timing is flawless, I can get into any rithem provided I know which notes to play. It´s just the pitch I cannot recognize. The fiddling part is awesome, but not yet for me. I will try that later on. Reading music is slow, but definitely possible for me, just takes time..
there is all kinds of audio books and programs to help with relative pitch, most observatories make every music student do it. I know this guy named david lucas birge has a set for relative pitch and perfect pitch ear training. I have heard good things about both of them. as for me I can recognize a lot of notes but im no master at it. learning how to tune my guitar by ear has helped out a lot too.
Thanks for the info mate! I will definitely check it out! And I do tune my guitar by ear now, and use my tuner to see if it´s correct, and most of the times it is!
I'll try and write up as best a guide as I can for you to develop your ear from a basic-intermediate level.
1) Identifying pitches: This is the simplest form of ear training. Bust out a song you like and listen to the FIRST pitch of the MELODY. (DO NOT TRY TO IDENTIFY PITCHES OF ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE MELODY FOR NOW. Hearing what guitars, bass, etc. are doing under a melody is for more advanced musicians, but you will get there.) After you hear that pitch, sing it. Hum it if you're too shy. Now, can you hear that note in your head without singing or playing it? Can you actually hear the note in your head? If not, play it again, sing it, and then try and hear it in your head all over again.
Once you can, try playing it on the guitar. Now obviously you can't just guess and get it right, otherwise there wouldn't be a problem. Just fiddle around and try to find the right pitch. Don't worry about the right octave for now, just find the pitch. If you heard a note and you find out it's a C, perfect, you're done. Don't worry about "Well I found a C on the A string but it's really an octave higher..." not a big deal right now. You found the note! Good job! Now try it all over again for the next note.
You should be able to find the notes faster once you learn to hear how close you are to the note you are aiming for.
2) Identifying pitches in the correct octave: This one is just an add on to the previous exercise. Try and find each note in the proper octave by listening and comparing it to the recording or resource you are working from. It's the right pitch, but is it too high or too low? Maybe spot on? This is also a good way to find out if people are playing in different tunings. You'll play a C on the 3rd fret of the A string and go "Yeah it's a C, but not low enough..." and that's how you know "Oh they must be playing in a drop tuning, like Drop C"
Once you can hear pitches and identify them with relative ease (aim for no more than 10 seconds for now to get the right pitch and octave) you can move on.
3) Identifying intervals: Now we're gonna learn to identify intervals! This isn't as scary as it sounds. There are 13 (technically speaking) basic intervals in music, but you can start off really small and work your way up. There are many websites, smart phone apps and so on that have interval trainers. If you have an iPhone there's many to find on iTunes, or you can go to
www.musictheory.net for great exercises. Start out by just setting your application to only play major thirds and minor thirds. You'll slowly be able to identify them. Try adding a new interval on top of those two every day or two, a half hour or so a day will get you mastering intervals in just a month.
4) Identifying chord qualities: Again, using the same applications or the website as before, learn to identify chord qualities by starting with just major and minor on in the settings. Then add diminished, then augmented, then 7 chords in the same order.
After doing all of this you will have a great ear, better than about 50% of musicians just by doing that. Shocking, but sadly true. If you ever get to a point where you want more information on ear training, drop me a line and I'll get you some more advanced stuff, and some better resources. Sorry if this is confusing, I wrote it sort of half-assedly, had a long week so far.
1. By the first pitch, do you mean the first note that is played? Because I tried that with Sweet child of mine which is a D (or D? if you tune the 1/2 step down) But on the internet it states its a song in the key of E..
2. This just means more fiddling once I have done step 1 correctly right?
3. This is actually fun! A great site with lots of excersises, even for just reading notes! thats cool. I have been doing this now
http://www.musictheory.net/exercises/ear-interval/ayybyyy and its pretty cool, just a bit hard. (even with 2 notes
)
4. Is this just any chord played either major or minor? I seem to be good at it, got 70% correct on the last try of 30 questions!
Don´t worry about it mate, I was a really helpfull post! Got my alot of things to train now. Though I might want to be studying a bit more theory before I can really get good use out of these excercises.
Start by going for easy melodies, for example take a song you like and know well, find out the key and try to find the vocal melody by using pentatonic or minor/major scale.
After that try guitar solos. My guitar teacher has been forcing on me to find out solos of songs by ear and I think he knows there are no tabs of them anywhere on the net... It is hard, but really helps.
Also: practice!
http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/musictheory/trainers/html/id90_en.htmlFind mental hooks for each interval. For instance, Major 6th is the start of almos every norwegian christmas song, and a perfect 5th is the two first vocal tones of Green Day's Befor the Lobotomy.
Hehe you have a good teacher then, mostly the hardest excercises make you a better player / student. Works on every difficult proces in life I guess.
I need to know more theory before I can do this excersize properly I guess..
Oh, and Bird, I think you might be aiming for either of the sites Yertle or Gilks has linked? Seems both have excercises for major 7ths and Triads..
