Training my ear

I have a big issue with my musical ear and its really frustrating me. I can play at a grade 6 ability and I answered the theory questions for grade 8 (the ones in my grade book) right 1st time (its all like what is intervals of diminished triad) but my musical ear is at a grade 1. :(

It took me over half an hour to work out london bridge is burning down.

By the way i only got the grade 1 ear tests as i guessed they would all be in C major and that was right and really helped. So i dont even think that is due to my musical ear.

Its really irritating me because I know I will never hit my aspirations in music as they will keep moving up as I get better and I've been told you cant train yourself to reach near perfect pitch and that is my next aspiration so it just seems like I'm gonna be stuck in the same place forever.

I've been playing guitar for 2 years now, and I don't think I could listen to a song and tell you what notes I'm hearing.

However, give me a guitar and let me listen to the song, and I can figure out the key, the melody, and part of the rhythm. It just takes time, and practice.

What I do for about a half hour to an hour a day is sit with my guitar and play a random song. Then I try to find the key and the melody of the song. From there, I try to work out part of the rhythm. Sometime i'm spot on and get 100% correct. Other times I'm horridly wrong and in a relative key or just can't find it.


Perfect Pitch is something that you can't train yourself to do. However, you can try to get to a point that, from a reference, you can find anything. All Perfect Pitch is a natural reference to musical pitch. If you have that pitch given to you, then you can achieve a mimic of a person with perfect pitch, if you get what I mean.

Just sit down with songs and try to find it. If you are just talking about the theory behind it, I'm pretty sure I still can't identify the pitch difference of a 3rd and a 4th if you played the two for me.

=/ k its just for grade 6 they will play note of the scale for 3 secs wait a sec or two then leap into short lead lick then do that again

then on the third time they just give root and you have to play it :(

also when i was young my parents kept telling me i was tone deaf so i get really frustrated at it and cant get anywere.

so how do i find which scale a songs in is just just a stab in the dark? or is there a method behind it

Sorry but I sincerely doubt that stating the intervals in a diminished triad are Grade 8 standard. You're not fooling anyone.

Afro

it was the hardest thing in my grade book which has a test for all the rockschool grades

oh wait checked that was grade 5

sorry my bad memory

Well, to start, you should mess around with a single note for... let's say; 20 minutes, hum it, sing it, and keep playing it. That should get you started.

If you don't want to start with single notes, start with chords, play the one chord ALL OVER the guitar, ingrain that chord into your brain so you'll be dreaming of it. If it helps, don't look at the fretboard and just listen to it.

Anyway, I don't mean to embarrass you, but there's no need to sound better than you are, music is fun, not a competition, enjoy it for your own reasons. Besides, we're all here to help each other.

K
i do have an audio recording of the note being played for bout a sec then a voice saying what note it is for all naturals and it does one note for 7 minutes and then moves to another. Only issue is i cant sleep when i have ear phones in.

And music is fun i just looked into grades a month back coz i want to get to grade about 5 or 6 to help me get into uni in 2 years

Well, I'm not talking about listening to the notes while you're sleeping, you need to understand the notes while you're awake first! You've got a long ways to go, but if you're determined then you'll get there. What Uni are you interested in? Also what type of course? (performing/composing etc.)

Anyway, what I'm talking about is playing GUITAR, not recordings of other people. It's all about YOU, you can't let other people do the work for you, and it's about time you got your hands dirty and really got to know your guitar.

the recording was made by me i was just hoping that the whole you can learn stuff in your subconsious works. I thought it might cause some kid in our school used it for german speaking and got A

I dont know what im doing in uni i just know if i want to get somewere in life i have to
A get sucessful band
or the more probable option that im following
B go uni

Im gonna get my GCSEs and A levels before i put any more work in

Im just worried i might not be good enough to get to point where i can work out somin like the simpsons tune in under 30 minutes and without all the frustration (unlike yesterday)

That's pretty much why i'm telling you to get to know your guitar. If you can't transcribe the simpsons theme then you've got a lot of work ahead of you, and music requires hours of practice a day... check out my practicing routine lesson for more information on that.

ok.

This is mostly my fault when learning guitar i lept straight to working on technique and then went back and concentrated on theory and wrote stuff based around theory i knew and now im going back and learning my ear.

my approach to learning has never been the best.

I'll look at your practising lesson I've seen alot of your lessons and they always help me so this should be good for my progress

thanks.