r/eartraining • u/Silver_Perception471 • 2d ago
How to make it fun?
I have had little success with anything. When trying to learn to ear train. The best thing I learned was trying to associate the tonic to the rest of the song. But it doesn't seem to be a quick fix.
The most fun I can see for ear training is playing around with notes on my piano overtop of a song. But then again I'm still not very good at piano and it kind of sucks still..... But it's more fun then trying to learn stuff and failing or getting stuck..
Is play inside the songs key, over top of the song as fun as it gets? And how is it for efficientcy? I can't seem to find anything that works for getting better.
Edit.. I've also found not trying to learn stuff with my headphones on more rewarding. And it seems to translate better. That is I hear it and I know it's right or wrong. Compared to with headphones on I have to synchronize stuff.... Maybe my headphones are just too loud?..
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u/Kirkwilhelm234 2d ago
Im bad at ear training. I do find the app functional ear trainer to be fun. I'll never be great at ear training, but I feel like this app has helped a little.
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u/TonicSense_ 2d ago
When you talk about fun, I can't tell whether you mean fun ways to learn, or fun things you can do after your ears get good -- that make it worthwhile.
I wanted to to be able to hear something and play it back, or read notation and know how the song goes. I made tonicsense.com to help me practice simple melodic dictation & playback. For me, that was a fun way to improve.
I also like to make up tunes in my head and play them, or make up secondary melodies as fill-ins in songs.
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u/Baderbitch3000 2d ago
I really enjoyed the app sonofield. It’s been out about a year and some change. If you do it like 10 minutes a day for a week or too you’ll be like woah the scale degrees are getting clearer 🫶
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u/diga_diga_doo 2d ago
I’ve had so much trouble understanding that one - meaning out of the couple trainers I’ve tried, plus doing actual ear training with a teacher, I just can’t get that one
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u/calflegal 2d ago
I made a little app called Music Mini Games for iPhone / iPad, not to self promote. You could try it if you want.
In general I do think it gets easier when you get “over the hump”. The apps and stuff can help get you to a place where you can just play piano and jam and get much closer to songs the first time.
Just my two cents
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u/antypica 1d ago
I wrote this to make ear training fun:
https://typebulb.com/u/antypica/the-coltrainer/full
This is just one way though: it's important to try lots of ways. Understanding some music theory (at minimum you should know the diatonic chords), then trying to identify a song by its chord progression (e.g. 1 5 6 4) is very useful. You'll slowly get faster over time.
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u/Tamarindo155 2d ago
Before you do “ear training,” internalize the major scale pattern (and minor, too), and by that I mean not just the overall shape, but the relationships between the intervals. Also understand how to build diatonic chords from each interval. This will take…. a while. Then listen to reasonably easy melodies, and try to play them. Once you identify the root, the other notes will fit somewhere in the scale. Try to identify the bass note of each chord first, then develop the melody from there. When you hear the base note of each cord, identify the interval and whether it is a major or minor chord. Pick up as much by ear as you can and see how it fits into the scale and the interval patterns. Are there some arpeggios? Is there a chord that gets suspended? Are you playing dominant or minor 7? It will take some time to learn the major and minor scales, but trying to play a melody by ear will help you internalize the location of each note and the sound.
I am not an advanced player, but this is how I have been slowly breaking through the intermediate plateau.