Interval (Ear) Training: Advantage to doing them "in order"?

[ElRay]

I was thinking about ear training intervals. It's pretty straight forward to work through a minor 2nd, major 2nd, minor 3rd, etc., but it's also pretty boring and fairly trivial fingering-wise. Is there a learning advantage having them presented in this order? Is this like counting, which needs to be done in order, or learning your letters, which doesn't needs to be in order?

I ask, because unless there's an advantage to learning them in sequence, I'd rather work something out using all-interval-tetrachords, because running through the the whole cycle would also work on some chord changes and some interesting string-skipping/double stop practice.

Ray

 

[Trespass]

Perhaps try a course? David Lucas Burge's relative pitch course is nice (although I haven't tried that myself, I tried the perfect pitch course).

And if your not up to paying for it... ebay might have a used version for cheap (you only need to go through it once really)

 

[ElRay]

Perhaps try a course?

I'd love to, but I have to be realistic. My free time is limited (I post mostly during work when I'm waiting for jobs to finish and there's nothing in the "MUST BE DONE NOW" queue or that I really can't do jumping back and forth between higher priority tasks.), so when I practice, I really try to avoid uni-taskers, if there's not a clear benefit. That's why I was looking at an exercise that would actively train one technique and passively train another at the same time.

Ray

 

[Trespass]

I'd love to, but I have to be realistic. My free time is limited (I post mostly during work when I'm waiting for jobs to finish and there's nothing in the "MUST BE DONE NOW" queue or that I really can't do jumping back and forth between higher priority tasks.), so when I practice, I really try to avoid uni-taskers, if there's not a clear benefit. That's why I was looking at an exercise that would actively train one technique and passively train another at the same time.

Ray

Hmm... Well, I'll say in my experience (since everything is different for everybody) I did easier to recognize intervals such as perfect fifths, perfect octaves, maj/min thirds, before tackling more ambiguous and less heard in popular music intervals. Though I love the sound of some add-9 chordin'

 

[Durero]

I've always used computer software ear training, and currently I use this package which is excellent imo: Training Software for Perfect Pitch

Looks like you have a playing exercise in mind though, maybe singing the intervals in the all-interval-tetrachords just before you play them?

(had to wikipedia "all-interval-tetrachord" - fascinating )

 

[ElRay]

Looks like you have a playing exercise in mind though, maybe singing the intervals in the all-interval-tetrachords just before you play them?

More or less. The idea is to fingerpick lower-note, higher-note, lower-note, double stop across all combinations of four strings as a right hand exercise and get some ear training out of it by singing/naming the notes/intervals* (in my head) as I'm playing.

(had to wikipedia "all-interval-tetrachord" - fascinating )

I recently re-discovered Elliot Carter (especially his composition Shard) and that's what got me rolling down this road. The downside (as an interval exercise) is that I'm not finding any fingerings that work with a fourths or fifths based tuning. With Major 3rds, a number of fingerings fall in very nicely. That said, if you just look at the pitch classes for a given AIT, then there are some neat compositional possibilities using wider intervals.

[action="*"]Question for you chromatic notation guys, do you still "sing" A,Bb,B,C, or do you use different note names?[/action]

 

[bostjan]

I would go in natural order, not in 12-tone order.

Start with the fifth, fourth, major third, minor sixth, major sixth, minor third, etc....

But if you find a way that clicks better, keep doing it that way.

 

[Durero]

More or less. The idea is to fingerpick lower-note, higher-note, lower-note, double stop across all combinations of four strings as a right hand exercise and get some ear training out of it by singing/naming the notes/intervals* (in my head) as I'm playing.I recently re-discovered Elliot Carter (especially his composition Shard) and that's what got me rolling down this road. The downside (as an interval exercise) is that I'm not finding any fingerings that work with a fourths or fifths based tuning. With Major 3rds, a number of fingerings fall in very nicely. That said, if you just look at the pitch classes for a given AIT, then there are some neat compositional possibilities using wider intervals.

[action="*"]Question for you chromatic notation guys, do you still "sing" A,Bb,B,C, or do you use different note names?[/action]

I used to love Elliot Carter but haven't listened to him for years. He has a fantastic solo classical guitar piece which I can't remember the name of. What is the instrumentation for Shard?

I'm still quite fascinated by your 3rds tuning, though I'm still stubbornly sticking to 4ths, any fingerings for anything (scales, chords, arpeggios) that you've explored and feel like posting would be very cool. The fact that you only have 3 strings to learn is really quite advantageous I think. 4ths never repeat until you've covered all 12 pitch classes.


And for the chromatic notation I love using Brennik's (sp?) suggested solfege names in his reference materials:

   ba    pa        ke    vi   ge    
do    re    mi  fa    so    la    ti

Takes some getting used to, but I love how the #/b notes have their own name instead of a modified version of the 'white key' notes. Completely gets rid of the need for #/b's just as the chromatic notation does (along with clefs, key sigs, and notes changing their line or space in different octaves.)

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

HEY!! I tabbed the all interval tetra chord

This shouldn't be a hard voicing at all, easy to move too.
(I only used those notes cause they were the one mentioned in wiki, so I wouldn't get confused, you could obviously transpose it to something else)

e|-
b|-
G|-8___(D#)
D|-10__(C)
A|-10__(G)
E|-9___(C#)
B|-

 

[Durero]

^ Awesome man!

 

[Ciprian]

I've always used computer software ear training, and currently I use this package which is excellent imo: Training Software for Perfect Pitch

This looks like an interesting method, I'm playing with the demo right now. Have you noticed significant improvements since you started using the game?

 

[Durero]

^ Yes for sure.

 

[ElRay]

I used to love Elliot Carter but haven't listened to him for years. He has a fantastic solo classical guitar piece which I can't remember the name of. What is the instrumentation for Shard?

That's the guitar piece. The other draw to Carter (at this time) is his polyrhythms. I've had a bit of an epiphany regarding what I want to do with my music, and life is getting to a point that I'm having (small amounts of) quality time to spend on it, so I've started "back to basics" phase and I'm definitely in a "to get where you want to go as quickly as possible, you need to go slow" mode. I'm really trying to avoid the missteps of the past.
[action=ElRay]apologies for being cliche heavy[/action]

And for the chromatic notation I love using Brennik's (sp?) suggested solfege names in his reference materials:

   ba    pa        ke    vi   ge    
do    re    mi  fa    so    la    ti

Takes some getting used to, but I love how the #/b notes have their own name instead of a modified version of the 'white key' notes. Completely gets rid of the need for #/b's just as the chromatic notation does (along with clefs, key sigs, and notes changing their line or space in different octaves.)

Nice. It also keeps things compatible with the more common terms and makes the "ee", "ah", "oh" pattern a little more consistent. I've already adjusted to using the interval class (... 4,5 ... 7...) instead of 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. in my head and just translate it when I have to type/talk to folks not used to chromatic notation, so this will make a good addition. Along that same line:

do ba mi ...

will also be good working with modes.

Start with the fifth, fourth, major third, minor sixth, major sixth, minor third, etc....

Gotcha: Hit the most common/important intervals first.

But if you find a way that clicks better, keep doing it that way.

Since the original intent was to add some interval training to a right-hand exercise, I can look at the intervals and adjust the right hand pattern.

I've found four permutations of AIT's that work nicely, I'll look at them again and see which ones make it easiest to hit a 5th, 4th, M3rd, etc. first. When I get this fleshed-out I'll post what I've got.

e|-
b|-
G|-8___(D#)
D|-10__(C)
A|-10__(G)
E|-9___(C#)
B|-

This works nicely, but for the first run-through, I think I'll need to stick to one octave. After I feel pretty good about the intervals with 1 to 11 semi-tones, then I'll try pushing out to 9ths, 13ths, etc.

Ray

 

[Trespass]

Any update on how thats goes elray?

 

[ElRay]

Any update on how thats goes elray?

I've started. I've been able to work-out a couple of different fingerings with an All Major 3rds tuning, but nothing straight forward with anything fourths or fifths based.

Given my Afghanistan news, I doubt I'll be able to wrap this up anytime soon. I should at least try to dump what I've already done in a simple text tab, so somebody else could pick-up where I left off. It was a bit tricky because only one or two permutations of the two basic forms "worked". It's that minor 2nd that caused the most trouble.

Ray

 

[hide]

This looks like an interesting method, I'm playing with the demo right now. Have you noticed significant improvements since you started using the game?

I started using another software called earope a week ago or so, all I can say is that it seems to work well, and it's also fun to play with, the user interface is really simple, and the different tasks in each "challenge" help me keep my attention level high.