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There used to be a cute relative pitch game on the PG Music site. Not sure if it’s still there.
I’m way past such courses but as a music pro, I can vouch for the importance of doing ear training. I have no knowledge of specific courses.
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If you can’t hear the notes in your head before you play (or improvise) them, you’re not a real musician yet That alone gives me pause. You're not a real musician unless....... you buy my course. It sounds to me like he's saying you have to hear it before you play it and any musician worth anything will tell you you don't plan a great solo. It comes from letting the subconscious control the body and you're just a spectator to your own playing. In other words.... I'm hearing at the same time you are. Once you have played it, it is then possible to recreate it note for note as many players will do. But that initial first time.... I believe it's coming from deep inside and you really aren't planning it. It is simply happening.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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TH is a local guy in my part of the world. Been in the business for decades and has garnered both lovers and haters. Here is a quick link, I will let you guess which one is represended here. As for myself I prefer not to speak unkind of any musician. https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1622908
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There used to be a cute relative pitch game on the PG Music site. Not sure if it’s still there.
.................... FYI - The relative pitch game is included in the Musical Arcade package: https://www.pgmusic.com/musicalarcade.htm
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The orange box labelled "Enemies Of Guitar Playing FUN" contains a list: • Not being able to hear notes in your head
• Not being able to hear the notes BEFORE you play them
• Not being able to instantly play the notes you hear in your mind and so on. I thought, jeez, these are all basically restatements of the same thing, it's like a test and the assignment is "COME UP WITH 10 REASONS FOR XYZ" and you can only think of one but you can't leave the classroom until you do. Then I counted the items in Tom's "enemies list" and sure enough, there were exactly 10, just like I knew there would be.
Last edited by Mark Hayes; 02/12/22 12:38 PM.
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I assume, becasue he includes improv., that he considers many classical players/orchestra members non musical.
I just watched a vid...he has the most overstated, unpleasant vibrato I've heard in a long while.
Bald, bearded, guitar over his belly...could be any semi retired noodler - though not as good.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
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I don't know this guy, nor did I go to the link. One of the most underused or missed parts of people's musical education is this part. You should be able to sing a melody and then play it, basically first time thru. I am sure most players who have any ability can hunt and peck a melody on their instrument, just as they do on a computer keyboard, if they can't type properly. But if you really understand your instrument, music and have talent, then you should be able to do this. Many people think George Benson is singing along to his playing, but it is actually the reverse, he is playing what he is singing. It seems like a minor distinction, but it is not.
I know nobody here was discounting ear training. But many people just don't practice it. You don't really need a course. Sit without your instrument, hum or sing a tune, random, made up on the spot. Then pick up your instrument and try to play it. Sounds simple, and for some savant it probably is. But most people will find it difficult. With practice it will become easier and easier.
There are probably many classically trained musicians that can improvise. There are just as many who can't, since it is a learned skill and requires practice, and they probably don't practice this since it is not part of their musical life/background and idiom. Most of them can read the rest of us under the table though! Oscar Peterson was classically trained pianist and could play jazz like there is no tomorrow. His classical skills were evident in his capability to play, and his improvisational skills were epic.
Just 2 cents worth here.
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
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Essentially, I learned how to play the guitar almost totally by ear. Sure, I got a couple of chord books and even a few jazz instruction books but mostly, all I did was grab the chords in the books that I felt were essential to accomplish what I wanted to do.
Beyond that.... I would simply go in my room, shut the door, turn on the radio to the top 40 pop music station and play along with the songs. This was in the days before the vast majority of musicians tuned to A-440 so I was out of tune on quite a few songs. Maybe it was me because all I used to tune was a pitch pipe. Not the best or most accurate way to tune.
But playing something you know, or something you have only heard a few times, or better yet, have never heard, and playing along with it is one of the best ear trainers you can have. Having had some piano lessons that tended towards the theory side, really helped in understanding where a song might be going next. This came in handy when I was asked to play the guitar at a singing function party for a church group as a teenager. It's challenging at first but the more you do it the easier it becomes. So much so that when I was asked to jam/set in with a band at a gig, and at the time I was a rock and roller, while the band was country, I was able to play along with confidence and even took a large number of the solos because that's what they really needed. At the end of the jam/gig, they asked if I wanted a job and I went on to play with them. Several weeks later, the rhythm player and singer skipped town and we found ourselves at a gig with the singer and rhythm guitarist gone. I had to fill both lead and rhythm on songs that I was hardly comfortable with. My ear training again provided me with the tools to pull off that gig and many more that followed. Our band backed a few Nashville stars and again.... songs that we didn't play but needed to provide a believable backing track for the star. One said he wished he could take us on tour with him...... still waiting on that phone call.
On the flip side, I've known some really amazing sight readers. Several of the church piano players could sight read keys with 4 and 5 sharps and flats. Played it like they had been playing it all their lives. But ask them to jam in the key of A on a 1,4,5 progression and they'd look at you like you were speaking Klingon. They had no clue and were totally unable to jam.
Ear training is critical to a well rounded player. Like has been said.... " turn on the record player "
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 02/13/22 06:52 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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My version of that, growing up in the early 1960s in the desolation of the Adirondacks, was to turn on WNEW, the AM jazz station from New York City, and play along.
Jzaah Jzhook.
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This was in the days before the vast majority of musicians tuned to A-440 so I was out of tune on quite a few songs. Maybe it was me because all I used to tune was a pitch pipe. Not the best or most accurate way to tune. That was before (affordable) strobe and these almost throwaway contact tuners we all have now, I assume? My kid year bands had no piano, organ or keyboard player of an kind, and none of us with strings had a tuner, so one guy tuned and the rest just matched him. I had perfect or very close to perfect pitch so we were likely always within 25 cents of correct, but man, to think of the times now when stores often toss give you a $20 Snark when you buy a guitar. Right now my local "son" store (mom died 2 years ago and dad last month, so the mom and pop part of it is over) has my Rokit 5 near field monitors on consignment and I wish he would sell them so I could put that money toward the Mini Martin he has in his store right now. Very nice guitar and I can probably get it for close to an even swap if I play him right.
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This was in the days before the vast majority of musicians tuned to A-440 so I was out of tune on quite a few songs. Maybe it was me because all I used to tune was a pitch pipe. Not the best or most accurate way to tune. That was before (affordable) strobe and these almost throwaway contact tuners we all have now, I assume? My kid year bands had no piano, organ or keyboard player of an kind, and none of us with strings had a tuner, so one guy tuned and the rest just matched him. I had perfect or very close to perfect pitch so we were likely always within 25 cents of correct, but man, to think of the times now when stores often toss give you a $20 Snark when you buy a guitar. Right now my local "son" store (mom died 2 years ago and dad last month, so the mom and pop part of it is over) has my Rokit 5 near field monitors on consignment and I wish he would sell them so I could put that money toward the Mini Martin he has in his store right now. Very nice guitar and I can probably get it for close to an even swap if I play him right. Yes. I'd tune to the pitch pipe or to the piano in the living room. Neither was particularly accurate. I played in a lot of bands back in the early years where that was how the band tuned.... one guy would kinda tune close and everyone else would try to get as close as possible.... while the drummer and the bass player were banging around. On one particular trip to a music store to buy some bigger PA cabinets and a power amp, I decided to spend a couple hundred on a Conn Strobe-tuner. Our band never sounded the same from that day on. It was a noticeable huge improvement because not only was the guitar in tune perfectly with itself, but so was the bass and they were in perfect tune with each other. This is notable in that the bass player in that band was self-admittedly "tone deaf" and he was pretty accurate in saying that. I still have that Conn and use it occasionally. My goto tuner is a cheap Arion HU-8300 that someone left behind in the dressing room after a Wrangler Country Showdown that our house band and club was hosting. We held it for several weeks and I ended up taking it home. It's actually pretty accurate and has inputs and a mic. My favorite "I don't need a tuner" story....was several years back, at a church. The music minister was leading a small, volunteer orchestra composed of everyone from rank beginners to very accomplished musicians. The piano was tuned to A-440 and the MM would spend a few minutes having everyone tune audibly to the piano. Needless to say, it sounded like a elementary school orchestra. Several of us had suggested that he purchase a tuner and keep it in the rehearsal room and everyone could use it to tune before going to the big room. He kicked back on this since he believed that he had perfect pitch and didn't even need to use the piano as a reference let alone admit that a tiny box was better than his ears. Well, on a whim.... I asked him to "help me tune" at rehearsal. I had my tuner in line.... maybe I shouldn't have done that but it did prove my point. What he called "good" was simply not. Anyway, at a music store visit, sanctioned by him.... we spent a couple of dollars on a chromatic electronic tuner and brought it to the sunday rehearsal and showed him how it worked and he was reluctantly convinced that we needed to use it. So it was placed on the rehearsal room shelf and everyone was told to tune up before rehearsal. Most of the folks used it. It did make a nice difference.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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eddie1261
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I was always a big fan of that old Chinese song named Thieu Ning...
You think musicians in China call "Chopsticks" "Silverware"?
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I was playing a 21st party gig and the band sounded awful. I suggested we all tune up before the next number...the two guitarists insisted they were in tune...it was obvious they weren't so insisted. Turns out the tuner the two were using was reading & displaying incorrectly due to a flat battery...this was mid 80s so tuners existed, were very expensive and prone to problems.
I managed to convince them that tuning to the same machine & testing the battery before doing so was a decent option.
It wasn't unusual that the lead singer/rhythm guitarist & the lead guitarist didn't know when they were out... for two weeks we rehearsed a song written by one of them and for two weeks it sounded awful. THEN they wanted me...ME to sing some backing part. They both insisted then both told me I sounded awful, was out of tune until I pointed out they were playing different, non harmonizing, chords...and that I was in tune with ONE of them, (NOT the singer by the way),then they started arguing between them selves about it. I didn't have to sing after that.
I have a bit of a cloth ear, I can't sing AND I'm a bassist but I could tell, almost every time, when these fellows were off.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
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Playing in tune. Seems simple doesn't it! I don't know what I did for years as a young man, with no tuner, no piano, playing by myself in my room. I was always tuned to the records I was listening to and learning from. Some of the old Chet Atkins stuff was fun when it was recorded or mastered or manufactured with a built in speed issue that made the tuning non standard. Not talking about the altered tunings Chet used many times, just your standard stuff. Sometime off by 1/2 step or even a whole step. I got to where I knew what the high E sounded like and could tune to that pretty good. I even still test my self now and try to tune by ear, the check with the tuner. I am pretty good at it, but as I get older it seems to be getting harder!!
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
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Sometime off by 1/2 step or even a whole step. Probably sped up/slowed down at mastering to best fit the format.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
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Sometime off by 1/2 step or even a whole step. Probably sped up/slowed down at mastering to best fit the format. I believe there have also been songs that have been deliberately moved to an "awkward" key to reduce copying, e.g., record in C but shift the release to C#.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
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Sometime off by 1/2 step or even a whole step. Probably sped up/slowed down at mastering to best fit the format. That would be my guess.
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
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Great replies which has turned out to be an interesting thread from my humble first post. Just watched my first video of his on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iacQvKMSx6AHe seems to be saying in this video that if playing a melodic line on a guitar, that you should be able just to hold the strings down with your left hand, and use your right hand as normal as if you are playing the melody. Wants to convince the student on stage that if he can't do this, then something is wrong. To be honest I don't see any sense in what he is talking about.
Last edited by musiclover; 02/21/22 05:59 AM.
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