Can ear training be taught?

[scelerat]

The Taylor Swift threads got me thinking about this.

She's a professional songwriter and musician and yet singing in tune continues to be an issue. I've got friends who are musicians (and singers) who also have pitch problems, despite voice lessons, practicing, etc.

Personally I generally sing in tune. I've had 30 years of church, school, college choirs and bands, almost 90% of my life. But even as a small kid, before taking any instrument lessons, I had a good ear and could figure out the notes and chords to songs I heard on the radio and play them back on the piano.

I know when I sing out of tune, partly because I can feel the vibrations in my head and know when the notes aren't coming out right. If I have a monitor, I can tell too. I usually know when it happens and correct.

Do you think Swift can tell she's out of tune and just can't correct it, or can she even tell?

The first case would suggest practice would help -- simply working out your vocal muscles. Though she's likely had more rehearsal than most people do in their lifetimes. The second case is about ear training. I learned how to sight sing in choirs, and it definitely was a *learning* experience and involved some effort. But it's also not quite the same as being able to tell when you're a dozen cents flat from what the rest of the band is playing.

[James M]

Greaet question! I'm sure we've all seen the ads in Guitar World/Player for that "train by ear" CD set...I wonder if that works? I'd assume that you must be able to learn...right?

[drod2045]

I know when Im in or out of tune singing but the hard part is correcting it for me :p

[bigdaddy]

Relative pitch, yes. Absolute pitch, not so much (plus, it's incredibly rare).

[derekd]

Ear training is taught in every music program on every college campus. It has been taught in some version since the 11th century. Also called solfege.

With regard to Ms. Swift, I would guess she is not as good as her records suggest, and not as bad as her grammy performance would suggest. Otherwise, she would be a pariah from past tours. My guess is, she couldn't hear well on stage + nerves. She has had a hell of a year, from this performance to her acceptance being interrupted for the video award, etc.

[harvestmark]

I learned the ear training thing at a pretty young age, maybe 10 years old. I taught myself, in fact. Maybe there are some more inclined to be able to learn this than others.

With regard to Taylor Swift; no, she's not a skilled singer, and her melodies are not demanding at all. But with her, it's not about the quality of the vocal performance as much as it is the story she tells, and the way she tells it. Think of Bob Dylan, not our greatest vocalist, but universally admired as an artist. While I'm not a Taylor fan, I have to acknowledge that there is something that connects with people.

Mark Miller

[mtlin]

Of course.

[Rama]

My wife, a beautiful Native American and former Miss Cherokee was absolutely tone deaf when we met...She honestly could come no closer to matching a specified pitch than pure chance. Strangely she has an incredible rhythmic sense.

I don't think she was exposed to music or any household singing as a child and that part of her wiring never developed.

But....

With some gentle help from me and some awareness on her part she is getting there...Not a lot better but she is approaching it and when she gets it right she can tell...This is some 15 years down the road..but it shows me on some absolute or near absolute level that it can be taught even if the hardwiring years have passed.

[arthur rotfeld]

Ear traning can certainly be taught. The multitude of skills there can be learned....

What I learned in a couple of years of undergrad coursework, plus another two in grad school....and then on the job. Hmm, my ear should be better...LOL


Anyway, I have minimal vocal training (different than ear training or solfege). Plenty of chorus experience, but just a single semester of voice lessons. When I sing out of tune, it's for the same reasons it is for many others:
--I'm not warmed up,
--I don't have a clear idea of the pitch I'm trying to hit,
--my voice is shot/tired,
--or breath support isn't there (forgetting to breathe or breathe at the right time).

Seems she's getting a lot of bad press, and she must know it....it probably hurts too.
If it were me, I'd be getting way serious with a vocal coach. Probably take the best one I could find and get him on salary and on the road with me.

[Tone_Terrific]

What I learned in a couple of years of undergrad coursework, plus another two in grad school....and then on the job. Hmm, my ear should be better...LOL


Like sports and many other things, I feel that there is an underlying talent that blooms quicker, with training, for some than others. That talent includes the ability to focus and practice what one has been exposed to.....rather like IQ, eh?

[m1911]

It's funny you mention Ear Training....
My kid is a Senior at Berklee and he said ALL Students must take 4 Semesters of Ear Training. He also said it was the most difficult of all the classes he's taken to date.
He said a lot of kids fail one ot two of the classe and then have to re-take it.
You don't graduate without 4 Semesters of it!
Maybe Tomo will weigh-in here, but from what I've heard, MOST people could use it.
I guess Berklee feels it's the foundation of the entire process. Even "Music Production & Engineering" Majors and "Music Business" Majors have to take it also.
Anyway....

[arthur rotfeld]

Yeah, Tone, sure. But everyone can learn to hear things better, and consequently sing them better.



I checked out some of Taylor's Grammy performance on youtoob. (I've only heard her radio hits in the context of guitar lessons with tween girls. Auto-tune or not, she got close enough.) On that live show, it sounds like someone who can't hear herself...not sure if that was the case, but that's what it sounds like. I'd speculate that warm-ups might have been skipped as well.....

Seems like a singing the typical vocal warmups, scales, arpeggios, etc. would be a big help. Nothing a good coach won't fix is my guess. We'll see.....

-------
m119.......yes, two years of eartraining (mostly sight-singing and dictation) is typical in a music program and it's a basic requirement, like the two years of theory or music history.

[rh]

Relative pitch, yes. Absolute pitch, not so much (plus, it's incredibly rare).

In the recent book, Music and the Brain, recent research was cited that actually concludes that absolute pitch is not rare at all. Common, in fact.

I believe the studies played short pieces of music to participants and graded their ability to sound the initial pitch back. I recall some ridiculously high number, 90+%, were able to do it.

[smallbutmighty]

Yes, ear training can be taught, but singing in tune is not just a matter of ear training. If you can't hear yourself, you can't sing in tune.

Singing out of tune in the types of situations pros find themselves in is most often a symptom of not being able to hear.

I can sing in tune all day long when I'm singing to myself and my acoustic guitar. Stick me in front of a couple blazing amps, drums, and a big PA with sound bouncing around everywhere, and I become completely dependent on a good monitor mix. To a large degree, my ability to sing in tune then lies in the hands of someone else.

So.....is a given artist going to get a bad monitor mix every single time they perform? That's another question. Probably not. At that point you have to start looking at other causes.

[Cuthbert]

I have heard that a great number of Chinese have something similar to perfect pitch because of their language. Does anyone have any info on this?

[Onswah]

Ear Training generally refers to relative pitch training not absolute or perfect pitch training. I went to Berklee and my first day of Ear Training the Professor asked "Who here has perfect pitch?" Three students raised their hands, he smiled and said,"Great, today we will be starting in D" and proceeded to play in Ab driving the kids with perfect pitch nuts. He explained that perfect pitch is nothing more than being able to identify blue on the canvas and that far more important is skill is being able to use blue and see how it relates to the other colors.
There are only 4 required semesters of Ear Training for graduation it then falls into individual practice, or musicianship. No one will make you learn it but it is a valuable skill in any musician's toolbox.

[taez555]

As a Berklee grad I should probably chime in.

What Berklee teaches as Ear Training isn't necessarily pitch training. Ear training more refers to learning how to sight sing. To look at a written piece of music and be able to perform it or sing it without the aid of an instrument. This means using solfege (Do, Re, Me, etc) to sing a given note as well as to understand how to perform the correct rhythm.

Really it's about how to get your mind around music without having an instrument in front of you. Think Beethoven when he was deaf. He had the ability to communicate straight to paper what he heard in his head.

As far as Pitch, and whether or not it can be taught. With some exceptions (we all know people who simply can't dance, or sing, etc), yes it can be taught. Training your voice to sing on pitch is just like training for a sport. Practice, practice, practice.

Honestly I think a big part of it is that we as musicians have become too dependant on our technology. Not only do things like Autotune make us lazy, but I simply don’t think as much time is spent anymore perfecting our craft. 30 years ago you gigged 361 nigthts a year and cut your teeth and you brought yourself to that level. Now… you play once in a while, tweek your social networking page, upload some Youtube videos, work on your promo kit, spend hours shifting sound clips around in Protools, play PS3 for a while, spend hours on TGP arguing about John Mayer……. There’s just so much more occupying our time that music takes a back seat and I think it’s effecting the music that comes out today.

Maybe it’s just me. :-)

[Mayor McCheese]

I know when Im in or out of tune singing but the hard part is correcting it for me :p

Yeah, this is me as well.

[Mayor McCheese]

Ear training is taught in every music program on every college campus. It has been taught in some version since the 11th century. Also called solfege.

With regard to Ms. Swift, I would guess she is not as good as her records suggest, and not as bad as her grammy performance would suggest. Otherwise, she would be a pariah from past tours. My guess is, she couldn't hear well on stage + nerves. She has had a hell of a year, from this performance to her acceptance being interrupted for the video award, etc.

She stunk it up pretty good with Def Leppard when she did "Pour Some Sugar on Me" with them, too.

But she's young, she can get better. She writes her own stuff and that counts for something.

[utterhack]

In the recent book, Music and the Brain, recent research was cited that actually concludes that absolute pitch is not rare at all. Common, in fact.

I believe the studies played short pieces of music to participants and graded their ability to sound the initial pitch back. I recall some ridiculously high number, 90+%, were able to do it.

btw that's not absolute pitch :)