[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]

Originally Posted by Trespass

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]

Originally Posted by ElRay

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]

Originally Posted by Durero

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.

Originally Posted by Durero

(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.

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

[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]

Originally Posted by ElRay

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.

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

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!