# For those who want to play by ear, but can't...



## mcmurray (Oct 19, 2010)

Try this.

Play a I, IV, V cadence in a key of your choice, then play the tonic (first scale degree) of that key. For example - key of C: play C major chord, F major chord, G major chord then play the note C.

Pick another key and do the same. For example - key of F: play F major chord, Bb major chord, C major chord, followed by the note F.

Notice how the tonic always sounds the same in context no matter which key you're playing in?

Now play the cadence again followed by the third scale degree of that key. Choose another key and repeat.

Notice how the third scale degree always sounds the same in context no matter which key you're playing in?

This is the basis for functional pitch recognition, listening for scale degrees once a key has been established in your ear. Every scale degree sounds distinct and they're very easy to discern after a short while. 

It's that simple folks, no knowledge of intervals required.


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## WickedSymphony (Oct 19, 2010)

Really good advice for everyone who wants to do this.

And for anyone who's ever been interested in learning perfect pitch, I'd like to add that I've found scale degree recognition to be much more useful. A good tool to use is this thing online called prolobe, just practice that with the first few levels until you get the whole major scale. By the time you're through with that you should be pretty good at identifying scale degrees. At least that's how I worked on it.


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## mcmurray (Oct 19, 2010)

^ agreed. Perfect pitch is by no means needed to become proficient, and neither is interval recognition training.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 19, 2010)

How is this not another way to play by ear?

Everybody can hear the structural elements of music, provided they're not deaf. Sure, it requires some sort of training to separate them out and identify them - either through instruction or self-discipline - but relative pitch is not some grand, elusive thing. My girlfriend knows almost nothing about music, and I've taught her to recognize different meters, intervals, harmonies and functions through casual conversation, without technical speak. It's not hard to train your ear; you just need some way to isolate the elements of what you're hearing.

That said, it's important to know the sound quality of each scale degree, but knowing the intervals between scale degrees is a minor step with far-reaching benefits. Also, I doubt that perfect pitch is something people just "have". Every person with perfect pitch that I have known has been involved in music since an early point in their lives, which suggests to me that it is a developed trait. I, myself, can name a couple different chords by pitch upon hearing them - something that I developed from being a shitty piano player and practicing certain resolutions over and over in the same key, in an effort to understand how they work. Long-term pitch memory can be learned, but relative pitch is easier and can even be used to facilitate stronger pitch-memory associations.


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## mcmurray (Oct 19, 2010)

For this to work in any situation, one needs to be familiar with the sound of scale degrees in both major and minor keys/tonalities (major and minor sound very different from each other). Just studying major or minor keys alone won't be enough to cover everything.

Once you have the major and minor tonalities down, you can attack modes.

Lydian, Mixolydian can be heard as small variants on the major scale (they all share a major 3rd interval between the first degree and the 3rd degree, which is the quality of a major sounding scale). 

For lydian, the scale degrees are the same as the major scale apart from the 4th degree, which is raised one semitone. This note can be heard as the sharpened 4th degree of the major scale. With Mixolydian, the degrees are the same as the major scale apart from the 7th degree which is lowered one semitone. This note can be heard as a flattened 7th degree.

Now, with the minor sounding modes and scales (dorian, phrygian, harmonic and melodic) the same concept applies (they all share a minor 3rd interval between the first degree and 3rd degree, which makes them sound minor), so they can be heard as small variations on the natural minor scale.

Dorian can be heard as a natural minor scale with a sharpened 6th degree, phrygian can be heard as a natural minor scale with a flattened 2nd degree harmonic can be heard as a natural minor scale with a sharpened 7th, melodic minor can be heard as a natural minor scale with a sharpened 6th and sharpened 7th.

A great way to listen for and learn what scale degrees sound like is by solfege. See here for more information (12 scale positions on page 4 of thread): Understanding the guitar fretboard and playing by ear. - Jam Session - The Guitar Player's Discussion Forum


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## mcmurray (Oct 19, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> How is this not another way to play by ear?





It _is_ another way to learn to play by ear (there are other ways for example interval recognition, perfect pitch training). Never said it wasn't. It's known as functional pitch recognition.



SchecterWhore said:


> Everybody can hear the structural elements of music, provided they're not deaf. Sure, it requires some sort of training to separate them out and identify them - either through instruction or self-discipline - but relative pitch is not some grand, elusive thing.



Well said.


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## Prydogga (Oct 19, 2010)

I built my ability way beyond I thought I could by ear by listening to chord progressions and basic intervals, foundations like listening to I,IV,V progressions and major/minor/perfect intervals really are necessary to learn in any form of music.


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## WickedSymphony (Oct 19, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> Also, I doubt that perfect pitch is something people just "have". Every person with perfect pitch that I have known has been involved in music since an early point in their lives, which suggests to me that it is a developed trait.



I agree entirely with this.

I was just trying to say for people who think that perfect pitch is the most awesome thing in the world (as a lot of people just getting into ear training do), it's mostly a parlor trick to me and being able to hear tones in the context of a key as mcmurray originally posted about is much more useful.



> I, myself, can name a couple different chords by pitch upon hearing them - something that I developed from being a shitty piano player and practicing certain resolutions over and over in the same key, in an effort to understand how they work. Long-term pitch memory can be learned, but relative pitch is easier and can even be used to facilitate stronger pitch-memory associations.



I think most everyone with a decent level of experience can recognize a few chord qualities and even specific tones easily just as a byproduct of regular practice/interaction with music. I can sing/recognize a few tones right on pitch from memory, but I've by no means got perfect pitch.


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## Kurkkuviipale (Oct 19, 2010)

WickedSymphony said:


> I was just trying to say for people who think that perfect pitch is the most awesome thing in the world (as a lot of people just getting into ear training do), it's mostly a parlor trick to me and being able to hear tones in the context of a key as mcmurray originally posted about is much more useful.
> ^



Yea, I know a few ppl that has a perfect pitch and say that it's a curse. One guy I know from the academy has asperger's and a perfect pitch. I see him suffering at theory classes when we sing as the pitch goes down. He told that perfect pitch is really bad in some cases, especially when you're learning your theory by tonic solfa. (Do, re, mi, etc.)

I'm now questioning OP about the "Notice how the third scale degree always sounds the same in context no matter which key you're playing in?" centence.

My piano teacher has also perfect pitch. He sure doesn't suffer from it, but enjoys. He recognizes some scales and gets certain emotions from them. Or I don't know how to put it. For example once he said that D-minor is a tango key (D-minor is used alot in tango music) and after that he cheerfully improvized something really tango-like in D-minor. Funny person.

For those who has perfect pitch third degree doesn't really sound the same in every key.

But I get what you're saying, and the tip is really good.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 19, 2010)

mcmurray said:


> It _is_ another way to learn to play by ear (there are other ways for example interval recognition, perfect pitch training). Never said it wasn't. It's known as functional pitch recognition.



The title of the thread is "For those who want to play by ear, but can't...", implying that the content is an alternative to playing by ear. It's semantic, but a valid observation, nonetheless.  


Yeah, I agree with the spirit of this thread. Learning to recognize scale degrees and the bigger picture of the scale is essential for the musician. I'd like to have a compendium of music in different scales and modes here so that people can actively listen for this stuff. Maybe I'll get around to it one day.


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## WickedSymphony (Oct 19, 2010)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> For those who has perfect pitch third degree doesn't really sound the same in every key.



Well, the idea of this is whole thing is that each degree of the scale has a certain function, or a tendency to resolve to another note in the scale. For example, the 7th degree of major is called the leading tone because of its tendency to lead to the 1st degree. This function is established by the key, not by the notes themselves.

How people with perfect pitch hear it, I have no idea. Remember that perfect pitch is the ability to recognize/sing notes without a reference tone (in that case it would be relative, and scale degree recognition would fall under this).So, I think your example of your teacher is more about getting a certain aura or feel from a scale rather than perfect pitch, which is also something extremely useful for any musician to be able to grasp. 

A friend of mine from high school had perfect pitch, as well. It really shined in our AP music theory class when we did dictation. We were obviously supposed to do it based off the intervals between each note in the scale, but of course he could just hear each note and know what it was. Asshole.  Was also great during jam sessions if we were trying to cover songs with really fast licks in them, he'd be able to pick it apart like nothing.

As far as the curse thing, I had a friend tell me once he went out with a group of friends including one that was a music teacher with perfect pitch, and she spent the whole night complaining about how the music was slightly off pitch. I wonder how annoying it must've been in her shoes, but also how annoying to hear her complain about it, haha.


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## mcmurray (Oct 20, 2010)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> For those who has perfect pitch third degree doesn't really sound the same in every key.



I'm sure that even people with perfect pitch can still hear that the tune "happy birthday" has the same melody no matter which key it's played in - it's only the reference pitch (tonic) that changes.



SchecterWhore said:


> The title of the thread is "For those who want to play by ear, but can't...", implying that the content is an alternative to playing by ear. It's semantic, but a valid observation, nonetheless.



I suppose that's one way to read it. What I meant, is "here's another way to look at pitch recognition for those that haven't had any luck with other methods". I though that was pretty self explanatory.


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## WickedSymphony (Oct 20, 2010)

mcmurray said:


> What I meant, is "here's another way to look at pitch recognition for those that haven't had any luck with other methods". I though that was pretty self explanatory.



Yep, that's what I took it as, but I guess I can also see how the title can be misconstrued.


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## theclap (Oct 20, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> How is this not another way to play by ear?
> 
> Everybody can hear the structural elements of music, provided they're not deaf. Sure, it requires some sort of training to separate them out and identify them - either through instruction or self-discipline - but relative pitch is not some grand, elusive thing. My girlfriend knows almost nothing about music, and I've taught her to recognize different meters, intervals, harmonies and functions through casual conversation, without technical speak. It's not hard to train your ear; you just need some way to isolate the elements of what you're hearing.
> 
> That said, it's important to know the sound quality of each scale degree, but knowing the intervals between scale degrees is a minor step with far-reaching benefits. Also, I doubt that perfect pitch is something people just "have". Every person with perfect pitch that I have known has been involved in music since an early point in their lives, which suggests to me that it is a developed trait. I, myself, can name a couple different chords by pitch upon hearing them - something that I developed from being a shitty piano player and practicing certain resolutions over and over in the same key, in an effort to understand how they work. Long-term pitch memory can be learned, but relative pitch is easier and can even be used to facilitate stronger pitch-memory associations.



i actually know a couple cases off the top of my head that come from zero musical background through their actual life or genetically. They can name pitches by saying C4 Eb2 etc, pitch and octave on a piano. It's funny and demeaning because someone will play a chord and he can name all of the pitches note and octave wise but he has no idea what the chords are called . i do also have a friend who has perfect pitch and he is also very heavley involved in music, when he was 6 he played a 12 minute piano composition he wrote for our elementary school. and also plays drums bassoon drums guitar violin cello piano etc beautifully. Just some food for thought. 

anyways, i started using prolobe, shit is pretty cool


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