> lookwhereallthistalkinggotusbaby@yahoo.com wrote:
>> I've always been amazed how somebody can sit down and tune
>> their
>> guitar without a tuner? Or how somebody can sit down and hear
>> a
>> fairly simplistic riff in a song and fret it on their axe
>> within a
>> minute or two?
>>
>> Now, I'm sure it took a lot of practice to get to that level,
>> but
>> what steps did these guys take in their practice to get to
>> that
>> point? What exercises will help me identify notes, chords, key
>> I
>> hear in a song within a minute or two? Perhaps it's not as
>> easy as
>> they make it look, but I want to get there. I understand
>> playing
>> mechanics pretty well now, but when it comes to tone, I'm lost
>> like
>> the wayward
>> son. :-)
>
> It's hard to explain precisely how one develops this ability.
> I think
> it's different for different people, and some people don't have
> the
> capacity for it although that doesn't necessarily impede their
> ability
> to become great musicians.
>
> For me, I had piano lessons as a child and for some reason the
> teacher
> identified me as a good candidate for ear training. She would
> sit me
> in a chair in a different room and play notes and chords and
> ask me
> what they were. She started with single notes and then moved
> on to
> increasingly complex chords, and I'd just sort of intuitively
> know
> what they were.
>
> The theory nazis in alt.guitar.beginner claim that what I have
> isn't
> perfect pitch because an A4 note played at 435 Hz instead of
> the usual
> 440 Hz doesn't give me headaches. Still I can identify notes
> in a
> song without a pitch reference.
>
> But this "near perfect pitch" ability isn't a necessary part of
> ear
> training. To me, most people who can carry a tune singing you
> can
> learn to identify notes in music, and even some who can't find
> ways
> to do it. You can start by learning to distinguish major and
> minor
> chords and to recognize different musical *intervals*. Listen
> to
> songs that you're familiar with and try to do this. If you can
> sing
> or hum a melody, take a short section of a song you know and
> dissect
> it by attempting to play each note on the guitar. Then look at
> the
> guitar and see what the various intervals between the notes
> are.
>
> If you work at this enough, eventually your mind will learn to
> recognize the intervals that you hear without the necessity of
> your
> having to work through it on guitar. Use the same approach
> with
> chords; when you play chords on the guitar, start thinking
> about what
> the difference is that you hear between say a straight C chord
> and a
> C7 chord. Pretty soon your mind will be telling you when it
> hears
> that seventh form. And so on.
>
> I realize that this is all sort of vague but I think there's no
> set
> recipe because we all learn in a somewhat different manner.
> Since I
> was very young, I've been able to play songs (within limits of
> my
> technical ability) by listening to them and getting them in my
> head.
> If I can hum or sing it, generally I can play it.
Mark Bedingfie…
Hotfoot
