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    • #36968
      Copperhead
      Participant

      Even before I started guitar, I knew I had a tin ear. Everyone told me I was tone deaf. Oddly enough, I can recognize songs from the first few notes – I just couldn’t duplicate them. I was never able to pick out songs on the guitar by listening. I almost gave up playing several times.
      When I see videos posted here, some of the suggestions are to work on bending. I struggled and struggled on bending to pitch. I never thought I would get it, but somehow I have miraculously improved to the point where I am generally satisfied (after many many years, unfortunately). Sometimes I don’t hit it, especially if it’s in a run and I can’t take my time, but overall I feel pretty good about it. I’ll never have Perfect Pitch like Streisand or Elton, but I feel pretty good about guitar.
      At some point I got one of those ear training courses. As I remember it was mostly based on keyboards, but I’ve always had one around, so I worked on it. I never “completed” it but I did get some good out of it.
      Here’s some things I did to improve my ear, especially bending. As Doug says, you can use a tuner to see when you hit the pitch. The other obvious trick is to pick the note you are bending to, and compare the sounds. Unison bends might help too.
      One of the exercises I learned was to pick a note on the guitar, without looking to see what it was. Then, without looking, pick other notes and find one that matches the sound (pitch) of the one you picked. Make sure you aren’t picking just the natural notes. So if I pick a note, and say it’s a C#, which I wouldn’t know because I didn’t look, I would pick around until I recognized another C#. THis works great on guitar because the notes are found in different locations. Take your time and work on this a little at a time. When I finally was able to recognize a note just my comparing the pitch – I though I had discovered the Mother Lode.
      Another hint is make sure your guitar is tuned to pitch. You don’t want to be recognizing notes that are changing all the time.

    • #36969
      vinay
      Participant

      Other than having it tuned to pitch, also make sure intonation is spot on if you’re trying to find the same pitch on different strings. Unfortunately this isn’t easily done on an acoustic guitar but it should be done on an electric guitar.

    • #36979
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      google around for “ear training” plus the names of the biggest universities you can think of, to see how their music departments expect students to be able to perform the ear skills.. the web results might be a shock. at any time, without any preparation, you are supposed to be able to sing a middle C note, immediately, and on pitch. from this ability, you’re supposed to be able to recognize any other note, played sequentially or simultaneously, and be able to name that second note, by name and interval. and then after that, be able to recognize and write down four notes played simultaneously as a chord, name the notes and the chord name, in any order of the notes; recognize any of a handful of scale types played ascending or descending; and write down a 4 or 8 bar melody played with quarter notes and eighth notes after listening to it played on piano just twice. Thats just for starters.. and then it seems to get “a bit harder”! and oh yeah, these are supposedly the basic skills which a high school senior is supposed to have, before studying “the real stuff”.

      . Then, without looking, pick other notes and find one that matches the sound (pitch) of the one you picked.

      I like this because it seems there is some funny business going on with how the ear and muscle memory works together in the brain. it seems that hearing pitch and playing a pitch are best studied together, not separately. and it seems no one knows why the skill building works this way, it just does..

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #36980
      rightonthemark
      Participant

      i do not have a great ear but one things that helped me was singing along while practicing guitar scales.
      i would sing the note of the scale… “A C D E G … etc” while playing the scale on guitar trying my best to sing in tune. it helped my ear and my vocals. though, either are great. but definitely better.
      the other thing was to find songs that had guitar and vocal parts i could sing and play together.
      two examples are…ozone from ace frehley and the stake from steve miller (just the part where it says “nobody loves you like the way i do”). i bet the rooster from alice in chains would be good for this as well. this idea also carries over into playing melodic leads and solos.

      rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

    • #36983
      Copperhead
      Participant

      Interesting the level of ability you describe from the University courses. Way out of my league. I remember a conversation I had with a fellow teacher that not only sang, but played piano. I taught her son to play guitar, but he also sang with the school choir. She said that although she could sing, he was actually better because he could sing the harmonies above and below, or something along those lines. I don’t think you learn that kind of skill.

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