I think people do it for a lot of reasons:
First of all, using LA doesn't work very well for notes from harmonic and melodic minor-- you would need to sing FI and SI, for example, for the notes F# and G# in A minor. And music in minor is constantly switching between natural, harmonic, melodic, and sometimes some other alterations.
By using DO based minor, you simply sing LA and TI (for F# and G#, in previous example). Which you're already familiar with from the major scale.
Secondly, the point of solfege is not only to give you syllables to sing, but to represent verbally what is happening musically. When a song is in minor, or even switches into minor momentarily, it makes sense to call the note that is the tonic of the current minor scale "DO". Because your ear hears it as the tonic. In other words, DO in solfege is always supposed to represent the current tonic. I have a hard time imagining that anyone hears the key of A minor as "LA", meaning the sixth degree of the C scale. What I think is really happening is the person is singing LA, but hearing it as the tonic. That's ok, as long as the person is hearing it correctly, but I mean the whole point of solfege is to train the ear in the first place. So if you're singing LA but hearing DO, it makes more sense to just sing DO, too. (I'm not referring, obviously, to a VI chord in the context of a major key, in that case the notes for A minor chord are definitely LA, DO, and MI, since the ear still hears C as the tonic in that situation.)
Also, jazz standards and classical music is constantly switching the momentary key. So, there may be songs where it switches from major to the relative minor, and for those instances using LA isn't that bad. But what happens when the song then shifts into F minor for 2 bars, then G minor, then D minor, then C# minor? Using LA each time presupposes that the listener will latch onto the relative major of each of these momentary keys-- in my example, Ab, Bb, F, and E. But there is no time for that, and again, it doesn't reflect what the ear is really hearing, which is a switch to F as the tonic, G as the tonic, D, and C#. So with the DO-based minor method, every tonality has DO as its basis, and whether it's major or minor will just reflect itself as MI or ME on the third degree, which is an extremely accurate representation of what the ear actually needs to hear.
One more thought on this-- the method of always using DO as the tonic allows you to take it to the next level, by applying solfege to modes. D Dorian, for example, may have the same notes as C major, but definitely D is the tonic, not C. The ear may have trouble perceiving that at first, but with practice, there is no doubt at all that that is the case. So the D dorian scale would be DO, RE, ME, FA, SO, LA, TE, DO. Once you train your ears to hear each solfege syllable as its distance from tonic, like RE as the second degree (regardless of the type of tonality, major, minor, or otherwise), then applying it to modal music is not that hard. Like Dorian is exactly the same as natural minor except it has LA in place of LE. And hopefully, we are already familiar with the sound of LA from the major scale. But you can also apply this to much harder modes, like Locrian, or modes of melodic minor, harmonic minor, harmonic major, etc.
Ear Training...Getting a trained ear.
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- KVRian
- 806 posts since 1 Sep, 2008 from US
It work just fine. It's purely what you're use to.sammy24 wrote:I think people do it for a lot of reasons:
First of all, using LA doesn't work very well for notes from harmonic and melodic minor-- you would need to sing FI and SI, for example, for the notes F# and G# in A minor. And music in minor is constantly switching between natural, harmonic, melodic, and sometimes some other alterations.
By using DO based minor, you simply sing LA and TI (for F# and G#, in previous example). Which you're already familiar with from the major scale.
I do, and I know I'm not the only one. If you subscribe to the idea that singing from la to mi implies minor vs. do to so implies major then it'll make sense. If you don't then no.Secondly, the point of solfege is not only to give you syllables to sing, but to represent verbally what is happening musically. When a song is in minor, or even switches into minor momentarily, it makes sense to call the note that is the tonic of the current minor scale "DO". Because your ear hears it as the tonic. In other words, DO in solfege is always supposed to represent the current tonic. I have a hard time imagining that anyone hears the key of A minor as "LA", meaning the sixth degree of the C scale. What I think is really happening is the person is singing LA, but hearing it as the tonic. That's ok, as long as the person is hearing it correctly, but I mean the whole point of solfege is to train the ear in the first place. So if you're singing LA but hearing DO, it makes more sense to just sing DO, too. (I'm not referring, obviously, to a VI chord in the context of a major key, in that case the notes for A minor chord are definitely LA, DO, and MI, since the ear still hears C as the tonic in that situation.)
That's where I picked up Do based minor. It works well in that context. Not that it really helps because everyone realize soon enough in those cases, forcing solfege to do the work hardly helps learning the music. It simply isn't a good system for everything.Also, jazz standards and classical music is constantly switching the momentary key. So, there may be songs where it switches from major to the relative minor, and for those instances using LA isn't that bad. But what happens when the song then shifts into F minor for 2 bars, then G minor, then D minor, then C# minor? Using LA each time presupposes that the listener will latch onto the relative major of each of these momentary keys-- in my example, Ab, Bb, F, and E. But there is no time for that, and again, it doesn't reflect what the ear is really hearing, which is a switch to F as the tonic, G as the tonic, D, and C#. So with the DO-based minor method, every tonality has DO as its basis, and whether it's major or minor will just reflect itself as MI or ME on the third degree, which is an extremely accurate representation of what the ear actually needs to hear.
Or you can just sing from Re without all those modifications. I doubt we'll agree here, but it's simply easier to sing the same 7 syllables most of the time. Do-base singing is like singing music without key signature to me.One more thought on this-- the method of always using DO as the tonic allows you to take it to the next level, by applying solfege to modes. D Dorian, for example, may have the same notes as C major, but definitely D is the tonic, not C. The ear may have trouble perceiving that at first, but with practice, there is no doubt at all that that is the case. So the D dorian scale would be DO, RE, ME, FA, SO, LA, TE, DO. Once you train your ears to hear each solfege syllable as its distance from tonic, like RE as the second degree (regardless of the type of tonality, major, minor, or otherwise), then applying it to modal music is not that hard. Like Dorian is exactly the same as natural minor except it has LA in place of LE. And hopefully, we are already familiar with the sound of LA from the major scale. But you can also apply this to much harder modes, like Locrian, or modes of melodic minor, harmonic minor, harmonic major, etc.
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- KVRist
- 140 posts since 20 May, 2005
When a song switches from major to parallel minor, does that sound like La-Mi? doesn't the ear just simply hear same tonic, with the mediant being altered down by a half-step?
If you are someone who can listen to a Wayne Shorter song or a McCoy Tyner solo, and transcribe it accurately without having to rewind the music 50,000 times and take an entire month, then you don't need solfege; you can already do what it is that solfege is trying to accomplish. But if like the rest of the world that kind of listening is still beyond one's grasp, then solfege is an indispensable tool to getting ever closer to that goal.
As far as "forcing solfege to do the work hardly" helping you to learn the music-- again, regardless of the particular method you use, learning jazz and classical music is ALL about how melodies and harmonies relate to a tonic. Until you can hear the music this way, how can you deal with 1)modulations 2)voicings 3)transcribing, and importantly, 4)pre-hearing (for improvisation, etc.) The goal of solfege is so that you can understand music in a purely musical fashion. Telling someone, oh yeah that note is b6, doesn't mean anything, unless you can hear it. For that matter, LE doesn't mean anything either, unless you can hear it. But using the syllables enables one to nail it, to be precise with their music instead of kind of vague, and basically playing most of the right notes, etc.
I have yet to come across any tonal music for which moveable-DO solfege does not work. any music that can be "heard"-- meaning that you can sing, etc. benefits from solfege. Any music that I can't identify the solfege is not because the solfege system doesn't work, but rather completely the opposite; because my ear isn't good enough yet. Maybe the reason you feel that solfege doesn't work for jazz, in the first place, is because you aren't as familiar with the particular differences in solfege method that we are discussing right now. You can't hear jazz without RA, ME,SE, LE, TE, DI,RI, FI, SI, and LI, the chromatic solfege. Again, I don't mean you can't hear jazz without knowing solfege-- not at all-- what I mean is, you can't hear jazz without being able to identify and hear the sounds of those notes. And solfege is an extremely useful tool , for those willing to learn, in order to attain the actual goal of hearing them. At which point, by the way, you no longer need the solfege, because the actual sounds are hard-wired into your brain.
One more thing-- It is absolutely possible to sing RE-RE and hear a Dorian scale, for example. But if you really really think about it, you'll realize that your ear is just doing its thing, and you happen to be singing some syllables, like lyrics to a song. Your ear still hears RE as tonic in that situation (hopefully). If so, it means that sometimes you are singing DO for tonic, sometimes Re, sometimes, LA, MI for phrygian, FA for Lydian. Ok. So there's nothing wrong with that, singing any syllables is fine. And solfege helps to organize the music a bit, even in that context. But doing it this way is, IMHO, missing out on maybe the single greatest thing about solfege--consistently using the same syllable for the "sound" of tonic, and the same syllable for the "sound" of the second degree of a scale,etc. This allows your brain to lock in on that sound, by having a verbal identification tag.
If every scale degree gets different syllables depending on the situation, this significant factor is lost. It definitely is easier to just sing 7 syllables most of the time, but unfortunately real-life music doesn't just stick to 7 sounds (in a relative pitch sense). So the solfege method should accurately reflect any sound that you can hear in music, at least harmonically and melodically.
I have to say, I completely disagree with this. The whole beauty of the movable-DO system is precisely for dealing with harder music that changes keys all the time. If you're just dealing with pop music that stays in the same key, solfege works nicely, and that's fine. But then these differences we are discussing of singing minor from LA or from DO are almost completely moot--because who cares? It's basically the same thing. But where it shines is with music that is actually difficult to hear, jazz, classical, etc. By doing enough solfege ear-training, the ear learns to become lightning quick at changing keys, modes, chords, instantly recognizing the meaning of the notes. Of course the music often goes by too quickly to actually sing the syllables, but that is not the point-- the mind recognizes the notes as solfege syllables-- if you transcribe or sing back the music, you know exactly what you've heard. Obviously to accomplish this, you must get to the point where you don't need to "think" to figure out which solfege symbol a note is. But with enough practice, it does happen. And like it or not, regardless of the method you use, it is that kind of listening which is necessary if one wants to take it to the next level.That's where I picked up Do based minor. It works well in that context. Not that it really helps because everyone realize soon enough in those cases, forcing solfege to do the work hardly helps learning the music. It simply isn't a good system for everything.
If you are someone who can listen to a Wayne Shorter song or a McCoy Tyner solo, and transcribe it accurately without having to rewind the music 50,000 times and take an entire month, then you don't need solfege; you can already do what it is that solfege is trying to accomplish. But if like the rest of the world that kind of listening is still beyond one's grasp, then solfege is an indispensable tool to getting ever closer to that goal.
As far as "forcing solfege to do the work hardly" helping you to learn the music-- again, regardless of the particular method you use, learning jazz and classical music is ALL about how melodies and harmonies relate to a tonic. Until you can hear the music this way, how can you deal with 1)modulations 2)voicings 3)transcribing, and importantly, 4)pre-hearing (for improvisation, etc.) The goal of solfege is so that you can understand music in a purely musical fashion. Telling someone, oh yeah that note is b6, doesn't mean anything, unless you can hear it. For that matter, LE doesn't mean anything either, unless you can hear it. But using the syllables enables one to nail it, to be precise with their music instead of kind of vague, and basically playing most of the right notes, etc.
I have yet to come across any tonal music for which moveable-DO solfege does not work. any music that can be "heard"-- meaning that you can sing, etc. benefits from solfege. Any music that I can't identify the solfege is not because the solfege system doesn't work, but rather completely the opposite; because my ear isn't good enough yet. Maybe the reason you feel that solfege doesn't work for jazz, in the first place, is because you aren't as familiar with the particular differences in solfege method that we are discussing right now. You can't hear jazz without RA, ME,SE, LE, TE, DI,RI, FI, SI, and LI, the chromatic solfege. Again, I don't mean you can't hear jazz without knowing solfege-- not at all-- what I mean is, you can't hear jazz without being able to identify and hear the sounds of those notes. And solfege is an extremely useful tool , for those willing to learn, in order to attain the actual goal of hearing them. At which point, by the way, you no longer need the solfege, because the actual sounds are hard-wired into your brain.
One more thing-- It is absolutely possible to sing RE-RE and hear a Dorian scale, for example. But if you really really think about it, you'll realize that your ear is just doing its thing, and you happen to be singing some syllables, like lyrics to a song. Your ear still hears RE as tonic in that situation (hopefully). If so, it means that sometimes you are singing DO for tonic, sometimes Re, sometimes, LA, MI for phrygian, FA for Lydian. Ok. So there's nothing wrong with that, singing any syllables is fine. And solfege helps to organize the music a bit, even in that context. But doing it this way is, IMHO, missing out on maybe the single greatest thing about solfege--consistently using the same syllable for the "sound" of tonic, and the same syllable for the "sound" of the second degree of a scale,etc. This allows your brain to lock in on that sound, by having a verbal identification tag.
If every scale degree gets different syllables depending on the situation, this significant factor is lost. It definitely is easier to just sing 7 syllables most of the time, but unfortunately real-life music doesn't just stick to 7 sounds (in a relative pitch sense). So the solfege method should accurately reflect any sound that you can hear in music, at least harmonically and melodically.
Sam
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- KVRist
- 140 posts since 20 May, 2005
Regarding singing without a key signature--
Music is the art of sound (and silence). Its analysis has to be based on aural, sound aspects, not how it is written down. Just the opposite- we try to write it down as accurately as possible to reflect what it is that we are hearing.
If music stays in one key the whole time, then it makes sense to think in terms of the key signature. Because then, the key signature, and the actual tonic that is heard, are one and the same. But if it does not stay in one key, what is the point of thinking musically from the written key signature? In that context, the truth is that if we wanted to accurately reflect the "sound" of the music in its written form, we could change key signatures every bar or 2 or 4 or 8 bars. But nobody wants to read music that has key signature changes so often. So therefore, the written key signature is obviously an important landmark for where the song starts, ends, etc., but is NOT an accurate reflection of how to relate to every single part of the music.
Open a classical score from the last 200 years to a random spot. There is little guarantee that the notes you see are meant to be heard from the key signature that is currently in effect. Even Mozart, etc., the music will modulate, and you are currently in the key of F even though the key sig is C. So it doesn't make sense to hear the music from C, when the composer himself is expecting you to realize that the music has changed key. If he suspected that the listener did not notice this, he would probably be very aggravated. And he would have to resort to havingthe conductor stop the music, for a second, and make an announcement-- Ok, everybody, we are about to switch to the key of F!
Music is the art of sound (and silence). Its analysis has to be based on aural, sound aspects, not how it is written down. Just the opposite- we try to write it down as accurately as possible to reflect what it is that we are hearing.
If music stays in one key the whole time, then it makes sense to think in terms of the key signature. Because then, the key signature, and the actual tonic that is heard, are one and the same. But if it does not stay in one key, what is the point of thinking musically from the written key signature? In that context, the truth is that if we wanted to accurately reflect the "sound" of the music in its written form, we could change key signatures every bar or 2 or 4 or 8 bars. But nobody wants to read music that has key signature changes so often. So therefore, the written key signature is obviously an important landmark for where the song starts, ends, etc., but is NOT an accurate reflection of how to relate to every single part of the music.
Open a classical score from the last 200 years to a random spot. There is little guarantee that the notes you see are meant to be heard from the key signature that is currently in effect. Even Mozart, etc., the music will modulate, and you are currently in the key of F even though the key sig is C. So it doesn't make sense to hear the music from C, when the composer himself is expecting you to realize that the music has changed key. If he suspected that the listener did not notice this, he would probably be very aggravated. And he would have to resort to havingthe conductor stop the music, for a second, and make an announcement-- Ok, everybody, we are about to switch to the key of F!
Sam
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- KVRAF
- 7819 posts since 20 Jan, 2008
Somebody doesn't listen to a lot of rock. The beatles, steely dan, rush, yes, and quite a few other bands have key changes in songs.
Dell Vostro i9 64GB Ram Windows 11 Pro, Cubase, Bitwig, Mixcraft Guitar Pod Go, Linntrument Nektar P1, Novation Launchpad
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- KVRian
- 588 posts since 3 Oct, 2011
Fixed Do works in some contexts, but in terms of what I am hearing, C is only Do when it's the tonic. Since I think of minor (and all other modes) as scales in and of themselves and not permutations of the Ionian, and Emaj Amin cadence makes A sound like Do. In other words, I use solfege to describe the function of the note rather than its name.softska wrote:Never get why people like Do based minor. Just start with the first pitch with La and everything works just fine. Only good thing I can think of is if you must use it to sing atonal music, but for minor?sammy24 wrote:There's chromatic solfege syllables as well, so that's how it works for minor keys. Natural minor is Do Re Me Fa So Le Te DO.however I never got how it's supposed to good for minor key.
Edit: Didn't realize there were already a bunch of answers. Sorry if I was redundant
Also, tl;dr.
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- KVRAF
- 13442 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
For a start:
- Grab your favourite instrument (keyboard based stuff preferred, guitars are great, too, but in case you're monophonic, that's fine for a start as well - I mean, we do have sequencers...).
- Chose a root note for a major scale that you'll be able to sing easily (this is relevant).
- Play the major scale in question up to the fifth and down again.
Example for C: ||: C D E F G F E D:||
You can play those notes in a circle of 4th, 8th or 16th notes until you are familiar, but this is absolutely not about tempo, just about familarity with the sound.
- Sing the pattern along with your playing.
- Look at your instrument, chose any note out of those 5, try to sing it (without any previous trying!). Check whether it's the correct note by playing it.
- Sing any note of those 5 and try to play it (without any previous trying!).
- Continue the last two steps with combinations of notes. Start with two next to each other. Then use longer rows or larger intervals.
- Ideally, as long as you don't go too fast, you should be able to instantly sing what you played or play what you sang.
Even more ideally, you should perhaps even be able to make that a simultaneous thing.
- Should all this work, I can almost guarantee that it's a very great start.
More to come, in case anyone's interested.
- Sascha
- Grab your favourite instrument (keyboard based stuff preferred, guitars are great, too, but in case you're monophonic, that's fine for a start as well - I mean, we do have sequencers...).
- Chose a root note for a major scale that you'll be able to sing easily (this is relevant).
- Play the major scale in question up to the fifth and down again.
Example for C: ||: C D E F G F E D:||
You can play those notes in a circle of 4th, 8th or 16th notes until you are familiar, but this is absolutely not about tempo, just about familarity with the sound.
- Sing the pattern along with your playing.
- Look at your instrument, chose any note out of those 5, try to sing it (without any previous trying!). Check whether it's the correct note by playing it.
- Sing any note of those 5 and try to play it (without any previous trying!).
- Continue the last two steps with combinations of notes. Start with two next to each other. Then use longer rows or larger intervals.
- Ideally, as long as you don't go too fast, you should be able to instantly sing what you played or play what you sang.
Even more ideally, you should perhaps even be able to make that a simultaneous thing.
- Should all this work, I can almost guarantee that it's a very great start.
More to come, in case anyone's interested.
- Sascha
Last edited by Sascha Franck on Sun Dec 11, 2011 6:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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- KVRer
- 11 posts since 15 Jul, 2011 from Portland, Oregon
What Sascha said is very good. Plus you don't need software to train your ear. What my graduate advisor for conducting is having me do for ear training is to play a random note on a piano and then sing a note at a different random interval. example: my teacher will play a F. He will then tell me to sing a major 2nd above it. I sing it, after i sing it he then plays the interval while i'm still singing it. He has me do other things but this has been the most helpful.
Also, ear training is not learned over night. I've been training for over 8 years and am now starting to get the hang of it. It seems for many musicians its not a matter of actually learning ear training but actually just trusting your ear and not contradicting what your ear is telling you.
Also, ear training is not learned over night. I've been training for over 8 years and am now starting to get the hang of it. It seems for many musicians its not a matter of actually learning ear training but actually just trusting your ear and not contradicting what your ear is telling you.
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- KVRist
- 140 posts since 20 May, 2005
You have to be able to deal with key changes in any genre, nowadays, be it pop, rock, funk, celtic, fusion, broadway, film-scoring, electronic, or otherwise. I am well aware there are many excellent rock songs with key changes. I specified jazz and classical as two huge genres in which a characteristic of the genre itself is for the music to shift tonal centers all the time. In rock, that is not the case, a lot of rock stays within one key center, and some does not, it isn't an innate charactistic of the style, although maybe certain sub-styles are different. (In jazz, other than a few modal coltrane or tyner -type tunes, few songs remain exclusively in one key center.)Somebody doesn't listen to a lot of rock. The beatles, steely dan, rush, yes, and quite a few other bands have key changes in songs
In any event,, that just makes my case stronger--certainly, to deal with any contemporary music nowadays, you need a method that can train you to eventually deal with key changes. Even if your plan is to make radio disney music, it is nice to have the ability to deal with whatever comes your way. By that I mean, those radio disney songs that do not shift tonal centers : ) which is most of them.(Plus, an ear that can hear key center changes can certainly deal easily with songs that stay in the same key--meaning, the work one does in ear-training pays off nicely even in simpler styles, because the training makes one that much more comfortable with a single key center itself.)
Sam
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- KVRist
- 328 posts since 30 May, 2005
In my twenties I was studying jazz at a conservatorium and ear training was always my biggest weakness. Despite doing all the training that was suggested and more that I researched I never really got anywhere.
The thing that changed it all for me was: http://www.perfectpitch.com/relativepitch.htm
If you can get over the narrators rather daggy (and somewhat flamboyant presentation style) you will get an unbelievably thorough and consistent development of ear training (assuming you do all the exercises that is). It is full of tests that really push how well you know an interval - eg the test for perfect 4ths and 5ths took me a long time to pass, but by the end of it I could hear the difference with perfect results.
It has a very strong emphasis on being able to sing the intervals and that will really stretch you. But as others have mentioned, if you can sing it then you are hearing it. And once you are hearing the intervals then you can start to build up your ability to hear inside chords and scale tone. I found that towards the end of it I was starting to develop a very intuitive feeling on what degree of a scale a note was (without necessarily clearly thinking 'oh that is a perfect fifth, that is a minor third etc). ie I really developed a relative understanding of pitches which I didn't have before.
I would not recommend the perfect pitch course. It might be possible to gain this but (for me at least) it would take a very long time and can't really be done by yourself. The relative pitch ear training course is however really useful as it helps build your ear for all sorts of musical situations and you will notice a difference very quickly.
This course changed everything for me. It was perfectly suited to my learning style and I often go back over parts of it when I am feeling a bit rusty in some areas.
The thing that changed it all for me was: http://www.perfectpitch.com/relativepitch.htm
If you can get over the narrators rather daggy (and somewhat flamboyant presentation style) you will get an unbelievably thorough and consistent development of ear training (assuming you do all the exercises that is). It is full of tests that really push how well you know an interval - eg the test for perfect 4ths and 5ths took me a long time to pass, but by the end of it I could hear the difference with perfect results.
It has a very strong emphasis on being able to sing the intervals and that will really stretch you. But as others have mentioned, if you can sing it then you are hearing it. And once you are hearing the intervals then you can start to build up your ability to hear inside chords and scale tone. I found that towards the end of it I was starting to develop a very intuitive feeling on what degree of a scale a note was (without necessarily clearly thinking 'oh that is a perfect fifth, that is a minor third etc). ie I really developed a relative understanding of pitches which I didn't have before.
I would not recommend the perfect pitch course. It might be possible to gain this but (for me at least) it would take a very long time and can't really be done by yourself. The relative pitch ear training course is however really useful as it helps build your ear for all sorts of musical situations and you will notice a difference very quickly.
This course changed everything for me. It was perfectly suited to my learning style and I often go back over parts of it when I am feeling a bit rusty in some areas.
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- KVRAF
- 7819 posts since 20 Jan, 2008
I took that course long long long ago. It has some very valid points and helped me to develop relative pitch. However it is by no means a perfect pitch course. Perfect Pitch can not be taught or learned. Either you have it or your don't.
Relative pitch can be learned. I've met two people in my life with absolute perfect pitch. You can call out several notes name have them sing it and read it's value on a tuner to be correct without them seeing the tuner.
The things I learned from it in a nutshell is all found in Sascha's post and my previous ones.
The course works when you are prepared to take time out and study it correctly which most people wont because they think it happens in a day or a week. Or they can do it while practicing other stuff.
That is the actual selling point of the course you have to follow thru. Because the course doesn't give you everything at once it gives you a chance to develop slowly and practicly. I will say I did learn from it. I won't say it's the best approach.
Relative pitch can be learned. I've met two people in my life with absolute perfect pitch. You can call out several notes name have them sing it and read it's value on a tuner to be correct without them seeing the tuner.
The things I learned from it in a nutshell is all found in Sascha's post and my previous ones.
The course works when you are prepared to take time out and study it correctly which most people wont because they think it happens in a day or a week. Or they can do it while practicing other stuff.
That is the actual selling point of the course you have to follow thru. Because the course doesn't give you everything at once it gives you a chance to develop slowly and practicly. I will say I did learn from it. I won't say it's the best approach.
Dell Vostro i9 64GB Ram Windows 11 Pro, Cubase, Bitwig, Mixcraft Guitar Pod Go, Linntrument Nektar P1, Novation Launchpad
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- KVRAF
- 13442 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
I know some people with perfect pitch, with two of them I'm working more or less regularly.
What can I say? Yes, I *am* jealous at times.
But is it worth "learning" or "aquiring" it? IMHO, no, it isn't. Simply because you don't know whether it'll work or not. As has been mentioned already, there might be some genetic reasons. So it could be that even if you don't have perfect pitch by nature, your genes would offer it to you once you take whatever courses. And OTOH it could as well be that you could never aquire it, no matter how hard you try - and that's also pretty much why I find Mr. Burge to be highly suspicious, because he's telling the world since decades that *everybody* can aquire perfect pitch. Which clearly doesn't seem to be the truth because otherwise it probably would've become *the* big deal among certain musicians.
Also, while I don't know the relative pitch courses from Mr. Burge (unfortunately there's no free example lessons unless you order the entire shebang), I can only repeat what I already said (strictly from my own personal experience, but some other folks seem to think similar): Ear training is best done "in context". Read: While you're actually playing your instrument.
Just something coming to my mind:
I studied some theory books many years ago. I can probably say that I understood the theoretic part behind them more or less quickly. But I could never actually make use of the chords and all that until I learned how to play them. Take the "altered" chord as one example. The principle behind it is easy to understand. It's more or less like "once you have a properly resolving dominant chord (i.e. root goes a fifth down or fourth up), you are allowed to chromatically alter all notes but root, third and seventh". Fine, that's not hard to understand. But it simply doesn't work unless you know about forming the chords around that altered chord properly and keeping the voice leading somewhat minimized (at least for a start).
So, back then, I had like whatever Dm chord as the start of a progression and a C chord as the target. I just thought "hey, let me add a G7alt" inbetween. It almost never worked.
It only started to work once I learned about properly building 4-part-voicings and use proper inversions to get from one to the other.
Now, why am I telling this when it's all about ear training? Because I've never been able to spot an altered chord before I actually learned how to put it at least to some use in the first place. More or less shortly after that I've been able to actually hear altered chords - and even spell the voicing sometimes.
Also, you can probably have the best relative pitch in the world, spot any intervals in nanoseconds, be able to write down any melodies and chords, no matter in which context they come along, etc. So what? What are you going to do with these skills? Become a professional transcriber? Fine, have fun with that.
To me however, it's way more about practical useage as a musician (and I'd say that's true for most of us - I mean, who really wants to become a professional transcriber?).
And regarding that, I found two things to be incredibly useful:
- Connecting your brain (or voice, which is a great helper) to what you play. I somewhat stumbled upon that thing (without actually knowing anything) when I started to like George Bensons way of soloing on guitar while singing along (well, maybe he's doing it vice versa, who knows). So I was trying things out on my own. And all of a sudden I noticed that I was missing a deeper connection between what I was playing and what I wished to be able to play. So I just tried developing from there. And I think it helped me more than almost anything else. These days, as long as it's not getting too technical, I can sing (or at least think of singing, once it exceeds my vocal range) anything I play or play anything I sing.
- Having a more or less good grasp of what I'd describe as "western music harmonic theory". It could be more classically oriented or more jazz/rock/pop, doesn't exactly matter.
I'll give you another example of one of the things that "clicked" with me. Let's take the good old C major key. Let's now take a C major chord. And let's now play each note of C major over that chord. Most "musically western socialized" folks will probably notice that some notes sound more "in" (read: probably consonant) while others will sound more "open" (not exacty dissonant but perhaps somewhat distracted) and yet some others will in fact sound "out" (read: dissonant). In that very example of a C major scale played over a C triad, you will find C, E and G to sound just "in", B to sound "open-ish" (which is getting different once we deal with 4 part 7th voicings), D to "open up" even more, A to perhaps be "old-fashioned" (I'm just making these terms up right now) and most of us will certainly find F to sound just weird, dissonant or whatever.
And while each of us may have different perceptions of the individual notes and their relation to the chord, I'm sure there's some (perhaps very personal) classification everybody could come up with. Call D the "modernizer", A the "grandpa", B the "opener" and F the "destroyer". Whatever floats your boat.
One thing is for certain: Each of those notes *does* have a special character over that C chord. And this very character is what one should remember.
I can personally spot a fourth over a major chord even if it's just a resonance from my vibrato system spring. Or a bottle that is opened in the loud background of a club. Or someone farting in a street two corners away. You get the idea. That character is incredibly strong. The same goes for other characters.
What I'm saying is that you can "classify" those characters a lot more easily in case you're somewhat confident with the most basic rules of harmonic theory your music (or the music you listen to) is based on.
Combining these two things will almost certainly lead to at least reasonable hearing skills. And they will as well improve your instrumental and compositional skills.
Doing ear training classes just for the sake of it will probably improve certain things at well, but IMO it will not be as instant and not as satisfying, plus, it'll most likely take a lot longer to get you there.
Bottomline: To get you started, understand your instrument and understand the blocks, your preferred music is built up upon. You can still finetune your hearing skills later on.
- Sascha
What can I say? Yes, I *am* jealous at times.
But is it worth "learning" or "aquiring" it? IMHO, no, it isn't. Simply because you don't know whether it'll work or not. As has been mentioned already, there might be some genetic reasons. So it could be that even if you don't have perfect pitch by nature, your genes would offer it to you once you take whatever courses. And OTOH it could as well be that you could never aquire it, no matter how hard you try - and that's also pretty much why I find Mr. Burge to be highly suspicious, because he's telling the world since decades that *everybody* can aquire perfect pitch. Which clearly doesn't seem to be the truth because otherwise it probably would've become *the* big deal among certain musicians.
Also, while I don't know the relative pitch courses from Mr. Burge (unfortunately there's no free example lessons unless you order the entire shebang), I can only repeat what I already said (strictly from my own personal experience, but some other folks seem to think similar): Ear training is best done "in context". Read: While you're actually playing your instrument.
Just something coming to my mind:
I studied some theory books many years ago. I can probably say that I understood the theoretic part behind them more or less quickly. But I could never actually make use of the chords and all that until I learned how to play them. Take the "altered" chord as one example. The principle behind it is easy to understand. It's more or less like "once you have a properly resolving dominant chord (i.e. root goes a fifth down or fourth up), you are allowed to chromatically alter all notes but root, third and seventh". Fine, that's not hard to understand. But it simply doesn't work unless you know about forming the chords around that altered chord properly and keeping the voice leading somewhat minimized (at least for a start).
So, back then, I had like whatever Dm chord as the start of a progression and a C chord as the target. I just thought "hey, let me add a G7alt" inbetween. It almost never worked.
It only started to work once I learned about properly building 4-part-voicings and use proper inversions to get from one to the other.
Now, why am I telling this when it's all about ear training? Because I've never been able to spot an altered chord before I actually learned how to put it at least to some use in the first place. More or less shortly after that I've been able to actually hear altered chords - and even spell the voicing sometimes.
Also, you can probably have the best relative pitch in the world, spot any intervals in nanoseconds, be able to write down any melodies and chords, no matter in which context they come along, etc. So what? What are you going to do with these skills? Become a professional transcriber? Fine, have fun with that.
To me however, it's way more about practical useage as a musician (and I'd say that's true for most of us - I mean, who really wants to become a professional transcriber?).
And regarding that, I found two things to be incredibly useful:
- Connecting your brain (or voice, which is a great helper) to what you play. I somewhat stumbled upon that thing (without actually knowing anything) when I started to like George Bensons way of soloing on guitar while singing along (well, maybe he's doing it vice versa, who knows). So I was trying things out on my own. And all of a sudden I noticed that I was missing a deeper connection between what I was playing and what I wished to be able to play. So I just tried developing from there. And I think it helped me more than almost anything else. These days, as long as it's not getting too technical, I can sing (or at least think of singing, once it exceeds my vocal range) anything I play or play anything I sing.
- Having a more or less good grasp of what I'd describe as "western music harmonic theory". It could be more classically oriented or more jazz/rock/pop, doesn't exactly matter.
I'll give you another example of one of the things that "clicked" with me. Let's take the good old C major key. Let's now take a C major chord. And let's now play each note of C major over that chord. Most "musically western socialized" folks will probably notice that some notes sound more "in" (read: probably consonant) while others will sound more "open" (not exacty dissonant but perhaps somewhat distracted) and yet some others will in fact sound "out" (read: dissonant). In that very example of a C major scale played over a C triad, you will find C, E and G to sound just "in", B to sound "open-ish" (which is getting different once we deal with 4 part 7th voicings), D to "open up" even more, A to perhaps be "old-fashioned" (I'm just making these terms up right now) and most of us will certainly find F to sound just weird, dissonant or whatever.
And while each of us may have different perceptions of the individual notes and their relation to the chord, I'm sure there's some (perhaps very personal) classification everybody could come up with. Call D the "modernizer", A the "grandpa", B the "opener" and F the "destroyer". Whatever floats your boat.
One thing is for certain: Each of those notes *does* have a special character over that C chord. And this very character is what one should remember.
I can personally spot a fourth over a major chord even if it's just a resonance from my vibrato system spring. Or a bottle that is opened in the loud background of a club. Or someone farting in a street two corners away. You get the idea. That character is incredibly strong. The same goes for other characters.
What I'm saying is that you can "classify" those characters a lot more easily in case you're somewhat confident with the most basic rules of harmonic theory your music (or the music you listen to) is based on.
Combining these two things will almost certainly lead to at least reasonable hearing skills. And they will as well improve your instrumental and compositional skills.
Doing ear training classes just for the sake of it will probably improve certain things at well, but IMO it will not be as instant and not as satisfying, plus, it'll most likely take a lot longer to get you there.
Bottomline: To get you started, understand your instrument and understand the blocks, your preferred music is built up upon. You can still finetune your hearing skills later on.
- Sascha
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
-
- KVRian
- 806 posts since 1 Sep, 2008 from US
I'm not passionate enough to reply everything, but yes it does. It doesn't take that much effort to switch unless you can't hold a pitch for half a second in your head.sammy24 wrote:When a song switches from major to parallel minor, does that sound like La-Mi? doesn't the ear just simply hear same tonic, with the mediant being altered down by a half-step?
Still don't see the reason why Do HAS to be the tonic. To my ear solfege is a set of syllables that has relation to each other not a replacement name of absolute scale degrees. Besides starting with La as tonic doesn't suddenly requires you to switch the tonic at every modulations. But hey, just my preference after using both
One I'm talking about is not fixed do. Still a movable Do, just tonic syllable is transposed depends on the scale used. Sammy thinks Do should always be tonic and I think that makes solfege PITA to sing, and that's that.Fixed Do works in some contexts, but in terms of what I am hearing, C is only Do when it's the tonic.
+1Sascha Franck wrote:More to come, in case anyone's interested.
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- KVRAF
- 13442 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
I have a question about Solfege: Does any of you really think you've learned something that you couldn't have learned otherwise?
And no, this is neither a rethoric or provocant question.
While I'm asking: Being a guitar player, not thinking in absolute note pitches is almost second nature when it comes to playing. I mean, as long as I'm not using open strings, an Amin7 chord is just about identical with Bbmin7 chord (once you forget about the few millimeters less space that you have for your fingers).
So I always thought Solfege would be a nice thing for guitar players.
But (and that's why I'm asking): While I admittedly didn't try too long, I found it to be distracting to add a similar, which (at least from my perception) would be another part in the way from, say, my brain to some actual music. As said, relative note connections are second nature to me, so I really wouldn't happen to know why I'd slap another relative system inbetween.
Maybe Solfege is of more use for players of "absolute pitch" instruments? But then, why shouldn't those think a little more "absolute" than I may do?
And really, this is not meant in a provocative way.
- Sascha
And no, this is neither a rethoric or provocant question.
While I'm asking: Being a guitar player, not thinking in absolute note pitches is almost second nature when it comes to playing. I mean, as long as I'm not using open strings, an Amin7 chord is just about identical with Bbmin7 chord (once you forget about the few millimeters less space that you have for your fingers).
So I always thought Solfege would be a nice thing for guitar players.
But (and that's why I'm asking): While I admittedly didn't try too long, I found it to be distracting to add a similar, which (at least from my perception) would be another part in the way from, say, my brain to some actual music. As said, relative note connections are second nature to me, so I really wouldn't happen to know why I'd slap another relative system inbetween.
Maybe Solfege is of more use for players of "absolute pitch" instruments? But then, why shouldn't those think a little more "absolute" than I may do?
And really, this is not meant in a provocative way.
- Sascha
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
-
- KVRian
- 806 posts since 1 Sep, 2008 from US
It helps understanding the relationships between pitches in a melody (to a degree). No you're not missing anything, but ease to vocalize makes it easy to latch on for learning purpose.
For playing your instrument I doubt you've that much to gain. People who use it tend to be the ones who find it accessible and aid visualizing/memorizing pitches in the head.
For playing your instrument I doubt you've that much to gain. People who use it tend to be the ones who find it accessible and aid visualizing/memorizing pitches in the head.