Ear Training

Axe_meister

For the 30 odd years I've been playing I have never done any ear training.
So today I picked up the ear training tool from Justin Guitar.
Just starting on exercise 1. Unison, 4ths, 5ths.
I can do the Unisons, but often get 4ths and 5ths mixed up.
On some starting notes, i.e. the lower ones I tend to get the intervals correct, but higher up and I'm shit.
Are there actual technical reasons why the higher up you go the more difficult it is to hear intervals or is it just
my ears.
Also how long does it normally take, lets say with 10 mins a day, before it comes naturally?

BahHumbug

I did some ear training a couple of years ago for some exams.  It didn’t take long to get the hang of, with just the sort of practice regime that you mention.  However, the exam requirement didn’t include any particularly high notes so I can’t comment on that.

Lestratcaster

I did ear training as part of an ACM course for a year. But it really took a few years after to really develop my ear properly, through teaching as I have to transcribe songs every single week pretty much.

As for the 4th and 5th intervals I'd always associate the perfect 4th is the "here comes the bride" wedding theme and the 5th as the star wars one.
Learning to sing the major scale in intervals from root to octave is good too.

viz

4ths and 5ths can sound similar because they add up to an octave. So low E to A is a 4th; A to a high E is a 5th. 

So you might be hearing the octaves as so similar that it’s hard to tell which is the lower note and which the higher, and thus distinguish between the 4th and 5th.

Blaendulais

Fix star wars theme in your mind thats what helps me between the 2

Danny1969

Apache for 4th and Starwars for perfect 5th is what I teach. 

Another trick is the virtual staircase. Get the tonic / root note in your head then play an interval blindly so you can't see it. Then, if you can't pick out the interval imagine yourself walking up the virtual staircase and every step is an interval in the scale. Count the steps as you go and there's your answer. 
For notes lower than the root / tonic, walk down the stairs. 

viz

Danny1969 said:

Apache for 4th and Starwars for perfect 5th is what I teach. 

Another trick is the virtual staircase. Get the tonic / root note in your head then play an interval blindly so you can't see it. Then, if you can't pick out the interval imagine yourself walking up the virtual staircase and every step is an interval in the scale. Count the steps as you go and there's your answer. 
For notes lower than the root / tonic, walk down the stairs. 

That's what I've done in my so-called book. Sorry, doesn't come out very clearly.

viz

Also, don't know if this is any use, but here's a pic of how to construct all the notes in the octave:

eru

I've done some interval ear training on this site: https://tonedear.com/ear-training/intervals and at first I also found unison 4ths and 5ths to sound very similar (although in my case I found them  trickier to distinguish with lower notes). Something that helped me to recognise 4ths is to think of the sound of a sus 4 chord played on guitar and how it wants to resolve down to the major 3rd (usually done by taking your little finger off the chord shape). 5ths on the other hand sound more stable/solid.

viz

Very true

Blueingreen

The Tonedear site offers a fairly comprehensive list of ear training exercises and is free.

allen

Not sure that it answers your question, but I've recently been using the earpeggio app and making some progress.

I have basically not done it every day (which is generally recommended) and basically done it randomly a few times over the last few months when I've got 10 minutes spare.

I had some difficulty mistaking the fifth with the octave (apparently quite common according to some youtube teachers), but the fourth/fifth difference hasn't been such an issue.

For the fifth I have found success with the 'star wars' approach. It also feels very 'resolved'. I have a feeling it's also in the chariots of fire main theme.

I've had plenty of problems with other intervals though as I've gradually expanded my skill and I've found that persevering actually seems to just magically improve you.

I definitely recommend the earpeggio app.

Cryptid

I love that an ascending 4th sounds more resolved than a 5th, but the opposite is true when in unison. I was taught to recognise an ascending 5th by recalling the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme... never had trouble identifying it after that. 

It was the minor 6ths that always caught me out. 

Blueingreen

Cryptid said:

I love that an ascending 4th sounds more resolved than a 5th, but the opposite is true when in unison. I was taught to recognise an ascending 5th by recalling the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme... never had trouble identifying it after that. 

It was the minor 6ths that always caught me out. 

Love Story (Where Do I Begin) has very strong and memorable minor 6th intervals.  There's even a version by Slash for people who find the Andy Williams/Shirley Bassey versions too schmaltzy although personally I love the Andy Williams version.

Cryptid

@Blueingreen How could anyone not love that classic? Then again, I was brought up in a house where crooners and lush string arrangements reigned supreme. 

I eventually got to identify minor 6ths by thinking of The Entertainer, but Love Story is much better example. Strong and memorable indeed!

viz

And the sax in baker street

wizbit81

Right this is going to be unpopular, but you're going to have to take my word for it. 

Don't do the song association thing for intervals, it's a terrible idea!

Ok, now that's got up a load of noses I'll explain. Stay with me till the end then if you disagree I honestly don't mind, but I've put a LOT of time into this and it's not just my opinion, it's the opinion of Charlie Banacos. Look him up before disagreeing.

What's the point of ear training? What is the musical value? I mean there's various right? You want to be able to jam with people and hear what's going on and join in. You want to hear something on the radio and know what it is immediately, you want to be able to translate what you hear onto the fretboard in close to real time when improvising, you want to have a huge sound palette to draw from when composing. I mean if you can't hear it/recognise a sound, you can't use it properly, right?

So, what you need is recognition, real time, and ability to act on it. Here's the thing....let's say you're listening to a thing you like and wondering what it is....you go 'ok, those two notes are a 5th apart, then that was a 2nd between notes 2 and 3, and then a 6th between notes 3 and 4. This gets hectic very quickly, and honestly....so f*cking what in musical value? BTW it's also really, really hard to use the song technique with actual music blasting out at you. You can't stop to sing mary had a little lamb to yourself to check the two notes at the start of the tune, it's gone already and you look like an ass on the bandstand. It's great for listening to two notes in isolation, but really...when does that ever happen? Also, a M3rd sound one way when it's between root and maj 3rd, and entirely another over an altered dominant chord when it's between the b9 and the 4th for example.

What you need to focus on is interval recognition in tonal context. What I mean by that is you hear a chord, a bass note, whatever gives you the tonic, and then you recognise the other intervals being played either simultaneously or sequentially by their FUNCTION. So, you need to know what a m3rd sounds like in a chord, against a root note, not just as the difference between two notes in isolation. When you can do this you can listen to something on the radio and go 'oh right he just hovered about on the b7, then went R 2, 5, 6, 9, back down to R. 

One of the problems with the song approach is that you build up an association of that song with that interval and not only does it make it hard to hear in context, but it also INTERFERES with the context hearing at first as you've built up what amounts to a reflex, but the wrong one. 

I've written in a tonne of ear training threads on here but basically go get the Functional Ear Trainer app (it's free) and if you are feeling flush get the Rick Beato app as well for a really broad tonal palette of stuff to learn to hear.

viz

But for people who struggle with a certain interval, it’s a good reference. I’ve been learning music since I was 6 and intervals are as second nature as colours are, but I still know that a major 6th from dominant to 3rd is “my bonnie lies over the ocean”. 

I don’t call on that information any more of course but it’s there and it was helpful when I started. 

Danny1969

Yeah totally agree with @viz ;

When I play by ear I'm not referencing song intervals anymore, I know the intervals but it was a useful tool to get going. 

When you work as a mechanic you need to be able to spot the size of a nut and bolt instantly, otherwise you would be forever trying different sockets and spanners on it before you got the right one. When I was a teenager it was little finger width 10mm, ring finger 12mm, middle finger 13mm, thumb 17mm etc. When I work on cars now I don't think about fingers anymore, I've learnt these sizes and just know them instantly .... which is much the same thing really. 

viz

Yeah, I think I’d file it under “walk before you can run”. Also I’ve read a lot of Banacos and he stresses that we should use whatever works for us at our unique stage of development / journey

eru

Cryptid said:

It was the minor 6ths that always caught me out. 

The reference I use for ascending minor 6ths is the first two notes of the guitar in "In My Life" by the Beatles.