Lund Music Studio

In music, an “interval” is the space between any two pitches. Students of music theory typically spend a lot of time in the beginning of their studies learning how to identify a given interval, both from written notes and sounded pitches.

If you can add and subtract and you spend some time practicing, identifying intervals that are written on the staff is an easy task.  Hearing two notes and determining whether they are an augmented fourth or a minor ninth apart is usually tricker, and can be daunting for some students.

To add insult to injury, I haven’t seen a lot in various textbooks that helps a student learn these intervals — since the book usually doesn’t generate its own sound, it will just show you a couple notes on the staff and say, “That is a major third. Learn it. Memorize it.” Okay, great! But how can you figure out what it sounds like?

Aside from the obligatory “practice, practice, practice”, here are some ideas to help you learn intervals. (Some of these ideas have been borrowed from Hearing and Writing Music by Ron Gorow).

Play it. Assuming you’ve figured out the easy part and you know what the interval looks like on paper, get yourself a well-tuned instrument and play the interval in different contexts — by itself, with other intervals, or in musical pieces.

Name that song! This is a common practice, and in fact was used in my first theory course in college. For example, the tritone is the first interval in the melody of both “Maria” from West Side Story and the theme song to The Simpsons. So, if you hear an interval that sounds like either of those songs is about to start, it’s a tritone. This is very helpful for many students, but has its own problems — chief among them being that if you don’t know the song real well, you can trick yourself with this method.

Size does matter. Intervals are distances. So, each different interval has a corresponding different size. Most people (even completely non-musical ones) could tell you that high C is higher than middle C. They could probably go on to tell you that the C above that is even higher than middle C. Easy example, but that’s what you’re doing when identifying intervals. Spend time listening to different intervals and try to hear the difference in size.

What comes next? Tons of Western music is based on formulaic chord progressions and harmonies. Play two notes. Do you feel like you have completed a musical idea? Or do you need to “resolve” it somehow? If so, how should you resolve it? Intervals like the minor second and perfect fourth can feel like they have arrived on a final note, but other intervals like the major second and tritone will feel to most of us like we need to add another note to the end to “finish” the phrase. Familiarize yourself with this tonal nature of different intervals.

Happy or sad? Most students, especially younger ones, are taught that major scales sound “happy” and minor scales sound “sad”. This is a simple way to say the scale has less or more dissonance. Listen to an interval, and consider how the resonance sounds to you. Some intervals like the tritone will sound very dissonant, or clashing, while others such as the major third will sound bright and pleasing.

Drill wisely. Most attempts to master hearing intervals will require a lot of “drill” exercises — hearing intervals over and over again, and trying to identify them. Start doing this, if you haven’t already. But remember to pay attention to what you are doing. If you get to the point where you are frustrated or just guessing randomly, you’re no longer achieving anything. Give yourself a break, and before you come back to the exercises, refer to a book, article, teacher, or friend to get some new ideas to help you.

There is an excellent online ear trainer at http://www.ossmann.com/bigears/

Happy training!

Training a Musical Ear

As piano teachers, sometimes we may forget that we possibly didn’t always have the most magnificent ear for music, and so we may not understand when we have students who cannot “hear” their mistakes, or who feel they are playing something correctly when it is, to us, clearly wrong. I particularly have a hard time with this as I started music VERY early, and was trained to have a good listening ear from the start (I can still pick out notes and tell you what they are without looking at the piano.)

But sometimes, our students honestly think they are doing a good job, and don’t understand when they are not playing things correctly, either melodically or rhythmically. Where does this stem from? Well, it can come from many places. First, if a student has a piano that is vastly out of tune at home, it may be hard for them to hear and identify “wrong” pitches. Second, some young students have not developed a musical ear quite yet, and simply cannot distinguish between one note and another. This also may connect with the third problem, that they have read the music from the book incorrectly, and then practiced it that way all week, and so think their mistakes to be “right,” because they are doing what the book says. If they think they are playing the notes as they are in the book, and have not connected the written music to the heard music, then they will not think that what they are doing is incorrect, because they will think, “I’m just doing what the book said.”

So how do we correct these misadventures in pitch? Well, there are several options. The first is to demonstrate for them. If we are not playing the piano FOR our students every once in a while, we are doing them a grave disservice. They need not only to do, but to listen. Play for them what they just played you, and then play the “correct” way, and ask them not which one is right, but what the difference is. If they can tell you this, then they at least have the ear to hear, and are just confused on what is right. Parents who are vaguely familiar with the piano can do this with their children also. If you have the ability to follow a beginner, parents, then you should be in there helping them when you can (without being too intrusive, of course).

Secondly, it is important to get all piano students to be able to sing just a little bit. They don’t have to be the next Whitney Houston or anything, but see if they can match a pitch singing, and then connect it to the piano by having them sing the note and then play it on the piano. This again reinforces pitch accuracy and ear training, and helps them to develop the ability to hear and correct themselves. Parents, this is again something you can try at home. You don’t even need to know note names. Just play a note, and ask them to match it by singing.

Finally, something I think all piano teachers should be doing, is ear training and music theory with their students. Help them to learn the different musical symbols, and that just like in the alphabet, when different letters make different sounds, so in music, different notes make different and distinct sounds. Play melody and rhythm recognition games, and encourage the student through fun and interesting activities to discover the piano and the sounds it makes.

Through all of these activities, a student should be able to develop a “good ear.” If at first it seems difficult or doesn’t work, I would encourage all teachers and parents to give it time. Music doesn’t happen overnight, but it is a beautiful thing that anyone can learn given enough time and patience. Good luck!