Mini-Course Lesson 1: How To Do The Ear Training Exercises

Hopefully you've had a chance to read through the special report "How To Master The Sound Of ANY Scale". If you haven't, please do that now.

This lesson is a really important one. I'm going to explain EXACTLY how to do the exercises contained within the special report. I have included some audio so that you can HEAR how the exercises sound.

I won't go through all the exercises in the report. This is because once I go through a few exercises you'll understand how to do the rest. All the exercises are done in a very similar way. But before I continue, I need to have a very short rant…

Here's something really interesting. I can guarantee that only a small number of people who download the report will actually use it. How do I know? I know this because from all my years of teaching guitar, Ear Training is probably the one thing that people most neglect to do. Even though it is possibly one of the most important things that you could practice. I find it a little sad how guitar players neglect doing this absolutely essential thing!

But why is Ear Training so important?

Music Is A Hearing Art. (Please write this sentence down at least 20 times).Everything you do to improve your sense of pitch will help you tremendously.

• Can't play by ear? Ear Training helps!
• Can't work out songs by ear? Ear Training helps!
• Soloing sounds unmusical? Ear Training helps!
• Find it hard to make up cool sounding licks? Ear Training helps!
• Find composing difficult? Ear Training helps!
• Songs take forever to memorize? Ear Training helps!
• Find it hard to use scales musically? Ear Training helps!
• Find it hard to play in time? Ear Training helps!
• Find it hard to solo in unfamiliar keys? Ear Training helps!
• Find it hard to play through complex chord changes? Ear Training helps!
   

OK…I'll stop there. :-) Let's just say that if you aren't currently doing some form of Ear Training, you are slowing down your progress…a lot.

So please…I beg you. Set aside 10 minutes a day for Ear Training. It will help a LOT. You won't notice the benefits instantly, but over a period of time you'll start to see how Ear Training helps.

OK. That's enough ranting from me. I'll get off my soapbox. :-) Let's take a look at how to do the Ear Training exercises in the report…

How To Do The Exercises In The Special Report…

The ideal way to do each exercise is to follow these four steps.

1. Hear the note in your head.
2. Sing the note.
3. Play the note on your guitar to see if you were right.
4. Correct any mistakes.

A mistake people often make is to sing each note as they play it on their guitar. This leads them to follow what is being played on the guitar rather than truly hearing each note clearly in their head. So be sure that you sing each note BEFORE you play it on your guitar.

Here are a few important points to remember:

• Sing the scale degree rather than the note name. This means that the exercise will transferable to every key. Note that I have written the scale degrees underneath the TAB of each exercise.
• Repeat each exercise many times. Repetition is the mother of memory and skill.
• Do the exercises very slowly. Take you time to really hear each note in your head before you sing it.
• Do about 10-15 minutes of ear training on a daily basis. If you don’t do ear training every day, your progress may be slow. If you can't find 10 minutes a day, then just do a few minutes. Every little bit helps…as long as it's done consistently.
  

IMPORTANT REMINDER:

You do NOT need to be a good singer to benefit from these exercises. When you listen to me demonstrating the exercises, you'll notice that I don't have the greatest singing voice in the world. My voice wavers at times. It's also slightly off pitch at times. Sometimes it's even quite a bit off pitch! And I don't care. :-) The exercises work even though I don't always sing perfectly. They will work for you also…no matter what your singing is like.

Let’s take a look at the first exercise now. It uses the A Major scale…

Ear Training Project One:  Exercise 1

 Audio: Exercise 1 demonstrated by Craig. 

Ear Training Project One:  Exercise 2

Audio: Exercise 2 demonstrated by Craig. 

Ear Training Project One:  Exercise 3

Audio: Exercise 3 demonstrated by Craig. 

Ear Training Project One:  Exercise 4

Audio: Exercise 4 demonstrated by Craig. 

Hopefully this makes it really clear to you how to do the exercises. Remember that the four steps to follow are…

1. Hear the note in your head.
2. Sing the note.
3. Play the note on your guitar to see if you were right.
4. Correct any mistakes.
   

I really recommend spending a lot of time on these four exercises before moving onto the next set of exercises. They really help you “lock in” the sound of the scale into your brain!

Oh yeah, just before I forget. All the above exercises use the A major scale. If you find this key is outside of your vocal range, then choose another key that is more comfortable.

That's all for this lesson. In a couple of days I'll be sending you the next lesson. We'll be covering some essential music theory that you need to know in order to understand scales.

Until then, practice hard and have fun with this stuff.

All the best,

Craig Bassett.