•  Q & A - Ear Training
•  Is It Normal To Be Tired After Practice?
•  So What If We're Not Great!
• A Truly Democratic Instrument!

Hi Jamie!

Thanks for your newsletter, it's absolutely fabulous! But I have problems that you yet haven't been talking about. You seem very oriented around technique and for me that isn't very important. I'm not a classical player but a rock guitarist and what I want to do artistically is quite simple technique-wise. However, I'm working hard on my ear and I don't seem to get the results I'm looking for. I really want to improve my ear but I don't think that I'm progressing fast enough? How much could I improve my ear with training? What methods do you recommend and how far would they take me?

Aron

Hi Aron,

You are quite right to be concerned with developing your ear, Aron. When I was starting out I focused heavily on my ear training, alongside my guitar studies.

First of all, understand that training your ear is a process of months and years, and you need that kind of commitment. Although anyone can train their ear to a high degree through practice, the rate of progress will vary greatly for each person. Ear training is an area where the concept of "natural talent" comes heavily into play, Also, understand that you can have a very good ear without knowing it, one that is just waiting for a little training and knowledge to back it up. It may have developed without you knowing it, just by listening to music.

Many people have a very dangerous belief about themselves, one they almost say with pride sometimes, it seems to me. They will say "Oh, I'm tone deaf". There is no such thing as "tone deaf", and if there is, it is extremely rare. Often, a person is unable to sing on pitch, and they confuse that with being tone deaf. In fact, people with highly developed ears often can't sing on pitch, such as the great conductor Arturo Toscanini, or Beethoven himself. And do you know why? Because they weren't trained singers, that's why! Developing the ear, and developing the vocal muscles are two different things.

So, first of all, get rid of any ideas you may have concerning your "bad" ear, or about the hopelessness of developing a good ear. Anyone can do it, it is just a matter, as usual, of doing the right things, and doing enough of them.

Before we discuss how to go about getting a good, trained ear, I would like to look at two things: first, what does "having a good ear" mean?, and second, what do you do with it after you have one (or two)?

Having a good ear means a few different things, or we may say, it means the same thing, but operating on a few different levels. Essentially, having a good ear means an advanced sensitivity to the aspect of sound we call "pitch", and the ability to tell the difference between tones of different pitches.

To make sense of this, we must understand that pitch is that quality of sound we describe as it's "highness" or "lowness", as in the high and low strings of a guitar. When it comes to very big differences in pitch, such as the high E and the low E on the guitar, it is pretty easy to tell the difference. But how about when the differences in pitch get really small?

Pitch is measured in "number of vibrations per second". When you play the first string of your guitar, the string immediately starts vibrating. The number of vibrations that we need to make the required note, which is E, is 330 vibrations per second. If it is only vibrating 325 vibrations per second, the note will be FLAT (lower). If it is vibrating 335 vibrations per second, the note will be SHARP (higher). Having a good ear means being able to hear these differences.

Often, in tuning the guitar, we will use the method of comparing two notes, to see if they match. We will play the second string, 5th fret, and compare it to the open 1st string. Assuming the second string is in tune, we want the 1st string to match it in sound. The ability to tell if the two pitches match, and if they don't, the ability to tell if the second one is higher or lower than the first, is the beginning of what we mean by having a trained ear.

It is not unusual for this ability to discriminate between pitches of slight difference to take a year or more to develop. Some people can tell the difference right away. For this reason, I recommend to guitar players to consider the goal of really being able to tune your guitar well to be your first step toward developing your ear.

After the ability to discriminate the relative high and low of pitches is well underway, the next level of ear training is the knowledge of, and sensitivity to, musical intervals. An interval is the distance in pitch between two notes. Intervals are the foundation of our entire system of melody and harmony. A mastery of intervals, the ability to recognize them and sing them on command, is a major advantage for any musician. Having this ability gives you the means of acquiring many other abilities, such as looking at music and being able to sing it with no instrument around (sight singing), and being able to hear music in your head and write it down with no instrument in hand. I see a mastery of intervals as the key to much of what being a good musician is about.

When I was developing this ability, I would pick one interval a week, carry a pitch pipe around with me, and sing it over and over, all the time. As I said before, it is a process of months, but it is worth it. I remember the first time I heard a melody in my head, and wrote it down with no guitar around, then later played it, and it sounded just like what I heard in my head! That was exciting.

Any ear training class will focus heavily on the mastery of intervals. The study of intervals involves the study of music theory as well. In other words, the "ear training" part also needs some "head training" to go along with it, or you won't understand what it is you are really trying to accomplish.

The mastery of intervals will also be the doorway to understanding chord construction, and the differences in the various chord "qualities", such as major, minor, dominant seventh, etc.

Even without knowing theory, or reading music, we can become sensitive to chord qualities, and chord movement. Just about everyone can tell the difference in "emotional quality" between a major chord and a minor chord of the same root name (A major and A minor). With a little experience, almost anyone can hear the chord changes coming in a simple 12 bar blues. A lot of ear training can happen just by really listening.

Next week, I will give you some more information on Intervals, and how to go about learning them.

Is It Normal To Be Tired After Practice?

Hi Jamie,

I just got your book and have been excitedly trying out the exercises in them. Relaxing is NOT as easy as it sounds. I've been playing (or rather posing) in front of a mirror while I sit with the guitar and have noticed the tension in various parts of my body - ankles, thighs but not so much in the shoulders since I've really been watching out for that. It's was 30 minutes of intense concentration - trying to relax, maintain the correct right hand position and perform an easy piece at no tempo and I'm bushed! Is it normal to be this tired afterwards? I guess it was pretty intense. I'll try it again tomorrow before work.

Yes, it is normal, especially for those not used to it, which is most people! I always explain to my students "I am going to require a level of focus and concentration from you that no one has required from you before. Not your teachers in school, or your past guitar teachers". I say this because I have simply found it to be true. And, as any reader of mine knows, I consider this lack of focus to be the root, fundamental cause of people's inability to overcome obstacles in their playing. People are not told WHY they must focus, they are not shown HOW to focus, and they are not told WHAT to focus on.

I have often heard people talk about how exhausted they are after starting to do this. You will get stronger, more used to it. It is just like developing a muscle. Here are some pointers:

1) Take frequent breaks. Practice in 5, 10, 20 minute sessions, whatever you like. As long as the practice is intense and focused, it will do you much good. Be guided by how you feel mentally and emotionally, not by what you "think" you should be doing.

2) Often, after maybe 10 minutes of intense focus on something technical, I will take a break by just playing a few pieces, just to have some fun. Then I go back to work.

3) Make sure you don't try to cover too much material at once. Most people do not do enough "detail work", or what I have called "microscopic practicing". Don't sit for 20 minutes doing no tempo or slow practice on a whole piece. Work sections of 8 measures, 4 measures, or even one measure, using the Basic Practice Approach, repeating the same section over and over, 20 or 40 times. Make sure they are CORRECT REPETITIONS, done with relaxation, focus, and ease. Bring that ease up through the tempos. Then string the sections together.

So What If We're Not Great!

The discussion of "expert performance" these last few weeks brought quite a positive response from people, which makes me glad I wrote on the subject. Here is a very interesting and perceptive comment from Eric Krueger, a comment I was going to make myself, but couldn't fit it in, so I am glad Eric is pulling up my slack!

"I've enjoyed the "Michael Jordan" discussion. Here's another thought: let's grant the naysayers some ground and say, okay, Michael Jordan has special talent and no one else can be like him. So, what about the thousands and thousands of GREAT basketball players in the rest of the NBA, semi-pro leagues, and in YMCA's across the country?

Do all these people have "special talent"? Of course not! But they can still play a helluva game! Transfer this to guitar and my point becomes this: perhaps you may not develop the moves and quirks that make you "special" (or at least make other people think so...), but obviously ANYONE can be a great player with the right instruction and dedication. If you were the Quinn Buckner or John McGlocklin of guitar (two good, but unheralded NBA players...), you'd be a guitar god nonetheless."

An excellent point. Who cares if we are not necessarily going to be Michael Jordan (substitute Van Halen, Vai, Segovia, whoever). A little thinking and observation, as in Eric's comments above, lead us to see that it is possible for anyone who has the right approach, and gives it the right effort, to achieve EXCELLENCE! No one wants to actually BE another player, anyway, we all want to have an individual artistic "voice". All of us do, however, want to be GOOD, and some of us want to take it further, and achieve the levels of expertise often called GREAT. Well, you can. It's your call.

I had two interesting guitar experiences this week. One was seeing one of my heroes, Pepe Romero in concert in New York City. In addition to the privilege of seeing such a master flamenco and classical guitarist perform up close, I learned a lot by watching his hands up close through my binoculars. Pepe is representative of guitar players in the classical tradition who have taken the nylon string to its furthest boundaries of musical and technical sophistication.

A few days later, I read a great interview with another of my heroes, from a totally different realm of musical expression, the great country artist Johnny Cash. As a guitar player, Johnny makes no bones about his simple and direct approach, "I know three chords, I strum with my thumb, I can't pick at all". From such modest technical abilities, his true, and powerful artistic spirit emerged over the years.

Johnny was writing songs before he could play a note on guitar, and he has written many great ones over the years, as well as being a powerful performer and singer. In his way, I see him as being as great an artist as Pepe. Both these men are examples of what I mean when I say, "technique is what you do to get what you want." Both these artists know what they want, and they found the way to get it.

All material copyright © 2003 by Jamie Andreas, GuitarPrinciples.com