--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozg...@...> wrote: > > authfriend wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozguru@> wrote: > > <snip> > >> Ear training was taught poorly when I went to college. The > >> students who depended on it to play their instruments were > >> the best at it. But those who often wanted to compose and > >> played fixed pitch instruments like piano it could be > >> difficult. That's why I knew a lot of arrangers who were > >> trombone players and could sit down at a sheet of manuscript > >> paper and write out an arrangement they heard in their head. > >> It was when I took voice lessons from a really good teacher > >> and he simply put one through a bunch of exercises just to > >> train the voice for interval jumps that I became better at > >> recognizing intervals. > > > > All this seems very odd to me as well. The only instrument > > I've ever played was the piano; took lessons for about three > > years starting when I was around 8 or 9, never got beyond > > the stage of obligatory performance at the music teacher's > > students' recital. I'd been picking out simple tunes by ear > > on the piano for years before that, though. > > Picking out tunes by ear is a little different than > identifying intervals for ear training.
Sure, I just mentioned that to indicate I didn't start piano lessons cold. However it is never 100% true that fixed > pitch players are bad at hearing them. It often the case > though. Well, like I say, that baffles me. I can't see why a keyboard player, at least, has *any* trouble with intervals. > A jazz keyboard player who was a child prodigy had perfect > pitch. He often brought his own tuning fork and would tune > the piano up in the club we played in before the gig started. > Otherwise it would drive him nuts. Perfect pitch is a whole 'nother thing. That's just utterly mysterious to me. I can hear when instruments are out of tune, but I can't tell what a note is when it's played. If you play a tune and ask me what one note is, I can tell you where it is on the scale, though (assuming the tune doesn't modulate partway through!). <snip> > > I do a weird trick: I can whistle and hum in harmony, > > including some really complicated (rhythmically and > > harmonically) two-part harmony. (One of my showpieces > > is whistling "Humoresque" while humming "Swanee River." > > Also some of the Gilbert and Sullivan choruses in which > > the men and women sing entirely different tunes, and a > > Bach two-part invention.) > > And doing that would not necessarily depend on being able > to recognize intervals but just hearing the harmony. Right, and reproducing it. > Often it is just a third above the melody line. Yeah, but I do *much* more complicated stuff than that. ;-) I should record something and upload it.
