How To Play What You Hear
The Problem:
When musicians talk about improving their playing, they talk a lot about their ears: "I wish I had better ears", "She's got a great ear", "He has massive ears". What's that all about? Well, they aren't really talking about the size or shape of their ears; they aren't exactly bragging about the sensitivity of their ears to sound in general, either. When a musician refers to "good ears", they are talking about their ability to identify by name and accurately reproduce different pitches.
By pitch I mean the names we give to various frequencies, like "A" or "C-sharp" or "fa". Pitch is completely separate from the rhythmic value of a note (a short "A" or a long "A" are both the same pitch), and it's not affected by the type of instrument or the person singing the note. Since every sound that isn't 100% noise has some sort of predominant frequency, even inanimate objects can produce identifiable pitches.
If you can recognize the famous opening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit", as interpreted here by a falling snow shovel, you are already halfway to recognizing pitches in the real world.
What's the use of this ability? Well, recognizing pitches by ear comes in handy when you are...
1. Learning a piece from a recording
2. Committing a piece to memory
3. Improvising and playing variations on a tune
4. Composing and arranging
5. Faking your way through an unfamiliar song in an ensemble setting
6. Transposing on-the-fly
7. Generally cribbing musical materials from other musicians and composers
Where to Start
There are literally hundreds of exercises out there that fall under the rubric of "ear training", and in this post I'm going to focus on just one of them. In my experience, the type of training I'm going to cover is pretty rare – most ear training curriculum starts with learning how to recognize "intervals". We're not going to bother with that; we're going to learn how to identify all the notes in the major scale (don't worry, there are only 7), by strengthening our sense of each note's "function". "Function" is just a $20 conservatory word the way for one note leads to another. After all, that's what a melody really is: just one note leading to the next.
In general, notes are much easier to understand in context, as you'll soon find out. Identifying a note is often compared to identifying colors, but notes connect sequentially in a way that color cannot. "Red, white, blue" doesn't feel particularly different from "blue, white, red", but "A, B, C" and "C, B, A" have completely different effects.
Hear the difference? The exact reason why one sounds "sadder" than the other will have to wait for another post, but we are going to rely on our musical sense of direction to help us pin down the identities of our un-named notes.
Getting started
A 1 and a 2
The first note we're learning is the final destination of nearly all melodies, the famous "home note". It doesn't lead anywhere, but rather just sits, very pleased with itself. Stable, restful, untroubled, final, it creates a sense of return or falling back into place.
Before I play you an example, I just want you to imagine the sound of the last line of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". Don't sing out loud yet, just try to imagine that sound as vividly and precisely as you can (this is called audiation, and the more you practice this, the easier it gets). It helps me to imagine a particular person singing the words, like Frank Sinatra or Stevie Wonder:
🎶 "How I won-der what you are" 🎶
That last note (🎶 "are" 🎶) is the "home note". It doesn't seem to pull in any particular direction, it just ends the phrase, the musical equivalent of a period.
Now let's run through that line again, but imagine the band laying out, and Stevie leaning into the penultimate note:
🎶 "How I won-der, what youuuuuuu..." 🎶
Can you feel any tension building?
🎶 "...uuuuuuu..." 🎶
A sense of anticipation and expectation?
🎶 "...uuuuuuu..." 🎶
Like the melody is being pulled by a magnet? (How long can he hold this note?)
🎶 "...uuuuuuuuu arrrrrre!" 🎶
What a relief! Any guesses as to what that note might have been? It was just one step above the home note.
But "one-step-up-from-the-home-note" is kind of a mouthful, so from here on out, I'm going to refer to notes by their number in the scale – the home note will be 1 and that note one step up is going to be 2. The 2, as you heard, is relatively unstable. The melody is unable to rest on the 2, and it want to "resolve" to the 1, creating "melodic tension" that builds up when the melody holds onto that note.
So to differentiate between these two notes, pay close attention the quality of "restfulness" or "tension" that they have. Imagine ending the melody on the note you are interested in; does that feel awkward and unfinished, like there's a litte more to be said? That's the unresolved sound of the 2. The 1, on the other hand, should feel like it's just brought the melody to a proper close.
5 to 7
We're going to learn two more notes before we start putting our ears to the test: 5 and 7. Both of these notes have a strong attraction toward the 1. To get the sound of 7 in your ear, let Stevie get back on the mic, this time singing "Yankee Doodle". He's going to lean into the last note of the second line:
🎶 "Riding on a po-naaayyyy" 🎶
I guess Stevie got a little funky there; the melody should feel pretty restless on that note and have a strong sense of direction. The 7, which is often called the "leading tone", has an intense "stretchy" feeling that snaps back up to the 1. It's a little bit spicier than the 2. Another great example of the 7 is the "Jurassic Park Theme" by John Williams, which starts: 1 7 1 ... 1 7 1 ... 1 7 1 ...
On to the 5. This note turns up in memorable places in melodies more than any other note, by approaching the 1 from above or below. The approach from below is extremely common at the start of classic popular tunes:
🎶 "A-maaa-zing grace..." 🎶
🎶 "We wish you a Merry Christmas..." 🎶
🎶 "Here comes the bride..." 🎶
🎶 "Should auld acquaintance be for-got..." 🎶
🎶 "O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree..." 🎶
The list goes on: the main themes from "Harry Potter" and "Jeopardy", "The Maple Leaf Rag",and La Marseillaise start with a leap up from 5 to 1 as well.
The opposite motion, a fall from above, is a little clunky and thus somewhat less common, usually showing up in melodies meant to sound a bit rustic. Think of the melody in "Flint-stones..." – or the first two notes of the theme from Game of Thrones.
The first test
Great, so now we've got a handle on three different notes, and how each one of them "resolves" back to the home note. That sense of direction is the key concept. I'll recap each note's distinctive features with a few musical examples. Try to sing along, saying the scale numbers out loud.
1 - the "home note": stable, restful, inert, final, has a sense of arrival or return
Sing:
🎶 "4 4 3 3 2 2 1 ... 1______ ... 1_______" 🎶
2 - the upper neighbor of the home note: moderately active and unstable, resolves down by step
Sing:
🎶 "4 4 3 3 2 2 1 ... 2____ 1____ ... 2____ 1____" 🎶
7 - the lower neighbor of the home note: intensely active and unstable, dissonant and stretchy, resolves up by step
Sing:
🎶 "4 4 3 3 2 2 1 ... 7____ 1____ ... 7____ 1____" 🎶
5 - a few steps up or down from the home note: stable but active as well; has a sense of continuation, not arrival, resolves by leap (the example has a high 5, then a low 5)
Sing:
🎶 "4 4 3 3 2 2 1 ... 5____ 1____ ... 5____ 1____" 🎶
If the notes are out of your range, don't sweat it! Just keep that sound ringing in your inner ear, like you have a song stuck in your head.
Onto the first real test. Get out a piece of scratch paper and a pencil, and mark out lines for five answers. I'm going to play five pairs of notes; the second note of the pair will always be 1, so be alert for that melodic movement as we stretch and relax into the home note. Write down what you think the first note is. Listen carefully ...
Was that a challenge? Did you hear the 5 approaching from above at the start, then from below at the end? The pairs played were {5 1}, {2 1}, {7 1}, {2 1}, and {5 1}. If you had trouble with this one, go back with the answers in hand, and sing along a few times.
When you're ready, here are five more pairs, played the same way:
These pairs were {2 1}, {1 1}, {5 1}, {2 1}, and {7 1}. Again, if you're struggling a little bit, that's ok! Go back and sing through it a few times before you move on.
Now I'm going to raise the difficulty level: I'll give you a 1 at the very start to give you a reference point, but after that each note will stand by itself – it's up to you to keep the home note ringing in your memory. I'll play each note twice, including the 1 at the very start.
If you got every one right, congratulations! You're ready to move on to the last three notes. If not, keep practicing this section in short, focused sessions for a day or two. Sing along as much as you can, and keep the home note in your memory at all times.
The Final Three: 3, 4, and 6
These three notes are a little different, because they don't have an especially strong pull directly to 1. It's not that they can't resolve directly to the home note, but more that it's not the path of least resistance. They each will tend to move, by step, to one of the notes we've learned already, and then from there to the 1. As such, they tend to hide somewhere in the middle of the melody as a "passing note".
Take the 3, for example. Here are a few melodies, many that I've referenced before, that move from 3 to 1 and pass through the 2 on the way.
🎶 "Hot cross buns, hot cross buns" 🎶
🎶 "Its fleece was white as snow" 🎶
🎶 "How I wonder what you are" 🎶
🎶 "Three blind mice, three blind mice" 🎶
🎶 "Speaking words of wisdom, let it be" 🎶
Compared to 2 and 7, the 3 is pretty stable and can serve as the final resolution in more sophisticated musical lines, but it delivers a certain suspended, ethereal effect that isn't as final or conclusive as the 1. Sing through the melodic examples above, and get acquainted with the sound of the 3 "walking back" to the 1.
The 6, much like its neighbor, 5, can often approach the home note from above or below. When it occurs above the home note, quite high up on the octave, it tends to relax back onto the 5, like in "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (1 1 5 5 6 6 5):
🎶 "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" 🎶
It does the same thing in "London Bridge is Falling Down" (5 6 5 4 3 4 5), "Frère Jacques" (5 6 5 4 3 1), and "Camptown Races" (5 5 3 5 6 5 3); it's the highest point in all three melodies:
🎶 "Lon-don Bridge is falling down" 🎶
🎶 "...son-nez le matines" 🎶
🎶 "Camptown Ladies sing this song..." 🎶
However, quite often the 6 shows up below the home note, at the openings of "Happy Birthday" (5 5 6 5 1 7) and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" (1 1 1 5 6 6 5). In both these examples, the 6 resolves to the 5.
🎶 "Happy Birth-day to you!" 🎶
🎶 "Old MacDonald had a farm..." 🎶
The 6 can also walk up to home note, passing 7 on the way.
🎶 "Stuck a feather in his cap and called it mac-a-ro-ni!" 🎶
The main riff from "The Addams Family" theme (5 6 7 1 *snap* *snap* 5 6 7 1 *snap* *snap*) works the same way.
Since the 6 is often a passing note, it can slip by you without making a big splash; that makes it one of the trickiest notes to identify by ear.
Finally, the 4. Melody-wise, the 4 is about as far away from the home note at you can get. This is because it strongly pulls toward the 3, in much the same "stretchy" way that the 7 resolves to the 1. From the 3, we usually still need two more steps to get to the home note. The ends of "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Skip to My Lou" show this exact melodic motion:
🎶 "How I wonder what you are!" 🎶
🎶 "Skip to my Lou, my darling!" 🎶
Like the 7, it is a very "active" and "restless" step on the scale, and adds emphasis and drama when prolonged, like at the end of "Happy Birthday" or "Jingle Bells:
🎶 "Haaaa-ppy Birthday to you!" 🎶
🎶 "Oh what fun it is to ride..." 🎶
Watch out though, there is another common use of 4 that skips down to the 2, often at the end of a phrase. This has to do with the underlying harmony, and the melody "tracing" the set of notes that make up the accompanying chord. This happens at the end of "Jingle Bells" (3 3 5 5 4 2 1) and "Silent Night" (5 4 2 1):
🎶 "...in a one horse o-pen sleigh!" 🎶
🎶 "...hea-ven-ly peace!" 🎶
Putting it all together
Ok, we've introduced all seven scale degrees, and the particular effects they can have in simple melodies. Let's see how you do when put to the test. Go back to your worksheet and mark out 5 more answer spaces.
Like last time, I'll start simple, but this time there's a little more to it. I'll play groups of three notes; the final note of each group will always be 1, so use the last note as your reference point. If you need to, go back to the previous exercise and refresh. I'll start out with pretty simple melodies with small steps. No peeking!
All done? The answers are:
{6, 7, 1} {3, 2, 1} {6, 7, 1} {6, 5, 1} {4, 2, 1}
Now I'll do five more pairs, this time with groups of four notes. These groups are now long enough to sound like fragments of familiar melodies. You might find it surprisingly easier than single notes. As before, the groups will resolve to 1.
The answers to the final test are:
{5, 6, 7, 1} {4, 3, 2, 1} {5, 1, 7, 1} {7, 1, 2, 1} {5, 6, 5, 1}
Building up your ears
Now that you have a little experience naming notes by ear, try and identify each note in the following simple melodies. The fewer large leaps a melody has, the easier a melody will be, so I'm putting them in a rough order of difficulty.
Hot Cross Buns
Mary Had A Little Lamb
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Ode to Joy
Yankee Doodle
Frere Jacques
London Bridge is Falling Down
Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star
Happy Birthday
After you've mastered these melodies, take it to the next level and identify the chorus of one of your favorite pop songs. Anything Top 40 will repeat the main melody many times, but the hooks are often pretty surprising or hide an unusual resolution. Watch out though, sometimes pop choruses start from the home note and end their lines on an unresolved note. This makes a strong connection from the end of the melody back to the beginning, which can bump up the "catchiness". Pinning down exactly where the home note is can be the hardest part. Some recommended easy starters:
Hello or Rolling in the Deep by Adele
Get Lucky by Daft Punk
Royals by Lorde
Creep by Radiohead
With practice, you'll build a precise and effortless sense of the shape and direction of any musical line. You'll find hidden connections between related melodies, and start to form a sense of how strong and memorable melodies are formed. Then you can write or improvise your own lines, or perform pieces with musicality, creativity and conviction, as if they were written by you.