1 00:00:00,310 --> 00:00:03,030 In this video I'll be showing you how to play songs by ear. 2 00:00:03,030 --> 00:00:07,630 Playing songs by ear just means playing any song without sheet music or guitar tabs. 3 00:00:07,630 --> 00:00:16,940 No previous background in music is really needed to understand and even though I have a piano here it's just an example so you can see which notes are going up, and down. 4 00:00:16,940 --> 00:00:22,590 This can help anyone who helps anyone who plays a musical instrument or any vocalist who wants to hit notes spot-on. 5 00:00:22,590 --> 00:00:29,660 First you need to understand the main concept behind playing songs by ear, and as always it's best to work with a very simple example. 6 00:00:29,660 --> 00:00:33,320 Lets use the first four notes of the song silent night 7 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:42,260 Lets try to understand the song the song is made up of four different notes with different distances in between. 8 00:00:42,260 --> 00:00:43,890 We start at the first note 9 00:00:44,670 --> 00:00:47,910 We move up two notes, and yes the black notes count. 10 00:00:48,700 --> 00:00:50,160 Then we move down two notes. 11 00:00:51,100 --> 00:00:53,460 Then finally we move down 3 notes 12 00:00:54,090 --> 00:00:59,160 I can play these distances anywhere on the piano and it will sound like the same song. 13 00:01:03,710 --> 00:01:08,160 If we change the distances just a little bit it will sound like a different song. 14 00:01:10,830 --> 00:01:17,680 So now we can say that the distances between notes is what lets your brain recognize this song as Silent Night 15 00:01:17,990 --> 00:01:26,680 So now we finally get to the point. If I wanted to play this song or any other song by ear I would have to identify the distances between notes. 16 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:34,580 That's the basic concept behind playing a song by ear. 17 00:01:34,580 --> 00:01:40,650 So now the question becomes: what's the best way to identify the distances between two notes 18 00:01:40,650 --> 00:01:44,150 and aren't there too many possible distances to memorize? 19 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:51,320 Ok, well let me answer the first question. How's it possible to identify the distances between notes? Well let me give you an example. 20 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:59,220 The best way to identify the distances between two notes is to simply associate a song to it. 21 00:01:59,270 --> 00:02:03,660 For this particular interval I've associated the song green sleeves. 22 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:14,130 As long as the second note is 3 notes above the first note, it will always sound like green sleeves. 23 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:33,380 -And the more you associate the song to it the more you automatically start thinking of that song when you hear that interval. 24 00:02:33,380 --> 00:02:37,820 For every not distance, or 'Interval', there's always a song you can associate. 25 00:02:37,820 --> 00:02:40,700 For example, listen to this weird sounding one. 26 00:02:44,730 --> 00:02:48,600 Now I want you to try and think of a song that has this interval in it. 27 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:54,140 You may think it'd have to be some kind of weird song or a scary movie song, but actually... 28 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,590 Come with me, and you'll be 29 00:02:58,590 --> 00:03:03,250 In a world of pure imagination 30 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:12,770 That song is actually from the first willy wonka movie. 31 00:03:12,770 --> 00:03:17,270 Now the interval sounds incredibly pleasant despite most people's first reaction. 32 00:03:17,270 --> 00:03:21,980 Don't worry about the song associations, I'll help you with that. I promise. 33 00:03:22,290 --> 00:03:27,570 So the last question we have to cover is just, how many intervals do I have to memorize? 34 00:03:27,570 --> 00:03:30,140 The simple answer to that question is just 12. 35 00:03:30,140 --> 00:03:34,690 If you memorize just 12 intervals you'll be able to play simple melodies by ear. 36 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:39,190 Why just 12, well let me show you an example. 37 00:03:39,190 --> 00:03:44,370 Ok, it's the same interval I just played earlier but now lets try it an octave above. 38 00:03:46,140 --> 00:03:51,740 The interval sounds almost exactly the same because we're still moving from a D to a C#. 39 00:03:51,740 --> 00:03:55,820 even if the C# is an octave up. Let's play it at the same time. 40 00:03:57,540 --> 00:04:02,260 It sounds the same, it has the same quality to it, just one note is an octave up 41 00:04:02,260 --> 00:04:08,100 So there's just 12, if you master just 12, you can get any song by ear and that's all there is to it. 42 00:04:08,100 --> 00:04:17,000 I've actually spent a lot of time making a free and easy to use program that lets you identify these intervals and associate them to a song very very easily 43 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:20,750 and best of all it's browser based meaning you don't have to download anything 44 00:04:20,750 --> 00:04:26,380 but before we continue you have to understand that playing songs by ear is a concept of music theory 45 00:04:26,380 --> 00:04:34,980 and music theory is standardized and any time anything is standardized they like to add tons of random vocabulary to make things more complicated than they really are. 46 00:04:34,980 --> 00:04:38,550 For example instead of saying, "How many cats are in this picture"? 47 00:04:38,550 --> 00:04:45,620 Once things become standardized they'd say, "What is the aggregate sum of felis catus within the boundaries of this rectangle!?" 48 00:04:45,620 --> 00:04:54,070 And instead of saying it that way they just makeup stupid symbols to represent the already complicated way they were saying it before, to further confuse the poor students 49 00:04:54,070 --> 00:04:56,410 and abstract the question even further 50 00:04:56,410 --> 00:05:02,950 Ok so music theory is standardized, meaning it's going to have its own vocabulary. Instead of saying like we were before 51 00:05:02,950 --> 00:05:05,760 "The second note is one note above the first note" 52 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:07,980 They would say it's a minor second. 53 00:05:07,980 --> 00:05:10,260 If the distance is 2 notes 54 00:05:10,260 --> 00:05:14,870 Then they would say it's major second, if it was 3 notes they'd say it's a minor third. 55 00:05:14,870 --> 00:05:19,590 So they have their own list of associated values for each of the 12 intervals. 56 00:05:19,590 --> 00:05:24,470 Now I don't want you to feel overwhelmed by this or feel you have to memorize this. You don't. 57 00:05:24,470 --> 00:05:31,410 so don't worry about it. Just know it exists so if you ever want to study higher level concepts in music theory you won't have a difficult time. 58 00:05:33,420 --> 00:05:38,500 Ok so this is my free ear trainer that you can find at trainear.com 59 00:05:38,530 --> 00:05:43,260 It's browser based so you can just play it from your browser. You don't need to download anything. 60 00:05:43,380 --> 00:05:47,510 You can if you want it's only 132k, it's a very small file. 61 00:05:48,060 --> 00:05:53,670 and I tried to make it as perfect as possible so you can actually associate intervals to actual songs. 62 00:05:54,050 --> 00:05:59,300 so with this you can start getting better and better and better until you can actually play the songs by ear. 63 00:05:59,780 --> 00:06:03,850 Ok, let me show you how it works. If I click play it's actually going to give me 64 00:06:03,900 --> 00:06:09,080 one of these answers choices, so it's actually going to give me one of 12 questions. 65 00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:15,500 I don't want that. If you're a beginner, you don't want to test yourself on 12 questions at a time 66 00:06:15,500 --> 00:06:22,360 So it's better if I uncheck different intervals so it only tests me on a few. 67 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:26,710 I've unchecked them all. Lets say perfect fifth and perfect fourth. 68 00:06:26,910 --> 00:06:35,340 If you'll notice I'm using the standard notation, but underneath you'll see how many notes away the actual interval is. 69 00:06:35,340 --> 00:06:39,690 so this is a distance of 7 between notes and it's called a perfect fifth. 70 00:06:39,990 --> 00:06:43,210 so you can associate either way, it doesn't really matter. 71 00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:50,700 After you've selected the intervals you want you can select different settings like ascending plays two notes, one going up 72 00:06:51,180 --> 00:06:57,670 and then, this one plays one notes going down, then this one plays a harmonic, two notes at the same time. 73 00:06:58,070 --> 00:07:01,140 This one randomizes between ascending and descending. 74 00:07:01,140 --> 00:07:05,510 and this one plays ascending, then it plays a harmonic then it plays descending. 75 00:07:06,020 --> 00:07:10,920 so lets just keep it simple. don't get overwhelmed by that explanation. 76 00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:14,370 Lets just select ascending and click play 77 00:07:16,860 --> 00:07:26,990 Now it plays a perfect sine wave. It's a sine wave instead of lets say piano just so you don't confuse the timbre of the instrument whenever the intervals are played. 78 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:31,320 You can just concentrate on the quality of the intervals. 79 00:07:32,300 --> 00:07:37,280 Now, in this case that intervals sounded like here comes the bride. 80 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:43,340 So the cool part about this program is if I miss the interval 81 00:07:43,340 --> 00:07:47,210 it'll actually play the associated song, so listen... 82 00:07:50,750 --> 00:07:56,390 and it's even better because you can associate any song you want. If I click songs... 83 00:07:56,710 --> 00:07:59,580 I can go to perfect fourth. 84 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:04,280 and it'll have here comes the bride, la marseille, mon beau sapin 85 00:08:04,280 --> 00:08:07,820 Amazing grace or some super mario rpg song 86 00:08:07,820 --> 00:08:15,060 It has several choices you can associate with that particular interval, and in fact you can just add... 87 00:08:15,060 --> 00:08:20,790 you can add your own interval. Right here's the distance between notes and here's the speed, one being... 88 00:08:20,790 --> 00:08:25,970 quarter note, 2 being an eighth note, 4 being a sixteenth note and so on. 89 00:08:25,970 --> 00:08:32,200 so you can just put comma 3, comma 2, and setup your own song association. 90 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:34,880 You can also just play it from here 91 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:42,840 So if you've never heard the names of some of these songs you can just select it and play. 92 00:08:46,620 --> 00:08:51,800 Most of these are really common so you should recognize at least the first ones on the list. 93 00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:58,310 Ok I've reset the program, I'm going to explain what all this stuff is. It's actually just the statistics. 94 00:08:58,310 --> 00:09:07,110 The blue bars indicate your current score. You start with 100% you have 100% score for all intervals. You haven't taken any questions. 95 00:09:07,610 --> 00:09:13,680 So let me just play an interval so you can see how the statistics works. First lets get one right 96 00:09:16,570 --> 00:09:22,750 and that's actually a minor third, so if I click it 97 00:09:22,750 --> 00:09:30,160 It'll update the statistics and now it played a different question automatically. It played a different interval. 98 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:34,550 which is a minor seventh but lets get it wrong with a major seventh 99 00:09:38,060 --> 00:09:44,690 and as we said before it'll show you the correct answer in the corner here which is a minor seventh. 100 00:09:44,690 --> 00:09:50,980 Now if I click the minor seventh it'll update the statistics to show we've gotten it wrong. 101 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,880 As you can see now I have a 0% score for m7. 102 00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:04,280 If I click m7 up here in the green buttons it'll actually show me what I confused it with. 103 00:10:04,280 --> 00:10:10,240 so the more questions you get, the more detailed and good the statistics will be. 104 00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:21,820 and since you can disable any interval, you can disable the ones you're good at and enable the ones that you're having trouble with. Just enable the hardest ones for you and just practice those. 105 00:10:21,820 --> 00:10:30,610 Ok next I'm going to cover the other different features. First lets cover the slider bars. Actually you can increase or decrease the speed of the question using these things. 106 00:10:30,610 --> 00:10:37,680 Just select harmonic to make it obvious... And the song is very very fast because the slider bar is up. 107 00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:44,750 and if I lower it, and repeat... it'll be way drawn out. I can put it even lower if I put it here. 108 00:10:44,750 --> 00:10:49,760 I can also increase the loudness or decrease the loudness with this slider. 109 00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:56,000 Also I have options here. Harmonic is the two notes played at the same time. 110 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:02,400 I can play songs that are associated with ascending and songs that are associated with descending. 111 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:12,420 I forgot to mention in songs we have two columns. For example minor second and minor second here. The difference between the two collumns is... 112 00:11:12,420 --> 00:11:21,490 all these are ascending and all these are descending. Like fur elise is a descending minor second, and you can go ahead and hear it here... 113 00:11:25,220 --> 00:11:34,190 and all these are ascending. So again the first option we can play ascending on harmonic or descending on harmonic. 114 00:11:34,190 --> 00:11:44,150 It may be easier just to associate ascending songs for descending instead. You just flip the interval in your head 115 00:11:44,150 --> 00:11:52,950 and associate the other ascending songs instead of playing a whole different set of songs you have to memorize. So that's this option 116 00:11:52,950 --> 00:12:01,800 Also remember, before it showed the feedback of which questions you got wrong or right, you can actually disable that by clicking here. 117 00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:06,980 You can also delete all statistics, lets just delete them, and see it's all reset. 118 00:12:06,980 --> 00:12:16,330 You can also save your progress this saves all your songs all your statistics all your options. Just copy it to clipboard clicking this button 119 00:12:16,330 --> 00:12:27,240 and then save it to file or somewhere save and then when you want to import it just paste. All your statistics all your options will be set to exactly how you left them. 120 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:39,540 Alright so that's all there is to it. You click play to click the answer you repeat over and over until you have it perfect then you can start playing songs by ear just associating the distances between notes. 121 00:12:39,540 --> 00:12:48,730 How long will it take, I don't know. Two weeks. A month? It really doesn't matter it won't take forever, it won't take a year, it's only 12 intervals so it's not a big deal. 122 00:12:48,730 --> 00:12:55,350 It really just depends how fast you can associate the song to the interval and how much time you put into it. 123 00:12:55,350 --> 00:13:01,030 Maybe 20min a day, 30min, an hour, maybe you might finish it in a week who knows. 124 00:13:01,030 --> 00:13:09,550 Interval identification is the foundation for a lot of other stuff in ear training so if you master it it'll help you get down other concepts in ear training too. 125 00:13:09,550 --> 00:13:18,010 For example lets say someone is playing guitar chords and you want to isolate the chords. They're playing three notes at the same time or more. 126 00:13:18,010 --> 00:13:28,750 All you have to do is train chord identification. If you have interval identification it's a lot easier to train chord identification. Lets say you want to be a jazz man 127 00:13:28,750 --> 00:13:40,830 You want to train jazz. Jazz is just improvisation which is basically intervals + scales. So all you have to do is train additionally scales to see what scale the song is being played in. 128 00:13:40,830 --> 00:13:47,010 so you can start improvising it. Playing by ear is a very impressive skill to have and it'll help a lot in the future. 129 00:13:47,010 --> 00:13:53,340 I wish I had started interval idenfitication and I hope you have the opportunity to do so.