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Comment by pier25 | Hacker News Reader

Been making music on and off for the past 20 years. Over the years, I've tried many ear training apps but there was little progress after hours of frustration.

A couple of months ago I found a very different method. The idea is is to internalize pitch by singing. For example, you play a triad on the piano and then sing the 3 notes individually. Or you train yourself to sing an interval. Say you're working on fifths. You play a C in the piano and then sing G, then play D and sing A, etc. I saw results within the first hour.

If anyone is interested I can try to find the video where I got this from.

Another method I can recommend is transcribing music by ear. You'll be amazed how quickly you will be able to find notes and then chords once you get more experience.

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Singing - perhaps you know this - is standard in ear training courses. We are required to sing intervals, sing Bach chorales, and sing chords in all inversions and qualities, and sing their resolutions. At advanced levels we are required to sing atonal passages.

Then there is the inverse - melodic dictation. Not just identifying intervals, but chords, their qualities, and inversions.

The goal of these is to develop relative pitch, as it is assumed that adults would generally not be able to acquire perfect pitch.

This is RELATIVE pitch, which anyone can develop. Perfect pitch is kind of a mystery. (However, there are some known dogs and frogs with perfect pitch)

So?

I was just sharing my experience with ear training.

To be fair, that wasn't clear just from your comment. You posted on a thread titled "Perfect Pitch Ear Training" and started with "I have been trying many traing apps..."

I am interested. I put around 30 focused minutes to distinguish E5 and have been able to endure that memory both to recognize it in the piano and to sing it since.

Yes, please. Are not interval training and perfect pitch different things?

I'm mostly concentrating on confidence and quantity — one test / 5s, running hundreds of tests, trying to discard intervals and feel chroma.

That's exactly how I was trained.

The first step is always sight-singing. The teacher gave me a drone note (for example an A4), and I sang according to a sheet music. Not necessarily a triad, though.

Then, it's the other way around, where the teacher played on a piano, and I tried to figure out the note.

> The first step is always sight-singing. The teacher gave me a drone note (for example an A4), and I sang according to a sheet music.

That's a demonstration of relative pitch, not absolute/perfect pitch.

> the teacher played on a piano, and I tried to figure out the note.

It makes sense that you'd be able to retain it for a little bit, but could you, say, walk into your lesson, cold from the prior week, and immediately the teacher hits a note, and you identify it, without practicing first?

Oh of course it’s just relative pitch. But a good relative pitch is really what playing music needs.

I can; but that’s not because I have perfect pitch. I remember A4 (440 Hz) because I tune a violin daily. But compared with the real perfect pitch, my recall quickly fades in a few days if not practiced.

Sorry guys, I cannot seem to find the video.

It was one of Rick Beato's videos, but he has so many about ear training that I cannot find the one where he goes through the basics of solfege.

Yes please share this video

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