Good song to practice ear training with?

[BumbleBb]

 

IMO, you need to work on melodies first. Chords can be hard to work out because (obviously!) they contain several notes at the same time. A good exercise is try and work out well-known tunes by ear yourself - eg Twinkle Twinkle or Happy Birthday. Sing them to yourself, and try and find (on guitar or keyboard) the notes you're singing. If you can't get started that way - have difficulty tuning your voice to the instrument - begin with a known note on the instrument (say G, open 3rd string on guitar), and try and work out the next note, by trial and error; you don't have to sing, just look for the right sounding note on the instrument. Eg with Twinkle Twinkle, the next note is a big jump; with Happy Birthday it's only a small move. (Twinkle Twinkle is easier overall; Happy Birthday has one tricky leap in the 3rd line, that most people underestimate.) You don't actually need to know any of the notes on the instrument, or any scales, although obviously it helps (at least with guitar) if you do. You could try on piano or keyboard, where all the notes are laid out for you. Remember, even if you can't sing these melodies in tune yourself, you know (in your head) when they sound wrong, and when they sound right, because you've heard them so often. When it comes to recordings (eg the examples posted above), try to work out the lead vocal melody , not the chords. Again, this is because it's one note at a time, and the vocal melody is usually the clearest line of notes - and is actually the heart of the song anyway. If working from a youtube (or anything else you can pause easily), just go note by note - you might need to repeat each note a few times before you get it. (This is where dedicated software like Transcribe makes it easier: http://www.seventhstring.com/ ) If you don't know your scales, I do recommend learning the most common major scales (C, G, D, F, A, E, maybe in that order). It will help you enormously in being able to predict - once you have the first 2 or 3 notes - what other notes might follow.

 

 

I tried Twinkle Twinkle and while I didn't get it right, I got some things right. I feel encouraged to keep trying. Thank you so much for the suggestion to try melodies. I tried it on the keyboard where visually it's easier to figure out the notes. Thank you!

[BumbleBb]

JonR thank you so much. I am using that site and trying melodies and it's working! I'm not getting every part of a song right but enough to be encouraged. It also helps a lot with memorizing the song when I first try to figure it out by myself instead of just looking at sheet music from the start. I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but I'm doing it. Thank you! Any tips on how to later progress to figuring out chords, after I've improved at this?