Hi all! I'm trying to wrap my head around how hearing melodies really works, would love to get your insights...
I'm an aspiring musician, my goal here is to be able to transcribe short ( 5 notes) melodies in a simple scale like pentatonic, instantly or near instantly.
I've been working on this daily for 6 months now, and I've reached another kind of roadblock.
First I got good at the interval trainer on tonedear.com, but realized this is a slow way to transcribe, because of the context switching: my interval songs are in a different key than the melody I'm transcribing.
Next I switched to scale degree identification. Using an app that sets up a tonal center with a short chord progression, and then plays a note from the scale. I sing back to the tonic and identify the scale degree. This took another 2 months but did help a bit. I'm still pretty slow though.
My question is... those of you who can do this, do you hear melodies as independent notes, where the scale degree pops into your head as soon as you hear it (2 1 3 or re do mi), or is more like hearing the notes relative to each other (one step down in the scale, two steps up).
This would help me decide whether to try to train more on recognizing melody shapes vs. more work on identifying scale degrees faster.
I've also heard one teacher recommend practicing to identify pairs of scale degrees in a tonal context, in essence developing a 2-note vocabulary internal database.
Sorry for the long post, I appreciate any feedback!
i like the idea of a 2 tone approach mentioned above, working with harmonic and melodic dyads is more fun imo...i couldn't hear the diff between sus2 and sus4 chords which led me to rabbit holing into the matter where i came across the whole ratio and rhythm (if you slow down a power chord enough u get pulses in hemiola, 3/2, i knw u all knw this but anyway), aspect between pitches...and then it clicked, well at least in terms of discerning between M2 v the P4 beating against the root...interesting thread!!
Hello, I've been dealing with music for 6-7 months, and I've just started these types of exercises with my ear. Although I can understand and do some things, I can't master the skill of singing alone. Your advice is very important to me, thank you.
Can you say more about what the issues are that you're having. Not sure if this is the issue, but you can to to your profile on the top right in Tonegym, choose account setting, then choose training preferences. On the bottom of that screen choose pitch adjustment. This enables you to do some calibrating for your voice. Good luck -- keep at it!
