Ear Training

Now, I believe you have enough theory under your belt to understand ear training. This lesson will introduce you to the basics of ear training.

As you already know, ear training is the process of training yourself to to be able to play whatever you hear. Below are some important goals of ear training.

Relative Pitch

Relative pitch is the ability to recognize, upon hearing, the intervals between two notes, in chords or melodies. This is the main focus of many ear training programs. Once relative pitch is developed, a person can easily figure out melodies, as the person can recognize the interval between any two notes that occur during a melody.

For example, if you sing a tune to a person with relative pitch, the person would say, "The second note is a major 3rd above the first, the third note is perfect fourth above the second, the fourth note is a minor second below the third, and the fifth note is a minor second above the fourth".

Absolute Pitch or Perfect Pitch

Absolute pitch or perfect pitch is the ability to recognize notes instantly. For example, A person with absolute pitch would hear a melody, and say, "The notes are G, B, E, D# and E".

Perfect pitch is something not very easy to develop. Some people believe that perfect pitch cannot be developed unless the person has been exposed to recognizing pitches at an early age. You can find more information on absolute pitch on this article on Wikipedia: Absolute Pitch

Apart from this, ear training programs also teach recognizing scales, chords, chord progressions, and rhythms.

For training your ear, I suggest you check out various commercial ear training programs available online. I recommend you don't go for perfect pitch, but focus on relative pitch instead. You would need relative pitch even if you had perfect pitch.