{"id":12255,"date":"2023-09-11T11:16:49","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T16:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/?p=12255"},"modified":"2025-10-09T15:34:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T20:34:47","slug":"ear-training-exercises-to-help-you-become-a-better-musician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/ear-training-exercises-to-help-you-become-a-better-musician\/","title":{"rendered":"Ear Training Exercises to Help You Become a Better Musician"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Strengthen Your Musical Mind Through Listening, Singing, and Practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The following information on ear training is excerpted from the Berklee Online course Ear Training 2<\/a><\/em> , written by Gaye Tolan Hatfield<\/a>. This article also includes supplemental material from Ear Training 1<\/a><\/em>, written by Allan Chase<\/a> and Roberta Radley<\/a>. Both courses are currently enrolling.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ear training is all about building mental connections\u2014connections among sound, notation, musical terms, our voices, and the keyboard or other instruments. With ear training, we learn to hear what we read, write what we hear, sing what we read, recognize and name what we\u2019re singing or hearing, and play what we sing or hear. The musicianship skills we gain through training our musical ear and building these connections are essential for making music creatively and expressively as a performer, improviser, accompanist, composer, producer, or teacher. Below are some of the ear training exercises that will help you develop skills to become a better musician<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Ear Training Process?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My simple theory is, if you can sing it, you can hear it! Once you hear it, you can sing it, and then, write it down! Mastering ear training tools responsibly and with regular practice can lead to a true sense of empowerment within music. It is my hope that with the knowledge I share with you, you\u2019ll be one step closer to ear training super power status! I cannot emphasize enough, that just like any musical endeavor, the best way to improve your ear training skills is to practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Purpose of Ear Training?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Inner hearing<\/strong> (also called audiation<\/strong>) is a term for our ability to imagine or remember sounds. If you have already taken Ear Training 1<\/a><\/em>, you have likely already built a strong sense of inner hearing. With inner hearing, you should be able to recall and recognize the sounds of the basic building blocks of rhythm, melody, and harmony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most useful form of inner hearing for most musicians is relative hearing<\/strong>\u2014hearing musical relationships and proportions. In pitch (melody and harmony), this is called functional hearing<\/strong>\u2014hearing notes and chords according to their function in the key. At any given time, only one note is the tonic, and only one chord is the tonic or I chord, and other notes and chords get their tendencies and energy from their relationship to that tonic note and chord. We also learn to recognize rhythms by the relative placement and length of the notes in the meter, even though the tempo might change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Ear Training Work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We generally recognize melodies and chord progressions by hearing the function and interval relationships (distances) between the notes and chords, not by the exact pitches used. For example, listen to the end of \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d played in two different keys:<\/p>\n\n\n\n