The Case for Ear Training

Last week I talked a bit about how I memorize music. Then I realized that I completely brushed past an important point. One of the foundations of my aural approach to memorization is playing by ear. But not every classical musician can do that. So this week I want to share with you the story of how I developed my ear as a musician. I think it would illustrate the importance of ear training, and how my playing and my career have benefitted from it.

Informal Beginnings

When I was growing up, I was the youngest of three brothers. My oldest brother plays the cello, and my other brother plays the viola. I would hear them practicing their instruments all the time. Sometimes they played the very same music that I would later learn in the Suzuki books. By the time it was assigned to me by my own teacher, I would already know the tune.

But sometimes they would play other pieces not meant for me. And being the youngest, sometimes I wanted to do what my older brothers were doing. I would sit in my own practice room and try to figure it out on my own instrument. At first, it was rocky going as I got acquainted with the notes on the violin. Playing from sheet music is one thing. Finding a sequence of notes without written instruction is an entirely different skill. But as time went by, I got much faster at figuring out melodies on the violin. As with everything in music, learning to play by ear is a skill that you can develop over time.

Formal Training

My father played a big part in my development as well. He came to classical music a bit late to make a career out of it as a performer. But he was a music education major in college, and a former choir teacher. So when I was in 8th grade, he sat me and my violist brother down and taught us aural theory. At the heart of his method was learning the intervals by using well-known tunes. An ascending perfect 4th, for example, would be “Here Comes the Bride” (Wagner’s Bridal Chorus). A perfect 5th might be the ABCs. A major third was the Westminster chime on our living room clock. We had a tune for every interval.

He would give us a page of atonal intervals to sight-sing. Then we would sing the intervals in reverse. Then we would even flip the sheet music upside down and read the new line. He would also play an interval and ask us to name it. Or play a note, and ask us to sing a certain interval up or down from there. Compared with that, college-level aural theory felt like Kindergarten.

With that kind of training, I’ve gotten quite good at playing the violin by ear. I even used to play strolling violin gigs and take requests. “Feliz Navidad” at the Christmas brunch? Sure, why not! You want “Living on a Prayer” at your wedding reception? I could listen to it as I drove to the gig, and arrive ready to perform.

How Ear Training Would Help You

But that’s my story. How does that help you? Well, as I said earlier, playing by ear is a learned skill. And it’s a skill worth developing. It helps you out in three specific ways:

1. It takes the heavy lifting off of memorization. You don’t have to remember fingerings and intervals as much, because you can figure them out on the fly if need be.
2. It develops your inner violin. You can imagine what it would be like to play those notes in your head. So you don’t need the physical violin in your hands as much. Visualization is mental practicing. And that means that you get to effortlessly sneak more practicing into your day. My mind switches into inner-violin mode all the time.
3. With 1 and 2 combined, I believe it brings you closer to your instrument. The violin becomes more a part of who you are and how your mind works. Music becomes less about following instructions on the page, and more about expressing the music that’s in your head and your heart.

There’s also another thing I hope you get out of my own story of ear training. And that’s the training part of it. I wasn’t born with this ability. I carved out some time to sit with my instrument and figure things out. Many classical musicians feel like they don’t have time for that. But I feel strongly that it’s an important skill for every musician.

Another takeaway from all this is that I had a teacher. Just like how I had a violin teacher to teach me the violin, I had lessons in ear training. If you’re a young musician with your eye on a performance career, I would highly recommend finding an aural theory tutor. Lessons in harmonic analysis wouldn’t be a bad idea either. But that’s an article for another time or another blogger.