Ear Training: Who Needs It For Playing Music?

If you’re involved in music, you’ve probably noticed some of the information online, or heard from fellow musicians, about ear training. Those who have had it invariably rave about the good it’s done for their musicianship. So just what is ear training, what is its purpose, and who needs it?

Ear training is any process by which a person can acquire the ability to understand, replicate and respond to the basic elements of a given piece of music including rhythms, note intervals, and chords. There are countless ear training methods out there, but most generally involve exercises in recognizing different intervals, the ultimate goal of which is the development of relative pitch, the ability to identify the intervals between different notes. Relative pitch can be attained by anyone through practice.

Who needs ear training? The long answer is that any musician who intends to play with others would benefit greatly from having the skills it promotes.  Ear training will allow you to identify and respond to what your bandmates are doing musically.  It’s not just jazz musicians who need to be able to keep up without stopping to ask, “Wait, what key are we in now?” or “What chord is that?”  Once you’ve had ear training, you’ll know.  (Of course, if you do play jazz, you already know how crucial aural skills like relative pitch are to improvisation.)  Furthermore, having relative pitch will let you know if you’re in tune or not. There’s more to music than just reading sheets, and ear training can unlock virtually all of it.

Ear training is especially important for singers. In order to sight-read vocal music, relative pitch is essential, as it will allow you to accurately sing the notes you’re seeing. Composers, too, rely on aural skills: with ear training, they can create melodies and harmonies in their minds, and then reproduce them on paper or on their instrument of choice. If you’re a student looking to enter a music program, you’ll be required to take extensive ear training, such is its importance.

Even music hobbyists will find ear training worthwhile.  Aural skills are indispensable for anyone who wants to play by ear or transcribe melodies, chord progressions or rhythms for future reference.  Do you ever wonder how a certain artist gets that sound?  Ear training will help you understand.

So, who needs ear training? The short answer is: every musician. The benefits of ear training are such that, no matter what sort of musician you are or what instrument you play, there’s a lot to gain.