The Philosophy Of Ear Training And Music Theory

Some underlying thoughts that should give context to your practice. Be sure to read this if you get a chance! My general point is: listen to what you are playing! 

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The Philosophy Of Ear Training And Music Theory (For All Skill Levels!)

Trevor Wong

1. What Is Ear Training And Why Should You Work On Your Ear?

Ear training is the systematic labeling of sounds for the purposes of comprehension, communication, and reproduction.

Music Theory deals with the application, context, and semantics used in the labelling of these sounds. In essence, music theory and ear training are intertwined activities.

Musicians should study ear training because their job relates to the creation of sound. Ear training makes that job easier.

Why?: As artists, If we are trying to improve our craft, we can do so by becoming more efficient at creating, and more capable at outlining possibilities of expression. Ear training can help us to achieve both of these, as the systematic labeling of sounds allows us to comprehend musical choices in the past, present, and future.

2. Issues With Music Theory And A Dissociation With Ear Training

When we engage with Music Theory, this can sometimes occur in a setting divorced from sounds. For example, you might read about a Diminished 7th chord and its functions in a textbook. However, arguably, this information is not terribly useful to the practicing musician, unless they have an aural understanding of the sound of the Diminished 7th chord and its functions. After all, the theory that labels and offers prescriptions of the chord, begins as a sound people enjoyed.

Therefore, if you are merely reading about a material of Music Theory, you won’t truly be able to understand it, unless you have engaged with sufficient ear training to be able to hear that which is being talked about. As such, I believe the study of any Material of Music Theory, has to be done in conjunction with the performance of the sound in question, and the mindset associated with learning the material, be it a chord, scale, etc, is to train the musician to be able to hear that sound.

3. Special Message On Theory For Guitarists!

In the context of guitar, this is something that gets overlooked. For example, if you are taught 7th chords, the presumption might be that you are learning those 7th chords as an athletic gesture or shape, to be used and understood solely within the confines of a set of fixed physical structures. This is important, however, the real objective, or at least, the primary objective, should be to learn these as sounds - Sounds that you will then label, hear, and be able to identify or reproduce in the future, should the art call for it.

4. How To Put This All Into Practice?

Very simply, all you need to do is adopt the mindset that any material of music you learn is something to deliberately place in your ear. Be it a rhythm, chord, scale, song style, form, or interval. Whenever you are exposed to any new musical information, you want to make sure that you are taking care to try and digest the sounds and memorize the label belonging to the sound.

On your instrument, don’t treat materials like scales and chords, as just shapes. Shapes are useful, and even necessary to help you navigate your instrument, but if you only know the concepts by shape and label, and not sound, then your understanding is superficial relative to the true goal of musicianship - to create sound!

Again, as special emphasis, this isn’t a knock on shape based playing. You can play and write great music based purely on muscle mechanics, but my point here is to direct focus to the simple point of listening and labeling.

To illustrate how you can practice: imagine you have been taught 7th chords. Practicing would involve carefully playing the chords, while digesting the name of the chords as you play. For instance, you would play the sound of Major 7, and repeat the label to yourself. Doing this repeatedly, in conjunction with other chords, should help you to discern the sounds over time. Moreover, if you can learn to sing these chords, that will really put the sounds into your ear as singing proves that you can hear.

Happy practicing!