I will, stay tuned and subscribe and you'll get them!!!

Hi Anastasia, Thank you for your wonderful comment. We're glad to be of help!

Thank you.

Thank you very much

Thanks

My pleasure. Thank you George.

Glad it was helpful!

Hi José, thank you very much I really appreciate your comment. It's difficult to answer your question because the effectiveness of the exercises you're practicing depends mostly on the mental processes that you're adopting when practicing the exercises. Also, the way in which the app structures the exercises plays an important role but not as much as the way you think. For sure learning to recognize chords by listening to their "global (tonal) feeling" is crucial in order to be able to recognize them quickly as the music is playing; Musicians with a great musical ear always use this technique, which is not only important for recognizing chords but also for improvisation, musical creativity, intonation, etc. Anyway, if you're seeing some results by practicing with the app that's a good sign, it might be realistic that you'll be able to apply those skills to real music but I can't assure that. If you think your progress is to slow and you want to be sure you're practicing in the most effective way, I suggest checking out my video-course in which "chord progressions" and harmony in general plays a very central role; As I explain in other videos on this channel, a great "harmonic ear" is of crucial importance for developing our "melodic ear". You can find more info about courses here www.useyourear.com Thanks

Thank you. New videos coming soon, stay tuned!

Thank you very much!

Hi, thanks for your nice comment. Harmonic perception is very closely related to melodic perception and the general ability to sing correctly on pitch. In our course we definitely take that into account from the beginning, guiding students in developing both at the same time. Sounds like that would help you a lot. Thank you!

Thank you! We're glad you like it.

Hi Lindokuhle, thank you for your comment. There are multiple steps and exercises that I suggest in order to develop these skills. So, I'm sorry but it would take hours for me to explain everything in a comment here on youtube. By the way, if you're interested you can take a look at www.useyourear.com where you can find info about courses, etc. in which these questions are asked very thoroughly and you're also provided with all the exercises you need in order to gradually develop these skills. Thanks

Downlod the functional ear trainer based on the Alain benbassat method. Trust me

Thank you for your comments, Jabby. There are many different exercises you can practice on internalizing chords, it's very difficult for me to determine which ones are best suited for your current level. Depending on your level of proficiency, you may also benefit from starting with more basic exercises before moving on to working on chords. If you're looking for our best guidance, I recommend signing up for our comprehensive course. Alternatively, if you'd like to learn more about our method before committing, I invite you to register for our free ear training workshop. This workshop provides a detailed overview of our approach, and also includes exclusive exercises tailored to your needs. To learn more and access both the course and workshop, visit our website at www.useyourear.com/courses. Thank you!

Hi Barbara, why do you think you need a real book?

Thank you

Hi Marc, thank you. You can sign up to our newsletter on this page www.useyourear.com/courses and you'll be notified when there is any discounts available. Thanks

Thanks

Thank you very much! We're always happy to receive comments, you're open to write whatever you wanna say.

Thank you!

Hi Govinda, yes playing a C major chord and a G major chord together won't result in a consonant sound. Just to clarify, this is not related to the similarity between the tonal sensation of the note and its corresponding chord.

He’s comparing how the two notes feel in the context of (in this case) the C major scale, not how the notes feel when played with one another. The notes C and G are consonant when played together but when played separately in the context of the scale, you can tell which is the 1st degree note and which is the 5th, similar to how when you play a C or G chord in the context of the scale, you can tell which one is the 1st degree chord and which is the 5th.

This confuses me… Because G is one of the “closely related keys” to C (F being the other closely-related major key) - and so if you want to go outside the key of C, it would be best to use chord progressions from the key of F or the key of G (or any of the relative minor keys of C major, F major and G major - which would be A minor, D minor and E minor). This is based on all of these being adjacent on the Circle of Fifths - and therefore easier to modulate to. So how do you justify your statement that C and G are dissonant to each other? Thanks.

What do you mean? can be more specific, please?

Hi Valentin, that's a very common issue that a lot of students experience in the beginning. The solution is not thinking down a 5th, nor thinking of intervals. These 2 things are going to make the recognition process too cumbersome and slow. We need to be very efficient in our thought process in order to be able to apply our skills in real time. So the solution is to train your ability to perceive the bass note and recognize it as the main note that gives the tonal foundation to the chord. We treat it with specific exercises in our course, but not only that, it's also very important to make sure you develop also other important sub-skills that will indirectly help this skill too. Also that is thoroughly taken into account in our course. Feel free to check it out www.useyourear.com/courses

@@UseYourEarThank you for your answer. What if you're listening to a piano piece with inverted chords ? The bass note could be the third of the triad or the fifth. Do you instead mean the root note ? In which case I'd be all for it but how can you tell which note is the root without first figuring out whether your chord is inverted ? And if it is, you need to know exactly how many scale degrees away the root is in order to know the chord function, which would be a different amount depending on whether it's in first or second inversion. That's kind of a lot to do on the fly. Identification of the root note is really the one thing I need right now, but that's the one thing you don't explain in the video. One thing I'm doubtful about is whether you actually need to "hear" the root note or you just need to "feel" or recognize the chord function itself giving you a number wich you can immediately translate to a chord. Listening for the root note doesn't sound to me like it's actually a "zoom out" thing, but rather a very targetted "zoom in" thing, because you're focusing on one particular note instead of taking in the entirety of the chord. This "hearing the root" thing also seems easier than the so-called zoom-in method since you only need one note, while the zoom-in method requires you to hear every note in the chord and the interval between the notes, which sounds incredibly hard. In my humble opinion, another way of figuring out a chord that would work a lot of the times and requires minimal harmonic ear training is to hear the quality of the chord (is it major or minor ?) and then figuring out which note is played in the melody while changing chords. Chances are, the note will be part of the chord. One example : if you're in the Cmaj scale, a C in the melody right before, during or after a chord change indicates to some degree that the new chord is a I, a vi or a IV. If you know it's minor then it's probably a vi, and if you know it's major then it's probably a I, second guess would be a IV. Maybe you can feel whether the chord progression sounds at rest, in which case it's more likely a I. This doesn't work everytime in all melodies but it's okay if you're willing to use trial and error. You can identify the likely chord functions for every note in the scale fairly easily. One thing that would mess this method up is borrowed chords, although alterations indicate that some modal trickery is going on, and the process could once again be used giving you, admitedly, more possibilities for the chord in question. Another method, not relying on melody (except to identify the tonic), would be to get used to the sound of particular progressions / chord functions by listening to music which you know the chords of over and over. That's the method preached by the Bennett Piano youtube channel. I haven't thoroughly tested either of these methods but so far they seem reasonable. Just listening for the bass note seems both hard and unreliable (because the ear is most adept at picking up the high notes and because of inversions). Although evidently many songs have an easy to hear bassline and no inversions, which is a much appreciated shortcut. Ultimately, you would use trial and error for figuring songs out until you've acquired a large musical vocabulary and then you could just instantly figure out a chord progression by hearing the whole chord's function rather than listening just for the bass/root. Just like how you can figure out an interval by relating it to a song (like the perfect fifth in star wars or the minor second in jaws). That doesn't really work for melodies because each melody is unique and also has too many notes and rhythmic complexity, but that might work with chord progressions which are often not unique and are repeated through whole songs I'm realizing as I write this that ultimately as a musician/composer, you need all the tools you can get in your brain in order to navigate the incredible complexity characterizing the current musical landscape. It is a tremendous task.

Hi @@valentinbonnarde9345 , thank you for your comment. Let me premise that your comment includes a lot of stuff and I might be missing some in my reply, forgive me for that. 1) Most important thing first; I've never said that just listening to the bass note allows you to identify the chord, my comment was a reply to your comment where you were saying to be experiencing issues with that. Obviously, clearly hearing the bass note of the chord is a crucial step in being able to recognize chord progressions. You can't recognize chords if you can't hear the bass note, that's the most important note of the chord. Being able to hear and sing the bass note of the chord is equally important to hearing the root note of the chord. 2) Inverted Chords: In most musical genres, the bass note is the root note for most of the chords that are being played, so if you're able to just recognize the bass note, you're able to recognize 90/95% of the chords (for jazz and classical music would be probably around 40/50% - which is not that bad to being with). Obviously inverted chords are important to understand, but you shouldn't worry about them before you are able to confidently, easily and quickly recognize chords in root position (without the help of any instrument). That's how we do it in our method, we work on inverted chords at a specific moment in the learning process were students have the ability to internalize them as variation of the relative root position chord. This is not a difficult step if it's faced at the right time, as inverted chords sounds different from the root position chord. 3) How to recognize chords: Unfortunately, none of the way you suggested could be considered an effective way to recognize chords, they're definitely too cumbersome if not unreliable. The best way to recognize chords is to feel and recognize their tonal sensation (their "color" - which is in great part conveyed by the bass note), as explained in this video. The same thing is true and valid for inverted chords, as they have their own unique sensation, which is different from the chord in root position. 4) Chord quality is absolutely not enough to recognize chords by ear in real music. Most importantly, mind that "the tonal sensation" of a chord is not just its chord quality. I.E. in the major key there are 3 minor chords, they all have a different "tonal sensation". Why recognizing chord quality is not enough? Imagine I play 4 chords, I give you the tonic note and I ask you to quickly play them on your instrument: You only recognize that 2 are major and 2 are minor. Is that enough for you to know which chords to play on your instrument? NO, absolutely not, you still don't know where to put your hands on your instrument. Another reason why chord quality exercises are counterproductive is that in chord quality recognition exercises, chords are played randomly, exactly like intervals. So these exercises don't establish any musical key. As a consequence, you can't literally feel the tonal sensation that each chord assumes within the key nor you can internalize it. You can definitely make better use of your time than practicing these exercises. 5) Adopting a "trial & error approach" for us means using your instrument to recognize chords or melodies. If you mean the same thing, this is not going to be a good approach to ear training. Certainly not one we suggest. There are other videos on this channel where we talk about this in specific kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mcCImsV53amqnIE.html Hope most of your doubts are clarified Thanks

@@UseYourEar I think you're correct actually ! Thank you for answering !

Are any of them inversions by chance?

Hi Renos, thanks for your comment. The interval approach simply isn't a good approach to ear training, no matter if we talk about chord progressions, melodies, improvising, sight-singing, etc. I explain every reason behind this statement in this video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jMiTo8eTxJjKlX0.html it also includes all the scientific studies that you can reference by yourself. Hope it will help you!

@@UseYourEar Hi, thanks for your reply! I find myself using intervals when trying to play melodies by ear, e.g. when I listen to a song on the radio and I want to play it on the piano I find intervals very useful but maybe this is just because I haven't done any ear development on scale degrees (if you call them like that). My relative pitch is pretty developed though but I used different approaches with my teacher. Very interesting! This makes me question if I've wasted my time all these years... I will give this a try and compare the results! :-)

@@MusicRenos In our experience, some people unintentionally grab the right "tonal" mental approach also if they practice intervals. That's rare though because intervals makes it a lot more difficult to use a tonal based mental approach. But it sounds like it could be the case in your situation. I guess you still think a lot about scales when recognizing intervals, or maybe you used to do that a lot in the past. Is it true?

@@UseYourEar hmm I wouldn‘t say that. I don‘t have much experience with scale degrees. Like, I can‘t distinguish the different scale degrees (yet). I‘m working on it. But my relative pitch regarding intervals, melodies and basic chord progressions is on point. I struggle with distinguishing more difficult chord progressions and/or scale degrees. That‘s why I‘m searching for the right approach :-) Yours makes sense though. Thank you!! 🙏

Thank you!

This is still the very fundation to then go ahead and be able to recognize more harmonically complex music. If you can't recognize simple songs with the method I've outlined you will have no chance on Steely Dan. Just clarifying this point for whoever is going to read this.

That sounds exactly what most people get with intervals, you can recognize a few things with a lot of effort but then you get lost real quick. They don't allow you to develop intuitive skills that you can use in real time, in other words they don't make recognition and recall of notes and chords easy and effortless enough to be applied in real music. I don't hate them, I just know they are an extreme oversimplification of what "great musicians" really do (in their minds). I encourage you to watch this video where I explain everything more in depth, while demonstrating how interval based ear training could be effective for advanced musicians but it's detrimental to beginner and intermediate level students kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g8iioMWKxq_NlI0.html Please be open minded as what I'm teaching and saying is not only supported by scientific studies but also by thousands of people following our method. Lastly I encourage you to check out this video to see how our students learn to recognize chords by ear in just a few months (also major and minor) without training nor thinking of intervals at all kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gKdlibCXyZ_To3U.html

Hi, absolutely yes, the course starts from a very beginner level. From a music theory point of view, you just need to know the major scale to properly start out with the lessons and that's usually not a problem.

The 4+

I have trained very hard with wrong methods and they didn't work, then I changed the approach I was training with and things started to click. Initially you recognize chords and notes very very slowly and then you improve and get faster bit by bit. Like learning a language. That's how our method work.

With practice, and of course you need to be able to recognize chords in root position very quickly before it makes sense to go ahead with inversions.

We aren't currently selling any books unfortunately. You can access our video course via streaming directly from our platform. www.useyourear.com/courses

Why would I?

@@UseYourEar Just curious, because you talk like someone who does. I have it so I was curious if it was even possible to ear train if you cant audiate, in your head.

@@FlowerBoyH Ear training (when done right) is all about developing audiation skills, so that's exactly what we teach and so far everyone developed these skills when training properly. That said, consider that english is not my first language, so that might be why you feel I speak weirdly. Thanks

Hi, the course focuses mostly on tonal music. That being said, scientific researches are showing that abilities in modal (or also atonal) music are based on the usage of basics tonal hearing skills. Basically, they suggest that musicians are able to figure out those more complex harmonic contexts by thinking of them as little fragments of multiple tonalities. So in that sense, the course can help you a lot in forming the basics you need to be good in those more complex harmonic contexts.

@@UseYourEar thx

The concept is similar. Also non-diatonic chords have their unique tonal sound and sensation. Of course there are other difficulties there that I can't thoroughly explain here but are fully taken into account in our course. For sure, before even trying to deal with non-diatonic chords you should easily be able to recognize diatonic chords. Otherwise it's like trying to run without being able to walk. Hope that make sense.

Hi Timmy, thank you for reaching out. Here are our answers: 1) Yes, a V chord sounds different from a V7 chord or a V9 chord while maintaining a similar musical function. 2)Yes, we have a specific series of exercises in our course where we gradually teach students to do that. Of course, this is not a beginner level skill. Hope this helps. Thanks

Hi, thank you for your comment. What genre of music are you interested in?

Hi Chao, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you can understand that there are multiple people working on this project. If we don't get paid we won't be able to carry on with what we're doing, so I don't think FREE should be the way to go.

@@UseYourEar It's absolutely alright!

That's still slow. Could be much faster. 😉

@@UseYourEar yes, I almost need to calculate everything except the pitch 🥺

Thanks for the feedback!

I guess you don't understand what he talking

Really, seems interesting to me.

@@neilripsch6624 each to their own, if you get something outta it then its worth your time