Blown away by how many of you are finding this video! That’s super cool! Share it with your friends, and don’t be afraid to ask questions! I’m always here ❤️

Great video. I'm a professional musician (conductor/pianist) and have utmost respect for transcribers. As a conductor, I need to hear the vertical sounds in my head when looking at a score, and my piano training helped immensely. 2 of my early piano teachers were also composers and made me do advanced level ear training and sight reading even as a 10 year old. An essential part of piano lessons included melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ear training, complex jazz chords and having to transcribe 4 part chorales. Each lesson ended with sightreading a Mozart piano duet or a Bach prelude or fugue, no stopping allowed, if I goofed up I had to fake it and keep moving. And they made it fun. As a freshman at university I was able to test out of the entire first year theory class. All that early training laid a foundation for my conducting for which I'm eternally grateful. Only later did I realize how lucky I was, since most of my colleagues never got a fraction of that training, even in music school.

45 yrs ago I was a music major. My professor had us do this very thing. By the end the course we had transcribe Bach chorales, parts of Mozart sonatas, and some 12 tone rows that he would play. We also had to sight sing in front of everyone. I’m grateful for that training even today

Ive been using ear training apps for 1.5 years at least 30 min per day and it helped, very slightly. What did help as you say: Hear melodies in your mind and figure out what intervals they are. Start with basic melodies from pop music. Humm along and know it, don't just guess on the piano. Really use your brain to know what is happening. I went from not playing by ear to being able to play most intermediate melodies at least, almost instantly. Still learning every day. It's so much more fun than just reading sheet music. Sorry classically trained musicians. Yes, ear training has life changing and made me appreciate music to a whole other level!

I have been looking for someone to say this for a lifetime. THIS is the skill we are all looking to acquire...not to learn that something is a "c minor 11 sus 4"..but to play what we WANT rather than know what we last played.

Ear training and rhythm are my favorite healthy rabbit holes. They key is to get over yourself and sing everything you know. That goes beyond hear a C and sing the 5th. That goes into singing bass movement of tunes you are learning, singing the melody while playing the bass movement, singing the 3rds of the harmonic movement. Helps you hear how harmony functions in a key center. Being able to hold onto a key center in your inner ear, because most music--even jazz (don't me started on Giant Steps, you have to hear how it all returns back to B major)--is key centric. Sight singing. I learned most of my ear training by studying with Bruce Arnold and continuing to hone my ears with his digitized library--because he got the premise from the master of musicianship studies CHARLIE BANACOS. Ear training isn't a parlor trick; it's a life long endeavor that should be practiced in conjunction with whatever you are currently working on. Practicing tritone subs? Sing the movements. Sing the lines. Practicing some Meshuggah song in an odd meter? Sing it! If you can hear it, you can own it. If you can sing it, you can song it--turn it into music.

Great video. I started training my ears last year. At first I only did intervals/ triads/ scales recognition and while I was making progress, I was feeling like I couldn't get the 'color' of each interval, that I wasn't able to really internalize it. After I while I decided to try singing by 'anticipating', like Levi explains in the video above (ie: playing a note on the keyboard/ guitar and trying to sing a fifth above). Within weeks I could feel a real improvement. I could finally get the color of each interval! Fast forward one year and now I am able to sing intervals, arpeggios and scales and I'm able to identify them quickly when I hear them. Of course it's not always perfect as I'm still a beginner, but I can garantee you this works. Hell, when I skip singing a few days (because I have a sore throat for example) I can almost immediatly feel like my recognition ability dropping a little bit.

This is quite litterally the most eye opening video I’ve found on ear training and leveling up as a musician. I am so grateful for this video im gonna practice singing different scales over different chords to truly internalize and audiate

Great lesson, Levi! What has worked for me is to internalize everything. Be able to hear and produce the intervals in your head. When "anticipating" your choice of notes, recognize where you will be in relation to the current implied chord and key center, and also the target chord, even if the key center is changing mid phrase. To improvise freely, that reaction time has to be developed to be almost instantaneous. The challenge in the music is the mental part, and playing the instrument is just translating that into mechanical motion to produce the intended sound, regardless of what the instrument is. Back in the 80's, I spent a lot of time transcribing away from any instrument using just a cassette player, headphones, & paper, while waiting for a bus or train ride, and that helped a lot.

This is the music equivalent of what I talk about a lot for pronunciation in languages (American English specifically on my channel). All skills have both a production and recognition side, which is why you can understand a language and not be able to speak it or be able to more or less speak a language but have difficulty understanding normal speed speech. This equally and more importantly applies to the fundamental root element of a skill (music/language/art/etc), which in the case of both music and language happens to be individual sounds. You're definitely onto something here, sir. Keep it up.

Top shelf teacher! You explain and put it into context the best!

Great lesson. Thanks! I'm a Star Wars fan so I tied many of the intervals to SW theme songs. For instance the Maj 6 is in the ending song for Empire Strikes Back. The perfect 5th is the main SW theme song, etc. It's important for students to come up with their own song associations to identify intervals.

This is a very valueable lesson which people wouldnt realize until they learn music. Thank you for this video.

Levi, you've single handedly changed my perspective on ear training by stressing audition. This is a skill I am very weak on as I'm already seeing improvements by practicing the exercise you've introduced. I can't thank you more! Subbed!

I had two phenomenal jazz piano teachers as an undergrad. One had an incredible ear, the other had perfect pitch. The one with perfect pitch would be the first to tell you that the other had a better ear. Similarly, my jazz guitar teacher (my primary instrument) did not have perfect pitch, but had a fantastic ear and recall - could transcribe live gigs.

25 year professional musican just starting a Bachelor of music :) These are great points! I am definitely going to adjust my ear training practice regime! Thanks a bunch my guy xox

I only understood this concept when I stopped thinking in major/minor sounds and started thinking in modalities. I'm still not good enough to intuit and anticipate their intervals yet but I can hear "hey that's tuned to E playing mixolydian," and stumble my way there solfege-style. Game-changing method! Thank you for sharing

Also u should not just recognize a root to its intervals but a 3rd a 5th a 6th a 7th to a 5th or a root. So u give them a root note to memorize then u play other notes WITHOUT going back to play the root. Because I think in my opinion the biggest part to this is trying to not memorize the tones and play a game and be more mindful of the actual notes that are happening so when I play you any note and say what is the major third I know it seems hard for someone without Perfect Pitch but I don't have perfect pitch either and I taught myself these things just over time playing. It will dramatically help w what ur talking about. This will help u imagine notes better. Love this man ur doing a great job....PAY ATTENTION PLAYERS!

Thank you Levi. I live in the southern part of Bharat (India) and I'm fortunate my parents put me into Carnatic music education when I was a child and so I can sing the major scale and most modes of the major scale. But after I started playing the guitar many years later, this skill was somehow pushed into the background, and I never really used this skill to visualize/hear other notes in the key. Thank you for making this video - because now I can dig that skill up and I can imagine doing a lot more! Getting the harmony in my head to the scales I know on the fretboard is the next challenge lol. But thank you once again for making this video! I also wanted to thank you for the excellent practice books for guitar - I use them everyday and they're incredibly helpful.

Good to know I've been doing the right thing. Obviously I have to hear it in my head before I go to play it, and singing it is a way to connect it to my body.

I think one way of learning the characteristic notes of different scales is to use the tonic triad as a reference point. There are only two tonic triads - major and minor. All of the other notes in the scale are always a step away from one of the notes in the tonic triad (1 3 5). 7 is below the 1. 6 is above the 5. 4 is above the 3. 2 is above the 1. A good exercise is to sing the tonic triad, then sing a "tension" (i.e. a note outside of the triad), and then resolve it to the closest note in the tonic triad. You can try this with different modes. 1 7 1 - 5 6 5 - 3 4 3 - 1 2 1 would be major. 1 b7 1 - 5 6 5 - 3 4 3 - 1 2 1 would be Mixolydian. 1 b7 1 - 5 6 5 - b3 4 b3 - 1 2 1 would be Dorian. 1 b7 1 - 5 b6 5 - b3 4 b3 - 1 2 1 would be Aeolian. 1 7 1 - 5 b6 5 - b3 - 4 - b3 - 1 2 1 would be harmonic minor. You get the idea. (Maybe singing the full triad first would be the best idea, so sing 1 3 5 8 5 3 1 if the tonic triad is major, and 1 b3 5 8 5 b3 1 if the tonic triad is minor. Then sing the "tensions".) I think using the tonic triad as a reference point makes it easier to learn to feel your position within the scale.

You are a great teacher! We need university professors to teach this way!

Brilliant! The concept of audiation is something I need to look into. Thank you big time! 🙏

Basically to integrate everything he's said in an exercise one should just sing written music. This exercise is called sung solfeggio. If you can sing written music then you can hear the music in your head. There's lots of pedagogical solfeggio books that have been used for centuries.

Thanks a lot for pointing that out. I‘m a eartraining beginner and being quickly able to recognize diatonic intervals, modes and that stuff I totally forgot about the imagination part…

Great video 🙏🙏🙏 I find the 2 things most musicians struggle with is 1- Does what you practice actually translate to your profession & 2- As a musician what are you really best @??🤔🤔🤔 Your video actually touches on these things!!

Totally agree with this approach and it is how I "practice".

Spot on Levi.. Spot on.. I didn't know that what I aquired from years of transcribing is anticipation

Super impressive vid. Excellent presentation and content - straight to the point and no digressions! Challenging, but do-able, and very likable persona too. Those qualities make for a great total package! thanks

Really great video, thank you ! I can recognize intervals. I think I also can sing the 7 different scales derivated from the major scale (dorian, phrygian, etc.). Sing notes in sequence. But I find it impossible to recognize from which scale some notes come from if I hear a melody (with notes in a random order)

Great distinction between the two. I'm adjusting my eartraining practice right away. The singing before playing exercise is great. Thanks! 👍

I just finished with music school and they did this in all my musicianship classes.

this is a great video. i'm quite passionate about ear training and i'm always happy to see well made videos like this one giving the subject some air time. your channel actually inspired me to start a channel of my own talking about ear training topics. cant match your professionalism, but i try to make up for it with comedy.. i guess, lol

thanks for the video. it's a GREAT resource!

The other thing that goes beyond this practice which is so great and anyone who stumbles across this will learn but the thing I want to say is above all this takes practice and you actually have to do this over and over and over again the thing about learning your instrument and learning the theory with it is all about how often your hands are on that instrument and also that the practice is intentional and not just improv all the time which is very very helpful but only if you can harken back to legitimate practices

Oh man. How true. I am happy I can hear all this. Audiation is my major tool. I like practicing like this: I touch my keyboard randomly without pressing the note and just sing it. After some notes I check if I am still in key. Must check your other stuff .....

In my view usually the toughest shit that few people are willing to do is usually where the gold hides. Transcription and sight singing exercices is a godly combo. Can you imagine opening some written jazz lick and being able to audiate it and sing it? And then going to transcribe some other thing? Nah, the person good at this CANNOT have a weak ear its literally impossible. But you can have a weak ear with traditional eartraining

You have great content 👏 keep em coming

Rick Beato made a rather good case for people losing the ability to develop perfect pitch in childhood, and, from that point on people can only develop their relative pitch. From what I’ve seen, the evidence does seem consistent with this claim….

Good stuff. For me there are two foundational musts when developing your ear: 1) Can sing any note you hear, both at pitch and in other octaves? 2) Can you sing the root note of any chord you're hearing? For me, so many fall at this first hurdle. Thanks

7:02 I definitely hear intervals in music and go, "that's a ...". Not always but sometimes. It's either spontaneous or I need to go note-by-note. I can also audiate and recognize intervals on things like tonedear. Where I'm struggling now is during chromatic intervals. For example, Stella By Starlight has a bass which typically uses a M7 but occasionally plays a m7. Audiating that can make my head spin; other times it's clear as day. I've been trying to train my ears for many years - it can be slow progress. Currently I'm doing Gradus Ad Parnassum two-voice species counterpoint exercises. After establishing the tonic with a keyboard, I'll do my best to audiate each voice independently without metronome. As I go through the keys over a period of about two weeks, I add singing both voices ascending and descending. After 30min-1hr of that I'll play the same things on an instrument; currently that's bass. When I first transfer it over to the instrument, I can't always sing along - especially with the bass since it's unfamilar and low; I guess I could start in the upper register to make it easier. In the end, I've taken "sing what you play" seriously and generally try to do that.

Levi...Stumbled across your channel by chance, while searching through vids on relative pitch. Just picked my horns back up after 20 plus years. This time I'm determined to incorporate the use of a piano and transcribing into my routine. I really enjoyed what you had to say about the subject-- and your approach. Just subscribed and looking forward to exploring your channel. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge. Thanks :)

my issue is being able to separate the notes of a chord when they are played all at the same time. my brain just gets confused and its like one big mixture of sounds and i have a really hard time picking out individual notes. either that or one note (usually the highest note) takes over and that's all i can hear or sing. however i'm not bad at recognizing melodies and individual notes alone, or even "audiating". ha! so frustrating :p

u need to learn intervals ascending descending and harmonic.. but that gets u nowhere if u want to transcribe songs cause thats sort of a different thing.. but if u learn intervals can recognize chord qualities and if u push through the initial pain after a year or so u can transcribe everything and it becomes really fast.

Completely agree! I wonder why it is not taught this way.

I remember Dizzie Gillespie mentioning Audiation in a classroom, he mentioned the measure to which you can auditee, it should start faintly and get stronger as you learn it.

I managed to find this video thanks to KZfaq recommending this to me. From what I noticed in this video, I already developed some sense of anticipation without having a proper expert/teacher to teach me music theory in-person, except for being taught how to sing at a young age. I did my best to anticipate notes from the examples in this video before they were actually played. From my testing, I was able to successfully anticipate notes [playing them in my head before they actually played on the piano] from the C-Maj scale and most of the different flats and sharps when changing to mixolydian/that one key with the flat 5th in the scale. However, I did notice some limits to myself as of writing down this comment, which included failing to exactly anticipate 11:53. Instead of going from C, to D, to D#, I instinctively went to B, to C, to C# before listening to that initial example. I then actually listened to the example, and got C and D, but I didn’t quite know how to pitch D#, and my mind instinctively went to E, (this is probably due to the fact that one of the habits I often did when playing an instrument on my daw was play the notes: [Do note that higher numbers equals higher octaves and vice versa] C5, D5, E5, C5, C4, C6, B5, D5, and finally, back to a C5. I have repeated that exact same melody throughout my entire music production experience. I didn’t repeat it every day, but I did that along with a few other habits enough times to recognize what the notes: C, C#, and D, when I hear someone play the notes.) I also noticed that when you played 11:23, I did anticipate some notes, but the notes that played sound different from what I thought the track was going to play. (For instance, I could tell when the last note played in this example, but I didn’t expect you to play another note between the note at 11:32 where I assume the note that played there was an A, and the final resolved note was a C. I didn’t expect the note: D to appear. I am glad you made this video Levi Cray, I hope that you along with everyone else reading this has a great day.

I don’t know what school you went to but my school made us do a ton of sight singing and singing of intervals, arpeggios, and scales with only one reference tone or chord. Like they’d play a Db and then say, “sing a tritone above” or “sing a minor 6th below” or “sing a major arpeggio and this is the root” or “sing a dominant seventh in second inversion and this note is the third”, etc.

The reference melody I think is a very toxic way to study, I prefer to feel the interval without any reference so they become independent sounds. The faster you recognize intervals the faster you can construct chords or anything, so this let you work harmony wherever you are without any external reference and that is very usefull. In improvisation is very important to recognize everything to react to it, and then hear in your head what you are going to do. The more you do it the faster will occur.

We do this at my school. In junior year of music college. The rest they expect you to practice further yourself.

Great video, man but when you say "it's not a thing", at least "for you" and for "transcription" purpose, at 7:01, I don't know what I felt about it! For me, being able to hear melodic or harmonic intervals knowing what they are, which would allow me to transcribe a song to a score, would be absolutely priceless. Certainly anticipating and listening new notes, phrases a whole context and knowing what it is would be really wonderful, especially for composing but for someone like me, who has been training for a long time and has had a hard time achieving what is for you "not a thing", I'm without words!

Nice lesson Levi. I drill this kind of stuff in the shower sometimes, singing scales and arpeggios 😅

Ear training also requires some singing. You just have to practice the ear training exercises with singing even if you don’t want to.

Really good points, it is so nice, I will practice this!

This is brilliant! I was a classically trained singer in college, and i really felt auraul training was definitely worthless. Most everything i memorized was simply from repitition. I never thought to learn this way, and i am surprised this isnt taught.

Great video Levi!

Excellent video. Thanks!

Thank you Levi

This video is awesome thank you Levi

I think it may help to repeat notes when practicing intervals so they have a chance to sink in. For example, cc dd, cc ee, cc ff, cc gg, cc aa, cc bb, cc cc.

You’re the best Levi. Thanks 🙏

damn this is some incredibly insightful and valuable information. thank you for the video!

Yesssss! Finally someone who gets it. (Explains why I had so much trouble in music school with aural studies, yet I wasn't a bad musician. Just couldn't easily identify chords but probably could have anticipated). Thankyou. PS can you tell all professors at music school that they should change their curriculum? Lol. 😬

First time on the channel. Very good content I found the interval identifying methods is suited very well to pass the corresponding quizzes and tests, but is of very limited value in real life musical situations

Thank you very much , really useful . Thank you

Thanks, this was helpful.

In university I had melodic, harmonic and rhythmic ear training while getting my degree but most of my ear training was “on-the-job” transcribing music for the bands in which I was a member. I would always be the idiot doing needle drops on the vinyl trying to pick out the individual instrumental parts while every one else sat back and smoked. Plus, playing in jazz ensembles, especially with pianists who idolized Bill Evans was a challenge to pick out the harmonies in tunes was also great on the job ear training.

Boom, this was super helpful 🎉😊

thank you hope to hear more

Right. Thanks to my ear training teacher being aware of that and making us sing acapella scales, chords, progressions, melodies etc... Still a challenge though ))

Great tips Levi, thanks

I try to guess the key of theborgannpostludevand often I was deadbon or off by a semi tone. Singing is very useful too.

Interesting insight. Thanks mate.

Hello, well explained, great job, thank you. 🎼🎶🎹🎵🎸.

Thx. Ear trainig can be frsutrating as hell so this was a interesting take

Great stuff!

One of the best things about being self-taught is that I can do this.

The overcooked shirt!!! Nice video

I have been trying to explain hearing notes that haven't been played yet, and I finally have a name for it (Audiation) thank you. I first noticed this happening one day while listening to music (A song I'd never heard before) and I could hear several notes before they happened it started happening a lot and I can remember hearing different notes and being annoyed it didn't go down the melodic road I was hearing in my head.

Growing up , there was a blind guy in the area who was a music major . He also tuned pianos . If a song was in C and you needed to tune a guitar or bass , he coule easily hear the E in the C chord and have you tunes up . NO tuner required . Unfortunately , I didn't get the opportunity to take ear training from him .

Ah! Play a note and sing the 5th or other intervals! I can do the octave, no problem. Also minor and majord 2nd, maybe the 4th... I will definitely practice this a bit!

Same here I get tones quick

Nice, i looking to gain this skill, so i can play music by ear

Can you make a video showing each interval with your favorite reference songs? Thanks!

OMG duuude can you please give reference to all the themes you use as tricks? i'm blown away by this, it really works. Now I hear the iron man theme and cannot forget this interval anymore.

Thank you!

Hi Levi, I really want to thank you for that life changing advice. Ok it changes little in my life overall, I'll never be a decent musician, neither I really care, BUT playing guitar and listening to music bringi pleasure in my life, so… thanks ;) I never got it, I tried the exercices you alluded, and quit having achieved no progress at all. I obviously don't have perfect pitch but I do tend to sing F and G pretty in pitch, yet I'm terrible at transcribing and at getting even relatively simple licks by ears. I thought something but wrong with me. The thing is I never had the wit to come with the exercice as you described it, I try to sing note but «after». I'm just started with the approach you describe and I feel different wrt to the process. The path may be long or never ending but I, at least, can tell that I'm working in a way my brain complies with. I tend to «audiate» (is that the word you use ?) the note that comes within the patterns I know but I never propely manage to connect that to the chord / harmony. I «know» if I think about it, but it is not organic, neither that knowledge has way to interact with my playing in real time : it is an afterthought. Today, I try to stop in a pattern and decide on a random interval and sing it from where I stopped. I realized how foreign to me some intervals still are no matter decades of it seems misspractice. I also realize that intonation on one string was off… guess later on I'll to connect that to chord/triad or the scale root but I got to get those intervals down. It is weird but within the tenth of minutes I tried your approach I felt that something was going on in my brain, I can also tell it will take time but I mean…

8:50 Practicise. Good word.

Great content

I'm still at the level of having to "derive" certain things. I can "anticipate" most intervals, but when you played a C major and asked to play C mixolydian over it, there was an extra mental step I had to take to feel it. If you played C-E-G-Bflat, of course I could start doodling with that. And this is a separate issue, but I'm sure my doodling would be the most unoriginal obvious stuff... yeah. Just discovered your channel, looking forward to watching more videos.

Hi Levi, this is a great lesson! however it really depends on the course/ music school, how aural skills are taught. Some schools I have attend just do the interval thing whilst others teach audiation, transcription and sight singing 🤷‍♂️

Excellent discussion 😊

Identifying intervals is good for figuring out a chord progression ig

Great lesson

Omg thank you for your help!

Very cool video my friend!

This kind of video must be excruciatingly boring to make but incredibly beneficial to users. Thanks for the time and effort.

Random Intervals without a context of key or root is not ear training. Ear training really begins with the Harmonic Series: The part of it that we feel: two notes: the Root and it's octave. Then what we actually hear: the 5th the Root the 3rd and the 5th above, like the 4 notes of a Bugle call. After that the 9th and 6th of the Pentatonic scale, or like in the Highland bagpipes the Minor 7th. Ear Training as it is taught in University is really Ear Misleading. Transcribing is good but they don't really teach you the vocabulary that is required. Some students do better than others, usually pianists, but the rest of us just struggle through and it is really tragic. If you want to train your ears, learn some bugle calls, then some pentatonic tunes. the Bugle calls will alert your ears to what Pentatonic tunes fit your particular aesthetic. Many Hymns like coming through the rye, the tunes of Robbie Burns, Amazing grace, the Beatles, then the Blues. Easy Peasie, don't beat yourself up for failing an antiquated system of pedagogy that was totally different from what Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were brought up with.

Did you know the "Use your ear" method? Is very helpful, and is different.

"Practicize" - I like it. Exercise + practice.