Re: reading/dictating by ear, tips pleas

Clay Moore ( cmoore4@ix.netcom.com )
Fri, 16 May 1997 18:37:01 -0500

Bert Ligon wrote:
>
> >On 14 May 1997, Pedro Batista wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Not trying to improve on Reed's comments, theres a little trick I find
> >> useful when trying to categorize an interval just by memory. It is to
> >> memorize bits of familiar tunes where you know the interval occours. You can
> >> have a tune bit for every interval (2nds are trivial, but wider intervals
> >> become trickier). For instance if you need, say, a perfect 4th Beethoven 9th
> >> has some well known parts you can use as mnemonic. The #4th is more uncommon
> >> but I have one: the first two notes of The Simpsons theme... (The
> >> Siiiimp...).
> >>
> >>
> >I use the first two notes of 'Here comes the bride...' for a perfect
> >fourth... :)>
>
> The trouble with this concept is that there are six perfect fourths in a
> major key and only one of them is "here comes the bride."
>
> In C major P4= C-F, D-G, E-A, G-C, A-D, B-E. They all sound different and
> yet are all perfect fourths. Only G-C is "here comes the bride" if we are
> in C. I tend to hear pitches related to the tonic.

I'd like suggest a book for food for thought regarding the way music has
been "traditionally" taught, called Lies My Music Teacher Told Me. One
of the axioms the author questions is using songs to teach intervals. As
in the case of Bert's point on "Here Comes The Bride", what's important
is that the interval is the 5th of a key (so) resolving to the tonic
(do), but teachers all over use it as an example of the root to the 4th.
This confuses your sense of key, because tones aren't just isolated
intervals out there, they usually have a relationship to harmony.
Another example is "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean", which some teachers
call root to 6th. In the key of C "My Bonny" is G to E, ie the 5th going
up to the 3rd above the root. IMO this is why a lot of so-called ear
training programs don't help that much, because they don't focus on what
we need to be hearing.

-- 
Clay Moore


We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. Yet, it sometimes
seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but
its own talents as well. -Bruce Lee