Effective Ear Training Techniques Unveiled: Practical Tips and Perspectives

Today, in our Whatsapp group, we had a discussion on the question put up by Ravi Shankar from Bangalore that

“I have a basic question regarding ear training. If we play Sa or any note on different scales of bansuri, obviously it will sound different in different scales as the frequencies will be different. Then how will the ear training happen?

Here are the answers given by group members.  Prashant Das said:

“

Imagine yourself training your taste buds.

You eat variety of foods. They all taste different. And one day you can actually feel their taste only by looking at them. Same thing is with music. You have to train your ears for variety of Sa’s. One day you will be able to recognise them easily.   But to do so, you need to practice the entire scale of 12 notes on each key, for hundreds of times.  The process is long and not easy. Only requirement is patience.

Our brain just doesn’t have enough data to identify the different notes yet.

Based on this initial thought, another perspective was given by Krishna:

“Long answer short. Take up a simple raag (audav/5 is good) and check:

A. It’s sargam

B. Simple small bhajans/songs

C. Movie songs

D. Classical music

Simultaneously keep guessing the notes while you learn the patterns and sounds.
With enough practice, you’ll pretty much identify the notes or close guess the notes of any unknown song played in that particular scale/raag.

Though this doesn’t completely apply for classical music proper, it helps with ear training much. The more data u have/the more variety you have heard the same raag/scale in, the more your brain recognises similar frequencies and patterns.

This can further carry forward to other scales too if it has similar sounding notes. So that’s always an advantage.
Infact, this question is  the very reason why tanpura helps. To keep the vocalist on check and bring him back to home sa incase he misses sa.  Many other advantages also but yeah.(Instrumentalists also to some extent).”

A K Anand also chipped in with his expertise:
“As you yourself have mentioned,

different scales have different Shadaj.

So technically there no single Sa, it is like a circle and Sa varies from where we start. Now, when we talk about ear-training we are actually learning two different things.  One is absolute pitch ear training which means we are able to identify the note (Sa of our scale) from the spectrum. We do it by playing, listening and repeating vocally to match with the tanpura.

Another is relative pitch ear training which means we learn the distance between notes from our scale as Prashant Da has said.  We need to learn both during our riyaz.”

Having somewhat satisfied with the answers, Ravi Shankar continued the discussion with a supplementary question:

What are the different types of techniques of ear training?”

Many paths lead to the top of the Mountain…” as a zen quote says.
There are many many ways in which musicians strive to achieve the objective and I would put Prashant Da’s words in bold… ‘There are no short cuts’.

Some ways include :

1. Listening  to different genre of music.

2. Vocalising with Tanpura

3. Attempting to recognising different notes in your scale.

4. Playing different alankars.

5. Listening to different instruments

6. Record your playing periodically and listen after some time to identify the notes.

7. The list is endless…………

Gopal has once mentioned that when you visit Pt Nityanand Haldipur, you will always hear Tanpura on speakers in each room. The sound has to be absorbed in our body. As Gurus say, music is not in the flute. Flute is incidental, actual music plays in your mind.

You will find many helps  across the net for the purpose and can select the path for yourself. Enjoy the journey.”

Krishna answered the second question of Ravi Shankar like:

(There are) 2 types broadly:
1. Assisted
2. Non-assisted

Assisted is, practicing constantly with a drone/tanpura/piano/Shruti peti etc or anything which offers a reference note so that u can visit other swaras/compare the distance with other swaras and come back to your home sa with the help of a drone.
Un-assisted is a consequence of assisted. You practice so much with a tanpura that you become a tanpura yourself.  But it strictly needs a guru to constantly correct you when attempting this.”

Gopal Rao added:

“Another contribution to learning ear training is

use of apps that are designed to train your ear.

In the app – select the scale ( C or D or E etc)
Select – one or two or three Swars 
Based on your selection the app will play sone random swar(s)
You have to type your answer – most of the time I used to guess. And guess incorrectly. Or if correct – it was just luck. The app will say “correct” or “ incorrect”. 

If you use this app regularly- your ears will start getting trained to identify correctly & plus you start enjoying the challenge. Some apps will have a reverse feature. It will say – sing some random swar in the scale you have selected. The app will hear you singing that swar and tell you if it was correct or not. 

Right now – at my current levels – many times I sing the wrong swar but correctly. What I mean is – app says – sing pa. I will sing something. App will say incorrect on pa but you sang ma correctly.

My Guruji does the same training with me. He sings the swar in “ aakar” form and asks me to identify. Or he will command me – pa gavo / Ni dha Re gavo. I have to then sing those.”

This question bothers many students and they often get little or no insight.  But here, thankfully, we get answers to many such doubts with our informal discussion.  Hope it enlightens you as well.  You can leave your feedback below.