Musical ear is congenital or acquired. How to develop an ear for music - for self-taught people and more! Relative musical ear

How often do we hear from mature, accomplished people that they have absolutely no hearing or that a bear stepped on their ear. But is it really ear for music Is it an exclusively innate quality or can it still be developed even at a very young age?

Musical hearing is an exclusively human ability to perceive, reproduce and compose musical compositions. Many people believe that if they cannot sing correctly or cannot learn to play a musical instrument, then they do not have an ear for music. Is this really true? Let's figure it out.

Is it even possible to develop an ear for music if a person has no innate talent?

It turns out that musical ear, like any other human ability, is subject to development and training. The job of hearing is to memorize certain musical structures and endow them with meaning. That is, the “presence” of an ear for music is the application of certain knowledge in practice plus developed auditory memory.

The absence of an ear for music in the overwhelming majority of cases only indicates that a person does not have knowledge about the basic aspects music education. At any age you can learn to sing and play a musical instrument. Age characteristics hearing development is only that at an earlier age to develop in oneself musical abilities much easier than in a more mature one. In principle, this concerns not only musical education and the development of musical ear, as we all know, anyone learns faster interesting activity children, whether skating or cycling, than adults. But you can develop an ear for music at any age, it all depends on your hard work, desire and patience.

The method of developing musical ear includes improving several types of hearing. In order to develop an ear for music, learn to sing beautifully and hear the structure of musical melodies, you should develop such types of hearing as rhythmic, melodic and internal.

The sense of rhythm and tempo of a melody is rhythmic hearing. To develop rhythmic hearing, read poetry syllable by syllable to music, dance and sing to a well-known simple melody.
Melodic hearing is the perception and understanding of the structure of a melody, its organization, and an awareness of the movement of music.
Inner hearing is the ability to imagine musical compositions in the mind, in thoughts, hear them internally and reproduce them from memory. To develop melodic and inner hearing, you should take up such an academic discipline as solfeggio. Record to music teacher in this case is necessary. Solfeggio involves singing melodies, intervals, modes, scales and chords. You will also learn to memorize the sound of melodies, determine intervals and rhythmic compositions by ear, and write notes by ear - the teacher plays a melody, and you try to decipher it note by note.

If you are unable to make an appointment professional teacher music education, then for the development of musical hearing you can use specialized Internet sites, for example, muz-urok or earmaster, or programs for the development of musical hearing - Noteris, Ukhogryz, etc.

And most importantly, since developing an ear for music will not be possible in one or two days, you should systematically (every day!) do this for at least one year. Listen to beautiful high-quality melodies, try to repeat the same ones musical notes for professional performers, listen, memorize and play music. Any hearing is subject to improvement and development. The ability to hear and reproduce musical compositions depends only on your desire and performance.

It's safe to say that good hearing is the only ability that allows you to become a musician.

Without this nothing can happen.

Of course, it is possible to teach a person without an ear for music to play a musical instrument, but his playing will most likely resemble the actions of a robot executing a preset program and unable to deviate from it.

When they talk about musicality, they always mean a well-developed ear for music, even if this idea is not voiced.

I think there are many questions related to musical ear, but the most important ones are the following:

What do you mean by good ear for music?
What criteria exist to determine it?
How to develop an ear for music?

Let's start by defining how musical hearing differs from ordinary hearing.

Ear for music- a set of abilities necessary for composing, performing and actively perceiving music. An ear for music, first of all, relies on knowledge and an acquired system of symbols. For example, everyone can sing the melody of the song “A Christmas Tree Was Born in the Forest,” but not everyone can name the notes that make up the song.

On the other hand, if your head has a stable connection between the first intonation of this song and the fact that this is an interval of a major sixth, then when you hear this intonation in any piece of music. You know that this is a major sixth interval and you can play it on the instrument.

The work of hearing in this case is to memorize certain musical structures and endow them with meaning.

As you can see, hearing development is the application of certain knowledge in practice combined with the development of auditory memory.

Lack of understanding of how to relate hearing experience to hearing development can lead people to believe that they are not hearing.

However, there are practically no people without hearing. Most of the problems are associated with poor quality teaching of the basics in music schools and other educational institutions.

There are many categories of musical hearing. The most important are:

Absolute pitch- ability to determine absolute altitude musical sounds without comparing them with the standard. This means that when you hear any note, you can name it.

It is divided into passive (small percentage of note detection, limited application) and active.

Relative hearing- the most important for any musician - defined as the ability to determine and reproduce pitch relationships in melody, intervals, etc.;

Inner hearing- the ability to have a clear mental representation (for example, from musical notation or from memory) of individual sounds, melodic and harmonious structures, and entire pieces of music; very important when learning improvisation.

Harmonic hearing- the ability to hear harmonic consonances - chord combinations of sounds and their sequence and reproduce them with the voice in unfolded form or on a musical instrument. In practice, this can be expressed, for example, in selecting a melody by ear, even without knowing the notes, or singing in a polyphonic choir.

Polyphonic hearing– the ability to listen to all voices in a multi-voice work.

Polyrhythmic hearing– the ability to hear rhythmic figures sounding different sizes and the ability to reproduce these rhythms.

There are several main ways to develop hearing:

Solfage

Solfaging (that is, practice) involves singing intervals, chords, scales, modes, and melodies. This practice strengthens the connection between hearing and the written note, and solfège also forms a specific auditory system.

For example, singing major scale You assimilate its structure, sound, and gradually it becomes natural and familiar to you, and you will perceive any deviation as an inconvenience. Thus, on the one hand, your hearing is developing, on the other hand, until you master anything else, it will be inaccessible to your perception. This problem can arise, for example, when listening to atonal music.

2. Musical dictation

The process is somewhat opposite to solfege. Here you, relying on the knowledge you have already acquired, write down the melody played by the teacher on notes. For this purpose, various techniques are used (finding stable tonality levels in the melody, recognizing intervals, determining cadences, etc.).

Musical dictation also promotes the development of musical memory.

3. Transcribing (from the English transcribing rewriting) or taking- selection by ear or instrument and recording on
notes of any work.

This can be either taking your instrument or other instruments, or even writing an entire score.

There are various techniques used by transcribers to speed up the transfer process. sounding music on paper (slow recording, tables, analysis, etc.).

4. Auditory analysis– identification by ear of intervals, chords, chord sequences, rhythmic figures, etc.

You can also use various specialized programs (for example, Ear Trainer) to develop your hearing.

Thus, the criterion good hearing is the ability to hear and reproduce various elementary structural elements, the ability to write down a heard melody with notes, the ability to anticipate a certain sound, the ability to hear music with the eyes, etc.

Ear for music- this is a set of abilities necessary for composing, performing and actively perceiving music. Musical ear implies a high subtlety of perception of both individual musical elements or qualities of musical sounds (pitch, volume, timbre), and functional connections between them in a musical work (modal sense, sense of rhythm).
Among various types musical hearing, identified according to various criteria, the most important are:
absolute pitch - the ability to determine the absolute height of musical sounds without comparing them with a standard;
relative hearing - the ability to determine and reproduce pitch relationships in melody, chords, intervals, etc.;
internal hearing - the ability to clearly mentally imagine (for example, from musical notation or from memory) individual sounds, melodic and harmonious structures, entire pieces of music;
intonation hearing - the ability to hear the expression of music, to reveal the communication structures embedded in it.
The development of musical ear is dealt with by a special discipline - solfeggio, but musical ear actively develops primarily in the process of musical activity.

IN at different ages people hear music differently. This is true. A child is able to distinguish sound with a frequency of up to 30,000 vibrations per second, but in a teenager (up to twenty years old) this figure is 20,000 vibrations per second, and by the age of sixty it decreases to 12,000 vibrations per second. Good music Center emits a signal with a frequency of up to 25,000 vibrations per second. That is, people over sixty will no longer be able to appreciate all its advantages; they simply will not hear the entire breadth of the range of sounds.

It doesn't matter at what age you start training your hearing. Wrong. American researchers have found that the highest percentage of people with absolute pitch is observed in those who began studying music between 4 and 5 years of age. And among those who started studying music after the age of 8, there are almost no people with absolute pitch.

Men and women hear music the same way. In fact, women hear better than men. The range of frequencies perceived by the female ear is much wider than that of men. They perceive high-pitched sounds more accurately, distinguish tones and intonations better. In addition, women's hearing does not become dull until the age of 38, while in men this process begins at the age of 32.

Having an ear for music does not depend on the language a person speaks. Wrong. A researcher from the University of California proved this by comparing data from 115 American and 88 Chinese music students. Chinese is a tonal language. This is the name of a group of languages in which, depending on intonation, the same word can take on several (up to a dozen) meanings. English language- not tonal. The subjects' absolute pitch was examined. They had to distinguish sounds that differed in frequency by only 6%. The results are impressive. 60% of Chinese passed the test of absolute pitch and only 14% of Americans. The researcher explained this by saying that Chinese more melodic, and the Chinese from birth get used to distinguishing larger number sound frequencies. Thus, if a person's language is musical - with high probability he will also have an absolute ear for music.

A melody heard at least once is stored in our brain all our lives. This is true. American scientists have discovered an area of the cerebral cortex responsible for musical memories. This is the same auditory cortex area that is responsible for the perception of music. It turns out that it is enough for us to hear a melody or song at least once, as it is already stored in this auditory zone. After this, even if we do not hear the melody or song we listened to, the auditory zone is still able to extract it from its “archives” and play it in our brain “from memory”. The only question is how deeply this melody is hidden. Favorite and frequently heard songs are stored in short-term memory. And melodies heard a long time ago or heard rarely are stored in the “closets” of long-term memory. However, some event or sound sequence can suddenly cause our memory to retrieve these forgotten melodies from its “bins” and play them in our brain.

An ear for music is inherited. This opinion has been around for a long time and is widespread. But only recently have scientists been able to scientifically substantiate it. Researchers have found that people without musical hearing have less white matter in the inferior frontal gyrus of the right hemisphere than those who perceive and reproduce melodies well. It is possible that this physiological feature is genetically determined.

Animals do not have an ear for music. They just hear music differently. Animals perceive many more sound frequencies. And if people are able to pick up up to 30,000 vibrations per second, then dogs, for example, register sound with a frequency of 50,000 to 100,000 vibrations per second, that is, they even pick up ultrasound. Although animals have a sense of tact, our pets cannot perceive melody. That is, they do not combine chord combinations of sounds into a specific sequence called a melody. Animals perceive music only as a set of sounds, and some of them are regarded as signals from the animal world.

An ear for music is an ability that is given from above and which cannot be developed. Wrong. Those who entered music school, probably remember that they were asked not only to sing, but also to tap out the melody (for example, with a pencil on the table top). This is explained simply. The teachers wanted to assess whether the applicant had a sense of tact. It turns out that it is the sense of tact that is given (or not given) to us from birth, and it cannot be developed. And if a person doesn’t have it, then music teachers won’t be able to teach him anything. By the way, the percentage of people who lack a sense of tact is very small. But everything else can be taught, including ear for music, if there is a desire.

An ear for music is rare. Wrong. In fact, any person who can speak and perceive speech has it. After all, in order to speak, we must distinguish sounds by pitch, volume, timbre and intonation. It is these skills that are included in the concept of musical ear. That is, almost all people have an ear for music. The only question is what type of musical ear do they have? Absolute or internal? The highest stage of development of musical ear is absolute pitch. It is revealed only as a result of playing music (playing a musical instrument). For a long time it was believed that it could not be developed, but development methods are now known absolute pitch. The lowest level of hearing development is internal hearing, uncoordinated with the voice. A person with such hearing can distinguish melodies and reproduce them from memory, but not sing. The absence of musical hearing is called the clinical level of hearing development. Only 5% of people have it.

Those who have an ear for music can sing well. This is true, but only partly. To sing well, it is not enough to have an ear for music. You also need to be able to control your voice and vocal cords. And this is a skill that is acquired through learning. Almost every person can hear falsehood in singing, but not everyone can sing clearly themselves. Moreover, it often seems to those who sing that they are singing without falsehood, but those around them can see all their mistakes. This is explained by the fact that every person listens to himself with his inner ear and, as a result, hears something completely different from what others hear. So a novice performer may well not notice that he is not hitting the notes. In fact, in order to sing well, it is enough to have just a harmonic ear. This level of hearing development is considered one of the lowest. This is the name given to the ability to hear a melody and reproduce it with the voice. And yet, its development is possible even with the initial absence of such ability. That is, 95% of people can play music and achieve results. Moreover, the more you practice music, the more your ear for music will develop. Up to the absolute - there are no limits to perfection. The main thing is to have a desire and not doubt your abilities!

Anatoly Voronin

Most people love to sing or play musical instruments. However, not everyone is good at it. Very often, correct performance is hindered by a lack of ear for music. Many people believe that this ability is innate and cannot be improved.

In fact, there are practical ways you can develop your ear for music on your own, even at home. In this article we will tell you how you can easily develop an absolute ear for music, and what you need to do for this.

Types of musical hearing

Musical hearing is a rather complex and multifaceted concept.

Among its various types, the main ones can be identified:

absolute pitch is the ability to accurately identify any note without comparing it with known sounds. It is believed that this skill can only be innate, although some scientists have a different opinion on this issue;
interval or relative hearing - the ability to recognize the pitch of sounds by comparing them with reference ones. You can develop the relative view yourself. And do it so well that it will be impossible to distinguish it from the absolute;
modal hearing - the ability to feel and hear the differences and relationships between sounds in a certain musical composition. The development of this type is especially important for those learning to play musical instruments;
pitch view helps determine whether sounds differ in pitch, even when the difference is minimal;
Melodic ear allows you to hear and understand how the pitch of sounds changes as the melody is played. For those who study vocals, this type is most important;
the harmonic view allows you to hear consonances, determine how many and what specific sounds a chord consists of;
finally, rhythmic hearing determines the ability to feel rhythm, that is, to distinguish the duration of the sounds of notes in their sequence.

How to develop your ear for music at home?

To develop relative hearing, a person only needs to do the following exercises 30-40 minutes a day:

Singing scales. On any musical instrument you need to play the scale do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do and at the same time sing it with your voice. Then repeat the same without a tool. After a while, you can play the scale in the opposite direction and sing it with and without the instrument;
Losing intervals. An exercise similar to the previous one. Here you must first play any musical interval forward and backward on a musical instrument, and then sing it with your voice;
Echo. This exercise is great even for a child, because it does not require any special skills. It is also extremely useful for adults. Turn on your favorite song on your tape recorder or computer and listen to only the first line. Turn off the recording and sing it with your voice. Repeat this with each line at least 3-5 times until the song ends;
When you start practicing, work in the middle range, without trying to hit very high or low notes. When you learn to identify sounds well, repeat all the above exercises, first in the highest possible voice and then in a low voice;
Finally, the easiest way to develop this quality is simply by constantly practicing music. Listen to your favorite works, sing along famous performers, try playing different musical instruments, dance. Try to compose at least a simple song. Also very useful is a popular entertainment today - karaoke.

How can you quickly develop a child's ear for music?

In addition to the “Echo” exercise described in the previous section, the following techniques can be used for children:

Read to your child an excerpt from his favorite fairy tale. He must remember as much as
will be able. After a while, ask your child to repeat everything you read to him. The exercise should be done until the baby can accurately reproduce the passage;
Make the previous exercise more difficult - ask the child not only to repeat the text, but also to try to pronounce it with your intonation. Read the story differently each time;
The following activity is suitable for a group of children. Place all the guys in a circle, and blindfold one of them. Let the kids take turns saying certain words, and the one who is blindfolded tries to guess who said what;
In the future, you can do the same exercises with children's songs. Sing a passage from your son or daughter's favorite song and have your child repeat after you.

If you think that “an elephant has stepped on your ear” and you will never be able to perceive the sounds around you the way people who are gifted with an ear for music from birth perceive them, then you are deeply mistaken. Developing an ear for music is not as difficult as you might think. And today we will give you some tips to help you do this.

First, let's look at the types of hearing. To develop an ear for music, we need to hone:

Rhythmic hearing. That is, learn to hear and feel the rhythm.
Melodic ear is the ability to understand the movement and structure of music and hear its subtleties.
Relative - hearing that allows you to understand the size of musical intervals and pitch.
Inner hearing is the hearing that allows you to clearly imagine music and individual sounds in your thoughts.
Ear of intonation, which allows you to understand the character and tone of music.

Of course there are many more types hearing, but we will focus on these five, since they are enough to gain an ear for music.

So, what do we need to do to train these types of hearing?

1. Musical instrument

The ideal way to “pump up” all types of hearing is to start learning to play an instrument. This way, you'll remember how each note should sound, train your sense of rhythm, and generally begin to understand music better. But since you most likely don't have time to learn how to play a musical instrument, let's move on.

2. Singing

If you don't have a piano at home, find one online version on the Internet and play scales on it several times every day and sing them along with the piano. As you begin to feel confident with scales, move on to intervals, chords, and simple melodies. The main thing is don't be shy. If you are afraid that someone will hear you, try to train while you are alone at home. But in fact, there is nothing shameful here! Just remember karaoke bars, where people, to put it mildly, without voice or hearing, sing so loudly that they can be heard outside the bar.

3. Meditation

We called this point that because the exercise we are about to tell you about is very similar to meditation practices for beginners. It will help you develop awareness of sounds.

Walk outside without headphones, trying to catch snippets of conversations, the noise of trees, the sound of cars, the sound of heels on the asphalt; the way a dog shuffles its paw on the ground; the way someone shakes out a blanket on the balcony... you will notice that you are surrounded by so many sounds that it’s hard to believe. At home, spend five minutes a day listening to the humming of the refrigerator from the kitchen, the sound of water in the pipes, the conversations of your neighbors, the noise from the street.

4. Voices

When talking to a person, try to remember his voice. You can also watch movies, memorizing the actors' voices, and then listen to parts of the movie and try to name the character based only on his voice.

Try to notice the manner of speaking of your interlocutor, the timbre of his voice; When remembering a conversation with someone, try to pronounce the interlocutor’s phrases in your head in his own voice.

5. Learn to hear music

Of course, it’s very nice to listen to music and not think about anything. But if your goal is to develop an ear for music, then try to delve into the music you listen to. Learn to separate one musical instrument from another; study how a guitar sounds under different “gadgets” so as not to confuse it with other instruments; also learn to distinguish different synthesizer modes from others musical instruments; listen to how real drums and electronic drums sound.

This practice will not only help you develop an ear for music, but will also teach you to hear music more subtly, which in turn will give you even greater pleasure from listening to it. There is one by-effect with this practice - most likely later you will not want to listen to what you are listening to now, you will want something more complex and voluminous. And this is great, because isn’t this the main indicator of your progress?

6. Rhythm

There is such a cool thing called a “metronome”. You can buy it for yourself or find an online version on the Internet. Every day, practice with a metronome, tapping your finger (arm, foot, whatever) to the rhythm it sets for you.

Once you feel comfortable with the metronome, move on to recognizing rhythm in music. Start with music that contains drums; it’s easier to determine the rhythm using them. And then move on to working with music that does not contain noise instruments, allowing you to easily determine the rhythm ( classical music, For example).

Another enjoyable way to improve your sense of rhythm is dancing. Sign up for dance studio or dance at home for your own pleasure.

7. Sound source

If you have a helper for this task, great! Close your eyes and ask someone to walk around you in and outside the room and make sounds (voice, hand clap, ringing a bell, etc.). And every time your assistant makes a sound, you should try to understand from which direction it is coming. A fairly simple task if you and your assistant are in the same room, but once he starts walking around the apartment, you will notice that it becomes more difficult for you to determine where the sound is coming from.

If you don’t have someone who can help you with this, then you can do the following. Go outside, sit on a bench somewhere and listen to the sounds around you, as in the third exercise. Only this time you will also need to understand from which side this sound is coming.

Programs and applications

Of course, there are many programs for developing your musical ear, and we have collected the best of them.

1. Eartheach

An excellent application containing exercises on scales, chords and intervals. Perfect for those whose ear for music is already more developed. You can also download the PC version.

The principle is very simple - you need to play the melody that you just heard. The application can also be downloaded on Android and iOS.

A simple game that will help you remember notes. Also on the right you can find many more games to develop your ear for music.