The Use Of The Ear In Music And How It`s Important For Learning.

THE USE OF THE EAR IN MUSIC AND HOW IT`S IMPORTANT FOR LEARNING.

When learning an instrument for the first time there are numerous areas of musicality that are focused on, technique being the most common. One skill that can sometimes be overlooked is the use of the ear while learning and playing. Using your ear can vary in difficulty, from `Am I in tune?` or `is my instrument working?`, to `Where am I in the piece?` or `What relation is this note to the scale?`. In this essay many different parts of music shall be touched on to highlight the importance and usefulness of the ear.

Technique and Tone When learning an instrument for the first time a pupil will go through a regime of exercises and methods to help them to be able to physically play the instrument. A crucial process of this is to be able to hear if you are playing the right note and if the tone is clear and precise. When this can be heard it will help the pupil to hear if they`re doing it correct. Also being in tune, especially when playing in a group, is a crucial part of becoming a musician. It is a key skill to be able to hear your note and decide if it is in tune with the other musicians as well as the rest of your instruments. Some times with beginner instruments, Woodwind for example, tuning can be a lot more difficult across the full range. Ear can be used for other techniques such as articulation and dynamics.

Harmony and Rhythm Organised Sound and Rhythm are the two main elements of music. When learning about harmony, how ever basic it is, it teaches us to listen for sounds that can sort music into categories. For example, how do we decide if a basic song is in a Major or Minor Key? The simplest method is to is listen to the music rather than to study the score. If the piece sounds happy it`s most likely to be major. As crude as this sounds, the human ear is conditioned from an early age to hear the difference between the minor and major 3rd in a tonic chord because of the way music has been written over the centuries. A popular example of this is the famous Chopin funeral march, from his 2nd piano concerto, that has been quoted in hundreds of songs and tv shows to signify death or tragedy. If this piece of music had been in a major key it would have been a lot less effective and would of gone against what our ears have been trained to listen to. The other main element is rhythm. This can be as simple as just a strong `bassy` sound on every beat, that can he heard in most Clubbing music of the last 40 years, to complex African rhythms where the beat may be harder to feel. But it`s rhythm that gets us feeling the music and wanting to dance. To hear the beat and tempo is a key skill for playing music in a group, whatever genre it is.

Ear in Genres and Music History When growing up you quickly learn what genres you like and dislike. Normally it will be a mixture of what your friends and parents like. Without an educated ear to listen to music, it would be hard to distinguish between different types of music for example Adele and Mozart. The ear is used though to listen out for genre defining elements such as instrumentation, harmonic complexity etc. As you grow up you become more skilled at hearing the differences. With enough practice it is quite easy to tell the difference between composers or players just by listening to the sound of the notes and harmony rather than recognising the tune itself. The use of ear while playing is also key to certain genres. For example jazz is a mixture of learning scale, harmonies and rhythms and improvising with these over a set of chords to create a melody on the spot. This is fundamental for jazz but can also be found in Pop guitar solos and entire classical organ pieces.

These examples are just the basics to what could be accomplished regarding how we use our ears. Some people can transcribe whole symphonies on a bus or compose a new song on the way to a gig. Ear training and listening is a simple yet vital process used while learning an instrument to strengthen and develop a students musicality and awareness.