How to Train Your Ears to Hear Intervals the RIGHT Way

One of the most important skills musicians need to develop is their ears. Jazz improvisation is all about having great ears so that you can play the music that you are hearing in your head.

There are a lot of things you can do to develop this, but I believe the fundamentals of ear training are a great foundation.

In this video, I talk about the most basic building block in ear training: INTERVALS. I teach you how to train your ears to recognize and sing any interval.

💥Important Links and Resources💥

[jamkey]

Love how this applies to any music; back to the basics. This video is probably the best and most structured lesson I've seen for this.

[leotosaurus]

I can't overstate just how well you've organized and presented this material. I've been playing guitar casually for over 30 years now, and this video is what finally made these concepts click for me both theoretically and practically.

[tomski]

Your tip to focus on one or two intervals at a time is excellent. My problem was I was trying to do 5 or more at a time both ascending and descending.

[KathyFreeman]

Great tips: batch learning and only assigning one song mnemonic to each interval. This is really helping me focus without overloading, thanks.

[dwightfrie]

You do ask for comments so...
I didn't have a method before finding you. Thank you. I practiced trying to learn things by ear but never had a method to it. I've been making and keeping notes to all the relevant content I can find since being able to pick my guitar back up.
( I've been healing from my 9th and 10th spinal surgeries and haven't been able to play anything but my uke for the last year and forget any kind of practice regiment.)
One thing that time did do is help me realize that I had a better ear than I thought and could translate it to my uke faster than I thought. I'm relatively new on the Uke but with a low G tenor, I realized I was practicing fretboard knowledge from my 5th fret on up on my high 4 strings. So I kept a Uke next to my bed and recliner and have been noodling around with it as I feel good enough and/hear something and think, I can play that.
So now, that I'm able to start getting out and doing some traveling as I had planned to do to celebrate, if and when I recovered enough since that plan has been thrown out the window because of the virus, I spent my travel fund on upgrading my technology and instruments. We're not talking a lot of money here but, to me, it's significant.
I also started organizing and really looking at what different online tutorials and courses had to say and to offer for free or at a rate I could justify spending. All the instructors I admire and relate to the best have the basic same methodology of practice and learning and if you know a little theory you can apply these lessons to all genres of music. So far, I have found what you offer for free through different platforms is the absolute best viewing material for my practice journal and challenges. I did spend 10 bucks through TrueFire on 2 recommended courses and those are giving me the right-hand technique practice inspirations.
Again, Thank you!!! I hope to eventually be a paying member. In the meantime, I'll be watching across all your platforms and taking notes.
Sincerely,
Joe Hiestand

[sallybowles]

I have great ears, but only in the sense of large :/

[AvyayaMusic]

Thanks man I'm taking music seriously now, first thing I want to perfectly learn is music theory and perfect my ear pitch . This video was really helpful. Thank you from bottom of my heart ❤️

[adarshkumar]

Man .. your tip on using a song really changed my world.. thanks a million..

[happythoughts]

I I just found your channel yesterday and it feels like Christmas Day! I have not felt this excited in years!!! I transitioned from rock to Jazz so it’s still a little overwhelming but promise to stick with it.

[moonie]

ive been struggling with the reason of why we're learning intervals. and why did my teach just send out a list of songs. but thanks to you, i now know the reason :( so thank you so much

im taking ab music production while pandemic and ive never felt so stressed and confused. :( so THank you:(((

[ejomaumambala]

You're good, Brent! Finally, I'm beginning to see how I can improve my interval recog, thanks to your vid.

[twinkywinky]

thank you this was the only video i could find that actullay broke this down

[bb-ldnq]

I just practised intervals on piano, and I wanted to look for some video

[gclaborn]

I teach guitar/banjo and I couldn't agree more that learning intervals is essential, and more important, being able to reproduce intervals / melodies / rhythms by singing is absolutely fundamental to training your ears; required for playing ANY instrument. You gotta get it in your head before you can pass it along to your hands. However, I have a major nit with your video that I think will make it harder for those trying to learn from it: There's no reference to key. There's an implicit assumption that the reference tone is the tonic/root note of a key. OK so far, but then your song choices blow this out of the water; eg, Someday My Prince Will Come: You use this to demo a perfect 4th interval... true if the reference note was the root, but it's not. In the context of this song, that interval is 5-1; a major 5th interval with the 5 on the bottom. Very, very confusing. Same thing with Georgia On My Mind which you use to demo the minor 3rd: In the context of that song, those notes are the 3 and 5 of the key its in; The upper two notes of the root's MAJOR triad. Smoke On the Water would've been a better choice to demo the minor 3rd. I'd re-work your song choices to always have the reference note as the root. And consider a prerequisite video on keys, tonal center, how to form a major scale, triads, diatonic chords for a key, etc.

[TreukFlyyy]

Intervals are very important. What about tonal ear training (hearing in relation to a tonal center) ?

[hqelias]

This video helped me a lot. Thanks! Subscribed.

[bersalguero]

you are too funny!! loved the lesson ❤ I look forward to seeing more of your videos

[bobwrotenstien]

How does this work in practice. For example if I want to sing ascending 4th I can reference a song (Here comes the bride) . But what we need to do is the opposite: Identify an interval we don't know yet. I guess you cycle through your song list until you don't need to rely on it anymore?

[southpark]

I enjoyed that video. Thanks very much for your help and time!

[marcoborge]

So thankful mate, keep this great work going!