Ear training in the context of "Musical technique"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about Ear training in the context of "Musical technique"

Ad spacer

⭐ Core Definition: Ear training

In music, ear training is the study and practice in which musicians learn various aural skills to detect and identify pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, solfeges, and other basic elements of music, solely by hearing. Someone who can identify pitch accurately without any context is said to have perfect pitch, while someone who can only identify pitch provided a reference tone or other musical context is said to have relative pitch. Someone that can't perceive these qualities at all is said to be tone deaf. The application of this skill is somewhat analogous to taking dictation in written/spoken language. As a process, ear training is in essence the inverse of reading music, which is the ability to decipher a musical piece by reading musical notation. Ear training is typically a component of formal musical training and is a fundamental, essential skill required in music schools and the mastery of music.

↓ Menu

>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<

👉 Ear training in the context of Musical technique

Musical technique is the ability of instrumental and vocal musicians to exert optimal control of their instruments or vocal cords in order to produce the precise musical effects they desire. Improving one's technique generally entails practicing exercises that improve one's muscular sensitivity and agility. Technique is independent of musicality. Compositional technique is the ability and knowledge composers use to create music, and may be distinguished from instrumental or performance technique, which in classical music is used to realize compositions, but may also be used in musical improvisation. Extended techniques are distinguished from more simple and more common techniques. Musical technique may also be distinguished from music theory, in that performance is a practical matter, but study of music theory is often used to understand better and to improve techniques. Techniques such as intonation or timbre, articulation, and musical phrasing are nearly universal to all instruments.

To improve their technique, musicians often practice ear training. For example, musical intervals, and fundamental patterns and of notes such as the natural, minor, major, and chromatic scales, minor and major triads, dominant and diminished sevenths, formula patterns and arpeggios. For example, triads and sevenths teach how to play chords with accuracy and speed. Scales teach how to move quickly and gracefully from one note to another (usually by step). Arpeggios teach how to play broken chords over larger intervals. Many of these components of music are found in difficult compositions, for example, a large tuple chromatic scale is a very common element to Classical and Romantic era compositions as part of the end of a phrase.

↓ Explore More Topics
In this Dossier

Ear training in the context of Musicality

Musicality (music-al-ity) is "sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music" or "the quality or state of being musical", and is used to refer to specific if vaguely defined qualities in pieces and/or genres of music, such as melodiousness and harmoniousness. These definitions are somewhat hampered by the difficulty of defining music, but, colloquially, "music" is often contrasted with noise and randomness. Judges of contest music may describe a performance as bringing the music on the page to life; of expressing more than the mere faithful reproduction of pitches, rhythms, and composer dynamic markings. In the company of two or more musicians, there is the added experience of the ensemble effect in which the players express something greater than the sum of their individual parts. A person considered musical has the ability to perceive and reproduce differences in aspects of music including pitch, rhythm, and harmony (see: ear training). Two types of musicality may be differentiated: to be able to perceive music (musical receptivity) and to be able to reproduce music in addition to creating music (musical creativity).

↑ Return to Menu