How to understand musical ear. I don't have a musical ear! What does this mean and how to deal with it? An ear for music is a gift from birth and cannot be developed.

Ear for music- 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, loudness, timbre), and functional relationships between them in a piece of music (modal sense, sense of rhythm, melodic, harmonic, and other types of hearing).

Among the various types of musical ear, distinguished by various characteristics, the most important are:

There is a widespread opinion that an ear for music is something almost unique - a gift from God, and a person who has an ear for music is very lucky. After all, he can sing, make music, and in general, he is, in a sense, the chosen one.

How many people experience a feeling of inferiority when it comes to music, saying: "I got a bear in my ear."

Is it really such a rarity - an ear for music? Why do some people have it and others don't? And in general, where did he come from in man? Why did it show up at all? Maybe it's some sort of psychic ability?

It is worth remembering that human abilities do not just happen. All our ability comes from a vital necessity. Man learned to walk on two legs because he needed to free his hands.

Approximately the same situation with the musical ear. This feature appeared when living beings needed to communicate using sounds. A person's ear for music developed along with speech. In order to learn how to speak, we need to be able to distinguish sounds by strength, duration, pitch and timbre. Actually, it is this skill that people call musical ear.

Types of musical ear

Perfect Pitch

The ability to recognize by ear any note (do, re, mi, etc.) and reproduce it with a voice without prior tuning. This also applies to sounds performed not only on musical instruments (siren, telephone call, knocking on a metal pipe, etc.).

Relative hearing

It differs from the absolute one in that in order to determine or sing notes by ear, tuning is necessary - a sound or chord, relative to which the scale will be mentally built.

melodic hearing

The ability to hear and understand the structure of a melody (pitch, direction of movement and rhythmic organization), as well as to reproduce it with a voice. At a higher level of development - write notes.

Develops in the process of learning music.

Harmonic hearing

The ability to hear harmonic consonances - chord combinations of sounds and their sequences and reproduce them with a voice in an unfolded form or on a musical instrument.

In practice, this can be expressed, for example, in the selection of an accompaniment to a melody by ear, even without knowing the notes, or singing in a polyphonic choir.

Its development is possible even in the initial absence of such an ability.

inner hearing

Internal representation of the correct pitch intonation, without voice reproduction.

1. Internal hearing uncoordinated with the voice. First level.
   In practice, it is expressed in the selection of a melody, possibly with accompaniment, by ear on an instrument or by understanding errors by ear in the work being studied.
2. Inner hearing coordinated with the voice. Professional level. The result of serious solfeggio training. It involves hearing and anticipating the musical text and the ability to work with it without a musical instrument.

Develops in the process of learning music.

foreshadowing

Mental planning with the inner ear of the future pure sound, rhythmic figure, musical phrase. It is used as a professional technique in vocals and for playing all musical instruments.

Is it possible to develop an ear for music?

We use an ear for music, and very accurate, all the time. Without it, we would not recognize people by their voices. But by the voice we can tell a lot about our interlocutor. It gives us the opportunity to determine what mood the person we are talking to has, whether we can trust him, and much more. Non-verbal, that is, non-verbal, characteristics of speech sometimes give us much more information than spoken words.

Is it possible in this case to say that someone does not have an ear for music? Yes, of course not! Every person who independently learned to speak has an ear for music.

Lack of ear for music is as rare as, for example, congenital blindness!
Of course, for someone it can be developed very well, and for someone it is worse, but for the vast majority of people, the ear for music is quite developed enough to make music and achieve excellent results without special enhanced training for the development of ear for music. The problem is that very often musical abilities are judged by a person's ability to sing. If you don’t know how to sing, it means “a bear stepped on your ear”, “no ear for music”.

But in order to sing, it is not enough to hear well. You also need to be able to control your voice well. And voice control needs to be learned in the same way as drawing, dancing or swimming.

And besides, if you hear that you sing badly, then your hearing is definitely all right!
And, finally, if you love music, listen to it, then you have a normal ear for music, you don’t have to worry about this.

Ear for music, like any function of our body (for example, the ability to swim), develops only when we actively use it. If you play a musical instrument or sing, it will help you quickly develop an ear for music. By the way, Dmitry Kabalevsky devoted his life to debunking the myth about the uniqueness of the musical ear. He developed a whole system that proved that every person can and should be taught music. And the results of his activities have shown that almost anyone can successfully engage in music.

Specialists are engaged in the development of musical ear. discipline - solfeggio However, actively musical ear develops primarily in the process of musical activity.

One of the methods of developing intonation hearing is through movement, breathing practices and dance. Various manifestations of musical ear are studied in musical psychology, musical acoustics, and psychophysiology of hearing. Hearing is dialectically connected with general musicality, which is expressed in a high degree of emotional susceptibility of musical phenomena, in the strength and brightness of the figurative representations and experiences caused by them.

If you have a desire to make music in one form or another, cast aside any doubts about your abilities, act, study, and success will surely come to you!

Absolute hearing.
The ability to recognize by ear any note (do, re, mi, etc.) and reproduce it with a voice without prior tuning. This also applies to sounds performed not only on musical instruments (siren, telephone call, knocking on a metal pipe, etc.).
Absolute pitch is a gift of nature, but it is discovered only as a result of music lessons - studying notes and playing a musical instrument.
For a long time it was believed that it was not amenable to development, but now methods for the development of absolute pitch are known (see links below).

relative hearing.
It differs from the absolute one in that in order to determine or sing notes by ear, tuning is necessary - a sound or chord, relative to which the scale will be mentally built.

melodic ear.
The ability to hear and understand the structure of a melody (pitch, direction of movement and rhythmic organization), as well as to reproduce it with a voice. At a higher level of development - write notes.
Develops in the process of learning music.

Harmonic hearing.
The ability to hear harmonic consonances - chord combinations of sounds and their sequences and reproduce them with a voice in an unfolded form or on a musical instrument.
In practice, this can be expressed, for example, in the selection of an accompaniment to a melody by ear, even without knowing the notes, or singing in a polyphonic choir.
Its development is possible even in the initial absence of such an ability.

Inner hearing.
Internal representation of the correct pitch intonation, without voice reproduction.
Internal hearing uncoordinated with the voice. First level.
In practice, it is expressed in the selection of a melody, possibly with accompaniment, by ear on an instrument or by understanding errors by ear in the work being studied.
Inner hearing coordinated with the voice. Professional level. The result of serious solfeggio training. It involves hearing and anticipating the musical text and the ability to work with it without a musical instrument.
Develops in the process of learning music.

Foreshadowing.
Mental planning with the inner ear of the future pure sound, rhythmic figure, musical phrase. It is used as a professional technique in vocals and for playing all musical instruments.

Levels of ear development expressed in pure singing.

1. Clinical - the absence of such (5%)
2. Internal. Not expressed in singing.
3. The ability to "pull up" the melody after other singers or to the playing of the melody on the instrument.
4. The ability to sing cleanly only to accompaniment, having a chord base and the initial sound of the melody under the melody.
5. Ability to sing cleanly without harmonic and melodic assistance.
6. The ability to sing cleanly independently in two- and polyphony.

How to explain to a child what it means to "sing cleanly"?

- Sing the same as I play (sing) so that your voice "hides" in my sound, merges with it. At the same time, your sound should not be too quiet or too loud.

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

Without this, there can be nothing.

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

When talking about musicality, they always mean a well-developed musical ear, 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 is meant by good musical ear?
• What are the criteria for its determination?
• 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. The musical ear, first of all, relies on knowledge and on the assimilated 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 of which it consists.

On the other hand, if your head has a stable connection between the first intonation of this song and the fact that this is a major sixth interval, 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 a semantic load.

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

Lack of understanding of how to relate auditory experiences to hearing development can lead people to believe that they are deaf.

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

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

Perfect Pitch- the ability to determine the absolute height of musical sounds without comparing them with the standard. This implies that when you hear any note, you can name it.

It is divided into passive (a small percentage of note definition, limited use) and active.

Relative hearing- the most important for any musician - is defined as the ability to determine and reproduce pitch relationships in a 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 constructions, entire musical pieces; very important in learning improvisation.

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

polyphonic hearing- the ability to listen to all the voices in a polyphonic work.

polyrhythmic hearing- the ability to hear rhythmic figures sounding in different sizes and the ability to reproduce these rhythms.

There are several main ways to develop hearing:

Solfegging

Solfegging (that is, practice) involves singing intervals, chords, scales, modes, melodies. This practice strengthens the connection between the ear and the written note, and solfegging also forms a certain auditory system.

For example, while singing a major scale, you learn 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 develops, on the other hand, until you master something else, it will be inaccessible to your perception. Such a problem may, for example, arise when listening to atonal music.

2. Musical dictation

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

Also, musical dictation contributes to the development of musical memory.

3. Transcription (from English transcribing rewriting) or eat- selection by ear or on an instrument and recording on
notes of a piece.

This can be as much as removing your instrument, as well as other instruments, and even writing an entire score.

There are various techniques used by transcribers to speed up the process of transferring sounding music to paper (slowing down recording, tables, analysis, etc.).

4. Auditory analysis- identifying intervals, chords, chord sequences, rhythmic figures, etc. by ear.

Also, for the development of hearing, you can use various specialized programs (for example, Ear Trainer).

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

Ear for music unique not only because, unlike simple hearing, it is the result of the work of human thinking and memory. He, moreover, is a whole set of facets and subspecies, of which the most significant are the absolute, relative and internal musical ear. But few people know that it also includes eight more categories.

Absolute musical ear

When they talk about a developed musical ear, which is important for composers, musicians and vocalists, for some reason they think that we are talking about absolute pitch. However, it is not. After all absolute ear for music- this is the ideal memory of a person for the height and timbre of the sounds heard. A person who has this kind of hearing has it by nature. For him, hearing the notes is like hearing the alphabet for anyone else.

As practice shows, the presence of absolute pitch does not guarantee the presence of good vocal skills and a predisposition to a career as a musician. And sometimes it even hurts, because a person with such a talent relaxes and forgets about the development of a relative ear for music.

Relative musical ear

It is this type of hearing that is so important for musicians and vocalists. It, unlike absolute pitch, manifests itself not as a feature of human memory, but as a special thinking that develops over time and which all professional musicians possess to one degree or another.

Relative or interval musical ear allows you to hear sound relations in a work or part of it, and not just a note, and determine them. The only drawback of this type of hearing is precisely its relativity, which is expressed only in an approximate definition of the sound heard and the pitch of its sound.

"Specialized" types of musical ear

If relative pitch is a skill that every musician develops, then there are those facets of hearing that can either get their gradual development or never be mastered at the proper level. What they have in common with interval hearing is that their identification is also related to the processes of thinking. And these are eight more facets of musical ear:

• modal,
• rhythmic,
• intonation,
• harmonic,
• polyphonic,
• timbre,
• textured,
• architectonic.

In addition, many of them are often independent talent. For example, a person who has never studied music, but who is naturally gifted with a rhythmic ear, can easily reproduce the rhythm he hears.

These types of musical ear are united by the fact that they are often needed for a certain narrowly focused musical activity. Thus, the ability to hear and determine polyphony and rhythm is of great help to composers. Although in general musical practice, all these facets of hearing also bring a lot of benefits.

Inner ear for music

Anyone who has developed musical talents and is well acquainted with the sound of notes can glance at a sheet of paper dotted with notes and hum the “seen” music. However, the possibilities inner musical ear based not only on memory, but also on imagination. It is thanks to imagination that a musician can “hear” new transitions, find out how the same melody will sound, but played in a different rhythm or on a different instrument, without resorting to playing the melody live.

Anatoly Voronin

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

In fact, there are practical ways to develop an 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 ear

Musical ear is a rather complex and multifaceted concept.

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

• absolute pitch - 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 scholars have a different opinion on this issue;
• interval or relative hearing - the ability to recognize the pitch of sounds by comparing them with the reference ones. It is the relative view that can be developed independently. And to 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 particular musical composition. The development of this species is especially important for those who are learning to play musical instruments;
• the pitch view helps determine if sounds differ in pitch, even if 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 involved in vocals, it is this type that 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 the rhythm, that is, to distinguish the duration of the sound of notes in their sequence.

How to develop an ear for music at home?

For the development of relative hearing, a person needs only 30-40 minutes a day to perform the following exercises:

1. Singing scales. On any musical instrument, you need to play the scale do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do and sing it with your voice at the same time. Then repeat the same without the tool. After a while, you can play the scale in the opposite direction and sing it with and without the instrument;
2. Loss of intervals. An exercise similar to the previous one. Here you must first play any musical instrument interval in the forward and backward directions, and then sing it with your voice;
3. Echo. This exercise is great even for a child, because it does not require any special skills. For adults, it is also extremely useful. Turn on your favorite song on the 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;
4. At the beginning of the lessons, 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 as high as possible, and then in a low voice;
5. Finally, the easiest way to develop this quality is simply by constantly making music. Listen to your favorite works, sing along to famous performers, try to play different musical instruments, dance. Try to compose at least a simple song. It is also very useful entertainment popular today - karaoke.

How can you quickly develop an ear for music in a child?

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

1. 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 must be done until the baby can accurately reproduce the passage;
2. Complicate the previous exercise - ask the child not only to repeat the text, but also try to pronounce it with your intonation. Read the story differently each time;
3. The next activity is suitable for a group of children. Have all the children sit 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;
4. In the future, you can do the same exercises with children's songs. Sing an excerpt from your son's or daughter's favorite song and have your child repeat after you.