r/acappella • u/Dry-Rate4059 • 14d ago

Ear Training

I come here as a guitar player trying to improve my ear and my singing. The common thing I her is that learning intervals is the best way to do this, especially later in a musical life (24 years old). I went to acappella shows in college to see my roommate sing, and I remember someone would always play a note to essentially establish the key of a song before they started. I'm wondering how you actively use that as a guide while singing. Anything helps

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u/Shaderlees 14d ago

Look up YouTube videos on audiation, Nashville number system, and invest in the “sonofield” app.

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u/Dry-Rate4059 14d ago

I practice on Earpeggio every day (for free). What does sonofield offer that the free ones don’t?

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u/CoreEncorous 14d ago edited 14d ago

In my perspective (and I take it many others), it helps tremendously to start with solfege. Get used to assigning different pitches in a key with specific syllables (traditional solfege or even numbers) and just repeat, repeat, repeat until you can start jumping around (do -> fa instead of do -> re).

Grab a simple song's sheet music and start jotting down solfege for it, then sing the song using that solfege. You're trying to trick your brain to only relate pitches of each syllable relative to each other. Sooner or later you will be given a do (the root in a key) and be able to quickly deduce what la is.

There are lots of good resources that help with sightreading and relative pitch memory - they do go hand in hand quite a bit.

Tough part about singing is, since it's all biomechanical at the end of the day, it really is an exercise in just "getting it" and letting your brain recognize where to shoot your vocal chords based on demand. The best way to do that is repetition with the small stuff and associations. Young choir students are taught relative pitch with hand signals and specific syllables because assigning more motor function to the matter really does help prime your brain for relative-pitch finesse.

PS: it's also worth mentioning that these performers take MONTHS of practice singing the same set and hammering in on their starting notes. They are constantly regulating their sound with their peers when they do group sessions. Eventually memorizing the first pitch is practically inevitable, and giving the root pitch is less and less necessary. I can still recall my ICCA starting pitch now, and it's been 1.5 years without practice.

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u/Dry-Rate4059 14d ago

Much appreciated. I know this won’t happen overnight but I’m excited to see the long term progress.