Every person, if he loves to sing, dreams of performing compositions in such a way that the hall will then enthusiastically applaud him. And you need something for this all nothing - to have perfect hearing. But how can this be achieved? Exist special exercises for hearing development.

What are the types of hearing

Oddly enough, but ear for music- the concept is quite complex and not amenable to categorical denial or affirmation (“I have a hearing / I have no hearing”). The fact is that each person can find one or another subspecies of musical ear. Whether it is possible to develop a certain type of hearing cannot be answered unambiguously, since there are a lot of these types.

1) Rhythmic hearing, that is, the ability to feel the rhythm, the emotional component of the melody.

2) Fret hearing, responsible for the ability to understand chords.

3) Intonation hearing, which allows you to understand the nature of the music (cheerful or sad).

4) Inner hearing - the ability to reproduce a musical notation of a melody.

5) Interval hearing - the ability to sing musical intervals and determine the pitch.

6) Absolute pitch - a unique ability to determine the pitch of any sound without comparing it with the reference sound.

How to develop an ear for music

If you do not know how to develop any kind of musical ear on your own, try to do the following exercises daily.

1) To develop rhythmic ear, try to read poetry to music, dance to your favorite music, counting the beats. By the way, we develop musical and rhythmic ear precisely by moving, so the plasticity of the body has no last value for a musician. The reverse is also true: any dancer must have perfect pitch. These are related things.

2) Listen to your favorite songs, short ones are better to start with, and then try to play this thing own voice but no music. Then test yourself by turning on the original.

3) Sing monophonic scales (note series "do - si" and "si - do"), even though it is boring and uninteresting. For the development of hearing, this is an invaluable experience.

4) Sing "chromatic scales" (they are only played on black piano keys in one tone). Such scales help to better develop an understanding of the difference in modes.

5) Pick up your favorite melodies on a musical instrument, even without knowing the exact notes. After all, someday you will be almost indistinguishable from the original.

6) Sign up for music school. Exactly music teachers help develop an ear for music with the help of a special discipline called "solfeggio".

How to develop absolute pitch?

Oddly enough, but no way. With an absolute ear for music, a person can only be born. Therefore, the question of how to develop an absolute ear for music is not entirely appropriate. In the absence of an absolute innate ear for music, it is better to focus on the development of other types of hearing - intonation, rhythm, internal, etc.

Video on the topic of the article

Anastasia Sergeeva

How to develop an ear for music yourself?

Who among us does not like to sing along to our favorite songs! It’s just that this is all done sometimes as if in secret so that no one hears. This happens because many people live for some reason all their lives with the confidence that they have no ear for music. However, this is fundamentally wrong. How to develop an ear for music at any age - read on.

Can you tell when a person is taking false notes? Will you notice if the song is re-arranged? Most likely, the answer will be “yes” - then think, how do you cope with these questions when you have no ear for music?

It is high time to understand: ear for music is not only an inborn talent, but an ability developed in the process of learning. Some people are really lucky to have an excellent musical ear from birth, but this function is not subject only to the elite - it can be developed in the same way as athletes develop endurance, strength, and flexibility skills.

Development of an ear for music - what is it for?

When you hear a melody but cannot then reproduce it with your voice in the same form, you have no coordination between hearing and voice. But just as the coordination of body movements can be developed and improved, this situation is quite fixable.

Thinking about how to develop a good ear for music, not only people who want to become singers - it is also necessary for musicians, sound engineers, music producers and other specialists directly related to music, and scientists believe that a developed ear for music contributes to the study of foreign languages.


A separate discipline, solfeggio, helps to develop an ear for music and voice. You can go to a music school, a choir, or study alone with a teacher to get professional help. Classes with a teacher have an undeniable advantage, because he will notice your mistakes and help you correct them immediately, as well as tell you what you need to work on further.

If you don’t have such an opportunity and want to study at home, then it’s still necessary to take solfeggio lessons into service - you will just do them yourself.

Hearing exercises

There are special exercises that contribute to the development of musical ear. We will consider the main ones. To perform them, you will need a piano, a synthesizer, in extreme cases, a virtual simulator program on a computer or online.


It is also necessary to get acquainted with the basics of musical notation: a lot of exercises are built on the recognition and reproduction of notes.

Singing scales

The exercise is to sing "do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si" to the accompaniment of the piano.

Then practice singing chromatic scale. To do this, you need to play all the keys one by one in turn, after playing the corresponding sequence of notes with your voice. Hold any key and moving up, sing twelve semitones; on the thirteenth you will notice that this sound is the same as the first one, it just needs to be sung at a different pitch.

Singing intervals

An interval in music is a gap between two sounds, their consonance, for example, do-re, re-do, etc. Play these sounds on your instrument and sing along.

A very effective exercise that helps develop an ear for music. It teaches you to identify notes by ear. To do this, find the notes of any composition on the Internet, listen to this composition several times, write down by ear music text and only then check the source.

Exercise "Echo"

Such an exercise is available to everyone: listen to a song and try to repeat it exactly. Listen and sing first one line, then the next - and so on until the end. Do not move on to the next line until you have mastered the previous one.

We offer you to watch a video with a lesson on solfeggio for the development of musical ear.

Listen to classical music. It is she who is rich in expressive melodies, musical techniques and transitions. Developing hearing classical compositions, you will achieve a better result than with rock and pop songs with more primitive melodies.


Now on the Internet you can find a lot of paid and free programs, applications and flash games that allow you to train your hearing with self-training. Don't overlook and additional literature with materials on the development of musical ear.

As in any other business, you need to practice as often as possible, to maintain progress. Even skilled singers are constantly training, and you need to try twice as much, since you are still just learning to sing correctly and hit the notes. At the beginning you will have many mistakes, but do not stop and work on yourself further.

We hope our tips have given you an idea of ​​how to develop an ear for music and have shown that there is certainly nothing impossible in this.

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Music training, especially for adults, can be difficult if a person has an insufficiently developed ear for music. That is why most music teachers do not recommend ignoring solfeggio classes, the main task which - to develop an ear for music in all directions.

What does the term "musical ear" really mean? First, you need to decide what kind of hearing you need to develop. If you are learning to play, you need a harmonic ear, that is, the ability to hear harmony, harmony - major or minor, sound coloring. If you are a vocalist, your goal is to develop a melodic ear that will help you easily memorize a melody consisting of individual intervals.

True, these are local tasks, in life musicians have to be specialists of a wide profile - both sing and play several instruments, and teach others to do this (playing an instrument through singing and, conversely, singing through playing an instrument). Therefore, most methodologists who talk about how to develop an ear for music agree that both melodic and harmonic ear should be developed at the same time.

It also happens that a person hears and distinguishes, even notices mistakes in other singers, but he himself cannot sing cleanly and correctly. This is because the hearing (in this case melodic) is there, but there is no coordination between it and the voice. In this case, regular vocal exercises helping to establish a connection between voice and hearing.

What determines the purity of singing?

It happens that a person seems to sing cleanly and according to the notes, and when he starts singing into the microphone, out of nowhere, mistakes and incorrect notes are taken. What's the matter? It turns out that singing just from the notes is not everything. To sing cleanly, some other parameters must be taken into account. Here they are:

1. vocal position(or vocal yawn, or singing yawn) is the position of the sky when singing. If it is not raised enough, a feeling is created that a person sings uncleanly or, more precisely, "underestimates". In order to eliminate this defect, it is useful to yawn for several minutes before practicing vocals. If you find it difficult to do this, lift your tongue vertically and push the sky up until you yawn.
2. Sound direction. Each person has their own unique timbre of voice. About what types of voices are, read the article "". But the sound (or the color of your voice) can be changed depending on the content of the song. For example, no one will sing a lullaby with a dark and strict sound. In order for such a song to sound better, it must be sung with a light, gentle sound.
3. Downward movement of the melody. There is another peculiarity in music: when a melody moves down, it must be sung as if its direction is completely opposite. For example, let's take famous song"Little Christmas Tree" Sing a line from this song, "...it's cold in winter...". The melody is moving down. The intonation falls, falseness is possible in this place. And now try to sing the same line, while performing a smooth movement of your hand from the bottom up. Has the color of the sound changed? It became lighter, and intonation cleaner.
4. Emotional attunement is another important factor. Therefore, it is necessary to sing periodically for the audience. At least for your family. Stage fright will gradually go away.

What hinders the development of hearing and pure singing?

There are some things that can negatively affect hearing development. It is impossible to play an untuned instrument, to simultaneously study together in the same room. Music like this hard Rock and rap is unlikely to help you develop an ear, since it does not contain an expressive melody, the harmony is most often primitive.

Ways and exercises for the development of hearing

There are many effective exercises for hearing development. Here are just a few of them:

1. Singing scales. We play the instrument do - re - mi - fa - salt - la - si - do and sing. Then without tools. Then top to bottom. Again without tools. We check the last sound. If you hit - very good, if not - we train further.
2. Singing intervals. The simplest option is intervals based on the same C major scale (see the previous exercise). We play and sing: do-re, do-mi, do-fa, etc. Then without tools. Then the same from top to bottom.
3. "Echo". If you do not know how to play, you can develop your ear, as in kindergarten. Play your favorite song on your phone. We listen to one line. Press pause, repeat. And so the whole song. The phone, by the way, can be a great helper: you can record intervals, scales on it (or ask to be played if you don’t know how), and then listen during the day.
4. Learning musical notation. Musical ear is thoughts intellectual process therefore, obtaining even the most elementary knowledge of music in itself automatically contributes to the development of hearing. To help you -!
5. The study of classical music. If you are thinking about how to develop your ear for music, then do not forget that the most conducive to the development of hearing classical music thanks to the expressive melody, rich harmony and the sound of the orchestra. So, actively begin to study this particular art!

THAT'S NOT ALL!

Do you really want to sing, but do not sleep at night because you do not know how to develop an ear for music? Now you know how to get what you've been thinking about these nights! In addition, you will receive good video tutorial on vocals from Elizaveta Bokova - she talks about “ three whales” vocals, the basics of the basics!

Everyone loves music, but not every person is musical from birth. Sometimes, there comes a moment when, in an emotional outburst, you want to perform a couple of lines from a fresh hit by Miley Cyrus. However, after the performance, one has to catch sympathetic looks and listen to disapproving comments. To prevent this, you need to figure out what an ear for music is and what to do if you don’t have it.

to someone absolute pitch Dan by nature, someone raised him
with time

Musical ear is a fairly broad concept, embracing whole list abilities that allow you to fully perceive music and adequately assess its advantages and disadvantages. A well-developed ear for music is a vital ability for musicians, producers, and sound engineers. It is given to someone by nature, someone brought it up over time. Anyone creative person, even unrelated to music, it does not hurt to add this one to your piggy bank of skills. Recently, experts have proven that ear for music even helps to learn foreign languages.

It has been scientifically established that there is a certain area in the brain responsible for musical hearing. This bundle is located in the auditory zone: the larger it is and the more nerve fibers it contains, the better a person’s hearing is. So how do you know if you have hearing and how are your neurons in that very area of ​​the brain? To do this, it is not necessary to go and do a magnetic tomography, it is enough to try to accurately repeat the melody heard, for example, from the chorus of the Arcade Fire song Reflektor, while trying to keep the rhythm. If it doesn't work the first time, don't worry. You probably have impaired coordination in the work of hearing or voice aids, and you need to exercise more.

It seems to me that professionals will help to determine exactly whether you have a hearing or not. But, in any case, there is no point in despairing, because all this can be developed. The main thing is to have a desire.

There are several varieties
musical ear:

Perfect Pitch

This is the ability to accurately determine the pitch ( musical note) of any sound without comparing it with any standard. It is believed that this talent is innate and is present in 1 in 10,000, and even most of them. the greatest musicians in the world do not have absolute pitch.

Relative (or interval)

Hearing, capable of determining and reproducing musical intervals in melodies, chords, etc. In this case, the pitch is determined by comparing it with the standard.

inner ear

The ability for a clear mental representation (most often - according to music notation or from memory) of individual sounds, melodic constructions.

intonation hearing

A type of perception of music that allows you to understand its character, expression.

fret hearing

The ability to hear, separate and identify differences in chords, consonances and sections of a melody, for example, their stability and instability.

Rhythmic hearing

The ability to move through music, to feel the emotional expressiveness of musical rhythm.

Also, vocal masters and musicologists distinguish harmonic, polyphonic, rhythmic, textural, timbre and architectonic hearing.

Set yourself a big challenge- by all means train your ears, of course, you need to contact a specialist and find a teacher in solfeggio (there is such special discipline designed to develop hearing and musical memory).

It is best to go to an experienced private teacher and it would be good to start learning musical notation along with the desired instrument. You will be taught to distinguish between notes and intervals, and then whole chords, keys and how to deal with all this. I went to solfeggio when my interest arose. Every lesson swells the brain from new information and begins to treat her painfully. The most useful thing in solfeggio for a musician is practical exercises, when you are trained by ear to determine notes and their relationships - intervals, chords, etc.

The most elementary exercise is probably just to sing the scale (do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si) in unison under the piano. I would also advise you to listen to melodies from your favorite tracks on the instrument until you get one to one. It is doubly useful to study under a metronome and devote some time to exercises for a sense of rhythm.

After practicing for a while, you begin to hear the structure of the compositions on a much more subtle level. You just listen to music and get into everything like hell! You mark cool moves or, conversely, simple, elementary ones. In general, you perceive everything more insightfully.

7 programs and applications

If there is no time for a teacher, you can try to train your ear for music with the help of special web services, programs and applications, which Lately mass appeared. We have selected some of them.

To train your hearing and learn to distinguish and identify intervals, chords, timbres, rhythms and other basic elements music requires a lot of practice. For such practical exercises you just need to have an accompanist partner who would play the same intervals and chords on the instrument for guessing. The Ear Teach service allows you to train on your own, clearly tracking your progress. The program exists both in the web version and as a separate program (however, so far only for Windows).

Theta Music Trainer- a resource that includes dozens of flash games for hearing development, most of which are intuitive. Some games can be played for free without any registration, to access others you will have to enter your data. To fully complete the entire course and access all the materials of the site, you need to create a paid account (for $7.95 per month or $49 per year).

EarMaster 6 is latest version training program for Danish developers. In it you will find 2000 lessons and exercises for both beginners and experienced musicians. By connecting a microphone to your computer, you can hum along to the notes displayed on the screen. The program, in turn, will evaluate your hearing, giving a detailed report on hits in tones. Cost: €47.95

Auralia 4 is a serious program that contains 41 topics covering the basics of solfeggio: intervals and scales, chords and their sequences, rhythms, harmonies and melodies. Auralia allows you to arrange melodic dictations for yourself, connect a MIDI keyboard and a microphone. $99.00

Pitch Improver

A simple collection of basic exercises that offer to play melodies by ear. Press the Play button and try to repeat what you heard on the virtual keys. The first note is marked with a letter, and the rest are highlighted in green. To pass on next level, you need to accurately play all the notes. Pitch Improver can be tried in the online version, as well as downloaded to your smartphone

If you think that “an elephant stepped into your ear” and you will never be able to perceive the sounds around you the way people who are gifted with an ear for music from birth perceive them, then you are deeply mistaken. Developing an ear for music is not as difficult as you think. And today we will give you some tips to help you do it.

First, let's look at the types of hearing. To develop an ear for music, we need to hone:

• Rhythmic hearing. That is, learn to hear and feel the rhythm.
• Melodic ear - the ability to understand the movement and structure of music and hear its subtleties.
• Relative - hearing, which allows you to understand the magnitude of musical intervals and pitch.
• Inner hearing - that is, hearing that allows you to clearly represent music and individual sounds in your thoughts.
• Intonation ear, which allows you to understand the nature and tone of music.

Of course, there are many more types of hearing, but we will focus on these five, as there are enough of them to gain an ear for music.

So, what do we need to do to train these types of hearing.

1. Musical instrument

The ideal way to “pump” all kinds of hearing is to start learning how to play an instrument. In this way, you will remember how each note should sound, train your sense of rhythm and, in general, begin to understand music better. But since you probably don't have time to learn how to play musical instruments, let's move on.

2. Singing

If you don't have a piano at home, find online version on the Internet and every day several times play scales on it and sing them along with the piano. Once you're comfortable with scales, move on to intervals, chords, and simple melodies. The main thing is not to be shy. If you are afraid that someone will hear you, try to train at a time when you are alone at home. But really, there is nothing to be ashamed of! Remember only karaoke bars, where people, to put it mildly, without a voice and hearing, sing so loudly that they can be heard outside the bar.

3. Meditation

We named this item so because the exercise that we are going to tell you about is very similar to meditation practices for beginners. It will help you develop mindfulness for sounds.

Walk on the street without headphones, trying to catch snippets of conversations, the noise of trees, the sound of cars, the sound of heels on the pavement; the way a dog shuffles its paw on the ground; the way someone shakes out a blanket on the balcony .... you will notice that you are surrounded by so many sounds that it's hard to believe. At home, spend five minutes a day listening to the buzzing of the refrigerator from the kitchen, the sound of water in the pipes, the conversations of neighbors, the noise from the street.

4. Voices

When talking to a person, try to remember his voice. You can also watch movies, memorizing the actors' voices, and then listen to certain parts of the movie and try to name the character based only on his voice.

Try to notice the manner of conversation of your interlocutor, the timbre of his voice; remembering a conversation with someone, try to pronounce the phrases of the interlocutor in his own voice in his head.

5. Learn to hear the music

Of course, it's very nice to listen to music and not think about anything. But if your goal is to develop an ear for music, then try to delve into the music you listen to. Learn to separate one musical instrument from another; study how the guitar sounds under different “bells and whistles” so as not to confuse it with other instruments; also learn to distinguish different synth modes from others musical instruments; listen to how real drums and electronic drums sound.

This practice will help you not only develop an ear for music, but also teach you to hear music more subtly, which in turn will give you even more pleasure from listening to it. There is one by-effect in this practice - most likely later you will not want to listen to what you are listening to now, you will want something more complex and voluminous. And this is great, because isn't this the main indicator of your progress?

6. Rhythm

There is such a cool thing called a “metronome”. You can purchase it for yourself or find an online version on the Internet. Practice every day with the metronome by tapping with your finger (hand, foot, whatever) the rhythm it gives you.

When you feel comfortable with the metronome, move on to recognizing the rhythm in the music. Start with the music in which there are drums, it is easier to determine the rhythm from them. And then move on to work with music that does not contain noise instruments, allowing you to easily determine the rhythm (classical music, for example).

Another fun way to improve your sense of rhythm is dancing. Sign up for dance studio or dance at home to your heart's content.

7. Sound source

If you have an assistant for this task, great! Close your eyes and ask someone to walk around you in and out of the room and make sounds (voice, clap, ringing a bell, etc.). And every time your assistant makes a sound, you should try to understand which side it comes from. Pretty easy if you and your assistant are in the same room, but once they start walking around the apartment, you'll notice that it's harder to tell where the sound is coming from.

If you do not have a person who can help you with this, then you can do the following. Go outside, sit somewhere on a bench and listen to the sounds around you, as in the third exercise. Only this time you will also need to understand from which side this sound is coming.

Programs and Applications

Of course, there are many programs for developing an ear for music, and we have collected the best of them.

1. Earteach

An excellent application containing exercises for scales, chords and intervals. Perfect for those who already have a more developed ear for music. You can also download the PC version.

The principle is very simple - you need to play the melody that you just heard. The app can also be downloaded for Android and iOS.

A simple game that will help you memorize notes. Also on the right you can find many more games for the development of musical ear.