Ear Training VIII - Echoing Four Randomly Generated Notes

This month’s ear training exercise increasing the chain of randomly played notes to four. I found this to be a considerable increase in difficult. Everything I mentioned last month about having to focus more on remembering sounds is amplified in this exercise. Because the challenge of this exercise lies in memory and not an instantaneous response, I find that, more than anything, being able to maintain my focus is the most reliable predictor of success. For that reason I have found it useful to play with the duration of the exercise; the longer it is, the more difficult it will be to maintain the needed focus.

You can see me play this exercise here and download the code for it here. To use the code, simply open the code in Supercollider, select the Language tab, and click ‘evaluate file’.

Ear Training VII - Echoing Three Randomly Generated Notes

In this month’s ear training exercise I have added one more note to the chain to make a total of three notes that will be played in a row. I do not find this change to be a great deal more difficult than the previous exercise but it does feel as though it is exercising my ear in a slightly different way. That is, it takes a bit of extra focus to remember a chain of three notes instead of two. Sometimes I will be so focused on determine the last note in the chain that I will forget the sound of the first one.

You can see me play this exercise here and download the code for it here. To use the code, simply open the code in Supercollider, select the Language tab, and click ‘evaluate file’.

Ear Training VI - Echoing Two Randomly Generated Notes

This month’s ear training exercise is a simple incremental increase over last month’s. Rather than one note being played at a time, in this exercise two notes will be played in a row. The task is then to repeat those two notes in the intervening silence. With this exercise I can really tell when I am losing my focus. It is not so much that I miss particular two note combinations but that I will forget to listen for the interval between the last note I played and the first note the computer plays in the next sequence.

You can see me play this exercise here and download the code for it here. To use the code, simply open the code in Supercollider, select the Language tab, and click ‘evaluate file’.

Ear Training V - Echoing One Randomly Generated Note

Over the last four months my ear training exercises have focused on triads. This month begins a series of exercises devoted to recognizing single notes. The task of this particular exercise is simply to echo one randomly generated note. Once comfortable with this exercise, a good challenge is to increase the tempo. This helps keep me on my toes and hone my focus.

Unlike previous exercises, there is really only one way to execute this one: by echoing each note. You can see me do both here and download the code for this exercise here. To use the code, simply open the code in Supercollider, select the Language tab, and click ‘evaluate file’.