
Matt Brown provides instruction and exercise to facilitate ear training.
Lesson 1
Matt Brown introduces his new series on ear training. He covers basic chord qualities for the first training session.
Length: 39:01 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 2
Matt Brown offers up a lesson on how intervals are notated and their spacial relationships on the neck of the guitar.
Length: 48:58 Difficulty: 1.0 Members OnlyLesson 3
In lesson three of his ear training series, Matt Brown explains how to identify melodic intervals by ear.
Length: 52:34 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 4
In lesson four, Matt Brown demonstrates listening techniques for identifying harmonically stacked intervals.
Length: 33:46 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 5
Matt Brown discusses and demonstrates how to identify common chord progressions by ear.
Length: 30:09 Difficulty: 1.5 Members Only
About Matt Brown
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Matt Brown began playing the guitar at the age of 11. "It was a rule in my family to learn and play an instrument for at least two years. I had been introduced to a lot of great music at the time by friends and their older siblings. I was really into bands like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Smashing Pumpkins, so the decision to pick up the guitar came pretty easily."
Matt's musical training has always followed a very structured path. He began studying the guitar with Dayton, Ohio guitar great Danny Voris. I began learning scales, chords, and basic songs like any other guitarist. After breaking his left wrist after playing for only a year, Matt began to study music theory in great detail. I wanted to keep going with my lessons, but I obviously couldn't play at all. Danny basically gave me the equivalent of a freshman year music theory course in the span of two months. These months proved to have a huge impact on Brown's approach to the instrument.
Brown continued his music education at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. He completed a degree in Classical Guitar Performance in 2002. While at Capital, he also studied jazz guitar and recording techniques in great detail. "I've never had any desire to perform jazz music. Its lack of relevance to modern culture has always turned me off. However, nothing will improve your chops more than studying this music."
Matt Brown currently resides in Dayton, Ohio. He teaches lessons locally as well as at Capital University's Community Music School. Matt's recent projects include writing and recording with his new, as of yet nameless band as well as the formation of a cover band called The Dirty Cunnies.
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Member Comments about this Lesson
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Good question...Presently, I transcribe music for a living, so I get plenty of practice in that department. Before though, I used to work on this stuff in the car / on the bus / train...Just listen to anything that has a melody line - instrumental or vocal (oh, and make sure it's something you really like, otherwise this won't be as effective)...After I hear the melody, I sing it in my head and analyze what intervals occur between the notes and the melody...Obviously, at this point, you need some way to check and make sure you're right...So maybe learn the notes to a couple of these melodies on guitar afterwards to see how you did...Also, getting the sound of certain intervals in your head from famous melodies is immensely helpful...like the perfect 4th is in "here comes the bride" and stuff like that...You'll eventually get to the point where you can hear a melody for the first time and be able to notate it with 100% accuracy without having an instrument around...takes practice and time though!
Hey matt im finding it difficult to hear intervals without my guitar..! Whats the best way to : practice hearing intervals , which scale to use while going through the different intervals and then while answering the quizzes how do u get "good" at hearing the intervals and then writing your answer down Without the guitar.. ?? These are my main questions and if answered i guess i can go around learning with ease ! :)
Hi Matt, I found identifying the notes and intervals on Quiz 1 much easier if I used my guitar - is that defeating the purpose? Regarding transcribing, what do you think about tRanscribing software such as that from seventh string?thanks mike
Hey Mike! At first, if you need help from your guitar, that's understandable. You do need to develop the ability to hear what each interval sounds like without help from your guitar or another instrument. For example, if I were able to pick to random notes and sing them, it's important to be able to identify the interval between the notes no matter what it is. You won't get too far with ear training and transcribing without these skills. As far as transcribing programs are concerned, I use The Amazing Slow Downer. It can do everything you'd possibly want it to do. You can install it on mobile devices too, which is a pretty big deal for me since I have to travel a fair amount, and I make roughly half my living transcribing music. I'm not familiar with the program that you mentioned.
Matt, I want to thank you a lot for this course. I find it well thought of and presented. But the most important thing that I got from these lessons was that I came to realize how little attention I have paid so far to the ear training issue. I have now focused on it and it is bringing good results. Not only my playing is positively affected by it, it is also my listening experience with other people's music - I have now the feeling I hear things with details and nuances that I either did not hear before or ignored them.
Glad to hear it! Keep up the good work! I think most people neglect the ear training aspect of being a musician since it can be kind scary and intimidating at first. I think developing your ear by transcribing songs, singing, etc. along with developing solid rhythm are the two most important things to work on as a musician.
Thanks for doing these lessons, the song examples are really helpful. Sometimes when I'm listening to music now I'm able to identify certain intervals without having to try too hard....or things in one song sound like things in another song - I never made those connections before...it almost enriches the music listening experience...
Hooray! That is the goal...Pretty soon you'll be transcribing new songs in your head when you hear them for the first time.
Hi! It's not very important to know at this point in the series, but it's something that will be referenced quite a bit later on. I found solfege to be extremely helpful when I first started singing. Singing is probably the single best way to develop your ears. I'll be doing some sight singing type exercises down the line that will use the solfege system. The system is relatively simple. Each of the seven pitches in the major scale are assigned a syllable. 1: do 2: re 3: mi 4: fa 5: sol 6: la 7: ti Then, let's say you flat the pitches in the scale. Here's what each syllable becomes 2: ra 3: me 4: if you flat "fa", you basically get mi. 5: se 6: le 7: te. If you sharp the pitches, you get these syllables: 2: ri 3: mi becomes fa. 4: fi 5: sol becomes le (sounds the same as the b6). 6: La becomes te (#6 sounds the same as b7). 7: If you sharp ti, this pitch becomes do.
i have no experience with the solfege do-re-mi, is that crucial to this lesson? you talk about it a lot, how important is it for ear training?