![]() ![]() Or the formally trained violinist who has passed his Grade 8 exam?”Īnd the answer will always be the same. The child without formal training who can play any song by ear, It may be enough to pass exams – but it will not leave you feeling like a musician. Indeed, you will be left feeling like a robot, or a trained machine. However much you perfect your instrument skills, unless you also develop your ears, you will never feel truly musical. There is a more emotionally rewarding aspect to ear training too. You must develop your ears in parallel with your fingers and instrumental prowess, so that your performances can have the kind of human impact that makes music worth playing. If you want to be a good musician therefore, ear training is essential. The performance is always the same, and though the notes are technically “correct”, the music fails to truly excite the listener in a human way. These may seem musical, but there is a lifelessness to them. That may seem like a silly comparison, but just listen to a simple MIDI music file, the synthesiser in your favourite score editor, or the kinds of mechanical musical instrument which were all the rage in the Victorian era. ![]() ![]() These kinds of skill are what differentiates a musician from a robot. Your fingers may know how to run up and down a particular scale – but how can you improvise from that scale in a way which moves the listener?.Your fingers may know how to play louder and quieter – but which passages should you increase the volume of to have musical impact?.Your fingers may know how to bend a note a semitone upwards – but when should they do that to really emphasise the emotion of a melody?.You must imbue your performance with musical expression, and this relies far more on your ears than your fingers. Performing notes accurately from a written score may impress an average listener, especially if your fingers fly across your fretboard nailing a killer solo on stage.īut to the discerning listener and other musicians, it’s not enough to simply play the right notes with accurate timing. If you want to be a good musician, it’s not enough to train your fingers. In fact, with the right approach to ear training, this question becomes nonsense! Your ear training is driven specifically by what will help you in music, so every practice session you do helps you towards your real musical goals. If you’ve begun ear training according to an old-fashioned, theory-heavy syllabus or you have only tried it to pass an exam, you may well wonder “Does ear training actually help you as a musician?” ![]()
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