Ear Training for Musicians & Audio Engineers

www.MarkTAW.com/recording/EarTrainingforMusiciansAu.html (printable version)

Ear Training for Musicians & Audio Engineers
I've always believed that proper ear training consists of listening to a sound & being told what it is. Eventually you should be able to listen to it and say what it is without being told.

Musicians & Audio Engineers alike have one very important tool - their ears. Listening is a skill, and can be honed through practice. This is a list of free resources I've found to help you train your ears to hear more than they could before.

I've always believed that ear training consists of simply learning to name the things that you're hearing. We all hear the same things, but we don't all know how to recognize what we're hearing.

The same way, as a child your parents pointed at things and named them until you could name them back, Ear Training consists of hearing things and having them named until you can name them back.

Musicians

Ear Training for Musicians consists mostly of listening to intervals and naming them. "That's a major 3rd, that's a perfect 5th, etc."

Ricci Adams' Musictheory.net
I donated money to this site because I think it's so good. In addition to Ear Training, there are sight reading exercises, and much more.
Good Ear - Online Ear Training Site
More ear training exercises.
GNU Solfege
A freebie program to help you with interval training.

Audio Engineers

Ear Training for Audio Engineers consists of listening to various acoustic, psychoacoustic, and electronically induced sounds and naming them.

PC AV Tech the Sounds of Distortion
A sleightly heavy handed demonstration of 2nd order, 3rd order, and Modulation distortion.
PC ABX - The PCABX Technical Listening Room
Many sound samples of things audio engineers should be able to hear. For use with PC ABX software.

PC ABX Software

The purpose of ABX software is to allow you to listen to 2 or more sounds without knowing which is which and comparing them. For example, can you tell which is the MP3 and which is the original CD quality sample? Can you really tell one microphone from another?

PC ABX
Load two sound samples. It will let you play A, B and X. Can you tell if sound file X is really A or B?
ABC / Hidden Reference Audio Comparison Tool
Load up a sound file & up to 8 files to compare it with. Then make blind comparisons with the original. Which do you think sounds better and why?

See the Shootouts forum on ProSoundReview.com for more comparisons of different mic's, mic pre's, etc.

Message Board: http://www.marktaw.com/forum/list.php?f=1

page first created on Sunday, April 27, 2003