Always be training your ears. Listen with an instrument or tuning fork nearby. Figure out what you’re hearing. And if you can’t do it in the moment, because you don’t have the right tools or whatever, make a note and remember to figure it out later.

If you can identify the skills you want and take action to acquire them, then you’ll improve.

Or, just let go and listen for fun without trying to deconstruct anything. We often forget to do that.

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Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 6

So think of these patterns as tools to increase your musical vocabulary, improve and challenge your ear, and to practice technical peak performance.

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Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale Pattern 5

Today, I decided to open up my thesaurus and see if I could improve my auditory vocabulary. Beginning with the word “sound,” I was led to a synonym “sonance,” which I don’t believe I have ever used before. Drilling down further, I settled on a sound word to explore, “ring.”

Ringing is an adjective in the class of resonance.

resonance
noun
the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating : the resonance of his voice.
Physics: the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object.

Ringing is having or emitting a clear resonant sound. If we think of sound as pictured by a waveform, we can imagine visually seeing the sound’s amplitude moving between a positive and negative extreme, or peaks and valleys. This is a perfect metaphor for visualizing how language interacts with sound. Words that describe sound will have antonyms that describe it’s opposite pole. The word “clear” implies that sound can also be “muffled.” Therefore, with any description of sound, we can put that description somewhere on a continuum.

Clear ← → Muffled
Audible ← → Inaudible

Here’s a list of words to describe the sound quality of ringing:

ringing, pealing, tolling, belling, sounding, chiming; tinkling, tinkly, tingling, jingling, dinging, donging, knelling, clangor, clanking, clanging, clink, tink, ting, ping, chink, clank, clang, jangle, jingle-jangle

Now, take a moment with each word and imagine a sound that has this quality. How does “chink” sound different from “clank”? How does “jingle” sound different than “jangle”?

Taking the time to experience these sounds will help you to memorize the words that describe them which will help you not only communicate a sound to someone else, but to have a more refined experience of sound yourself. Where most people will only hear something ring, you will know that it is actually a ding.

Ear training has often been half-jokingly, half-seriously referred to as “ear straining.” And I can understand why if it’s something that you feel forced to do, like doing sit ups. Why can’t washboard abs just come with the package?

But a listening practice isn’t something you have to motivate yourself to do every morning. It’s something you get to do all the time. It’s the equivalent of eating whatever you want, whenever you want… without gaining weight!

Your ears are always on. All you have to do is start paying attention. The world is filled with sounds for you to soak up. Your musical ears are hungry for stimulation. It’s time to give them what they want.

Here’s just a few things you can do to begin your listening practice.

First, just start listening unconditionally. We all daydream, so make these times of subconscious wandering into conscious sound expeditions. You’ll be amazed at all the different rhythms, counterpoints, and natural symphonies you will hear. If you can, close your eyes and just listen to the world around you and inside of you.

Second, think on media. Keep a few things with you at all times: music manuscript and a pen, a recording device, and a tuning fork of some kind. When you hear a note, figure out what it is. Teach yourself. Write a scale or a pattern and imagine what they sound like as you write them. Record rhythms and intervals and whatever else inspires you in the moment. Take a recess into the playground of sound. It will be fun and you’ll learn new things and reinforce what you already know.

Start a sound catalog. In a sound journal, begin to catalog all the different sounds and textures you hear. This will increase your “aural intelligence.” People who live bland lives have about a dozen different words that they use to describe their daily emotions. If you only have a dozen different words to describe what you hear, then it’s no wonder your musicianship is straining. But if you have a rich database of descriptive words in your musical vocabulary, then your experience of sound will be rich and abundant. Grab a thesaurus and your favorite album and have some fun.

Stop for a moment and think about these two musicians. One musician trains their ear for 15 minutes every day or so. The other musician actively listens all the time. Which is a better musician?

Answer: The musician with more aural experience. Go get some!

within another system of minor thirds:

And you could repeat that entire pattern by another interval, thereby creating a system within a system within a system! Patterns can be extremely complex mathematically. Developing your own will help strengthen your creativity as well as your chops.

In a solo, use patterns as a starting point or as a connecting point between phrases. Exploit their repetition to increase tension. Winding down a solo with a descending pattern is an effective way to give the listener something recognizable to hold on to as they ease back into their seat. And, of course, you can use a super fast and complex pattern to just plain astonish your audience.

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These days, transcribing is easy. There are many great freeware programs that will allow you to rip a song from your favorite CD and load it into an audio editor where you can define regions for quick playback or looping and even slow a section down–without changing pitch for more difficult parts.

Some of my greatest musical epiphanies occurred while transcribing and realizing, “Oh, that’s what the hell they were doing!” I strongly encourage you to put pen to paper and internalize and eternalize the music.