Many people seek to join the art of music, if not at a professional level, then at least at an amateur level. However, this cannot be done without musical ability and hearing. Absolute musical ear refers to one of several types of musical abilities and causes a lot of debate about the nature of its formation. Is it possible to develop it? Let's try to figure it out.
General and special abilities
Common abilities, without which it is impossible even to start playing music, are musical memory and healthy psychomotor. Musical memory refers to several types of memory that allow you to memorize and play musical works in one form or another - by ear or by visually remembering the location of notes on the keyboard, visually “photographing” the musical score, etc.
The core of musicality is also:
- a good feeling that allows a person to distinguish between the emotional coloring of music and its harmony;
- musical-auditory ideas about the pitch of sounds, about the nature of their reproduction, the order of movement (this also includes the ability to reproduce what was heard by ear);
- perception of rhythm and the ability to work in a given rhythmic pattern.
Special abilities include those that are necessary for a specific performing activity (for example, a number of requirements are presented to a violinist, other than requirements for a vocalist or pianist), as well as abilities necessary for performing composer activity.
General and special abilities are not limited to the above components, moreover, the boundaries between these two groups are not quite clear.
Types of Musical Hearing
Musical-auditory performances are also referred to as musical hearing. There are several varieties of it:
- External (perception of music in real time) and internal (ability to play music in the imagination).
- Absolute (the ability to absolutely accurately recognize and reproduce individual sounds and melodies) and relative (the ability to build a melody or scale based on mode connections and harmony).
- Harmonic (perception of polyphonic chords and parts) and melodic (perception of one-voice melodies).
What is absolute ear for music?
In turn, the absolute ear for music is divided into 2 categories: passive and active. Passive - this is when a person can exactly name the pitch of the reproduced sound, recognize the chord taken, or even name the notes that make up the melody. A well-developed active absolute pitch allows a person to accurately reproduce a given melody, scale or chord.
Absolute musical hearing refers, in theory, to general musical abilities, because musical-auditory performances are in this category. However, researchers have heated discussions about this classification.
Firstly, attributing absolute hearing to general abilities would be wrong, because for any type of musical activity, relative hearing is more important - the ability to build relative modal connections (this is what is meant by musicality). Absolute hearing is a unique phenomenon. However, its presence does not indicate a person’s ability to understand music, but rather indicates good auditory memory, which accurately captures musical information. Therefore, some researchers argue that absolute ear for music refers to special abilities. Again, it has not yet been established whether this is an innate ability or an acquired one.
How to perform a test for musical hearing
The test for the presence of musical hearing is passed by students before enrolling in a music school, students before entering a music school, etc. For people planning to practice music professionally, such tests are commonplace. However, in order to turn music into your hobby, you also need to make sure that you have the abilities. How to test a musical ear at home?
Sophisticated methods will not be required for this - just complete a few simple tasks with the help of a partner.
Task number 1
It is advisable that the person who is taking the test stand with his back to the instrument. The partner must take an arbitrary note on the keyboard. The subject is given a couple of seconds to remember its sound. Then, one after another, the assistant must play the notes at random, and the subject must recognize among them the note that he keeps in mind. Repeat the test several times.
Task number 2
If the person who passes the test knows the name of the notes, then you can try the same technique: the partner takes an arbitrary note - the subject voices its name.
Task number 3
Musical hearing implies a good perception of rhythm. The assistant must use a pencil to tap on a hard surface a certain rhythmic pattern, which will last 5-7 seconds. The test subject must repeat it exactly.
Performing a thorough musical ear test may not work out the first time - this is normal even for people who have a hearing. But if, with repeated repetitions, the number of correct answers is less than 20-30%, then most likely the ear for music is absent or very poorly developed.
How to develop an absolute ear for music
Since absolute musical ear belongs to the still poorly studied sphere of human abilities, if you really want to, you can still try to develop it: even if the test was passed unsatisfactorily, this is not a guarantee that a person does not have makings at all. Performing systematic exercises for the development of hearing can finally clarify the situation: confirm or refute the result of the first listening.
Absolute Musical Hearing Exercises
When the development of ear for music is carried out, exercises should be chosen to begin with the simplest. When they are mastered - you can complicate the task. For the training you will need an assistant.
Exercise number 1
The exercise as a whole repeats exercise No. 1 from the test for musical hearing. The only difference is that this time, when the student is mistaken, he needs to be told the correct answer and let him remember the sound of the note, as well as its name (if he owns a musical notation). Pedagogical studies have shown that communicating the correct answer improves the results of further exercises by 25-30%.
Exercise number 2
When the previous exercise is mastered, it is worth moving on to a more complex version - the musical dictation. For him, you need to take the simplest melody - from the textbook for the 1st grade of a music school.
For the first dictation, the partner must slowly, observing the size and all the pauses, play only a few beats, and the subject - by ear, record the melody with notes. Over time, the duration of the melody can be increased, try to write more complex dictations. Checking and working on bugs is a must in this exercise.
Conclusion
A test for musical hearing can say a lot about a person ’s abilities, but not all. Some subjects are too worried, and this prevents them from showing their full potential.
However, if you decide to develop ear for music, you need to understand that the exercise should be, if not a daily lesson, then carried out at least 3-4 times a week. With unsystematic exercises, the result will be difficult to achieve, and in some cases it will take years to wait. The development of absolute musical hearing is not an easy task, it is necessary to arm yourself with patience.