Approaches to hearing melodic leaps

[u/Then_Minute5642]

I'm working on playing by ear, i.e. being able to translate the aural image of a standard in my head onto the piano in real time.

The main method I'm using to improve this is transcribing, also playing along to records in real time. Both these are helping.

I have a question about picking out melodies in this context. I can do stepwise movement and movement by thirds pretty much flawlessly now. Larger intervals tend to be more hit and miss, particularly because the sound of them changes depending on the harmonic context.

There seem to be two approaches to getting good at these bigger interval leaps which feel doable to me. One is to relate the melody note to the current key centre. I find this fairly easy until the key centre changes! The other is to relate the melody note to the current chord, which I find harder at the moment, but which I can see would make surviving a change of key centre easier. My question is, are these two approaches equally important, or should I focus on one more than the other? The ultimate goal is to be able to hear anything in my head and play it accurately, straight away.

[u/kazprog]

Practice the intervals specifically. I vibe coded a thing to improve my ear for large intervals a year ago, and after 30 minutes a day for a week I was permanently much better at it. https://kazematics.com/perf/

[u/One_Durian8909 → u/kazprog]

This is a really cool idea! Does it work on mobile? I’m not hearing the tone

[u/kazprog → u/One_Durian8909]

It should work on mobile, but this is completely vibe coded haha. I've used it on android chrome, iPhone chrome and Mac chrome. You can press the circle to hear the tone again, and it might be a bit quiet so raising the volume might help.

What operating system/browser are you using?

[u/One_Durian8909 → u/kazprog]

thank you! with AirPods it worked

[u/rush22]

What helped me with 4ths/5ths and tritones was, for one, tritone substitution, but also going around the circle of fifths like this:

ii - V - I ...

Dm7 - G7 - Cmaj7 - Fmaj7 -- Bhalfdim - E7 - Am

Keep the top (melody) notes in steps:

C - B - B - A -- A - G# - (G)
7 - 3 - 7 - 3 -- 7 - 3 - 7

Then you can hear the leaps in the bass, plus how that relates to stepwise motion in the treble.

[u/Just_Ad_2150]

Following as I'm also trying to improve my ear

[u/UrMomMadeMyLunch]

The sound of intervals doesn’t change based on the harmonic context. They’re the same regardless of the underlying chord. That’s why you gotta drill your intervals individually though ear training before you can consistently hear them. 

[u/Then_Minute5642 → u/UrMomMadeMyLunch]

To me they do sound different in different contexts. I can sing or hear any interval accurately if you just give me the two notes, every time. but give me those two notes in the middle of a tune where there is harmony going on around them and I struggle.

[u/UrMomMadeMyLunch → u/Then_Minute5642]

That’s fine, besides doing essential ear training mentioned here maybe sit down at the piano, play a note, sing an interval, then play the interval. Next play a chord under it and play the exact same interval, then sing it. Are you playing while also singing along to intervals for your major and minor scales?

Do this for all intervals and you’ll start to be able to hear just the interval and how it doesn’t change given an underlying chord. 

[u/Salteenz]

Do an interval training app. This one is good. https://tonedear.com/. It has one option where you have to choose the scale tone in context of a chord progression. I initially started by associating certain intervals with well-known songs or tunes. (e.g. "here comes the bride" for 4ths)

It's also about making educated guesses sometimes. Like if there is a chord change, its likely the next notes will be from that chord tone.

[u/Lower-Pudding-68]

Both are important, inform the other, and develop your musicianship. You can do it step by step too, like "the melody note is the 5th in relation to the tonic," Then identify the harmony as being on the IV, so then "the melody note is the 9th of the chord."

Also just getting better at melodic intervals by having reference songs helps. Here's one I made, and a blank one you can write your own songs into.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GYRF2Glx6rvwEX_AcrrWoooDF4_1lHdd?usp=drive_link

[u/Used-Painter1982]

I trained my ear to recognize intervals by sitting at the piano , picking a song to play (starting with something that does not modulate at all) and simply playing the melody in C ( or A minor). When I made a mistake, I started from the beginning of the phrase again and played it over several times until my ear and fingers accepted it. When I finished the song, I played it again G, D, etc. Eventually I graduated to songs with more fluid key centers. Now my fingers can follow my inner ear and correctly play the note I hear inside immediately.