This same process is much less painful to watch when you have an audio producer with trained ears. It then becomes an arduous process of trial and error to get the right combination of notes and chords, stabbing in the dark just to figure out how a certain song is performed. Audio producers who “don’t have a good ear,” which simply means that they haven’t practiced the skill, usually have to go back and forth between the stereo and the piano or sit hunched over with one ear buried deep in their headphones. If you aren’t able to pick out chords and melodies just by listening to music, you’d better start practicing the keyboard because that’s where you’ll be spending a lot of your time. While most people working in the industry naturally gain the talent over time just by being exposed to music and analyzing it on a regular basis, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single industry professional who didn’t spend at least part of their time training their ears.
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It’s important to note that most successful people in the music industry have ears that are highly attuned to music, and it didn’t happen by accident. Many young producers neglect the skill simply because they don’t understand what it is, how to hone it, and why it’s so valued in the industry.
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The importance of ear training can’t be overstated. It’s the audio producers with fine-tuned ears that can pick out the best tracks, make the most interesting and compelling musical decisions, and put out work faster and on a regular basis without working late into the night. Some do manage to find success that way, but they are certainly in the minority, and they have countless more obstacles to overcome. Whether you’re performing covers or trying to analyze your favorite records so you can better understand the producer’s intent and style, ear training makes musical work more efficient and opens up numerous creative opportunities.įor those who have little to no experience in ear training, trying to bridge the gap between the music written on a page of sheet music or in chords and tablature with the way it sounds in their head is often extremely difficult. One of the many upshots of having this ability to easily transcribe the music you hear into standard musical notation is that someone can read and then perform music. It might seem discouraging at first when your listening skills aren’t developing as quickly as you’d like them to, but it’s important to remember that no industry professional got to where they are overnight. This is why experienced audio producers can pick out a chord progression instantly when they hear a new song, while those who are just starting out usually have to replay the track several times and take notes as they go. Like any skill, it’s something that you get better at over time. More advanced ear training can involve more complex scales like modes and melodies that don’t always stay within the bounds of the given scale, using accidentals called sharps and flats. This often takes the form of learning each interval in basic major and minor scales, listening to them repeatedly, and practicing to identify what each one is. What is Ear Training?Įar training is the process of learning to take the musical information that you hear and transform it into notes and chords. For audio producers who already have a laundry list of things to work on and new skills to acquire, this is bound to be good news. That’s all an aspiring producer needs to use the external stimuli around them, like music on the radio, the person busking on the corner, or even ringtones and advertisement jingles, and transform them into learning tools. It’s something you can do almost anywhere at any time as long as you have the mindset and general idea. In fact, it can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of improving your production abilities. Luckily, ear training doesn’t have to be a headache. Some industry professionals do manage to get by without honing their auditory skills, but it’s by far the harder and more limiting route to take. Ear training is critical for audio producers and artists in any genre because it’s a skill that helps with making music. Most aspiring audio producers have heard more seasoned professionals talking about having “an ear” for music, but not all of them fully understand what that means.