Ear Training & Aural Skills, Part 1: Rhythms

1. Introduction: Hey everyone, welcome to ear training and oral skills, part one. In this class we're going to focus on your training when it comes to rhythms. There's going to be a six part class. We're going to work through rhythms, then intervals than melodies, than chord progressions, chromatic intervals, chromatic melodies. So what we're doing here is focusing on the skill that all professional musicians have and that you can develop with some practice. This is the skill to be able to hear something and then just play it, or to hear something and then be able to write it down. And this first class where we're going to focus primarily on that writing it down part and start to build that skill that we call dictation. So that when we get to full melodies and chord progressions and everything, you have all the tools you need to be able to just hear those things and figure them out in a flash. Now, I wanted to be super up front with you here. This is not a class where you're going to watch me talk for three or four hours and then be like Cool, I can do that now. This is hard stuff. This is hard and it takes a lot of practice. So what I'm giving you in this class is a lot of tools, a lot of ways to listen, some tricks for writing things down and figuring things out quickly. And then I'm gonna give you a ton of things to practice. And I'm going to point you on how to find more things to practice later. But you've got to practice this stuff every day if you want to get good at it. And we'll talk a lot about that. What we get when we get into the class, how to practice, what to practice. And in the end, you'll be a much better musician for it. So it's worth the practice. You don't need perfect pitch or anything like that. I'll walk you through all that stuff. We're going to develop skills that focus on something called relative pitch, which is something you can learn again with practice. So let's dive in. 2. What is Ear Training?: Okay, let's start off and talk about what is your training exactly, and why do we care? So your training is three things. Usually they get bundled together. And in fact the name of the course, if you're looking at like a college list of courses or something like that, might be called one of three things. It might be called ear training, it might be called oral skills, and it might be called dictation. Really, what those mean is ear training means the ability to recognize music just from the sound of it training our ears, right? So if someone plays a major chord, I can say that's a major chord. If someone plays a sequence of chords, I can identify what those chords are. If they play a melody, I can write those down. The second thing is oral skills. That's the ability to sing something back, also sometimes called the site singing. That's kind of a fourth term that gets used. Oral skills would be like, you hand me a piece of music, I look at it and I can sing it like, period. It's tricky. And the third is dictation, that really focuses on the writing down part. So I want to, you're gonna play something and I'm going to get some staff paper and traditional notation. And I'm going to write it down, rhythms and pitch. That's kinda what the three things are now. And this class, we're not going to focus very much on the site singing part, mostly because that's really hard for me to confirm that you're doing it right. There's not a good way for me to give you some music. Have you sing it? And then for me to say that was right or that was wrong. And you can't really learn this skill unless you have someone telling you that was right or that was wrong. So for that part of it and when to recommend that you, if you get good at everything we're doing in this class and you want to move on to that site singing part of it. I'm going to recommend you find yourself a tutor in your area that can help you with that. Because it just doesn't work all that great as an online class, but everything else does. So what we're going to focus a lot on is dictation. How to hear something, how do I identify it when we hear it, and then how to write it down. This is a lot like, um, you know, let's say you're a guitar player and you want to be able to play stuff by ear. That's oral skills. It's not so much dictation. But the dictation element of it will be really handy as well because eventually you might want to write it down. Okay, so that's what we mean when we talk about ear training. It's all of those things. We're going to focus on your training and dictation in his class, learning how to identify things that we hear. Possibly play them on our instrument, maybe sing them, but definitely be able to write them down. 3. Why Do We Care About Ear Training?: Okay, so why, why is this a skill that we want musicians to have? You may have found and you may have ended up here because any music degree is going to require probably four semesters of your training classes. Now, usually the reason for that is that they go hand in hand with music theory. And one of the things we do with oral skills is use it as applied theory. That is another term that you might see, applied theory, what that means is in your music theory class, you're learning how to build, let's say something simple. Major and minor chords, okay? In your training, you're going to focus in on what those sound like and how to identify them in context of a piece of music. So it's like taking the music theory that you learned and applying it, like learning how to, how it works in the real world sometimes, right? Because we're looking at real music here, not example. Although we are going to work with a lot of examples. So it can help you kind of get more comfortable with music theory. It can also help you with your instrument. If you play an instrument or your singer. It's going to help you at sight reading because you're going be able to look at the music and know how it's supposed to sound. And you'll know if you've played it right or wrong. It's also kind of just a really fun skill to have, right? You want to hear a song on the radio and play it on your guitar, you could look up the tab for it, or you could just do it. If you're good at ear training, you'll be able to hear that song and say, Think about it for a minute and say, Yeah, okay, I get it, I can do that, um, and then pick up a guitar and play it. Most of the time. When I hear a song, assuming it's a relatively simple. So I'm not talking about like like real complex, like odd metered metal stuff here, but like assuming a normal pop song. If I hear a play it on guitar, I could write it down. I could write down the chord charts or write down instructions for how to play it on guitar without picking up a guitar. That's actually not that tricky of a skill to get, and I'll walk you through that shortly. So it's cool just to be able to say, Here's how you play that. And then you can teach it someone or you could just pick up a guitar and play it. It's kinda neat, right? And that's true on all instruments. Piano, clarinet, flute, whatever. Listen, bailed, play it back. These skills the way I'm talking about them now sound very, you know, it sounds like witchcraft and sorcery to be able to do, but it's really not. There are some techniques that we're gonna go over in this class that walk you through how to approach things, how, what to listen for specifically. And kind of how to focus your ear on certain things that will give you clues as to what's going on. And you do not need perfect pitch to do this. We're going to talk more about perfect pitch and what that really means in a minute. But if you don't have perfect pitch, don't worry, you don't need it. In fact, if you do have perfect pitch, there's no reason for you to be in this class because you don't need any of the techniques that I'm going to show you. So let's keep that in mind. If you're not any good at this, you're in the right place. Okay. Let's talk about dictation. 4. What is Dictation?: Okay, Let's talk about dictation. I'm gonna make an assumption in this class that you've already taken some or all of my music theory curriculum or your otherwise fairly comfortable with music theory. That's going to be important when we get down to dictation for two reasons. One is notation, right? So when we do the dictation stuff, I'm going to assume you know how to notate things, okay, So if I say write a half note and then two quarter notes, you know how to do that. If you don't know how to do that, please review the first couple music theory classes in my music theory sequence that will help you with that. But I'm going to assume a basic understanding of music notation here. The other reason that music theory is important is that it gives us clues that we're going to rely on. So for example, we might say, we might hear an interval and then we say, Okay, was that interval and Octave know K was at close to an active, yes. What does that mean? That means it might be a seventh was at a major seventh. Minor seventh. And we're gonna kinda work on these in our head. So having a familiarity with major seventh, minor seventh, all the intervals. And the chords themselves, like basic triad harmony, maybe up to sevens and stuff like that will be really helpful. We're not going to get into super-advanced music theory in this class. There might be further versions of this down the road where we get into more complicated things like more chromatic stuff. But for this first class, we're going to keep it relatively simple. We're going to focus on diatonic, like in Keyes, major, minor keys, notes, and rhythms. We're not going to get into a really complicated stuff. So you don't need to have finished college level music theory in order to get this, but should be comfortable with basic notation and basic triad harmony. Cool. 5. This is a Skill that Takes Practice!: So here's the bad news about your training. This isn't something where you're going to watch this class. And then you're going to get to the end of this class. And you're going to be like, Sweet, I can do ear training, walkaway, and impress your friends by hearing a Bach Fugue and notating it note for note. You're not gonna be able to do that. Your training is a skill that takes practice. What I'm hoping to give you in this class Is tools for you to use and practice and build that skill. The thing that we always talk about is the ear is a muscle, the brain is a muscle. And you can't just dive into, you know, run a marathon with your ear. After, you know, uh, couple hour long class. It takes practice. You have to do this every day to really get it. Because we need our brain and our ear working in conjunction in order to achieve our goals here. So the best way to get good at this is to use these techniques that I'm going to give you for sure. But do it every day. You know, set yourself a goal of doing five minutes of dictation a day. And I'm gonna give you a bunch of stuff to practice with five minutes a day. But every day, do one thing. After a while, it will start to click and you'll be doing it, but it's going to be frustrating and it's hard. This is land easy, This is hard stuff. And it takes a lot of practice. It's just like another instrument. So you have to practice, you have to work on it. There's no silver bullets here. There is no magic way to do this. But you've come as close as possible to finding the silver bullet in finding this class. Because I'm gonna give you all the techniques that I learned over the years. And the methods that I use when I'm hearing something and trying to figure it out. So speaking of techniques that I've used over the years, I want to go into, I want to use one video to talk about my tortured history of this class. So let's go to a new video, Doug, about that real quick. 6. My Tortured History with Ear Training: I just have a teacher that said, you don't want to learn composition from Beethoven. Because Beethoven would be really not good composition teacher. Because he just knew it. It was just in him. He just did it. You want to learn composition with someone who struggled to get it right, who learned painfully every technique and idea that they had. Because they are the ones that are going to know how to teach it. So if you believe that theory, then you're going to have a great time in this class because your training did not come easy to me. When I had to do this stuff in college, I struggled through it. I had a miserable time. I did not like it. And I swore I would never be wrapped into teaching it. To be honest. The reason I am teaching it now is because I've been working on how to go about teaching it in a way that would be less painful than the way I had to learn it for quite awhile. And I think I finally come up with a curriculum that will be better than what I had to do. But I struggled, man, I sat in practice rooms for hours and hours every day trying to get it right and eventually I dead. But I'll always kinda been looking for a better way. And I think I have boiled down all the techniques that I've figured out for myself and combine them with some techniques that are, that have now become common practice to teach. But but yeah, this is not stuff that comes just naturally to me. This is something I had to learn to do and I had to practice a lot to get it. So don't feel bad. If this doesn't click right away. It's hard stuff. Easy. Okay. Let's move on. 7. What is Perfect Pitch?: Perfect pitch. So, perfect pitch is the ability to hear a note and just know what I notice here a chord and be able to identify all the notes in it. For example, if I did this, and you said, Oh, that's B-natural, you might have perfect pitch. There's, there's a lot of myths around perfect pitch. So let me tell you what are facts. Perfect pitch is more common in countries whose native language is a pitched language. In other words, it's not very common with native English speakers because pitch doesn't really matter in the way we develop language. Most people that have perfect pitch learn it when they're developing language. Really, really, really, really young. So there we find it more in things like Asian countries who have languages where the pitch of the syllable batters changes the meaning. We also find it in people who have been raised with music instruction from that very, very early age. There's a way of teaching music called the Suzuki method that starts people on playing instruments really, really, really young. Those people sometimes develop perfect pitch. Not always, but sometimes. If you are an adult or a young adult and you don't have perfect pitch. You are probably not going to develop perfect pitch. There are some books and courses and methods out there to help you get perfect pitch. And that promise to give you perfect pitch if you pay some amount of money, um, those are all scams and don't work. So don't do that. You won't get perfect pitch. You don't have perfect pitch now, you will probably never develop perfect pitch. But there's good news. The good news is you don't need it. You don't need it to do this stuff. I've looked at some of these methods for developing perfect pitch. And they do things like colors, like associating every pitch with a color. Because that's how I had some friends. I have some friends who have perfect pitch. I don't. And One time I was having a conversation with his friend of mine who had perfect pitch. And I just said like, how does it work? Like, how do you know? And their answer was like, How did you not like, they just don't get it. It's just like in the just understand it like so deeply. And what we've figured out, it was a good comparison was like like this. Like I can look at this and say that's blue, right? Most people will probably look at that and say that's blue. It just is, there's no like anything about it. It's, it's blue. And to someone with perfect pitch, it works the same. They hear a note and say, Well, that's just, that's B. That's just what it is. So it's just really, it's a memory thing, right? Like they heard the pitch at 1 and they memorized the exact pitch and put a name on it, and they never forgot it. Most of us can't do that. So like I said, you don't need perfect pitch. In fact, there are some cases where having perfect pitch makes you less good at the dictation stuff that we're going to do. Not always, but sometimes. Because sometimes we might say, okay, I'm going to play something and I want you to write it down in a different key. And people with perfect pitch can really struggle with that more on that in a minute. So if you don't have perfect pitch, and if we're not going to rely on perfect pitch in this class, which were not. What are you going to use? Well, we're going to focus on something called relative pitch. Relative pitch, unlike perfect pitch, is something that you can develop with practice. So let's go to a new video and let me explain what relative pitch is. 8. What is Relative Pitch?: Okay, So here's what relative pitch means. Relative pitch means I'm gonna give you a pitch and then tell you to find another note, but you have a reference. Here's an example. I'm promising myself, I'm going to sing as little as possible in this class because you don't want to hear me sing. But just as an example, I have my little in beer here. So here's a C. Okay, so there's a C. Now my job is to sing D, okay? So here's a C, Here's the size, right? So given a reference tone, find another tone that's relative pitch. So you can always find a PECC relative to another pitch. So in these dictation tests, relative pitches usually assumed. So that means that, um, you know, if you were taking a dictation exam, the person giving the exam might say, Okay, here's a C. And I'm going to play a C on the piano. And I can say, okay, now write down this melody and they're going to play a melody. You always have that C is a reference. You know that note is C. So now you just have to find the other nodes and relate them back to see if you hear a B flat, you're going to think, Okay, that sounds like a seventh above that C, so that's going to be a B flat. If you hear a note that sounds like a fifth above that C, you can say like, oh, that sounds like a fifth above that. See that's a G. So we're always relating back to the reference pitch. Okay? Relative, that's relative pitch. And it is something that you can develop with practice. You probably can already do it a little bit, but with practice, you can get pretty good at it. So that is the skill that we focus on in this class, not perfect pitch. If you have perfect pitch, Good Anya, go to a different class because this one's going to be useless to you. We're focusing relative pitch. 9. Something Strange Called "True Pitch": Now there is a third kind of pitch memory, I guess we'll call it. And that is, it's this thing where some people develop perfect pitch on a single instrument. Okay? There's not a great term for this, but some people call it true pitch. So I have true pitch, which means that if somebody plays a note on a guitar and no reference pitch, but it has to be played on a guitar. I can tell you what note that was. This is a bit of an illusion. It's not, it's not perfect pitch. First of all, it's not if you have perfect better, doesn't matter what instrument It's played on, whether it's playing on a Kazoo or a piano or a didgeridoo, you will be able to identify the pitch instantly. So this thing of this true pitch kind of idea is not perfect pitch. What it is is it has more to do with timbre than anything. Timber is like the sound of the instrument. So if somebody plays a note on the fifth string, on the fifth fret, I can identify that because I know the timbre of the sound of that note. That's what I have memorized more so than the pitch. If they strum a chord, I can hear what nodes are open strings and what nodes are not open strings. And that can pretty much tell me right away what cord they strummed. That comes with just practicing your instrument like a lot. A good way to test if you have this is other than just like play it on a different instrument, is retune, the thing. When a guitar is retuned, my sense of pitch goes all wonky. Like a lot of the time, guitar players tune their entire guitar down a half-step. And so if someone's drums, like an E major open chord, I'm going to say that's an E major open chord because I recognize it. But if there are tuned down, it's still an E-flat, but it's going to sound like an E major to me anyway. Anyway, don't get bogged down in that. I just want to point this out because a lot of people start to think that they have perfect pitch because they can hear a note on their instrument and the instrument that they practice really hard and identify it instantly. But it's a bit of an illusion. You don't have perfect pitch Unless you can categorically do it on any instrument. But having this skill, this true pitch skill, is still pretty darn handy. So if you can do it, you should do it. And in fact, there is a way to use it in these kind of dictation ideas, like when I hear a melody played on piano, what I might do is imagined myself playing it on the guitar. And then I just have to look where my fingers are in my brain. And I imagine where those fingers are. And then write that down. There is a way to do that. Just kind of visualize myself playing it and then finding it, but it's tricky. So I mentioned this only because people ask me about this all the time. They're like I have perfect pitch on the guitar, especially. But not on any other instrument. You don't have perfect pitch. That's not perfect edge. That is maybe what we call true pitch, but it's very different. Still a great skill to have so good on you for practicing a lot and developing that. And we'll try to find a way to use that indication. But what we're really going after here, relative pitch. 10. How to Know If You Are Right: So here's the hardest part about doing this as an online class. And that is, how do you know when you're right? Because this is really important. Let me give you an example. Let's say you are practicing. And let's say we're just practicing rhythms, right? The first big chunk of stuff we're gonna do is, is just rhythms. So you, are, you here a rhythm? And you write it down and you're like, Sweet, I did it. How do you know that you did it? How do you know that you're right? So this is something I've really had to struggle with and figure out a way where I could confidently teach this class in an online setting without looking over your work hearing the same thing you did and looking at it and saying Yes, you're right or no, you're not right. And more importantly, when you're not right, where did you go wrong? Right? That's going to be the trickiest part of this. You need to be sure that when you're right, you're right. And when you're not right, you kind of configure out where you went wrong, okay? This is where we're really at a disadvantage by not having another human teacher in this class. So in these next couple of videos, I'm going to go over ways that I've thought of to make sure that you're right when you're right. Okay, There's a couple of pieces of technology we can use. And then in the next section we'll talk about ways you can practice. So we've got kind of a lot of busy work before we get into the actual meat and potatoes of the class. But all of this stuff is really important because you really have to know when you're getting it right and when you're not. 11. Just Rhythms - For Now.: Okay, So a little update. I finished filming the class. Now I'm jumping back to clarify something here. These tools that we're about to go into. And when we go into the how to practice thing, what I'm talking about here is everything that's going to be covered in this class. What I've decided to do is cut this into multiple classes because I spent a lot, I want to spend a lot of time on each element and give you tons of things to practice. There's a limit to how many videos I can put in a class. So in this first class, we're just going to focus on rhythms. So the stuff about pitch, you don't, and especially the tools we're gonna go into, you don't necessarily need, but you will need that in the future. So I wanted to leave it in. But in this first class we're just going to focus on rhythms. So just keep that in mind as we get through these next couple of videos where I'm talking about how to make sure that your pitch is correct. Just rhythms in this class. 12. Using a Tuner for Pitch Detection: Okay, The first way that I want to talk about is just using a tuner. Okay, so you might have a tuner laying around for your guitar or whatever instrument you happen to have. There are a number of software ones. The one I have here is just an app that's built into my phone. It's actually really accurate. This particular app is called detune like D apostrophe tune. It's made by Dia Dario who makes strings. And it's just telling you what pitches playing. So this isn't super great for melodies because pitches are going by kind of too fast for it really to latch onto. But it's good for single notes. So it's a starting point to tell you what pitch is actually happening, right? So if you're going to use a tuner, be sure it's a chromatic tuner. So on this one, if I go into settings, oops, got settings, tunings on this particular app. Make sure it's set to chromatic, okay, this one has a guitar stuff and all kinds of weird stuff. Okay, so now it's going to show me every note that's happening. So if I go back to my cool little Amira, play a note. Let me play it close to my phone here. And it says that's a seep. Its a bit sharp, but that's okay. Let's play another note. That's a B. It's quite sharp. But that's the nature of a. Embarrassed. So that'll tell you individual pitches. If you need to. It's handy to have just to test pitches that you're using. So keep one of these handy. Can be an app. It can be a piece of software on your laptop, or you can get just a little physical handheld tuners. They're really not very expensive. Maybe I don't know, 25 bucks or so. And it looks just like this one on the screen. So it's got a little thing. It may or may not tell you the chromatic pitch though. So make sure that you're getting a chromatic one that tells you any pitch that's happening. It's not required. Have one of these to get through this class, but they are handy to have just for identifying single notes here in there. Another way you can use it as if you do something like, I know, I said, we were going to avoid singing in this class. But if you're hearing a melody and there's one particular note you can't find. Try to latch on to that note and say, and then sing that note because then you can sustain it and then you can check against your tuner. So if you're hearing a melody that's like dadadadada, then go to that top note. What note is that? Dadadadada, dadadada, the, the, the, It's a bit. So you can learn to pick apart melodies like that and find individual notes. If you have a tuner handy. So good thing to have, not required, but handy. 13. Using Software Like MuseScore: If you've taken my other music theory classes, you know that I'm a fan of MuseScore. This is an application that is a full notation program and this can be a really helpful tool for ear training. What we can do is we can get full little melodies here and we can play them, right? And then we can try to write them down. The trick would be play them. Don't look at the screen and try to write them down. Now, what's handy about this is that there is a, a website, the MuseScore website has like millions of files that you can download so you could download them, not look and write them down. And then when you're done, look and confirm that you got it right. Now before you go off and download MuseScore, there's like a super confusing thing about this and I kind of drives me nuts that they did this. But there is a desktop version of MuseScore. That's what I'm using here. And there's a tablet version of MuseScore for like iPads and other tablets. The desktop one lets you make stuff and it's free. The iPad one is not free, costs a couple bucks and it doesn't let you make stuff. It's just a player. So for Music Theory, I was saying get the desktop one if you can. But that little player app will work just fine. Because we might not need to make melodies. What we really wanna do is find things other people have made and then just play them. So we tell MuseScore play it, we don't look, we write it down and eventually we look. And so these tools can be really handy. I think later on in the class I'm going to give you some MuseScore files. I'm going to give you like a ton of things to practice at the end of this class. So don't worry too much about that. But getting access to all those MuseScore files that are online will give you kind of an unlimited amount of stuff to practice. I think you need like a pro account or something like that now to download stuff from MuseScore, which is another thing that they changed recently, which kind of sucks. But if you want access to all those things and be able to practice with them, That's a good one. There are other, some other apps for tablets that are, I think better than the tablet version of MuseScore. So if you're on a desktop, MuseScore, awesome. Okay. If you're on a tablet, I might recommend some other things. Let's go to a new video and let me tell you about some of the tablet applications that I recommend. 14. Using a Phone or Tablet Computer: Ok, There are a lot of iPad and other tablet apps available for music notation that'll help you. I think the best one I found is this one called notion. This lets you do full composition in the tablet. I really like it. But there are more actually. There's a whole bunch of apps that are just like readers, which can be just fine for our purposes here, I haven't used this app, but these are ones that, you know, just play music. And if we go down to here, can see a whole bunch more. I write music Sc score creator, probably not that one, Maybe. I don't know what that is. There's MuseScore, some other ones. Piano plus sheet music. These are probably all good ones. The thing to look for in any of these is we want access to a bunch of music. So if I click on this, it looks like this is letting us right stuff, kind of a weird interface. But we want something with a database of music that we can play with. Notate me now. Let's kinda neat. I very good reviews. So look around on these and see if you can find one that comes with a database full of music. That's going to be the easiest thing to use to practice. 15. Using a Metronome: One last tool that will be handy to have is a metronome. When we start working on rhythms, you're going to want to be thinking in terms of a metronome and having an actual metronome can help you. A metronome is just something that keeps the beat. It just kinda helps you emphasize where the downbeats are. So this is a metronome that I use. This is kind of a fancy one. You don't need one this fancy, but basically, what it does is I hit Start and it plays the tempo. I can adjust the tempo and slow it down. So I use this to practice when I'm playing something so I can learn to play it slow. I turned to my metronome up a little bit, learned to play a little bit faster, et cetera. The way this will help us is when you're trying to figure out a rhythm, you're going to want to hear, especially what notes fall right on the beat and what nodes fall in between the beats. So anytime there's a tick that's on the beat, we can actually emphasize the downbeat. Now we have a downbeat, right? Because we're in 44. So there's going to be every four is going to be one of those. This particular metronome. You can change the meter. You can do all kinds of weird stuff. You can even do my favorite thing, which is to change it to a person kinda yelling at you. What, what, what. And then you can add eighth notes, 16th. And there's eighth notes, or 16th notes up. 64th notes and triplets. I can crank it up. Oops. Anyways things a lot of fun on its own. Anyway. So having one of those would be handy. You can get these. You don't have to go out and buy a box like this. You can get cheap little ones that are like the size of a credit card. You can get an app on your phone or your desktop, and those will all work. Just been. So having a metronome might be kinda handy for you. 16. A Melody A Day Keeps You On Track: Okay, how to practice? I've already told you that this is something that takes a lot of practice. In this section, I want to go over a couple of tips for practicing. First, remember that what I said earlier in what everybody always says when they talk about your training, the ear is a muscle. And that's true, but really, we're talking about our brain here. If you can hear frequencies, That's great. Everyone can hear, well, most people can hear frequencies, but the real trick is to process that those frequencies turn them into a pitch, relate them to other pitches, and write them down. So the majority of this goes into our brain. So it takes practice. The first thing I want to give you as a way to practice is just to try to get in the habit of, well, you're learning how to do this. A melody a day. A melody a day is going to be the best thing to keep the doctor away. No, Not keeps the doctor away, but to work on this skill. After you're done with this class. If you have a book of melodies that you can pull from anything, any tune that you don't already know, that's going to be the best one for you. Although starting with things that you do know is also helpful, we'll talk about some ways to reference things you already do know once we get into working on identifying melodies, but just one short melody every day will be a great way for you to work on this. You'll find that it might take you an hour to figure out and write down a melody accurately. Then the next day, it might take you slightly less than an hour. And after you do that for awhile, eventually, you'll get pretty fast at it. But it's tricky, right? It takes time, it takes practice. So I would recommend getting a book of melodies. I'll talk about that in just a minute and working through one a day in the morning, hash your way through one, try to write it down, see if you're right and figure out where you went wrong and go from there. And remember, are really crucial thing here is knowing that you're right and knowing where you went wrong. Ok, So at the end of this class, you'll be able to do this, I think pretty well, but you should be able to look at what you wrote down for a melody. And then look at what the melody actually is. And then say, Okay, I went, I thought that was a major third, so I wrote a major third there, but it was a minor third. Okay, so perhaps I should practice identifying major and minor thirds melodic intervals, right? So just figure out a system where you can really figure out how to identify that you're right or wrong. Let's talk about finding things to practice, like books and things like that. 17. Finding Things to Practice: Okay. You can find books if you want that are just big, huge lists of kind of random melodies. Have one here. This is not a book I used in school. Actually can't find the book I used in school for some reason, but this is something I found like in an estate sale at some point. But supplementary site singing exercises, just a bunch of melodies. Just notes, notes, notes on notes. So what I can do with this is I can jump into any single measure or multiple measures and just have those played for me so somebody play them. And then I try to write them down. Or you could plug them into music. You could plug a bunch of them in the MuseScore and then try to kind of forget what they were. And then a couple days later, play them one at a time. But you don't have to get a book like that. You can find books of like Melody books like that on Amazon or whatever. But also like this is a handy one. This is just some violence solos. Um, I was just kinda flipping through sheet music. I had notes. It's all we really need. You don't want anything too complicated. And he didn't want anything, you know, very well, right? You don't want Mary Had a Little Lamb because you could probably write that down from memory after, relatively easily, after you learn some techniques. So just any book of notes. Other things. I'm going to give you a bunch of stuff to practice in this class. And you can practice them more than once. Not everything has to be completely new to you so long as you don't memorize the answer. So of the practice things that I give you, you know, do them all and then when you're done, go back to the beginning. Do them all again for more practice. It's just when you find yourself like remembering how to write something down when you hear it. Because you know that melody. That's when that one is it useful anymore? So I'll give you a bunch of those MuseScore files. You can find millions of MuseScore files all over the internet. Download some, pick a couple bars, hit Play, write it down, just try not to look at the screen. I'm also planning to, I can't say for sure that these will exist, but I'm planning to release in the future if this class has a lot of students in it, I'll release kind of updates of practice packs. Like another like 20 videos each has three melodies in it or something like that. And just kind of add on to this later. So keep an eye out for that. Hopefully there will be more coming soon. Okay, next thing, kinda last thing in this kind of practice thing, there's one kind of little game that I used to play to practice this kind of stuff. And it's really fun. So let me walk you through what that is and maybe you'll decide you want to do it. 18. My Favorite Practice Game: Okay, So this little game takes two people. That's the trick, but the other person that you get to help you with this does not need to know anything about music. They don't need to know anything about anything. Okay, so here's what you do. You can sit down at a piano. You can sit down on any, well, piano was the easiest any instrument that the other person plays. But if they don't play any instruments, sit them in front of a piano or a keyboard or anything. I'm going to use Ableton here, but I just have a piano queued up. So you can use software, you can use whatever you want. So what you do is you teach your friend where C is, just say this, this button right here, that is a C. Okay? So then you say, okay, play a C, and then play any other white key on the keyboard. So there's there C. And then they're going to play another note. That note. Okay. And then your job is to not look at their fingers and identify that second note. So you're going to think about it. You're going to think, you can say play it again, play both notes again. You can say, Okay, that sounds to me like a major third. So then that second node has to be an E. And then look down at the keyboard, say which note did you play? They'll say that one. And you say that's an E. I was right. And they say, okay, play a C again, play any other node, and then they play that note. And you say, Okay, that sounds like, you know, go through the process again, figure out what that other notice. Then when you get more advanced with that, tell them to maybe play two notes. So play C and then by two other notes one at a time. Okay, now you've got to figure out what those two notes were. So you'll think through, you'll use the skills that you learn in this class and you'll figure out what those other two nodes are. They are F and D by the way. Then once you get good at that, tell them, okay, now you can use black notes also. So any note. So then you get they play a C, Then they play. And now you're in a chromatic stuff and that's like pretty advanced. But you can get good at that and you get at it. So this is just a fun little game you can play with. Someone helps you identify intervals, figure out notes. It's not full dictation of melodies, but this particular skill will be a huge step forward if you can get good at it. So it's a great way to practice is also a fun little party trick. If you have really nerdy friends like I do. And you want to play a little fun little party game. You can do that. Cool. Okay, Let's talk a little bit about notation and then we're getting into it. 19. Review Notation!: Okay, quick word about notation. And like I said earlier, I'm assuming you've been through some of my music theory classes or some music theory classes in general. Things that you may want to brush up on, or at least be sure that you are comfortable with. First, the treble clef staff. That's where we're going to be focusing most of our time. We might get into bass clef and we might get into a grand staff. But most of the time in this class, we're going to be focusing on our treble clef staff. Be sure you're comfortable with time signatures for 4346898, maybe some of the odd ones, 7858, the piano, the piano keyboard. You don't have to be able to play the piano, but you do have to be able to find a note on the piano, if I say, whereas the B-flat on piano, you should be able to find that. That'll be a useful skill for you to have to get through this material. Also, rhythm notation. This stuff up here. Whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, 16th notes probably won't get any smaller than that. But probably triplets, okay, So eighth note triplets probably be about as fast as we get in this class. And also rests of the same value. So eighth notes rest, quarter note rests, whole note, half note rest, 16th note rest. Flattened sharps. Of course, although mostly what we're going to be doing for the, for this class is going to be diatonic, meaning we're going to be in keys. So it's not going to be completely chromatic. That is a skill that you should have, but that's pretty advanced. So we're going to be focusing on being in keys. So you will need flatten sharps. But because of the way that we focus on relative pitch, the key doesn't matter so much. Like if I said, here's a C, find an E. If I said, you know, here's a F-sharp, find an, a sharp. You're looking for a major 30 their way. So that actually doesn't matter too much. But be familiar with those symbols. Probably no double flats or sharps or anything goofy like that in this class. But I think that's it. So just be sure you're at least that much comfortable with notation. Yeah. Okay, So let's dive in to rhythms. So this first chunk, we're gonna focus on rhythms, identifying and writing down rhythms. 20. Writing It Down: Okay, So let's dive in. And I think the way I want to start is let's just do one. Okay, so we're going to focus just on rhythms for a little bit, okay, so don't worry about pitch. In fact, all the things I'm going to play then I'm going to ask you to write down are going to be just a single note and don't even worry about what note it is. We don't care. We're just gonna focus on the rhythm. So how to approach this? What I want to do is we're going to, we're going to do one as though it's a little quiz. And then I'll walk you through what I listen for and how I do it and give you some techniques. But just to get started, what I really like to do, and now you can do this however you want. But I think it's really beneficial to write these down by hand and not really in a notation program. Can, if you want. But for me, I like using pencil and a staff paper because I can write really fast. I can scribble on the edges. I can make little notes for myself and say, oh, this was here, this was here. I can do stuff like that. So get some staff paper. You can download a PDF of staff paper anywhere and and get a pencil. Okay, Now I'll I'll walk you through my process in a, in a minute. But the way that this works is, and this is true of every ear training exam I've ever taken. You are going to be told a couple of things before it gets played. You're going to be told the clef, which doesn't really matter to us right now because we're just focusing on rhythms. The meter, probably you might have to figure out the meter on your own, but at least for now, I'm going to tell you what the meter is. And this is critical. How many measures? Okay? That's important because it lets you set up the page, okay, So it tells you what to expect and what kind of rhythms we're looking at. K. So I'm going to tell you right now the only rhythms we're going to use here are quarter notes and half notes. Now if you're thinking that sounds super easy, I'm just going to skip ahead a couple of videos. I would encourage you to, not because we're going to learn some techniques here that you're going to want to use going forward as we get more advanced. So just bear with me. If this is super easy for you, then that's awesome. But just stick with me, Just trust me. Okay, so let's go to a new video and let's do a little practice quiz. So get some staff paper and a pencil. And let's try it. 21. Your First Dictation Quiz: Okay, let's do this practice quiz. So just do your best. Do whatever you can. Remember. It's just going to be quarter notes and half notes. Don't worry about being right. If you have no idea and just decide to write nothing down, that's fine too. I just kinda want to have us dive in. And then after this, I'm going to do it and I'll walk you through what I listen for each time, so, okay, so treble clef doesn't really matter of four for four measures. Okay? Now, I would also count you off, okay, so I'm going to give you the tempo to listen for. I'm gonna play this in MuseScore actually. So I have it set up to play a metronome for one bar and then it starts. Okay, so you're going to hear click, click, click, click, and then it starts. Okay? And in fact, I think I'll leave the metronome playing through the whole thing for this first one. Okay? Normally you don't get that, but let's just do that. So you're gonna hear the metronome for one bar, and then it's going to start. You'll hear one note on a piano. And your job is to write down the rhythm that you hear. Okay, so I have MuseScore up here, so it's playing for us. We're going to blackout the screen so you can't see MuseScore. And here we are. Okay. Oh, I should also imagine, normally get three times through listening to this ket three times. So here we got a tip number one. Okay, that's the end. So think about it. I'll give you just a minute here. Okay, Let's hear it a second time. Same thing, one bar of just the metronome and then the rhythm. Here we go. Okay? So think about it. Make any notes you need to make, write down as much as you can and we'll get it a third time. Okay, here we go. Third dam. Okay. Think through it, try to get as much as you can and when you're ready, go on to the next video. 22. Attempt No. 1: Okay. So I'm still not going to let you see the answer. I'm going to go through it and do it myself and walk you through what I would do. Okay, so here's what I would do. So the teacher says, it is treble clef for, for four bars. First thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go here and write a treble clef and write for four. And then I'm going to segment out four bars. Okay? Now I'm all set up. So that as I listened, I can kind of just like Mark things along and I know that it ends here. Okay, That's important. Writing out those bars. Just making some space is crucial. Do that step 1, just mark out four bars. Okay, next thing. I'm going to listen for, what lines up on the downbeats. Okay? So we're going to play it. We hear one bar of just the quarter note. And then I'm going to listen for what bars have a downbeat k. So here we go. Okay, so now I know I heard downbeats in these spots, right? To just read a stem as I'm going so that I'm not worried about filling in the notes or anything right now. Okay. Now the second time through, I'm gonna see if I can get all the nodes that land down a beat. Okay, so let's just try it. So this is going to be basically all a quarter notes. Oops, Here we are. Okay. Do you see what I did there? I wrote quarter notes throughout that. Here. I wrote a quarter note and then I said, there's not a quarter note there. So the absence of a note is important because that means this is probably a half note. And I wrote an x here, meaning there was no note there. So that means this is probably a half note. Then I have ticks on all three of these. And then an x there, which means that it's probably a half note. And then two notes there. So that means I've got some x's and some squigglies here, so I could just rewrite it. 234. I'm just recapping what I have above there. But I'm going to use cleaner notation. So this I think, is my answer. Now, if I needed to hear it a third time, what I would really do is focus in on these spots. Where is there not a note? So I just squiggle out those spots. Say like Okay, there's not a note there. That kind of means everything has to be right on. Okay. So let's go in and see how we did. 23. Answers: Okay, and obviously I should mention that if you're using a pencil, you can just erase these and write those correctly. I'm using a pencil that shows up better on the camera. So I just rewrote it. Okay, So this is my answer and let's look at the screen now and see how we did. Four quarter notes, 2.5 notes, four quarter notes, half-note, coordinate. Not bad. Obviously, I knew the answer because I wrote that thing and MuseScore, but let's go through that one more time steps I would take. First mark down where there's a downbeat. Okay? Second, mark down all the on beat notes that you hear. Notes that are on the beat, okay, Any beat. And sooner or later you're going to get to where you can do those two steps in one move. Okay, that's a practice thing. Then on the third time through, look for where there's not a note. Okay. So these spots right here, here and here, and here, there's not a note there. Make a note of that. It's a lot of uses of that word note. So that you know, your notation has to line up to where there are no notes there. Okay. And how do we know there's not a rest there instead of the notes? Because I told you it's opening quarter notes and half notes. You don't really know that in this kind of a sound. So either one would probably be considered correct. Okay. So if you did good on that, great. If you didn't do good on that, That's totally fine. We're going to keep working on this. I'm going to give you some more techniques. Get. So all of those things that I just walked you through, as you practice this, you're going to try to get good at Smashing those down and doing those in one step. Okay. Let's do another one. 24. Attempt No. 2: Okay, Let's do another one. Now. Before you do this one, remember those techniques I told you right away, write out the number of measures. Think about the time signature. Remember, we're only going to be working with half notes and quarter notes. And strategize what you're gonna focus in on, on each pass. Okay, you're gonna get three passes. First time, listen for the downbeats. Make sure that if there's a note on the downbeat of the measure, you have a note there. If there's not, put an x or something. Second time, try to get all the notes that line up on a beat, which because these are only half notes and quarter notes, you know that if there is a note, it has to be on a beat. So with that, you could also think at the same time, whereas they're not a note, okay? And that might be enough information for you to get it. You use the third time to double-check your work. Okay? So listen for downbeats. Listen for all the other beats. Listen for where is there not a note? And if you have a time leftover, double-check your work. You're ready. Here we go. 25. Listening: Alright, treble clef for, for four bars. Okay? You know what to do. Now I'm going to black out the screen so you can't see it. Same as before. You'll get one bar of accounting and to give you the tempo. And then we'll leave the metronome playing through the piece more here it three times. Okay. Here we go. First hearing. Okay. So think about those downbeats. And whatever else you can think about in this first path. Down beads and missing notes, right, where they're not notes. Okay. Pause the video if you have to. You can take some time here if you want. I'm going to go onto the second lessening. Here we go. Number two. Attempt to you. Again. Pause the video if you want to take as much time as you need, and then press play again when you're ready. Okay, I'm going to go on to the third lesson. Okay. Let's go to a new video and see how you did. 26. My Attempt and The Answer: Okay, I'll do it again the way that I would do it. And just to kinda walk you through the way I would think, well, I'm doing it and then we'll get the answer at the end. So I'm told, treble clef 444 bars. Okay, so here we get. So all I really wrote that time was slashes and x's. So I wrote a slash When I heard a note and an x when I didn't hear a note. Okay. Slash slash slash slash slash, slash slash slash, X slash, X slash slash. Okay, so that tells me if I rewrite it on a new one, that it's probably this. So that x means no note. There's someone write a half note instead. Half-note their half-note there because that's an x. So that one. Okay, and if we look at the screen, the half quarter, quarter, half quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, half, half, quarter, quarter. 27. Adding Whole Notes: Okay, so we're going to add in whole notes is time k. So remember a whole note takes up a whole bar. So if we're told that it's, it's four bars, then if there's a whole note in there, all we have to look for is, you know, three Xs in a row, right? Because you're going to write a note and then XXX, three axes means that OneNote took up the whole bar. Okay? There's no rests. We're not going to use rests. So all the bars have to be filled with a rhythmic value. So if you hear a bar where there's, where there's nothing happening, it has to be a whole note has happened. Okay. Let's try it. And for now. I'll just add that for now. We're not going to use any ties or anything weird like that. K we're going with fairly simple rhythms. Later we will use ties and things, but for now, Your there are no tide notes together. 28. Practice: Okay, here we go. So quarter notes, half notes and whole notes. Okay? Treble clef for 45 measures this time. Okay? Five measures. Blackout screen. One bar of just counting. And then we're often running. Okay, here we go. Okay, pause the video if you need more time. I'm going to go into our second listening now. I think a little extra about that last measure. Remember that you have to fill that last measure. Here's your third listening. 29. Answers: Okay, I don't know how useful these seeing me do it things are, but I'm gonna do it a few more times so that you can see what I would do. Maybe that's useful, maybe it's not. But let's try it. Okay, so I'm gonna go through it. I'm going to try to get it on one time and I'm just going to write slashes in X's. Actually, hold on. I got a little ahead of myself. I need five bars, 1234, 5 cap. So now I have clef time, five bars mapped out. Here we go. I got to the live on that one. Actually I kind of got lost. So what I think it is 1234 bar. And then here I got screwed up because I thought that was a whole note because I was kind of remembering putting it in, but it wasn't. So what I think I heard was a note and then not a note and then a note to notes because I wrote a slash and an x and then I wrote an x and then I said no, that's a note. So I kinda did that. So two notes here. I heard a whole note because I had four axes. Then I heard a half-note, two quarter notes. And then here I just wrote a slash and then a line meaning like there was nothing else in that measure. So that's gotta be a whole note. Okay? So looking at the correct answer, four quarter notes, half quarter, quarter, whole, half, quarter, quarter. All right, so that is the answer. Bars like this tend to trip people up. Watch out for that because you might hear a note and then say, okay, that's the end and just read a quarter note thinking that it's the end. But remember, if they told you it's five bars, this bar has to be full. So that means this has to be a whole note. Okay? Listen for that bar to complete. If they don't stop until after this bar, then it has to be full. And if they told you with five bars and has to be full. So that's important. Yeah, I think that's it. Okay. So go through all three of these again, practice them. If you are having trouble getting this, This is hard stuff. It takes some getting used to, but once you get really comfortable with these symbols, you'll start to understand them, Okay, and use them to write down what you're hearing. But like I've said like a 100 times already in this class, it takes a lot of practice. We're going to make it a lot harder now. We're going to go ahead and add eighth notes. Okay, let's move on to that. 30. Adding 8th Notes: Okay, let's add eighth notes. So we know that these are quarter notes, right? And if you remember, eighth notes are chopping and quarter note and a half, so like that. Okay, so we can still use what we've learned before. We're going to listen for where there are downbeats. And when you hear an eighth note, you're going to hear a note not on a beat, right? You're going to hear one on a beat and then not ought to be in this case. Okay, So let's just listen really quick. All right. So that bump, bump, bump. You'll definitely hear one here. You'll hear one not on a beat in-between two beats, right? That's what we're looking for in between a, b. So you can still use the same technique. Write down where there's a note. Put an X where there's not a note, meaning a whole note or a half-note. So in this case, you would write a note here and x here, and then a note here and a note here. And then what I like to do is like some kind of tech for right here. So I would say I heard a note, this spot, x, that spot, note, note. And then your brain is going to be thinking of the next note. But if you heard something before that next note, just make a little tick up here that says eighth note. The reason I use these symbols of like an X and a tick is just a fast way to write something down. Okay? So whatever symbol you want works. If you want to write out all eighth note, you can do that. But I'm trying to think really fast here. And so I just have these little symbols that I've used. X means no note and a tick up means a note in-between two beats, most likely an eighth note. In the future. Once we get into more complicated rhythms, that might mean something else, but this is just the method that I use and it seems to work. Okay, so we're going to add eighth notes into this. There's another little trick I'm going to do in this next one, but I think we should do one with eighth notes. And then I'll show you one additional thing you can listen for in all of these that we haven't talked about yet. So let's do one and then we'll talk about that. 31. 8th Note Practice: Okay, let's do it. So in this one we're going to have four for four measures. And we're going to use quarter notes, half notes, and eighth notes, okay? No whole notes in this one. Quarter notes, half notes in eighth notes, four bars for, for treble clef. Although it doesn't really matter the cleft because we're only listening for rhythms. Okay, so I'm going to darken out the screen and then go back here. You will hear the metronome. So one-bar count off with the metronome, and then I'll leave the metronome playing through the whole example. Okay, So here we go. Attempt number one. Pause the video if you'd like to, you, if you want to think about it for a minute. Assuming you're ready, I'm gonna do attempt number two. Okay. Pause the video. If you need time to think. And assuming you're ready to do it, I'm number three. Okay. When you're satisfied with your answer, go onto the next video. 32. Looking for Patterns: Okay, So there's kind of a trick to this one, and you'll find this in a lot of these. So I'm just gonna try at once. So you can see my little x's in tics method. Okay, So here we go. Oops, guest artists beginning. Okay, so let me rewrite this. So I heard three nodes and then an eighth note. So to finish out that bar, I'm going to write that because that is telling me that there was an eighth note there. Here I have a note and an x. Here. I have a note and a note and eighth note. And I have four and an eighth note. So back here, I should have had another one here and this, but I just didn't write it down because I'm going fast. Here. I have an OH and an x and then a note and then an eighth note. So what I probably heard was that a second listen. What I would do is listen for is that there is, there are 2 eighth notes in a row. And same thing there. I remember that there was, so I'm gonna put that down there. Okay. Now, here's what I'm actually going to listen for my second time. What I actually wrote here was that this bar and this bar are the same and this bar and this bar are the same, right? In other words, this happens twice. Okay? So if that's true, I should be able to hear that. I'm going to listen for that pattern. Is it the same thing twice? Here we go again. Yes, it is. So one thing I could do is sometimes you can spot these patterns are not spot, but you can listen and hear these patterns right away. So if you hear a pattern and you're writing something down and you think like let's say you've got things laid out. And you've got four bars here for and you listen to it on the first time. And you say this bar is the same as that bar. This bar is same as that bar. If you hear that and you know, you're right, then what you can do is now worry about those bars. Just focus on these two bars. Because if you get them right and you know that these are the same, then you just copy this one over there. So listen for those patterns of the whole phrase can help you make the music a lot smaller. So now you just have to figure out to bars instead of four. 33. More with Patterns: Okay, I want to try something a little different. Let's focus in on that last one we did. So let's try doing a new one. But I want you to listen for the pattern, okay? See if you can find a pattern. And so on the first pass through, just try to find the pattern. I'm telling you there is a pattern to this next one. Okay. And the second time through, tried to figure out the minimal amount of things you need to figure out to get that pattern. Okay. And the third time through, confirm that you got it. I'm good. First-time, find the pattern second time. Write it down. Eighth notes and quarter notes because there's going to be 8 thousand quarter notes only. Third time confirming. Right. Okay. Here we go. Okay. Pause the video if you need. Let's go onto a second listening. Okay. Let's go on to a third listening. Okay. When you're ready, go on to the next video. 34. Repeating Patterns: Okay, So this technique of looking for patterns is going to be good for you. Even when we get into really complicated stuff because you might even get used to doing it on like a beat by beat level. Not so much on a measure by measure level, although it does happen a lot. But it might be that you're writing something and you just think I heard that before. That's the same as the other thing that I just heard. So you'll get used to recognizing patterns the more you practice this, and it's true with pitches to. So here's how I would write this down. Treble clef for, for four bars, 1234. Okay, here we go. First time, just go listen for a pattern. So I know I definitely heard a pattern there. So now I'm going to try to write it down. And what I'm gonna do is the pattern I recognized is it's the same bar four times. So I'm going to write it down once here. And then I'm just going to use the rest of the musical example to confirm that there's one bar is right, because all bars are the same. So I think I got it. Now. I know that these are all the same, so I can just recopy it. I got it. One more time. So always be listening for patterns. 35. Why Focus on Rhythm: So here's what we're going to do next. We're going to switch it up just a little bit. Add a new challenge, but not necessarily a new rhythm. So what I wanna do is we're gonna do a normal melody with pitch and everything. But what I want you to do is just write down the rhythm. Don't worry about the pitch, guy. So this sounds easier than I think it might be, because the pitch is going to be a distraction, right? Try to focus your ear in on some of those patterns, okay? So you're gonna need to both ignore the pitch and focused on writing down the rhythm. But the pitch can actually give you some clues. Because if you hear something in the pitch that is familiar, then it's possible. And in fact probably likely. And a melody and a simple melody like this, that the rhythm is going to be the same. Also. For example, if you hear like, Oh, let's take a melody that we know. Mary Had a Little Lamb. So Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary Had a Little Lamb. So those two bars, the first and what I think would be the third, are the same, right? The pitches the same, but the rhythm is also the same. So the pitch can actually kinda give you a clue as to if the rhythm is the same also. And we're going to build on this as we start to incorporate pitch into these examples. Okay, so for now, don't worry about writing down the pitch. Don't worry about what the pitches are or anything like that. Just write down the rhythm. Okay, so pick a pitch and he pitch you like I've been using a in my things just because it's right in the middle of staff, it's easy but doesn't matter, right? Whatever pitch you want. But write a single pitch for all the notes, even though we're going to be hearing multiple pitches. So it makes sense. Use the pitch to give you clues as to any patterns that might be happening. And also another reason I like to do this exercise is just gets us used to hearing pitch. Okay? So we're going to focus on rhythms, but there's going to be pitching at this time. Okay, let's go to a new video and try it out. 36. Practice with Pitch: All right, Here we go. So 44, treble clef, five measures. Okay, bye matters. Do we go? You're going to hear one bar of counting just like before. And then we'll leave the metronome on for the whole thing. Okay, so let's dark in the screen so you can't see the answer. And here we go. Listening number 1. Let me try that again. Listening number 1. Okay. Number two. Okay. Pause the video if you like. We'll go onto listening number three. Okay. Take time that you need and then when you're ready to talk through it, go to the next video. 37. Answers: Okay. So instead of following along with me writing this down, I thought I'd just walk you through how I would listen to this and how I would approach it. So the first thing I would try to latch onto, so here's the answer. This is what we just heard. Okay? The first thing I would latch onto these first two bars are the same rhythm. Okay? They have one note different. This last note is a different pitch, but the rhythm is the same. So you can hear this. And now you're thinking, I just heard the same rhythm twice. Okay. Hopefully, you latched onto that. Okay. If you did, then write down the first bar, use the second bar to confirm you got the first bar right. And when I say that, what I mean is look through it and make sure that it makes sense when you hear it. The next time when you hear it during the second bar. In this third measure. What the pattern that you can hopefully find here by listening to it on the second time through at least, is that it's two beats repeated. The pitches are slightly different, but they're the same shape. The shape of the pitches means, basically this is a descending scale. We're just going bum, bum, bum, and then bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. So here's the same thing twice. Okay? So just to eighth notes and a quarter note. Twice. Now, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. You should say, I heard the same thing twice. And then the end is really kind of outlining a chord that is probably familiar to you. So this, this is very, I'm going to use some music theory here. We're going to jump into that. Even though we're not focusing on pitches, this really feels like a 51, right? It's not exactly, but it feels like it. All right. So that points us to this kind of idea of a cadence. It's ending. So we can kind of feel the pace of that as a cadence. I know that's a very abstract idea. I'm trying to put that into better words. But it's almost like it's wrapping up all of this. And it's a very typical this is what I'm trying to say. It's a very typical thing to do at the end of a melody like this. Slowdown the rhythm, and just give us something like quarter notes, bone. And then that whole note, hopefully, you recognize this as a whole note because you had an empty bar there, right? So no notes after that. Okay, So this quarter notes thing really feels like we're, we're falling down. It's the end. It's a slower rhythm, okay? And they're right on the beat. All four of these go. So there are patterns in here that you can grab onto you. Now if you don't need to use these patterns, if you just listen to it and you're like, Cool, I know these rhythms then that's great. Just do that. Um, but if you're struggling through this, starting to listen for some of these patterns, some of these familiar rhythms that you've heard before and you know what they look like. That's the way to get good at this. You might hear this and start to be able to recognize that as 2 eighth notes, quarter note twice. That's what we want to try to get to. And with a bunch of practice, that's where you can get to you with this. Go. Let's try another one. 38. Let's Try That Again!: Let's try another one of those. So same deal. There's going to be pitch to this melody. Think about patterns. Think about anything that the shape of the melody is telling you about what might be happening. But focus on just writing down the rhythm. Okay? So here we go. Four, Four, treble clef, five bars. All right, let's blur out the screen here. Metronome one beat count, one-bar count in. Off we go. Okay, pause the video if you need more time. When you're ready. Here we go. Okay, pause the video if you need more time. And when you're ready, Here is the third time through. Hey, when you're ready, go on to the next video. 39. Clues: Okay. This time, before I give you the answer, I thought let's try something a little different. I'm going to give you a clue. I'm going to give you two clues. Can then Maria listen to it one more time? Then I want you to look at what you wrote down. See if the clues I'm going to give you makes sense or see if they tell you you should change something. Okay? So the clues are, the first two bars are the same rhythm. And second clue is only the fourth bar has eighth notes. Let me say that again. The fourth bar is the only bar that has eighth notes. It has more than eight nodes in it, but it is the only one that has eighth notes. Okay? So the first two bars are the same rhythm and a fourth bar is the only one with eighth notes. Okay, let's hear it one more time and see if you can confirm that you're doing those things that I just said. Oops, let me give you the four beats of counting. Okay. Did that put you on the right track? Did you modify something? If you modified something, think about what you modified and what you might see if you can figure out where you went wrong. This is one of the really hard things about doing this where I can't see your work. But try to figure out where you my guess is that what a lot of you may have done is put an eighth note. Put 2 eighth notes, and the end of the third bar instead of on the downbeat of the fourth bar. And the reason I think some of you have done that, because it would be a little, it's a little more predictable for that to happen the way the shape of the melody was going, it just kinda felt like having 2 eighth notes at the end of the third bar would have been kinda the expected thing to do, but that's not what happened. So see if you can identify where you went wrong and what what would have helped you get it right? My guess would be listening through it one time and really focusing on where the downbeats are of each measure. And then making sure that your notes are lined up. You may have had all the right rhythms, but they were off by a beat or something like that because of that third bar. Just to guess that what you might have done, I have no idea what you did, but let's us do it one more time. Then we'll go into the Enter. Okay, When you're ready for the answer, go onto the next video. 40. Answers: Okay, So here's what we heard. Let's just listen to it while looking at it and see how we did. Okay. So this is the spot I was talking about. So it might have thrown you off to land on this spot on B2 because this almost this feels like it should be a downbeat, but it's not right. So that's why I thought some of you may have put these 2 eighth notes here so that this felt like a downbeat or because this feels like a downbeat, but it's not. So what you really need to do is count your way through this and really think this is a downbeat. This is a downbeat. This is a downbeat. And then this is the downbeat. And then we have leading up to the last downbeat. Okay, first two bars were the same rhythm. Fourth bar is the only one with eighth notes, and then we have the whole note at the end. Okay, so see how you did really try hard to figure out where you went wrong, if you got something wrong and what the solution might be to fix it. Usually focusing on the downbeat, maybe focusing on beat three of each measure on one pass through that can help also. Just to make sure that your beat three is line up because it's halfway through the bar. That can be a good kind of anchor point also. Okay. I'm going to leave you at the end of this class with a bunch of things to practice. So for now, I want to move on to some more complicated rhythms. And then we'll get two and then I'll have a bunch of practice stuff at the end. So let's work. Let's take a look at incorporating rests and ties to make a little more complicated rhythm. 41. Identifying Spaces: Okay, so we're gonna get a little more complicated with our rhythm now we're going to add in rests and ties. Okay? So depending on the instrument that the example is being played on, you may or may not be able to tell if it's arrest or a tie when there's a space. Because it just depends on the sustain of the instrument, right? If it's on a piano, sometimes it can be difficult to tell. Just by listening. Is that note sustaining or did it stop? Because the piano doesn't have a long sustain to it, at least not in the mid to high register, kind of doesn't lower register. But if you're hearing the example on like a clarinet, you can usually tell if it's sustaining through or if there's a rest, right? Since most of these examples in like an actual college exam are played on a piano. Often the teacher will mark whether you notated it as a rest or a tie. As correct, as long as the rhythm is cataract both ways. So we don't need to worry about it too much for now. Okay. So let's not focus on whether or not the notes sustained or not. Just focus on writing the right rhythm with a restaurant on. Here's what I mean. You can see this measure here. Let's just hear it. Okay. So here I notated it with a tie. Okay, there's, we don't hear a new attack here. But we need something there. So we either need this, so tie this note over, or we could use this. This would be the same thing. Right? So in an exam played on a piano most of the time, I would mark both of these correct? This way or this way because it's just difficult to hear exactly the difference. Okay, So if you notated it in these ones that we're going to do, if you notate them with a rest or with a tie, we're going to call them both, correct. For now. Okay. Now, I used a word just a second ago. And that was the attack. That's kind of the trick. When you're, when we're adding things like rest and ties where there's going to be beets, where there's no notes. Okay. The thing is, as you're doing your first pass through and you're just, you know, putting a squiggle or a tick. However, whatever symbols you decided to do, or an X where there's no note. You can still use an X if that works for you. But remember, like to focus your ear on the attacks. Kaye, attack means a new note. Okay, wherever there is a new note, that's where you're going to put a tick there. So use dots for notes, ticks for eighth notes, and axes for nothing's there. And then go back right away and try to use traditional convert that to traditional notation. That's my method. That's what works best for me in this kind of thing. Okay, so let's do one together. I'm going to get rid of this. And I'm going to gray out the screen here. Okay, So what we have is I'm just gonna give you one bar k and we're just gonna do this one together. So one bar, you're going to hear that one bar twice, right, in a row. Okay? So, and I'm going to tell you there is one tied note in this. Okay. So see if you can find it. Okay, see if you can notate this as normal. I'll play it for you once and then we'll just kinda talk through this one as we go. So I'm going to give you one bar of counting and then you'll hear this one bar two times. Here we go. Okay? So the way I would have notated that my first pass is I would have thought through that metronome, right? Like where's the pulse? You really want to feel that pulse. And so you heard a pulse right on B1. And there was a note there. Okay, So there's a note, right? I'm b1. Right on beat 2. We heard another pulse. We didn't hear anything in between, so we know the first one's a quarter note. On B2, we heard another note. Okay, and then we didn't hear anything until the end of beat three. So on beat three, we felt that pulse come and no note happened. So there was nothing on beat three. That's the thing that you want to try to latch onto. So that means either there was a rest on B3 or there was a tide note, however you want to notate it. But there was a note on the end of beat three. So you heard and 4, and right, so you heard a note on beat 4. So before there was definitely a note there. And there was a quick note right before it and right after it. So what you might have done, Let's put a tick on beat 1, or put a dot on B1. Put a dot on beat 2. Put an X on beat three. And then this is the way I would do it, is I would have put a dot on beat four and then I would have jumped backwards and put a tick right before it and right after it. That would show me that there was quarter note, quarter note on B2. Something probably arrest or a side note, right on beat three, and then four and as what I would get. So let me play it for you one more time and then I'll show you the answer. If you think you've got it, then here we go. I'm going to show it to you. So here it is, 1, 2. Here's the tide note, so we don't hear that one. Or you can put a rest there and four and go. Alright, let's try some. The old way we'll do one with just a single pitch in a more, go back to using multiple pitches and doing a formality. 42. Practice: All right, Here we go. So treble clef for 45 measures. Okay, here's your clues. There are three tide notes. In this whole thing. There are three type notes. There are also 3.5 notes. And I'm pointing that out because I want you to remember that. If you hear a note and then a full beat, and then another note that's not two quarter notes tied together, that's a half-note, right? You can notate that without a tie. I always try to notate something without a tie, just with half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, whole notes before using a TI. So keep that in mind. That just because you hear a beat without a note on it doesn't necessarily mean there's a tie. It could be a half-note or whole note. So there are three tide notes and 3.5 notes in this. Okay? So make sure that your notation of this matches that. And get, okay, here we are five bars, one bar leading. Here we go. Think about it. Think about any patterns you might find. Any repeating measures, anything like that. When you're ready or hear it again. Right? Now. If you have it, focus in on that last measure. I'm guessing that that might be one that's stumping a few of you. Let's hear it one more time. Make sure yeah, the last measure rate. Okay. When you're ready to check, Let's go onto the next video and we'll check our answers. 43. Answers: Okay, So here's the answer. So things you may have found first second measures were the same. They both had a tie in them or arrest. If you wanted to notate it like this, that would be fine. Like that. That's okay too. Or this way. K Then we got to the third and forth bars case. We had half-note to quarter notes and then 2.5 notes. Okay? And this last bar may have thrown you a little bit because I went one and and three. Right. So the TI was here in between the 12. So you could have also notated that like this and that would have been okay. But let's just kind of an odd rhythm sometimes, but I thought I'd throw it in there just for fun. Okay. How did you do? These are a little harder. So let's go in and do some of these with pitch, like their actual melodies. But we're still going to just focus on the rhythm. 44. Practice with Pitch: Okay, let's add pitch into this. This next one that I'm gonna give you is a little trickier. The clue I'm going to give you here is latch on as hard as you can to the beats k. So there's going to be a good number of tied notes here. So listen for when there's a note on the beat and when there's not a note on a beat, okay, I'm not just talking about downbeat here, but other beats. So you might hear the beat and then a note and then a beat. And so you know that there was not a note, the two surrounding beads. Okay. So listen for that. So there's either a rest on those or there's a tide note over. Okay, here we go. So for, for treble clef, four bars. Ready? Here we go. Hey, pause the video if you need a little extra time, and then when you're ready, we'll play it again right now. Okay. Pause the video and we'll do a third listening right now. Okay. When you're ready, move on to the next video and we'll walk through it. 45. Answers: Okay, So here's the answer. Let's walk through this bar by bar k. So this first bar, all quarter notes right on the beat. So you felt the metronome land right on those nodes. Right? So hopefully you felt those as just quarter notes. Okay, moving on to the more tricky measures. So this measure, let's just hear it. Okay, so we have 2 eighth notes, and then beat two is right here. And we didn't have a new note, a note attack on beat 2. So hopefully you caught that. Then we did have one in-between B2 and B3, and then 34. And then we had, this was probably the trickiest measure, but also kind of one of the easiest measures if you learn to spot this, because it looks like a lot of notes, but it's actually very few attacks, right? We have one. And so on the in-between beats 12, and then nothing on beat two. Not a new attack on B2, I should say. And then a new attack in-between B2 and B3. B3 is right here. And then an attack in-between beats three and beats for, and then not an attack on before and the new attack on the and of four. So in-between beats four and the next one. So really, you could, this is almost the same as this bar. It's just shifted by an eighth note, right? Because we have the same kind of quarter notes, but they're all on the offbeats. So we'd use a bunch of ties to notate that or rests. You can also notate that. Like so if you wanted, in this case, it would work to do that. Right? And then this last bar, 2.5 notes, or you could have written it as quarter note, quarter note, rest, quarter note, coordinate rest if you want it. Okay, so kind of a tricky one because of this offbeat pattern, we would call that sum. We might call that syncopation. Syncopation means we're kind of jumping around the beat a lot. This is a little bit of syncopation, not a ton, but syncopations hard to grab when you're notating rhythms can take a couple of times through really hearing it to, to get those right. Okay, let's do one more. And then we're gonna move on to something. 46. Practice with Pitch: Alright, in this one, again, same rules. Listen for those downbeats. Listen for tied notes anywhere that there isn't a downbeat. Or any beat, I should say. Whenever the metronome clicks, take note if there's a beat there, or if there's a note there or not a note there. This one's going to jump around a bit more with the melody. It's going to go up and down quite a bit, but, so try not to let that throw you off. Okay. Let's do it three times through. So for, for treble clef, five measures, five batters. Here we go. Okay, pause the video if you need to. When you're ready. We'll go onto the next one. Here we go. When you're ready. We'll go on to our third and final lesson for this one. Here we go. Okay. When you are ready, let's go onto the next video and we'll walk through it. 47. Answers: So here's the answer. So let's go about bar by bar. First bar, pretty straightforward to quarter notes to eighth notes. Okay, next bar, we get our first tie or rest. So with this one, this note might surprise you. That's what happens for me in this kind of a pattern. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm expecting this to be a quarter note and I get an eighth note. So this always kind of jumps out at me. Whenever I hear this kind of a pattern. Really sure why? Let's hear it once. So this bar, aside from this tie, is like a mirror image of this bar, right? 12 quarter notes, 12 quarter notes for eighth notes, for eighth notes, however, there is a tie in it, so it throws you off a little bit. That would be hard to just hear that they're mirror images. However, to quarter notes and two quarter notes should help orient you so that you're like on the quarter note with those. Then this third bar, we have 3 eighth notes and then this kind of big leap down to the tie, right? So this is another one where I'm kind of expecting a quarter note here. I think it's just because when we hear a big leap right here, it feels like there should be according to you, often, there's a big leap and then you stop and you get a quarter note. And you get a quarter note here. But it's on the offbeat, so it's a little jarring. So you may have stumbled on that. That's okay. It's tricky one. Okay? And then this last bar just for a second to last part is four quarter notes. Okay, and then this very last bar, fifth bar. This was just something funny I put in. But what I wanted you to hear in this is two things. One, don't forget that half nodes can be tied to or Tide from. So here we're tying to a note, half-note. Also. This can be a good clue as to what's happening. Because here, hopefully what you're hearing here when we land on this, this b is a big heavy leading tone, right? You're hearing this and you're thinking, well, that has to resolve, right? So I'm going to hold onto it for kinda stupid, long time for three whole beats. But then, you know that this isn't the end, right? You know that that's going to resolve. So when you're holding onto this and when you're in these two beats, you should still be fully alert knowing that we're almost at the end, but we have to hear that C at some point. Because it just has to resolve what's here, these two bars at once. Leading tone, whereas the resolution. There it is. Okay, So when you're in here, you can use the pitches kind of a guidepost to say this isn't over because this node has to resolve. Doesn't really tell you anything about the rhythm other than there's another note coming. This is definitely not a whole note. There's gotta be one more note somewhere. And it's true that not everything always needs to resolve. It could not resolve, but It's probably going to resolve. So it's a safe bet to be keeping an ear out for that last note. Go. Okay, I want to do a quick check-in in the next video and then we're getting at in 16th notes and get a little trickier. 48. Checking In: How We Doing? (A Little Pep Talk...): Okay, Let's take a break and let's just chat for a minute here. So how you do it? How's it going? I want to reiterate, this is hard. This is hard stuff. And it takes a lot of practice. I think I've said that 1000 times. So you are probably one of two people. There are probably a bunch of people watching this class that are getting to this point in the class and thinking to themselves. This is too easy. This is too easy. I can do this. I can write down rhythms. Let's get to the hard stuff. If you're one of those people, then hooray, good for you. You clearly have some music background and understand notation really well. And that's awesome. Stick with me though, because we're going to build, this is a slow build, right to these skills. Once we get into pitches. In the next big class, this is going to get harder, but this is all kind of foundational stuff. We're learning what to listen for and how to latch on to certain things. So just stick with me. I promise it's going to get more interesting for you. Or your a different kind of person that says, this is too hard. Like I can't I can't keep up. And I'm guessing that that's the majority of the people in this class. Yes. If you're one of those people, yes, it is hard. This is hard stuff. What I want you to do is just keep practicing. I know it feels futile. It feels like every example we Do. You think you got it and then I show you how it's notated here and you're off. That's okay. It's the muscle, right? Like our ear and our brain is a muscle and we have to practice to get them. I bet you might not notice it, but I bet you're getting closer, a little closer every time. So just keep working at it. I'm gonna give you after we do a little bit more, we're gonna do 16th notes. Then we're going to do triplets. And we're gonna talk a little bit about different meters. And then I'm going to give you a ton of practice things. Okay? So get through this class and then work through these practice things one a day, every day. Just keep working at them. Even review the ones we've already done. Okay? Even if you sort of remember them, try to write them down anyway by listening to it again. Start this class over from the beginning. Take as much time as you want. That's the joy of online education. You can go at your own pace. You're not gonna get this in a day. You're not going to master this. Takes practice, takes perseverance, takes dedication. And it makes it sound like a martial art. Maybe you're training is a martial art. Oh, I could probably write a book on that topic. But I'm not just keep practicing. I know that's terrible advice to hear because you want like a silver bullet and you want someone to say, Oh, you know, if you just do this one thing you haven't mastered, that's just not how it works. It just takes a lot of practice. So go back, go forward, take your time identity, try to identify where you're going wrong. And See if you can find things that you especially need to listen for. Okay. That was my sort of pep talk. We're going to get into a little bit harder stuff now. We're gonna go into 16th notes and then triplets, and then different meters. So off we go. 49. Adding in 16th Notes: Okay, up to 16th notes. So just, let's just refresh ourselves on what a 16th note as so we have quarter notes, one per beat, eighth notes to per beat, 16th notes for per beat. Okay? So in this measure I have written here, we're getting here 1234, E and one. So four of these equal one of these. Let's just hear it. Okay? So they're gonna go faster right? Now, our technique from before, when we just had eighth notes doesn't work as well here. Because if if you hear an eighth note, you don't want to mark off the absence of a 16th note in-between each of these two notes here and here, right? That's just going to be too much to keep track of. You could do it, I suppose, but then you would probably have to do it here too. So you'd mark, there's a note on the beat. And then like three x's for the 16th notes that would follow. That's not really a good strategy. So one thing that I've done is focus. There's kind of two ways that two tricks that I've found for identifying groups of 16th notes, okay? One is to revert back to just counting using the syllables that we use to count. We'll talk more about that in the next video. We'll do a little refresher on that. But in this video, let me focus on the second way, which is to identify four different shapes for different rhythms. Okay? When we see 16th notes, they could be in, in a few other configurations, but like 90% of the time, what you're going to hear is one of four things, okay? So if you can just spot one of these four things, then you are going to be in really good shape. We're just going to be able to write it down. It's almost like when you see the letters like C-A-T. We don't think CAT most of the time we think cat, you identify the word, not each individual letter. So with this technique, what we want to try to do is get good at identifying patterns of rhythms and not necessarily individual notes. Okay, this is gonna work better for you when notes are flying by quicker, like 16th notes. Okay, so here are those four phrases for that phrases, patterns, rhythmic patterns. They're all one beat long. Okay? First one is this 14 16th notes. Okay? Just four 16th notes in a row. Okay? The second one is this one to 16th notes, and then an eighth note. Sounds like this. So if this is the beat, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da. Okay, If we were counting it, we would count 12 E and K. It's basically the same as this one, but without that last note, can we put an eighth note there to fill out the rest of the beat? Okay, The third one is the opposite of that. 1 eighth note to 16th notes. It's the same as this, but without this note. Okay, It sounds like this. So if this is the beat, dot-dot, dot-dot, dot-dot. Okay? So two opposites. And the fourth one is, like I wrote this wrong, is where the eighth node is in-between. So 16th note, eighth note, 16th note. Okay? So what you're going to have here is this one is the same as this, but without this note. Okay? So this is going to be dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. You can identify these in big groups fairly easily if I do like, for them back to back, that data, that data, that data, the very distinctive rhythm. It's almost like a triplet because it's three nodes within the beat. But it's not a triplet because they're not spaced evenly. There's a gap in between these two. Write that down. Let's hear it from you score. More time. Oops. Okay, So these four patterns are the most likely thing to find. So when you hear 16th notes, try to spot one of these four things because it's probably what's happening on that beat. Okay? In fact, what I would do right now is write these four things down and these four rhythms down and put them on the corner of your page or whatever where you're, where you're practicing notating stuff. Okay? And then in these next examples that we here, we're going to do two more that are going to have 16th notes in them. Whenever you hear 16th notes, look at those and see which one it was, see if you can identify them. Okay. Let's hear all four of these just in a row. Okay? So practice those, get those in your head. Okay, Let's talk about counting. And then we'll go into some some practice sessions. 50. Review on Counting Syllables: So remember back to counting. We're in 44 here. So when we count, we count the number on the beat. Okay, So whenever something happens on the beat, It's going to get the number of the beat, 12341234, no matter what's happening in between. If it's on the beat, it gets the number of the beat. Okay? When we have eighth notes, we say, and for the eighth note, so this would be B3. And then we'd say, okay, well we have 16th notes. What I say, what I was taught to say, and I've seen different people do this differently, especially in different countries. So you might want to search around and search for how to count 16th notes in your local language. If you're not in the US or even the UK is probably different. Might be different. I'm not sure. Actually, someone can write in the comments the answer to that if you can. But for me, it's one E and K, one e and up one 0s and two E and three E and F. Ok? Now you'll notice that there's a little trick in there. And that's that if I go, What are this case for? For E? And that, and falls halfway right in the middle, it's the same as that end. Right. Let me explain that one more time. If this note had 16th notes, we'd have 1 16th note in-between these two. That would be the e and 1 16th note after this one, that would be the, okay. So that makes this the and, and so when we're counting eighth notes, we count three. And, and when we're counting 16th notes, we count for the, and so the end is in the same spot. Meter. Okay? So how would we count these groups? Well, this one, the first one is enough. This case it would be four because we're on beat four here, four E, and we just did that one. Here. We would count One E and there's no, Because this is an eighth note, 1, 1 E. And here we would count one. And so 1234, if this was a whole bar of these. So we leave out the e because it's not here. That's an eighth note to start. One and k here. We're going to miss out on the aunt, actually, because there's an eighth note in the middle. So this would be one, ie next week. So 1 e, So if this is the beat, that last one would be 1 e e, e e, e, right? So 1 e e, e. Cool, cool. Okay, so write these four things down. You can use counting if you want to be honest, I don't do a ton of counting when I'm doing a dictation. I might to confirm what I got, but I tried to just feel the pulse and put how many notes are in between each Paltz. And that'll usually tell me what the pattern is. But I know some people that counting out the rhythms in their head while they're writing them down is really helpful. So figure out what works best for you. Write these four down on the margins of your page, just like I said in the last video. And then as we go through these next one, this next, practice, melodies. Use just try to play the mix and match game, right? So try to identify which one of these that you hear. Cool, cool. 51. Practice: Okay, here we go, adding 16th notes. So four bars for, for treble clef. You will hear different notes, not just rhythms, but let's just focus on writing down the rhythms. I'll give you a clue here. In this, we are only going to hear a quarter notes, 16th notes, and there's 1.5 note, okay? So no eighth notes. And this start off relatively easier. This still might be tricky because we are dealing with 16th notes, quarter notes, 16th notes, and 1.5 note. Are we ready? Here we go. Okay. Lot of notes in there. When you're ready. We'll listen second time right now. Okay. Here comes the third time. Okay, when you're ready, go on to the next video. 52. Answers: Okay, This one was a bit of a roller coaster, right? We started off in his first bar with a group of four 16th notes, starting right on beat three, and then landed on a quarter note. I'm before. Same thing. In the next bar, different notes, but same rhythm. The third bar. What you might have felt Is this, the first two beats, and then the four 16th notes that you've come to expect. But it kept going. Right. So you got you ran up here and then you heard this note. You may be expected that to be a quarter note and then thought, Whoa, we're still going. So what hopefully you noticed is that yes, that little roller coaster kept going and it went all the way to the next downbeat. Okay, So then we get 123 and there's our half note. And I suppose you could have written that as a quarter note and a quarter rest if you wanted. Okay, so let's practice counting, okay, So if I was going to count this whole bar, I'll do it. So, or this whole melody, I'll do a kinda slow. I would count 1, 2, 3, and 4. 1, 2, 3, and 4. 1234123. Okay. Tricky. Okay. So of those four patterns, obviously I only use one of them. I only use the first one, which is a group of four 16th notes. And this next practice session, I'm going to use all four of them. Okay. Let's go into that. 53. Practice: Okay, In this next one, I'm going to use all four of those 16th note patterns, and I'm going to use each 11 time. Okay? So if you've written them down, you can essentially cross them off after one time through if you think you identified where they are. Okay. So you're going to hear each pattern once and not more than once, okay, so there are four different spots that have groups of 16th notes in them in this melody and only four, Okay? I think that's a big enough clue on this one, so that's all I'm going to give you. So let's do it. Here we go. Okay. Now for our second time listening, I'm going to slow it down a touch. So here it is a little bit slower. Oops, let me give you the count in. Okay. One thing I'll note here is that if you get thrown off, try to catch the next downbeat. So if you're like in the middle of B2 and something happening like I totally lost focus. That's okay. Right, But from your memory, listen for the next downbeat. Pick it up from there and try to keep going. The more you get right, the better. Okay. For our third listen, I'm going to take us back up to close to our original tempo. Okay, here we go. Okay, when you're ready, go on to the next video. 54. Answers: Okay, so let's zoom in here. So this first bar, two quarter notes, and then this pattern to 16th notes and an eighth note. And then an eighth note, they're going on to our next bar. Same pattern, except the group of 16th notes changed to this one. The little bop, bop, bop or 1 e pattern. So it sounds like this. Okay, So remember that one here, I'll count it while we listen. 1234. Okay, I know it goes by fast. So you can try to play this back in your head after you hear it. That's why we take the time in-between. Listen, so you can try to kind of piece it together from memory. K then this third bar, why is it always the third bar? That's the hardest. I don't know. Maybe it's just the way that I've been writing melodies. So we have this pattern for four 16th notes. So one E and a 2 quarter note to eighth notes, three. And, and then the last pattern that we haven't used yet, 41. So 12341. Okay, a lot of notes. It's getting trickier. And then this last 11 or one to three. Okay. I want to reiterate what I said during our listening of that last one, which is if you get thrown off, like maybe maybe this threw you off. And you're like, I don't know what's going on. Pause. Take a breath, listen for the next downbeat, and try to grab that. Okay. If I should, maybe it's worth mentioning is maybe isn't a great thing to know. But if that happened in an exam that I was grading, where you got this bar right, You got this bar right. You got the first beat, maybe of this bar, right? And then just nothing for this. And you get this bar right, you would still pass. I'd basically mark beats 2, 3, and 4 wrong. But that's still a passing grade. You don't have to be perfect to pass an exam, but we're not trying to pass exams here. We're trying to get this right, right. We want to learn how to do this good. So take that with a grain of salt. Okay, So let's move on and add in some triplets. 55. Triplet Patterns: Okay, triplet time, triple, let time, triple at time, triple that time. Music joke. So let's remember what triplets are. Triplets are a group of three notes smashed into the space of two notes. Okay? So here we have one beat and 2 eighth notes. Okay? If I wanted to make a triplet, an eighth note, triplet, I would take 3 eighth notes, smash them into the space of one beat. And that is what we get here. So let me rephrase that. This is 3 eighth notes smashed in the space of 2 eighth notes. That's what really makes it a triplet. Three smash in the space of two. So that means we play each one a little fast, right there, a little faster than eighth notes because we need to cram one more in there. Now, the good thing about triplets when you're doing dictation is that triplets tend to stick out because they're kind of going against the beat a little bit. So the, the jump out there a bit jarring so you can usually spot them right away. So what I have here is quarter note and then a group of 3 eighth note triplets than 28 ounce, not a triplet just to normal eighth notes. And then a group of 3 eighth note triplets. What I want you to kind of hear in this example is the difference between the three triplets and the 2 eighth notes. Guess, let's just play this bar. Okay, so feel this dot-dot-dot, dot-dot-dot. The one thing that you'll note is that the offbeat here isn't going to line up. Okay? So in a triplet, the offbeat is like like the, and I should say, the end is like right after this note. It's like right here, ish, right? So it doesn't line up on an end. Which is why we don't use. And when we're counting triplets, I'll talk more about counting triplets and just second. Okay, so we can have triplets on eighth notes, we can have triplets on quarter notes. We can have triplets on half notes. It's kinda rare, but we can do it. We can have triplets on 16th notes. Okay, for now, I'm just going to stick to triplets on eighth notes. And I'm not gonna do anything really weird with them like 1 eighth note and then a quarter note contained within a triplet. But you can do that is a rhythm. But I want to keep it relatively simple for now. So the only pattern I'm going to use when we hear triplets is this 13 eighth note triplet. Okay? It's the most common by far. I'm not going to use quarter note triplets yet. We'll use those later when we get more advanced. But for now, let's stick to just eighth note triplets. Okay? I want you to hear one thing though. Let me do this. Let's take this beat and put that there. And this beat, put that there. And now I want some 16th notes. Let's take, I'm just going to copy things. Let's take this one. I want you to hear how these kind of accelerate. So eighth note, triplet, 16th note, right? So each one of these is faster. This is going to be dot-dot, dot-dot, dot-dot, dot-dot, dot-dot, right? So the pulse is the same, but these are going to feel like they're speeding up. That's here. Let's slow that down a little bit. Here that again. Okay, so you're going to want to identify these three different things. And really the way to do it as how many of them are in a beat, right? How many of them are filling up a beat? 234. Go. Cool. So this is the only group I'm going to give you. Now let's talk about counting triplets. 56. Counting Triplets: So when we count triplets, we don't use the E and one E and a pattern that we use for 16th notes. Mostly because we want to use different syllables to show that they don't line up. Actually, none of these nodes perfectly line up with each other. If you played a triplet and a 16th note at the same time, only the downbeats would be in the same spot. Because what you have is four against three. Okay, so there's gotta be close, but they're not going to line up. And we don't have the end, right? So the and is not in the triplet, so we use totally different syllables to count a triplet. Now this, again, even more so than 16th notes. Depends on the difference way you were taught syllables. I've seen triplets. People use different things for triplets. What I learned and what I stick to. Because it's what I learned, not because it's the best or anything, but is Tito. Okay, So this, this is beat 2. So I would count this too. Ti, toe. So, so if I had a whole bar of eighth note triplets, I would count it. One, T2, T2, T3, T DO 42. Okay. It's weird. Sounds funny, but it works. So this bar, I would count 1 and 2, 3, and 4 rest. Okay, let me do that one more time. 123 and rest. Okay, So one Tito to Tito. It's kinda funny. This bar, let's count this bar. 1, 2, 3, and 4. Tito. Go. So trying to get that one Tito, to Tito in your head, it should stick out and you should feel that Tito as something just kind of off. Let's do this. I'm going to take this beat. There we go. And I'm going to insert. There we go. A triplet in it. Now this is a melody we just did. But I'm going to insert a triplet right in the middle of it, just so you can feel how that kind of jumps out at you. So just listen to this whole melody and you'll feel that that triplet is just kinda of like odd. Here we go. Oops, let's go back to a little bit better tempo. Okay? Okay, So you felt like this was a kind of fighting the beat a little bit. It was fighting. The eighth note is what it was really fighting because it didn't line up on the eighth ions. So try to get comfortable hearing that kind of tension that makes a triplet. If that can jump out at you, that can really help. Because what you could do is if right here, you get thrown off, then you hear this triplet, then you can be like there's a triplet right there. And that can help get you back on track. So triplets can really stick out. Okay, let's do some practice. 57. Practice: Okay, here we go. Four, Four treble clef, four bars, bunch of triplets. Okay. I'll give you a clue on this one. We are only going to hear in this one, quarter notes and eighth note triplets. Okay? No eighth notes, no half notes, no 16th notes, just quarter notes and eighth note triplets. That's all we're going to get. Okay. Let's do it. Here we go. Okay, pause the video if you like. And when you're ready, we'll hear again. Right now. Pause the video and when you're ready, Here is our third and final listen through. When you're ready, go on to the next video. 58. Answers: All right, Let's see what we got here. So one thing that you may have noticed, rhythm of the first two bars was the same. Okay, 123 T TO 4123, T TO four. Cool. Then in the third bar, we had two triplet groups. So 1234 T TO one. So two triplet groups here. And then one triplet group here leading up to that high C. So 12 t, t 034. Okay? So bunch triplets. What we should do now is try to mix things up a little bit more. So let's try to include some eighth notes. Maybe you in some 16th notes, into a melody along with triplets and see what we can make happen. So let's go to one more practice on triplets. 59. Practice: All right, one more practice with triplets. Now this one has just about everything we've covered in it so far. This has 16th notes using a few of those different patterns. Actually, I think it's using all of those different patterns that we looked at of 16th notes. It's got some eighth note triplets in it. It's got some eighth notes, it's got quarter notes, and it's got one, just one half-note. Okay, So let's try it. This is probably gonna be the heart. This is going to be the hardest one that we've done so far in this class. So when we do the playback, I will take the tempo down a little bit. So we'll do the first one at tempo, second one at a lower tempo. And then probably the third one at a lower temperature tempo also. Okay, let's do it. So here we go. Four, Four treble clef, four bars. Off we go. Okay, take the tempo down. Just a hair. Slightly slower tempo. Here we go. Okay, let's do a third one at that slow tempo also. Right. Here we go. Okay, when you're ready, go on to the next video. 60. Answers: Okay, So here's what we had a lot of notes. Let's take a look. So this first bar and the second bar, do you have something in common? They are kind of almost variations on each other. So here we have this quarter note and then a Snowden to 16th notes. And then here we have quarter note and For 16th note. So similar, both going the same direction. So you might have identified those as similar. And then for the second half of both those bars, here we have eight nodes here we have triplets, quarter note, triplet. So the second half is very different. So we didn't hear this before. Two triplets in a row. I can kinda feel like that roller coaster idea of just like dot-dot-dot, things, just going and going and going. But hopefully you identify that there's these two beats that just felt a little bit in conflict with the eighth note, fighting that eighth note. And that gets, that would mean if you felt that they were triplets. Okay. Then two quarter notes, this was probably the trickiest part. Because the way that this rhythm works, these 2 16th notes and then, or while a 16th note and then an eighth note and then 16th note. This can right away feel a lot like a triplet right there. So you may have written a triplet here, but then felt something not quite right because maybe you felt this was a triplet and this was kind of a triplet. So I can see this throwing off, throwing you off fairly easily, so don't feel bad if that throw you off. And then we get this triplet and then it just kind of keeps running right up, all the way up to that high C again. And then a quarter note and are lonely half-note. So this was a hard one. This really was, so maybe try this one a few times, come back to it tomorrow once you've forgotten the details of the answer, and go back to the previous video and try this one again. It's hard. It's a hard one. 61. Quarter-Note Pulse Meters: Okay, so, so far we've just been working in 44. Let's talk about different meters. Now when it comes to identifying rhythms and notating them, There's really two different kinds of meters that we need to worry about. Maybe three. The first is anything with the denominator, the lower number as a four, basically, so 44, 34, 24, 54, 64. And all of those are pretty much going to work the same in all of the techniques we've been talking about still work, right? Nothing major changes. What do we need to think about is that concept of of the pulse. The pulse in 404 is the quarter note. The Paulson 34 is the quarter note. The Paulson 54 is the quarter note. So remember that in a meter, the lower number, the denominator, tells us essentially what the pulse is, k. So if it's a four, it's a quarter note. In. So in 34546474, those are all going to be just how many pulses in a measure. So we can still keep track of the pulse. Now when we get into something like 689838, that's a little bit different. We're going to talk about that in a second. The other one, when I say kind of three, that would be anything that's super odd. Like 714. That's an insane meter and you're hopefully you never going to have to do a dictation project in 714 time? You can. It's possible, but that would be super-duper advanced and I don't think it's probably in anyone's near future. So I want to stick to 4468 as our main things that we're working on. So let's talk about 68. And by doing that, we're going to talk about 689838, all of the denominators with an eight. 62. Eighth-Note Pulse Meters: Okay. When we're talking about 689838, anything with an eight in the denominator, the pulse is the eighth note, right? That's why that eight is there. So the top note tells us how many eighth notes are going to be in the measure. But we also need to keep track of the big pulse. Okay, this is like the weird thing about meters that are 689838. We tend to group these eighth notes in patterns of three. Okay, that's just how these meters feel. His own 6, 8, we have the eighth note is the pulse. Yes, but also, uh, we divide the measure into two groups of three. Okay? So 123456123456123456. That's how we count those. So that changes things a little bit for us, right? Because how do we get a rhythmic value that is 3 eighth notes? It's a dotted quarter note. Okay, so we're dealing with dots now. Dotted quarter note is 3 eighth notes, and that is our big pulse is the dotted quarter note. Okay? That's true in all of the meters that have an eight as the bottom. If it's 38, then you have 3 eighth notes in a bar. Or one dotted quarter note, 123123123123. If you have 98, you have 9 eighth notes in a bar or three dotted quarter notes. 123456789123456789. You have 12 eight, you have 44 groups of 3 eighth notes. So you have to keep track of that big beet. Also, when you're doing dictation, those big beats are going to be your anchor points. Hey, that's what you're going to be looking for. If you just focus on the eighth note in 6, 8, it's going to be really easy to lose your track. So use that, basically 1468, so 123456. So use those big beats 14 as your anchors to hold onto just like we used 1344123412, 3, 4. Cool. So let's look at one really quick. Here's a little melody in 68. Okay? So here we have a dotted quarter note, so that's going to be 3123456. And then we have this rhythm. This is a rhythm you see in 6, 8 or 9, 8 or 3, 8, any of those. So this is going to be one-quarter, 1 eighth note, and then a quarter note. We would count this 1, 2, 3, 1, or, oops, One, 23456. Okay, here's that same rhythm again, 123456. Okay, so keep an eye out for this rhythm. And the opposite of this rhythm, where it's quarter note and then eighth note. Then we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Same thing here. And then our two big beats, 123456. Okay, So let's hear this. Oh, before I play this, the metronome in MuseScore, and this is true of a lot of metronomes. We're only getting, get the big beat in the metronome. So you have to subdivide to find the eighth note. That means that you're just going to hear 1414 in the metronome. So you're going to have to, in your head think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Okay. So here's what that sounds like. 414. Okay, so all the principles work the same that we've done, but our big B is different. Our big beat is the dotted quarter note. And that's what you want to use Azure anchor. 63. Practice in 6/8: Okay, let's do a practice one in 68. So this one's going to lean heavily on those big beats k. So dotted quarter notes. Remember the metronome is only going to play those dotted quarter notes. So here we go. 68, treble clef, five bars. And here's your first hearing. Okay. Here is attempt to and attempt three. Hey, when you're ready, go to the next video. 64. Answers: Okay. So here's what we had. We had 123456123456123 and then 456. So hopefully you catch that, are caught that in the right place. And then two more bars of just the dotted quarter note. Okay, So make sure that you've got dots on all these and didn't just label them quarter notes. Now you might think to yourself, how do I know this isn't for four, right? Because if you just heard these two bars, you could think to yourself, that could be written in 404. If I did, 1234 and right, you could write that in for four. However, if this was a normal dictation exam, you would be wrong because I told you it was in 6, 8. But if you're just hearing this without any background, you don't know that this example is actually in 68. Even this could be a triplet. You could hear this as 12 t tow 34 add. You could view that as a triplet. But remember, I told you it was in 6 8, so you have to notate it in 6, 8. If you're taking a dictation examined, they tell you it's in 68. So let's do one that's a little trickier. That has more of a 68 field to it. 65. Practice in 6/8: Okay, So I've got another one queued up here. Same stuff. We're really just going to here, dotted quarter notes and eighth notes. You can have 16th notes and things in 6, 8, but I want to keep it fairly simple for now. So just eighth notes and dotted quarter notes. Okay, here we go. Oh, so 6, 8, treble clef. Five bars. Okay, five bars. Here we go. Hey, here's our second listen. And third lesson. When you're ready, go on to the next video. 66. Answers: Okay, so this one, actually a little tricky because the pitches kinda throw you a little bit. So we have 1, 2, 3, and then 4, 5, 6. But it kinda felt like 1212121. So that group of two might have thrown you, but the rhythm important to latch onto the rhythm is 4561234. If that's dumped, you remember, focus in on those big beats. The dotted quarter note that would've told you we're here and where this is, which should have set you back on track. Okay, and then the same thing again. So a pattern there that you could have latched onto these two bars are the same as these two bars. And then 1234. And in the end. So a, a tricky one because the pitches really throw you off on that, but that's, that's real, that happens. So watch out for that. Okay. So I think we're ready to just move on to just a whole bunch of things for you to practice. Let's go into that next. 67. A Bunch of Practice Melodies: Okay, In this next section, I've just made a ton of little melodies for you to practice with, okay, so just focus on the rhythms. However, all of these would be really good to come back to later once we have some practice working on melodies, because all of these do have pitch, but just focus on the rhythm for now and get as good as possible on that. And then we'll worry about pitch later. So here's how these work. And each of these, what I'm gonna do is you'll see not much on the screen, but I'll just put, I'll put in text the meter clef. Not that it matters at this point, but I just want to get in the habit of doing that and the number of bars, okay, so you'll see that on the screen. And then you'll hear the melody played three times. And it won't be on the screen three times. You can pause in between, listens if you want. Take time to think about it before hitting play and getting the second lesson. And then at the end of the video, there will be a fourth time that I'll play it where I will show it on the screen. Okay, so that'll be the answer. So the fourth time playing it through, it'll show up and you'll see it. So after the third time we share and pause until you're ready to see the answer. Okay, so three times with the Blackout screen, and then the fourth, the screen will lighten up and it will show you the answer. Okay? One melody per video. I'm just going to make these until I can't stand it anymore. So I'll probably make 20 years or so and we'll see how it goes. And then hopefully I'll come back and add more of these later if I, if I can. And then so practice these, do them. You can do these multiple times. The goal is just to not memorize the answer. If you don't memorize the answer, you can do them over and over. So I would go through all of them and then go back to the beginning. Do them again for if you want more practice. So after all of these, I've got a couple more things for you. So if you don't feel like doing all of these practice things now, jump to the end. But why not? Do them? Reinforce what you can already do? Okay? Remember, practice makes perfect. 92. What Comes Next?: Okay, We made it to the end of this first part, right? So in this part, we were just focusing on rhythms. And the next part we're going to focus on intervals, and that's going to be identifying notes. So we're going to learn some tricks for, you know, I'm gonna give you a C and say, find me a GI. And I'm gonna give you some techniques for doing that. Or I'm going to play a C and a G. And I'm going to say the first note was C, and you're going to say the second note is G. So I play two notes. I named the first one and you tell me the second one. That will lead us to writing down full melodies. But that identifying intervals is the next most important piece. Hopefully we're starting to get rhythms down. If you don't have rhythms mastered, that's okay. Keep practicing. But you can move on to the next chunk as long as you're getting mostly maybe 50 percent or better on rhythms, I would move on to the next chunk. If you want more to practice. Remember, I think I said this at the beginning, but any sheet music, anything that someone can play for you is going to be great. If you can get someone to play a rhythm and you can write it down and then see what it was. That'll be great. You can redo any of these lessons we've done here. You can find MuseScore files and the MuseScore website. Any notation files that you can find using any notation program, song as you can listen to it, write it down, and then look at the answer correctly. Those will all be great things to practice. Um, you could also just do it off the radio, just like listened to a song, write it down and then look up the sheet music. You can find sheet music for most things you hear on the radio. Okay, so check out part two on intervals. That should be available now or very soon. So stay tuned for that. And then hang out. I got a little bit more. I want to talk about. 93. Bonus Lecture: Hey everyone, want to learn more about what I'm up to you. You can sign up for my e-mail list here. And if you do that, I'll let you know about when new courses are released and when I make additions or changes to courses you're already enrolled in. Also, check out on this site. I post a lot of stuff there and I check into it every day. So please come hang out with me. And one of those two places are or both? And we'll see you there.