The internet has impacted almost every facet of our lives in the 21st century, and as you’re no doubt aware, the emergence of online ear training is one of them. In this article I’m going to discuss some of the pitfalls of “online” ear training and the benefits, and help you make the most out of the real opportunity the internet has given us musicians.
Does Online Ear Training Suck?
A lot of people have issues with the use of computers when it comes to music, and to be honest, I’m actually one of them. You see there are many different types of ear training software and games that I feel, take musicians away from music and put them in front of a white screen for far too long. I feel that a lot of this software doesn’t make you a better musician, you’re just effectively playing games. While these may be entertaining, they often result in virtually zero improvement in your ability to hear music more clearly, engage with it at a deeper level, and generally increase your musicality. This isn’t the point of ear training online.
A lot of musicians think that they can spend a few minutes every day on these ear training games and learn to recognise music. And this is why I sometimes feel that online ear training has hurt ear training as a whole. The internet has made more people think of ear training as a type of game that doesn’t have much to do with playing their instrument. These ear training “games” aren’t enough on their own. They can be a part of your ear training, but alone, you’ll find it very difficult to recognise music. Personally I think that musicians need a varied and complete approach to ear training. Any good ear training course, whether it’s delivered to you on a CD or you download it from the internet, should get you doing a variety of different exercises, so you can learn to identify individual sounds, learn how to connect all those sounds together, and finally translate them onto your instrument. The simple ear training that people often see online cannot do this.
At the same time though, there are some tremendous advantages for you as a musician when it comes to getting your ears trained through an online program, which is why we deliver our course online .
So what are the benefits of Ear Training Online?
As I mentioned in the last paragraph, some of the ear training options online try to make us rely too much on computers to train our ears, and keep us away from the methods and tools that we really need use to get familiar with music.
That being said, there’s a big difference between getting access to your ear training materials online, and being a computer addicted ear training game junkie! The benefits of getting your ear training online are pretty simple really:
- you get instant access to your training materials
- delivery can be more convenient and better organised in an online learning portal
- you can download the exercises to your iPod, MP3 player, Phone, or just burn them on CD and listen to them in the car
- it can be cheaper because you don’t have to have a CD or DVD sent to your house
- the content can get updated over time
- you can get 1-1 support and help from me
- you can be part of an online ear training community and benefit from the experiences of others too
So as you can see, there are a lot of benefits to online ear training, versus studying from a book, or even a CD.
At Ear Training HQ we feel as though we’ve really got the balance right between combining the benefits of new technology to enhance your ear training experience, without getting distracted and moving too far away from the core of effective musical instruction. If you’d like to see what we’re all about, check out our free ear training introductory lesson here:
