• @Composter
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    21 year ago

    For me, chunking has worked tremendously, also working with a keyboard instrument (for me piano) and working on beginner continuo. I am not really any good at piano yet it’s sufficient for me to experience massive progress in my ear. The important other aspect was 1) playing everything in different positions to reinforce to the ear to hear inner voices or to know the voice leading of register shifts and 2) improvising between ear and instrument, maybe you try some curious stuff based on using different tones to prepare dissonances.

    By chunking, I mean being able to summon common phrases from the language of a style. Someone could call a progression “I V6 vi7 V7/V V” but bam it’s just a modulating Prinner. This also comes to identifying sequences or common derivative procedures ie “If A is done, B will be likely.” In the style you want your ear to be better in, you want to be able to recognize those chunks so that your brain can access that entire chunk to reduce processing load. As much as raw ear ability with relative pitch and tertian chord labeling works, the ear of a musician also involves pattern recognition and a metaphorical databank of memorized reference material.