Hey @DavidW,
Thanks so so much for your reply. It gives me hope bro.
It kills me how bad I am at singing, I know the note I want to get to but my voice won’t go there. I’m so impressed with your consistency at not giving up!!!
I do play an instrument. I play the piano to about grade 5 level and also the guitar (to bedroom blaster level).
Recently I’ve designed and 3d printed a 3 row janko keyboard that I’m currently getting into my fingers.
I thought it’s time to bite the bullet and learn to play by ear now that my layout is spatially consistent with tones.
It’s so frustrating hearing stuff in my head and not being able to reproduce it without a lot of trial and error.
I realise I’m hearing intervals but not being able to put a label on them.
I was Wondering about creating a sound font that I can load into my keyboard of people singing 1,2,3 etc that would play when I play the keys.
Wouldn’t be idle cause you would would need to pick a key to start on but might be good for someone like me.
@FatMark, Don’t if you have them already, but I would highly recommend the IFR ear training materials, both Sing the Numbers (1, 2 and 3) and Ear Training for Creativity (that @DavidW mentioned).
Both take you systematically through learning to recognise and produce (on instrument and/or voice) the notes of the tonal map.
I intend to move onto the Recognising Chords course once I’ve finished, but I’m taking it slowly as well. I think it pays to really let the sounds sink in and enjoy the process.
How I made it was I took the keys off an existing keyboard, measured then with digital calipers, recreated them digitally in a cad program then adjusted the keys into a Janko layout.
I bought a cheap 3d printer and printed out the new keys over 2 weeks.
Still getting it into my fingers but have to say really liking it so far. Seems more intuitive than a conventional piano.
Great, and I would also suggest that, in the privacy of your own practice space, you try to sing along as well. Getting sounds resonating in your own head will help you recognise them, and producing them with your own voice will add yet another layer of skill.
A favourite saying of David Reed (@ImproviseForReal ) is that with music(ality) “The Slow Way is the Fast Way” & that’s certainly what I’ve found. At first I tried to push through the ‘weeks’ too fast, but I wasn’t really gaining anything deep. Then I watched & took on board this video by David
I’d pushed forward to around week 5, but I could tell it was superficial. So, I dropped back to week 1 and started again, and started to take my cue for progress from how it felt, not from the calendar.
Taking the slow (enough) approach has made a big difference for me. How slow is slow enough will vary from person to person, and we can only judge the appropriate rate ourselves. It’s not a race. Don’t kick yourself if you aren’t progressing as fast as you’d ideally like. Listen to the beautiful sounds. Try to imagine them. See how close you can get with your voice. Stuff will happen in due course if you relax & let it.
@FatMark i hope you find the sing the numbers course as useful as I did. I continue to use it. I think the trick when using that is to go slow. You’re erecting a wall of sounds you recognize so take the time to make each brick well constructed and stable in you mind’s ear, where the bricks are the different short melody fragments that Mireia sings in the course.
