Hello everyone,
Nice to meet you all! I’ve read a bit the forum recently as I would like to start my journey with IFR.
I’ve seen the workshop but I’m late to the party.
I play the piano (as a beginner) and I’m mostly interested in the ear training part.
Could someone with both contents advice me if I should buy the book + Sing the number, or would this new ear training content will replace the current after the workshop?
I don’t have that much free time this days and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to spend enough to really get use of the workshop environment, I would be focusing strictly on the video and on a much larger time frame.
Thank you for reading me, hope you enjoy your day!
@lazare I have both. Aspects of the workshop are making use of tracks from the existing Sing the Numbers 2 pack. I have no idea how the many excellent new videos from the workshop might be packaged & offered in the future. Probably the only person who could answer that is David Reed @ImproviseForReal .
@Lazare I’m not aware of any new course content coming up but I have the book, sing the numbers, jam tracks and the ear training course. I wentca bit mad in a sale
Sing the numbers are the key exercises for me. I do some everyday usually while walking the dog. 10 to 20 mins is fine. Then the jam tracks are very useful for personal exploration of the sounds (something you need to do but there are other ways, just not as nice)
The ear training course includes the first sing the numbers and jam tracks and is a very deep dive into the 1st harmonic environment (aka major scale). Mireia’s videos help immensely and there are song examples to explore. Highly recommended.
The book is the full IFR syllabus if you like. It’s important to take every step slowly so the book is great but there’s a lifetime of content in there. Don’t let it pressurise you into the usual adult learner trap of trying to go fast.
Hi @Lazare, I think the best course of action for you depends on which of these two options fits better into your life right now:
A complete, integrated music practice centered on your piano which includes ear training and creativity as the fundamental pillars of that practice.
Just the IFR ear training method, which you can add to your existing piano practice.
If you want to discuss either option further, please write to me at david@improviseforreal.com. Depending on your needs and interests, I’ll help you understand what each of the IFR resources could add to your musical life.
Thank you David W, Steve and David R for your feedback.
I discussed a bit with David by email and the best solution for me right now will be to go with the Ear Training for Musical Creativity course. I will try to go with it next month once I find some space in my budget.
I think I can find this additional time while going to work in my car everyday, at least it won’t bother me to much when I’m stuck in traffic
For information I also discussed with David about non English native speaker. He advice me to try to work with the number in English, but that doing it with moveable Do from solfege would work too.
Does anyone else would have some feedback on this?
Very good choice! I’m doing another course that uses solfege so I also sing the numbers using that.
Once I feel confident with the numbers in the HE I sing back using solfege. This was tricky to start with but gets easier. I hope to do directly from the pitch, not the number but can’t yet. It’s fairly simple to be happy with both as they are 1 to 1 and never change.
It seem the numbers have the advantage of specifying order. I hear some say the solfeg syllables have advantages for being completely different. Ti is one syllable rather than the two of sev-en but that’s hardly a big advantage.
I’m really not far with the feel the numbers, it’s much harder. I plan to revisit when the current foundations course finishes. I’ll use solfeg once happy with the numbers.
@steve Sev-en felt like more of an issue when I started using StN/FtN, & back then I temded to use just ‘sev’, however over time I’ve come to use the full sev-en most of the time & don’t find it a problem.
Agree. Though that’s not really a surprise I suppose? The difference is enough that while I’m very happy to use StN while I’m driving, I don’t attempt to include FtN since it would require too much of my attention.
I keep FtN for sessions where I can give it full attention, e.g. while using my exercise bike.
