Melody Ear Training Exercise 3: Practicing Scales
This exercise involves playing or singing scales in different ways. When you play a scale, you usually start at the bottom, go up note by note to the top, then back down to the bottom. That’s the first example in the table below. Playing the scale in different ways is helpful for a couple of reasons. If you are playing scales on an instrument, it helps with the physical technique of playing that instrument. You are developing the physical agility required to be able to play what you hear in your head. I recommend doing these scale patterns with all the scales you know.
This also helps with ear training because if you practice these scale patterns enough, the sound of the scale and each note within the scale will gradually seep into your brain, and the other ear training exercises will become easier. When I was learning music, I didn’t know about the first two ear training exercises. I just played endless scale patterns, over and over. After years of doing this, I started to notice that I was good at ear training. The sound of the scale had been deeply ingrained in me as a result of practicing scale patterns.
If you are singing these scale patterns (I recommend singing them even if you are an instrumentalist), this presents more of an immediate ear training challenge, as opposed to the gradual ingraining you get from playing an instrument. It’s very similar to doing the first ear training exercise without a partner, but instead of picking random notes, you are following a pattern.
| Name of Pattern | Description of pattern using numbers. Bold numbers are one octave up. Play the pattern forwards and backwards. |
|---|---|
| Playing the scale | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 |
| Groups of three | 1 2 3, 2 3 4, 3 4 5, 4 5 6, 5 6 7, 6 7 1, 7 1 2, 1 2 3 |
| Groups of four | 1 2 3 4, 2 3 4 5, 3 4 5 6, 4 5 6 7, 5 6 7 1, 6 7 1 2, 7 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4 |
| Groups of four, displaced | 1 2 3 1, 2 3 4 2, 3 4 5 3, 4 5 6 4, 5 6 7 5, 6 7 1 6, 7 1 2 7, 1 2 3 1 |
| In thirds | 1 3, 2 4, 3 5, 4 6, 5 7, 6 1, 7 2, 1 3 |
| In fourths | 1 4, 2 5, 3 6, 4 7, 5 1, 6 2, 7 3, 1 4 |
| In fifths | 1 5, 2 6, 3 7, 4 1, 5 2, 6 3, 7 4, 1 5 |
| In sixths | 1 6, 2 7, 3 1, 4 2, 5 3, 6 4, 7 5, 1 6 |
| In sevenths | 1 7, 2 1, 3 2, 4 3, 5 4, 6 5, 7 6, 1 7 |
| In thirds, alternating | 1 3, 4 2, 3 5, 6 4, 5 7, 1 6, 7 2, 3 1 |
| In triads | 1 3 5, 2 4 6, 3 5 7, 4 6 1, 5 7 2, 6 1 3, 7 2 4, 1 3 5 |
| In triads, alternating | 1 3 5, 6 4 2, 3 5 7, 1 6 4, 5 7 2, 3 1 6, 7 2 4, 5 3 1 |
| In seventh chords | 1 3 5 7, 2 4 6 1, 3 5 7 2, 4 6 1 3, 5 7 2 4, 6 1 3 5, 7 2 4 6, 1 3 5 7 |
| In seventh chords, alternating | 1 3 5 7, 1 6 4 2, 3 5 7 2, 3 1 6 4, 5 7 2 4, 5 3 1 6, 7 2 4 6, 7 5 3 1 |
Practice, Improvise, Repeat
These three ear training exercises can get you a long way towards fluency. Try improvising a melody after getting good at some of these exercises. You might notice that when you imagine a note that you think will sound good, you know what note that is, and you can play it. You may begin to notice that you are developing a new way of listening to music. If you are listening to a song that uses the major scale, you might wonder which notes the singer is singing. You might sometimes know which notes they are singing. Then, much of life can become an ear training exercise. Listening to the radio? Watching TV? Noticing background music in shopping malls? Going to concerts? All of these activities can turn into ear training exercises. This is what happened to me when I was first building my fluency. It became an obsession. Whenever I heard music, I was challenging myself to solve the ear training riddle. Then, as the novelty wore off, it became second nature to just know where notes I was hearing fit into the scale. It became effortless.