Rhythmic Ear Training
Ear training is an important tool of music performance that affects the overall musicianship of an individual. Ear training allows a musician to internalize sounds and increases a musician's understanding of all aspects of music: pitch, intonation, expression and rhythm. Rhythmic ear training focuses on the patterns of short and long notes and rests that make up music. Rhythm is at the core of all music and is an extremely vital part of ear training.
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Function
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Ear training aids musicians by helping them understand music and learn new music efficiently. Musicians can give a better performance if they have a better understanding of the music. Rhythmic ear training in particular helps the musician determine time signatures, which can greatly impact performance style and practices, and it helps musicians identify simple and complicated rhythm patterns as well as rhythmic features such as accents, staccato and syncopation.
Types
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The two major types of ear training are rhythmic and melodic, and rhythmic ear training focuses on identifying, duplicating and dictating rhythms. For identification, musicians are asked to recognize rhythm groups such as triplets or common note combinations, an example being the dotted eighth-sixteenth rhythm. For duplication, musicians are required to tap, clap or play rhythm patterns. Finally, dictation refers to writing out rhythms a musician hears.
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Benefits
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Most musicians achieving a higher education are required to learn rhythmic ear training as part of their curriculum. Benefits of this training include, but are not limited to, having a better understanding of music, increasing one's musicianship and improving one's ability to learn, perform and compose music.
Significance
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Understanding rhythms, their origins, their features and their utilization in music can help a musician's performance of a piece of music. Rhythmic ear training can help rhythm become an internal and integral part of a musician's mind, and the musician has elements of music under his control.
Considerations
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Melodic ear training takes time and practice. Musicians who begin ear training at a young age, around 4 or 5, have a better chance of having perfect pitch, or the ability to hear and identify pitches almost instantly. Most musicians who do not have perfect pitch can acquire relative pitch, or the ability to tell the difference between notes and chords, with practice. Even though ear training takes practice and effort, it is a beneficial and rewarding musical skill to acquire.
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References
- Photo Credit closeup of a man ear in color image by Ana de Sousa from Fotolia.com
