Customer Reviews

Ear Training for the Contemporary Musician

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you've ever wanted to teach yourself to recognize particular notes and patterns this book is an excellent resource. The authors examine things like the major and minor scales, fifths, sevenths, melodies, sightsinging, triads, and diatonic progressions. They also do an excellent job of describing what is happening, the theory behind it and how to use it to help train your ears to recognize the notes, progressions, etc. The book includes exercises, answer sheets, and two CDs with examples of the various notes and tones from the book so you can practice. If you are serious about ear training you can't go wrong with Ear Training For the Contemporary Musician.

Keith Wyatt does a great job of explaining and demonstrating the fundamentals for ear training. He makes no claim to a quick and easy way to accomplish your goals with this. He does give a concise method on how to get the most out of what abilities you do have --whether you have tremondous talent or no natural ability -- I belive you can train your ear with a commitment to his study and practice methods. I am not far along with this and I do not sing but I can now hit notes with my voice and recognize them. Something I could not do before I got this study and I am applying it to my guitar and piano playing. I recommend the book to anyone that is willing to adhere to a schedule and not to someone looking for magic dust.

Very useful for those looking to begin ear training. I have an intermediate level in music theory, but I believe even beginners will be able to gain from using this book. It covers not only tonal ear training, but rhythm ear training as well.

I don't want to be overly critical of this book since it's probably going to work for a lot of people, but it definitely wasn't what I was looking for nor was it what I was expecting. I want to develop my ear and advance my guitar and piano playing through playing those instruments, not through having to sing. I don't have a good voice and I have no desire to sing or become a singer, but this book starts you out singing everything from the very first chapter through the end of the course. This is a definite turn off for me since that's not what I'm comfortable doing...and trust me, I'm sure my family doesn't want to hear me either! I won't sing "Happy Birthday" at parties even when I'm amongst 15 other people that will drown me out but, lo and behold, the first chapter has me singing just that in order to identify the tonic of the song.

I'm giving this book 3 stars only because I felt the description of it was a bit misleading. It is completely reliant on singing, but that didn't really come across in the description of the book. If singing is something that works for you within the scope of learning an instrument and training your ear, then I'm sure the book will be fine, as the other reviewers have pointed out. But if you're not looking to train your ear through singing, you may want to be careful with this particular book before you buy it.

This is a fantastic book. They teach you by using a piano, guitar and bass on the cd's so you practice hearing different timbers and octaves. You will have to use your voice but it is not singing and this is the way to learn. Anyone who truly wants to develop his ear training must use his voice. These authors have written another superb book, "Harmony and Theory" that I would recommend also to any student who wishes to have a better understanding of chords and harmony. It is the best book I've ever seen.

great book I have taken eartraining courses in college they move too fast and do not offer enough explinations. this book lets you take your time and give plenty information

First of all, I am from Brazil and I would like to say that this product was delivered in the correct time in excellent condition including the CD.
The book has a very good and simple format as well as the linguistic atending its purpose very well.