Customer Reviews

Ear Training: One Note Complete Method with 3 CDs

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My only previous ear training was from my piano instructor a number of years ago. It was interval based, and useful to a limited extent. Mr. Arnold's method of ear training is very straight forward and logical. I must admit that the first word that comes to mind to describe using the One Note ear training CDs is FRUSTRATING. I really gave it my best shot for a couple of months and had virtually no progress. It is distressing to read so many reviews that say things like "I am looking forward to great progress." I did not see very many that claim significant progress. Like myself, they see the logic of the method but have not "gotten it" yet.

I have the luxury of having a good bit of time to listen to these during my commute to and from work on public transport. Not driving has it's advantages. However, I have to say that I can not listen to the CD for more than about 10 minutes without wanting to use it as a Frisbee.

I addressed my frustration to Mr. Arnold via e-mail and he told me that many people listen for a year (maybe more) before they make significant progress. Unfortunately, I could not make myself do that. Frankly, I just got too bored of guessing the wrong notes to a point that I could not pay attention. I began to dread listening to it and finally just gave up.

There are stories of success on his website, but most of the reviews here on Amazon sound like the people are still in the initial phases of the learning process, just as I was.

I rate this book/method four stars for potential for practical application and apparent logic of method. If I had to rate it on what I got out of it the first time around, my rating would have to be much lower. However, I suspect that my impatience was more to blame than the method, so I will give it another try.

It would be interesting to see follow-up reviews from readers here that have continued using the CDs and can now report more success (or not) than in their initial reviews. I, for one, could use the encouragement.

RHB

Let me say first off that this ear training method that bruce arnold uses is for SERIOUS MUSICIANS ONLY. To use his method effectivly, you have to do this every day for at least an hour, in 15-20 minute intervals.

Bruce Arnold's method is totally different than any other method that is out there for ear training. It is NOT easier. In fact at first it seemed next to impossible to accomplish. After I read how he wanted me to establish relative pitch, my instant thought was "This is Crazy!" But after doing the lessons with his other book, "Fanatic's guide to ear training and sight reading", I saw how his methods totally dominate the ear training market.

Most ear training books and universites teach you how to recognize intervals. For instant, they will play a c, then a G, and you are supoosed hear that it is a perfect fifth. Bruce arnold does not teach this method at all. he will play a candence (a set of chords in a key) and teach you how to recognize the what interval it is from the key. This produces SPONTANIOUS ear training. For instance, if someone is playing a song in the key of C, and you hear a G, F, and D in the melody, you will be able to pick up on that instantly because you were taught how to hear the notes within the key and not by learning intervals.

This method can take months or even years for a person to establish kind of note identity. but for me, if it even takes years, it will be worth it in the long run, cause I live to be a musician, period.

I would also mention that you cannot really do this without his other book, "Fanatics guide to ear training and sight reading". You have to learn how to sing the notes within a certain key so you know what you are listening for with the ear training book. This doesn't mean you have to have a good voice, you just have to be able to sing the note in tune.

It appears that like other reviewers I am in the midst of using this book to improve my "ear" as I write this review. I've had a month to work with it, mostly for about 5-10 minutes a day, because it is a rather intense workout. I like Arnold's approach: that rather than memorize every single tone possible (good lord!) and rather than relying on the "interval" method (which is incredibly deceptive), we should learn notes in relation to the whole, so that we can play within/comprehend that whole--isn't that the point, after all? Kudos to Arnold for going to some length to explain this in the book, and even for including commonly asked questions, complaints, and reports of progressive. It helps make sense of his approach, and his explanations are what I'd consider accessible to students at any level. Three discs are included with a slim booklet; that is quite nice. Each disc has 99 tracks, of course only seconds long but that's all that's required. The music and pause time before answers is shorter in each of the three discs. The booklet includes written answers as well.

The method seems helpful, and it is set up quite nicely. ... Was this a needless expense? I guess the explanatory essay might be worth it, but it mostly serves as a reassuring authority of the "relation" principle--for example, no matter what key you are in, or how many octaves apart the tone is, the root note is the root note; the seventh is the seventh; the flat sixth is the...you get the idea. The cds might be worth it for convienience's sake alone, perhaps. (By the way make sure your player has shuffle, or you'll memorize the order of answers. Also, the exercises are with piano, not guitar. I find this no problem, but you might.) Another annoyance is Arnold's acceptance of the Key of C paradigm that pervades music instruction. All three cds use C. Why not use different keys on each disc? Just to prove your point? It should not make a difference if the premise is right, but it would be refreshing to the student and increase her or his confidence.

Take note this is a frustrating set. (But this is coming from someone who has never been able to play anything "by ear".) The learning process is intense for the "ear-challenged" such as myself, but this seems like it'd work better than the other methods, or by random luck or wishful thinking. You are basically asked to proceed by intuition, or some likewise indescribable way of learning. A serious trial by fire. If you need a "how do I do it" guide this is not the place to come. It's more like learning a language by being surrounded by it for a long time, and *not* by someone handing you a vocab list and rules for turning the present tense into the past: you'll learn it, and you might even be better at it because it's *in* you, so to speak, rather than *on* you. But it is an intense and probably prolonged experience.

I hope this helps you decide whether this is for you, and if it is worth the price. I haven't noticed any improvement in myself that I am not convinced isn't just luck; but it could be so subtle I don't see it yet. I do imagine it will help. Time will tell.

This book has a good idea at it's core, train your ear to recognize notes against a key center as opposed to an interval. However, the presentation and 'method' are done terribly. To start with, according to the author the interval method of ear training is useless. So just about every music school and ear training class is wrong and wasting your time except Bruce Arnold. He then goes even farther and mentions how he had to spend years unlearning the interval training he had, and you might too if you've had standard ear training. So if you hear two notes in a row and can tell their a major third, then you have to forget that somehow.

From there Arnold goes to his method, which involves listening to a CD of 3 chords and then a random note and then trying to guess the note. Throughout the book he keeps mentioning that you should go to his website and read the information there to understand what to do. Why he didn't just include this information in the book itself I don't understand. The rest of the book is then Arnold answering questions from method users, of which the main question is usually 'help, I'm having no luck with this method'. Arnold's answer is usually 'go to the website' or 'you're lazy and not working hard enough'. For example, someone who asks whether your supposed to actually think about what the note is or just answer spontaneously, gets told that's a good question and to go read the website. Someone else asks if this method works with Atonal music that has no key center, to which Arnold says there's no such thing as Atonal music. Apparently he's a music historian as well and everyone else is wrong on that too.

Despite his presentation, I think the basic idea is good. Its harder then interval training but easier then Absolute Pitch training and the benefits line up the same way. I wouldn't recommend it as its difficult enough that you might as well get a perfect pitch program instead, also the presentation is terrible, and in addition your supposed to buy about 8 books to get the whole method.

I just bought the complete set after having the one-note beginner set for a long time. Some of the notes came to me very quickly, and then others have taken a long time. I should note that I didn't really make significant progress until I committed to listening to the disc extensively throughout the day, at least 4-5 times, with special attention paid to being present and listening to the entire cadence, then focusing on the note and letting it ring out before I attempted to name it. When I get it wrong, I go back and listen to the example again, making sure to let the note ring out before naming it so that I know I have actually *heard* the note and absorbed it consciously. For others, this may come quickly, but I'm also trying to unlearn old habits from a previous interval ear-training program I worked on.

For those who have also used previous interval-based courses, be warned that the note from a previous exercise can "hang over" and create an interval effect with the next note that colors it. When I notice this, I usually back the CD up and listen to it again to make sure I can hear the sound of the note in relation to the key. This seems to help.

I'm enjoying this course because it explains, in a direct experiential way, what I can only describe as the "harmelodic" effects of melodies versus various keys and chords. (Oddly, this course has taught me that I used to hear the 5th as the "root" note, and so I've been surprised to actually hear what the root of a key really sounds like...)

I'm still waiting for the benefits of the course to show up in general listening, although I've found I notice a lot of note-vs.-key effects in very tonal baroque music, especially the way the pieces cadence and resolve to the keynote (and which has enormously benefited my enjoyment). Being able to hear shifting key centers in "out" jazz or "atonal" classical music is a long way off, though.

A previous reviewer wondered about the use primarily of C as the key for the exercises. Remember that with the addition of sharps and flats, every other key is basically a variation of C, and what you learn in C can be transferred (with some work) into other keys. Also, I went ahead and bought the Fanatics Guide to Sight-Singing, which explicitly has you work through all 12 keys singing scale degrees. This definitely helps you retrain to hear the note in relation to the key instead of by interval. Oddly, hearing the major 6, for instance, in every key helps me hear how that degree is the same in every key, but it's also made me notice how something else about each of the 12 notes stays the same, no matter which degree it functions as. I've begun to notice a certain thing about A "underneath" the sound of its key function that stays the same. But, I guess that's an altogether different topic.

Anyway, I think this is a worthwhile course and it explains some things I had noticed before but had no way to access or study in a systematic fashion. I can say that my guitar playing has benefitted, although its been more subliminal so far, and manifests as kind of a subconscious ability either to hit the right notes or to make "out" notes "work," and the sense of my playing being more intentional and coherent. Learning parts by ear has also become a lot easier, although I'm a long way from being able to hear something once and just play it.

Ditto on much that has been said relating to the initial frustration and time needed for this method. I spent the first two weeks or so cussing out the cd for being much better at the guessing than I was. This is not for those who are not willing or cannot allot the time and effort required.
After a month or so I started to remember some of the notes...then I forgot them...remembered them...forgot but remembered different ones and on it goes. Much depends on your attitude while listening and your willingness to learn. I feel as though I've already gained a slightly better 'ear' and am improving steadily from my use of this book and now the Fanatics' Guide as well.
I'd also like to point out that Mr. Arnold has responded promptly to the couple of emails I've sent seeking advice and that to me means a lot...where am I otherwise going to get such first class instruction for the price of a book? I don't think proponents of other ear training methods and authors are so accessable to anyone other than perhaps to take your money up front for some grossly overpriced product.
I'm sticking with this....and if it works wonders a few years down the road.... I'll give it 6 stars!

Mr Arnold's approach is different from conventional ear training methods which focuses on hearing the intervals.

His approach focuses on identifing (naming) pitches you hear with reference to a "key center" that you perceive when you listen to a short musical phrase, a motif or a cadence, etc.

This helps especially during live gigs which require my responses to other musicians's playing.

If you don't really want to learn something, this will be useless to you. Mr. Arnold points out that this is hard. I've been working with the method for about 2 weeks now, and I'm here to tell you that it is DRIVING ME CRAZY. But the more I work with it, the more sense it makes, and the more it is rearranging my brain.
I have worked on eartraining for years, in college as a music major, and after college, ongoing for over 10 years. I could never get the traction I wanted, no matter how I worked. And really, I couldn't tell that anyone else had either.
Turns out that I had been trained in every counter-productive method Mr. Arnold mentions in his work. A lot of horrible habits, given to me by people I trusted...
Those habits are really, REALLY hard to break. But I now believe that it can be done. And after so much sweat over so much time, I'm now certain that the level of hearing I've wanted for so long really is possible. It's really HARD, and I expect to be working on this for years. But, hey... I also expect to be a musician until I die, so it's very much worth the work to do it right.
(One last note: when I first read Mr. Arnold's writing on this method I nearly cried. It was like he'd looked at everything I was doing wrong and all the time I'd wasted and said, very directly, "You should stop that. And you should grit your teeth and do this, if you really want to fix anything." Honestly, the man had my number. Maybe he has yours. You got the guts?)

I noticed that some people seem to be confused about why the CDs that accompany this book are all in one key. I took this excerpt from the FAQs for Fanatic's Guide and Ear Training One Note Complete from the publishers website.

"You will definitely want to play vamps in different keys. You will want to sing in different keys too. But remember as far as the ear training goes - ALL KEYS ARE THE SAME. The 3rd in C major will sound exactly like the 3rd in F# major. The 3rd always sounds like the 3rd. You want to do other keys mostly to build up your music theory ability to know for example what the b6th in Gb major is quickly. That is where I recommend using the Music Theory books so you can speed up your music theory knowledge so it's ready when your ears are."

I have found myself that when I started there were things that didn't make sense to me. Through contacting Mr. Arnold and reading the FAQs from hundreds of students I have learned many things. Two of the most important are don't judge something until you truly understand it and perception grows over time mostly through learning and studying. The most important thing I've learned from my interactions with Mr. Arnold is that understanding how I learn and controlling my mind's tendencies will be the real challenge to learning anything including ear training.

Bruce Arnold's series of books are designed to achieve one and only one purpose: to teach...and to teach each subject the right way and in the most rational manner. He makes mention in different books and interviews to the fact that most music books or methods are designed for students to get good grades in school (I can't see how this method could be easily grade-able) or to offer the consumer a quick fix of success to feel that the book has worked and they haven't wasted their money, while in fact they will not really retain much of the information at all in the long run and the whole experience will have been a waste of time and money. I personally in my quest for good books on the subject of music have found this to be true, and I think that most of these books are made solely for the purpose of generating money (as most things are these days) and not really achieving their true purpose...the ones that seem to try to go past this I have found to be filled with half baked ideas and hazy methods.

I am a professional jazz/classical saxophonist and an composer. I have a degree in music composition and performance and studied with some of the greatest teachers that I believe that are out there. For me, disappointment with music study books, whether they be for improvisation, ear training, composition, has been a normal experience and I have been mainly writing and inventing my own exercises,techniques, and practice routines for lack of finding anything that made any more sense from any "educational book". This ended when I found Bruce Arnold's series of books. I am in awe of the infallible logic behind every method in every book. I have been working out of many different books of his: the ear training books, the sight singing books, the Rhythm series, Big Metronome and Time Transformation, and they all WORK. I mean they really, REALLY work, as long as you follow the instructions and have patience and make up your mind before you start that you are going to stick with it. When I first found the books I instantly knew that I finally stumbled across something finally that made sense...but have refrained from writing a review anywhere until I thoroughly tested the products out. I believe that many of the more negative or indifferent reviews you will find here or on other sites are from recent buyers who have not yet started to see the results or are from people who have not made the decision to follow the directions and truly have the patience to follow through.

I have been working with the Ear Training Method for some time now and am in the Two Note Series now, and my ears are at a level that I never thought possible. The concept of relative pitch as opposed to interval training is dead-on and if you study the method diligently you will see why it makes so much more sense. I have been working from THE BIG METRONOME every day and going through the rhythm books...and I am feeling rhythm in a way that is so effortless. When I play or compose music now it becomes more of a joy every day rather than a strenuous effort.

If you want to learn music the right way, so that every aspect of music from theory to transcription to rhythm is like a second nature, then I recommend Bruce Arnold's books. As an added plus, you can (and are encouraged) to email him about any problems you are having or just even on your progress and he is very prompt and thorough in his responses. This is clearly a person who truly cares about what he is teaching and who has limitless integrity in his methods.

If you ask me, the series of Bruce Arnold's Books and CD's are a goldmine, priceless treasures that can be bought for an incredibly low price considering the immense benefit that can be reaped from them.