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Melodyne was used to the extreme to get the vocals in tune with the piano. Not only does this make my voice sound robotic, but it also added some strange artifacts to the recording (partly because of how I recorded it.) Hopefully they are not too distracting.

Song Associations Used

"White Christmas" for Minor 2nd: "i'm DREAM..."

"Frere Jacque" for Major 2nd: "frere-AH..."

"Georgia on My Mind" for Minor 3rd: "george-AH..."

"Michael Row the Boat Ashore" for Major 3rd: "mic-HAEL..."

"Here Comes the Bride" for Perfect 4th: "here COMES..."

"The Simpsons Theme" for Tritone: "the SIMP..."

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for Perfect 5th: "twinkle TWINKLE..."

"In My Life" (The Beatles) for Minor 6th: first two notes of the guitar riff.

"My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" for Major 6th: "my BON..."

"Star Trek Theme" for Minor 7th: first two notes of melody.

"Take On Me" (A-Ha) for Major 7th: "take ON..."

"Over the Rainbow" for Octave: "some-WHERE..."

The links take you to YouTube videos of the songs (fast forwarded to the moment in the song where you can hear the interval.)

Learn About EarMaster Pro Ear Training Software.

Lately I've been trying to take my guitar playing to the next level and after trying out quite a few different guitar lessons online (mostly trying out different YouTube channels) I've settled on JustinGuitar.com as the best free guitar lessons online (he does sell some advanced lessons too, but he has a ton of really high quality instructional videos available for free.)

I think the thing that really sets these lessons apart is that Justin Sandercoe is such an excellent teacher. He seems to understand (far better than most other YouTube guitar teachers) how to best explain things to someone so that they can pick it up. Too many other guitar "instructors" seem to just be showing off how good they are which is truly obnoxious.

He seems to put in just the right amount of explanation for what he does too. Some other guitar lessons I found online either had way too little explanation (hint: just playing through a song isn't really teaching it) or way too much incoherent rambling that made me feel like I was wasting my time.

It also doesn't hurt that his site has a ton of material on it and that his videos are really nicely done (very high picture & sound quality.)

Anyway; I thought this was worth sharing this recommendation for anyone looking for great free guitar lessons online. JustinGuitar.com is definitely worth checking out.

"I Feel Fine"

Last October I wrote about a kind of timing practice that I had started doing (and that I continue to do almost everyday) where the principle focus is to "make the metronome disappear."

The idea is that when you are really clapping on the beat "in the pocket" you don't hear the metronome click at all because your perfectly in time clap makes it "disappear." And this is not at all about being loud, it's entirely about timing. It's common when you first do this exercise to just try to clap louder, but that's not going to do it.

Recently I've started to expand upon this basic technique.

I had the idea that I should learn to mimic kick/snare rhythms with my own foot stomps/claps. Now you may be thinking "why are you doing that unless you want to be a drummer?" but I really I think that for musicians of any kind the importance of developing a good sense of rhythm cannot be overstated.

Improving your rhythm greatly improves your playing of any instrument. This is something I didn't really realize until relatively recently.

Unfortunately, like many people I know, I sort of jumped into learning to play guitar way back when without really following any kind of structured practice routine and I pretty much completely skipped the whole rhythm practice thing. For some reason I thought if I played the right chords then that's all that mattered.

Because of this blind spot I played guitar for years without really getting significantly better. Then one day I decided to try to learn to play guitar properly (actually following a guitar teacher instead of just winging it) and it was then that I learned how much rhythm is emphasized by people who actually know what they are doing.

Since then I have made concentrated rhythm practice a part of my routine and I have seen much improvement in my playing (in a short amount of time.)

Becoming A Drum Machine

Back to the topic at hand! The newest timing practice that I'm doing I call "Becoming A Drum Machine" because I'm trying to follow the kicks (with foot stomps) and snare hits (with hand claps) that are in this book called Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer.

This book is about learning how to program your drum machine to sound more realistic and although it's quite outdated (almost 20 years old) the basic principles still apply and it has helped me to improve my drum programming.

But now I'm using it to become a drum machine myself! It's pretty cool to be able to physically do these rhythms with my body. I have only been doing this exercise for a few days and I already feel an improvement in my overall sense of rhythm.

And hell, if I ever do get a drum set (perhaps an electronic drum set?) I will have a bit of a head start on the basics.

By the way: Always practice with a metronome. If you can't keep up, slow it down and then slowly speed it up as you get it.

It's taken me a long time to come to a realization of the importance of keeping at anything that you really want to improve at on a daily basis.

Whether your goal is to become a better singer, guitarist, drummer, pianist, producer, or all of the above I think you get better results by doing a little bit every day instead of going at it for hours on end when you really get in the mood.

When you do training sessions more frequently your body (and mind) seems to pick up where it left off the day before instead of sort of having to relearn what you learned last time.

What I try to do (and what I recommend) is to set aside a certain amount of time every weekday (whatever you can reasonably fit into your schedule) following a practice schedule. If you want to learn multiple things (say you want to both improve your singing and your piano playing abilities) then you should set aside some time for each thing you are trying to improve at each day.

I find that using a timer is a really great way to stay focused on a particular task for a particular amount of time (it's too easy to get distracted for me without it.)

I like to take the weekends off from my practice schedule. That doesn't mean I don't do anything musical on the weekends, in fact I may spend even more time on music on the weekend, just that I don't follow a set practice schedule.

Also, if my schedule is 30 minutes on singing and 30 minutes on piano every weekday, that doesn't mean that I don't spend more time than that on music. I may spend another 2 hours recording a song, or something else. The schedule is just a minimum spent on practice routines, any other time I have is time that I can use however I please.

I also think it's important that these practice routines are not just for "playing around" they should be very focused on improving particular skills. This means doing things like playing scales and following practice books, not just learning a song that you like.

I've found that by following practice routines my skill improves much faster than just by trying to learn a song. Maybe this isn't true for everyone, but I've found it to be true for me.

Another very important thing I've only recently realized is the importance of challenging yourself. You get better by trying to do things you cannot do, not by just doing what you can already do over and over again.

One more thing: Use a metronome all the time. The importance of good rhythm/timing cannot be overstated.

A good simple timing practice that I use is "making the metronome disappear." No matter what instrument you play, doing focused rhythm practice is a great idea.

No one would expect to pick up a guitar and play "Stairway to Heaven" well without first learning how to play guitar in general and also learning to play that song in particular.

Yet people do expect to be able to start singing a song well without ever training their voice in general or practicing singing that specific song. And when they can't do so they say "I can't sing!"

This doesn't really make any sense.

The human voice is an instrument too and it can only be used to the best of it's capability with practice. Yes, unlike a guitar, it's an instrument that you're born with - but it still requires practice to use properly.

No one should make the claim that they can't sing without first really training their voice and practicing hard (just as hard as you would expect to practice to learn how to play guitar or piano.)

To be clear; I'm not claiming that everyone has the same quality voice only that training/practice is required to get the most out of the voice that they have. To continue with the instrument analogy you can play "Stairway to Heaven" on a cheap $60 acoustic guitar or a $3000 Martin and of course there's going to be a sound quality difference between the two instruments. But far more important than the sound quality of the instrument is the skill of the player. And that skill is gained only through practice.

My big point is this: If you want to sing well, start practicing - stop expecting it to be some God given gift, it takes work! Check out some of the resources below to get started.

I should also mention that I think ear training is an important element with singing (and all parts of music, really.) It's much easier to hit the right note, if you know what the right note is!

I think the importance of having good sense of time as a musician cannot be overstated. You can play all the right notes, but if you don't play them with a good sense of timing/rhythm then it's not going to sound good.

A very simple (and very effective) thing to do to improve timing is to clap along with a metronome and attempt to make the click "disappear."

When the click disappears that means you are perfectly in time. If you can still hear the click through your clapping that means you are either rushing or too late. When I'm off it's usually because of rushing, and I think that's a more common problem.

What's great about this way of practicing your timing is that you get immediate feedback. If you hear the click you know you're not in time so you need to adjust (most likely you are rushing.)

If you do a short session like this everyday (five minutes is probably plenty) I think you will see marked improvement in your timing.

You will likely find it very difficult at first, but when you do start to make the metronome disappear it will be like a revelation!

You should try doing it all types of different tempos. And don't assume that faster is harder, really locking in at 40 BPM may be a tougher challenge.

I should also mention that at first you may think that you just need to clap louder, but that's not the case. If you can hear the click, it's not because your clapping isn't loud enough - it's because you are not perfectly in time.

***EDIT***

After not doing anything with this for awhile I've decided to try a different approach. I'm including all of the ascending intervals (with harmonic included) here. When I finish the descending intervals training, I'll add a link to that here too.

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I'm working on a set of interval ear training practice thingies and I'll be putting them all right here (and on YouTube.) I'm starting with minor second and I'm going to be making my way all the way through to octave!

This is how they'll work:

1. Piano (NI Komplete VST) plays an ascending interval.

2. That interval is repeated but this time with vocals (singing the name of the interval.) The idea is to get the name of the interval associated with the sound of it. I think this is even more effective if you actually sing along with it too. I use Melodyne to make sure vocals are in tune (I wouldn't want to throw you off!)

3. Descending interval with vocals.

4. Harmonic (both notes played at once.) No vocals.

MINOR 2ND

Tonight I made an ear training video for guitarists. It's meant to help learn the sounds of the open chords on a guitar (a chord with at least one open string left ringing.) Developing your ear in this way enables you to be able to learn songs by ear and be a better all around musician.

The video works like this: First you'll hear a guitar chord and you'll have a chance to make a guess at what it is before the chord plays for a second time with the correct chord shown on the screen (with the chord fingering in tab format.)

You've done well if you pick the correct chord family (the video includes at least one of each of the following types of chords: major, minor, dominant 7, major 7, suspended 4th.) If you also pick the exact right chord (like C7 instead of just "that's a 7th chord") then give yourself bonus points!

There are 24 questions/answers in this video which should be enough that you can use it multiple times before you begin to memorize the answers. I do plan on making more of these videos though because eventually - if this one video is used too many times you'll probably begin to know the answers based on memory rather than your ear.

Embedded below is a YouTube video I've made to help memorize the ascending melodic intervals. The reason I made this is because I was looking for something like it and couldn't find it anywhere. The idea is that there's a piano (a grand piano VSTi from Komplete) playing the intervals with a voice singing the name of the intervals at the same time so that the listener associates the name of the interval with the sound with repetition.

I would think that this would be most effective if you actually sing the intervals along with the recording. This will help you to really internalize the intervals.

By the way, I edited the vocals with Melodyne to make sure they are in tune. It's such an amazing program, I really think I'm just scratching the surface of what you can do with it. And it's so intuitive. So easy to use.

Song Associations

I also included a song association for each interval. It seems to really help the ability to memorize the intervals if you can associate them with a well known songs. For some intervals (the more commonly used ones such as major 3rd and perfect 4th) that's quite easy but with some of the lesser used intervals (such as minor 6th and minor 7th) it's difficult to find well known melodies that feature them.

Minor 2nd: "Jaws Theme" - John Williams

Major 2nd: "Happy Birthday" - Patty & Mildred Hill

Minor 3rd: "Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple

Major 3rd: "Kumbaya" - Traditional

Perfect 4th: "Bridal Chorus" - Richard Wagner

Tritone: "The Simpsons Theme" - Danny Elfman

Perfect 5th: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" - Mozart

Minor 6th: "The Entertainer" - Scott Joplin

Major 6th: "My Bonnie" - Traditional

Minor 7th: "Star Trek Theme" - Alexander Courage

Major 7th: "Take On Me" - a-ha

Octave: "Over The Rainbow" - Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg

Ear Training Software

EarMaster Ear Training is the best ear training tool I've found thus far. It really lets you improve at your own pace and it's constantly testing you so you can really see your improvement in a concrete sort of way.

I've found (like many others before me) that it's helpful to have a song to reference in your head when you're learning the musical intervals (a great example is how "here comes" in "here comes the bride" is a perfect 4th.)

This lead me to the idea that it would be good to reference a melody that everyone knows to help memorize the intervals that are in that melody. This is my first attempt at putting this idea to work.

The song I'm using is "Happy Birthday" which is arguably the most well known melody in the world so I think it should do the trick.

For my example version I decided to have the first note be a C (which puts the song in the key of F) as that makes it easy to follow.

The first two notes ("hap-py") are on C and then the third note is a D ("birth.") This is a major 2nd interval. The melody then goes back down to a C ("day") before climbing up a perfect 4th to F ("to") and then dropping to an E (which from the perspective of the starting note C is a major 3rd.)

The second time through the "to you" lyric is sang higher. It's a G to an F which is a perfect 5th to a perfect 4th from the starting note ("hap-py" is always a C throughout the song.)

The third (and final) time through the "birth" in "birth-day" isn't a major 2nd up to a D like it is the first two times through, instead it's a leap up to an A which is a major 6th up.

Hopefully you are able to get something out of using "Happy Birthday" as an interval reference. I'm including a video I've put together today as a guide below.

Recommended Ear Training Software

I've been using some ear training software called EarMaster EarTraining which I find works very well. I like the way it's constantly testing me so I can get a real feeling of progress as my ear improves.