Learning music by ear

Situation

I started playing the violin a little over 3 years ago. It’s been an adventure filled with encounters, passion, discovery, challenges, frustrations, and relief.
At the time, I didn’t really know where I was heading. Today, it's only slightly clearer. But there's one thing I know for sure.

I love learning music by ear. I started with Irish music. The beginning wasn’t easy, especially since I was learning to play the violin at the same time. However, each victory had its own little reward, and today I’m greatly benefiting from the efforts I made back then. Now, I have a choice!

• Play comfortably, without much effort
• Push myself to improve

Before, I didn’t have this choice. It’s a real comfort. I continue to push myself, but I can relax if I want to play more freely.

As a good nerd, I started looking for digital tools to support my learning! How to effectively learn by ear? Here are a few insights from a beginner:

• Be familiar with the style, structure, and recurring patterns. Not everyone has this advantage.
• Have a clear signal (when it’s messy, good luck)
• Play at a slow enough tempo
• Extract the main melody from the jungle of embellishments
• Loop over each section repeatedly to extract the main melody
• Regularly revisit the piece until it’s ingrained
• Once the melody is well ingrained, personalize the piece by working on sound, intonation, impulses, embellishments, etc.

Some of these tasks can be made easier with digital tools. But nothing replaces spending time with your instrument. Here’s what my system looks like today.

Proposal

When it comes to familiarity, I haven’t found a digital solution, and I don’t think one exists. The best way to gain familiarity is by meeting other musicians. Whether it’s at a workshop, in a session, online, or at a bar, there’s no better resource than these kind people.

As for the clear signal, it's a bit of a matter of luck. If you have the musicians at hand, you can sometimes ask for a recording designed for learning. If you’re using an album or a YouTube video, you have to hope to find one that’s better suited for learning. A slightly unclear signal makes learning more difficult but doesn’t mean the performance is bad!

As for identifying the main melody from the rest? Again, it’s a skill to be acquired.

I think everything else (4 points out of 7) can benefit from digital tools.

Music Speed Changer

Music Speed Changer (MSC, also available on Android) lives up to its name. But it does much more!
Below, I’ll provide an analysis. But to give a spoiler, it’s missing a few features.

Strengths

• MSC maintains very good sound quality when the tempo is reduced, even at less than 50% of the original speed. The music is much better preserved than YouTube’s slow-down function, for example.

  Objective play slowly enough achieved ✓

• MSC allows you to set many markers and use them to loop specific sections

  Objective loop repeatedly achieved ✓

Limitations

• MSC doesn’t have a cloud version. This is inconvenient for me since I record on my smartphone and then practice with my tablet.
• MSC doesn’t have a programmable practice system. A simple example would be to loop three times at 50%, then three times at 60%, and so on.

Anki

Anki is software originally designed for vocabulary learning. I also use it for Dutch.
Through experimentation, users have found ways to use it to learn just about anything: geography, chess, anatomy, etc.

Not only does Anki help you create your own flashcards, but it also has a (highly configurable) spaced repetition algorithm (SRS)!
This marvel from neuroscience follows a fairly simple logic: what allows us to remember is the effort to recall. Thus, the best time to review something is just before we forget it.

Anki also has its limitations for my current needs, but we're still moving forward with the requirements.

Strengths

• Anki incorporates a spaced repetition system

  Objective revisit the piece until it’s ingrained achieved ✓

Limitations

• Anki stops at the bottom of Bloom’s pyramid: remembering. The rest has to be done manually.

In Practice

Here’s how I learn a piece today:

1. I listen to it for the first time. I discover if I like it enough to make the effort to learn it.
2. I find a quality source (musician friends, video, etc.)
3. I use MSC to work on it. To do this, I start by setting my markers, working on each section until I’ve found the melody, then putting it all together. This step can take many days. Sometimes, I have to go back to step 2.
4. Once I can sing and play the melody from memory, I record an Anki card. It contains: the name of the piece, its style, and a recording with the beginning of each section as a "reminder."
5. In the following weeks, I review with Anki. If I have no trouble recalling, I press correct. If I hesitate or play in the wrong style, difficult. If I can’t finish, incorrect. Sometimes, I’ve forgotten so much that I have to go back to step 4. This method also helps me remember titles. Handy.
6. When I feel confident, I try to go further. Add embellishments, transpose (rarely, it’s tough!), play on another instrument (whistle), refine the rhythm, impulses, sound, etc.

Of course, this method is designed to minimize learning effort. If the goal is to minimize learning time, for example before a concert, a different method is needed. The same goes for maximizing the quality of a particular performance.

Next Steps

I still have many pieces I want to learn. Most of them will end up as Anki cards. I’m venturing into other genres, like French variety, and other folk music.

I could spend more time on step 6!

I’ve mentioned the limitations of MSC and Anki... Now, I’m thinking about how I could create my own app that overcomes these problems. It’s a big project, but I’m in no rush.