Pitch

Pitch is one of the most fundamental aspects of music, and developing your ear for pitch is an excellent starting point and area of focus for musical ear training.

Before you work on more advanced skills like relative pitch (interval recognition etc.) spend some time honing your pure sense of pitch: how high or low a note is.

This brings a range of benefits, including:

• Better ability to tune your instrument, pick up on any tuning problems, and fix them directly
• Improved ability to “blend” your voice when singing with others (e.g. in a choir or a cappella group)
• More sophisticated appreciation of, and control over pitch manipulations (such as bends, vibrato and pitch slides)

Improving your sense of pitch lets you build a very solid foundation for the important skills of relative pitch, and improves your overall musicianship by giving you a more accurate sense of tuning and pitch accuracy in all musical situations.

Tone Deafness

Many people (including musicians!) worry that they might be tone deaf. Tone deafness is a real condition but it affects an incredibly small number of people. So before exploring pitch ear training it’s worth learning about what tone deafness truly is and isn’t, and discover whether you are in fact tone deaf or not.

Singing in Tune

One reason musicians start pitch ear training is to help them sing in tune. Once you know you’re not tone deaf, what if you still sing off-key or out of tune? The answer is that you need to learn to match pitch, develop vocal control and learn to sing confidently, reliably and accurately.